Jumping off the Edge: Learner Centered Early Childhood Teacher Education.

Overview & Synopsis

This paper suggests that a way of overcoming the conflict experienced by student teachers doing field work when their field-work teachers often have different philosophies than those taught on the college campus is to model a true learner-centered approach in teacher education courses. A stronger experience than using cooperative groups or having students pursuing activities in a teacher education courses is necessary for students to fully understand how a learner-centered classroom for preservice teachers can work. The paper describes classroom activities used over a 2-year period in a move toward an extreme position of learner-centeredness. The paper reports experiences with portfolios, cooperative-group assignments, task cards, and mini-lessons. Some of the changes that occur in teacher education students, and the students' responses to the course, are reported. Contains six references. (TM)