El Consejo de la Judicatura: el control de sus actuaciones

Data themes that emerged related to each chapter are presented here. Both sets of data themes have implications for the theory, research, and practice of teacher education.

1.4.1 Chapter two findings

The data themes of the first study suggest that PSTs say they learn about intercultural competence through an IST experience in multiple ways. First, cultural immersion outside one’s home country appears to help to develop the cultural noticing ability that I suggest is the foundation of intercultural competence. Second, participation in a context-specific teacher education program before the IST program seems to improve a PST’s ability to engage in both cultural noticing and cultural responding while in Mexico. And finally, even when circumstances seem very favorable, some PSTs seem to miss opportunities for engaging in cultural noticing and cultural responding in Mexico and would benefit from increased programmatic support.

The first data theme brings to light the idea that cultural immersion outside one’s home country may help to develop cultural noticing ability. Cultural immersion involves a participant’s immersion in a cultural context outside of their own and involves affective, behavioral, and cognitive learning (Cushner, 2007). Based upon my findings, I define cultural noticing is a person’s ability to notice details about cultural context. Participants say that this development happens most frequently during an IST experience through cultural immersion activities outside of the student-teaching classroom. Activities such as attending a professional soccer game and interacting with Mexican host families seem to help PSTs build the most

cultural noticing ability by immersing them in situations with many contextual details different than their home environment. Attending to cultural noticing through participation in and reflecting on these activities helps participants to build cultural noticing ability.

The second data theme suggests that participation in a context-specific teacher education program before the IST experience seems to improve a PST’s ability to engage in both cultural noticing and cultural responding while in Mexico. Cultural responding refers to actions a person takes or adapts as a result of cultural noticing, and context-specific teacher education programs are intentionally designed to focus PST attention on contextual factors in the classroom that should inform their teaching practice. PSTs who were part of a separate, context-specific teacher education program at RHU before participating in the IST program seem to engage in more cultural noticing in Mexico and sometimes engage in cultural responding based on what they notice. This may be the case because the PSTs in the context-specific program spent a year before going to Mexico attending to their cultural noticing and cultural responding capacities through program activities.

The third and final data theme that emerged from the first study is that even when circumstances seem very favorable, some PSTs seem to miss opportunities for engaging in cultural noticing and cultural responding in Mexico. This appears to point to the need for guided reflection activities throughout the IST program. These activities are needed as the data themes suggest that without them, some PSTs do not reflect on the cultural context independently and seem to fail to notice important details about cultural context. Attending to these contextual details through guided reflection could help PSTs build cultural noticing capacities, and eventually cultural responding capacities as well.

1.4.2 Chapter three findings

The data themes that emerged from the second study suggest that although PSTs talk about a number of important learning opportunities they experienced while working in their IST classroom at JIS, they also report that some of what they learned seems challenging to transfer out of a private, international school context and into a U.S. school context. Three key themes that emerged from the data relate to PSTs reporting that they struggle to see how expectations shape teaching and learning environments, they struggle with instructional shifts in constructing knowledge due to organizational and structural variations in different contexts, and they are unsure how to create deep caring relationships that can serve as vehicles for student academic success in a U.S. public school context.

The first data theme that emerged is that PSTs struggle to see how expectations shape learning environments. All three PSTs presented as case studies in this section agree that working at JIS helped them see how powerful teaching and learning can be in a high expectations environment. However, they all had a difficult time taking a step back and understanding the role expectations played in shaping the experience for teachers and students at both JIS and in their previous U.S. urban9 _{school placements. For example, as PST Lisa}

discussed differences between JIS and her previous experience student teaching in Rockbrook, an urban characteristic district close to RHU, she described her JIS co-op as a “very good teacher” who “treated her students like people,” and her Rockbrook co-op as a “terrible teacher” who was “flat out mean” to her students (Lisa 2). It appears that Lisa does not see how having low expectations for students and working in a low-expectations school environment impacts how her Rockbrook co-op teacher experiences her job as a teacher. Other PSTs made similar

comparisons that seem to indicate that they failed to see how expectations shape school and classroom environments.

The second data theme that emerged in chapter two is that PSTs reported that they struggle with instructional shifts in constructing knowledge due to organizational and structural variations in different contexts. All three PSTs presented as case studies in this section agree that although they learned important lessons at JIS about utilizing a shared knowledge construction approach to learning instead of acting as a classroom knowledge authority, they are unsure they can implement what they learned in the context of U.S. classrooms. For example, Michelle says that she thinks that the shared knowledge construction approach used at JIS helps students “learn better” than the classroom knowledge authority stance she says she used at her last student-teaching placement (Michelle 2). However, she is concerned that the pressure teachers face in U.S. classrooms to cover a set amount of material in a limited amount of time and “restrictions” related to with state assessment testing make it difficult to “get creative with teaching” and use shared knowledge construction methods such as class discussions (Michelle 2). Although Michelle does recognize that the U.S. context is different from the JIS context, she does not seem to make the conceptual leap needed to re-configure this important teaching practice into a U.S. context. Other PSTs made similar observations that seem to indicate that they struggle with implementing what they learned about teaching at JIS in a U.S. context.

The final data theme that emerged is that PSTs in this study are unsure how to create deep caring relationships that can serve as vehicles for student academic success in a U.S. public school context. Although all three PSTs presented as case studies in this section seemed to learn a lot about deep caring relationships at JIS, they did not see these relationships as linked to student academic success. PST Renee was impressed by the deep caring relationships she saw

between JIS teachers and students. However, much of her understanding of what these relationships were about seemed to revolve around the “hugs” and “hair tousling” she saw teachers give students (Renee 3). In many U.S. classrooms, these physical displays of affection are culturally inappropriate, and teachers who engage in too much physical contact with students may be accused of sexual misconduct. As Renee thinks these physical displays of affection are culturally inappropriate in U.S. classrooms, she is unsure of the role deep caring relationships should play at all in U.S. classrooms (Renee 3). Furthermore, Renee worries that taking on a deep caring relationship with all of her U.S. students would push her to be “more of a social worker” than a teacher (Renee 3). It seems that Renee misses the connection between deep caring relationships and student academic success, and what culturally appropriate deeply caring relationships can look like in a US. context. Other PSTs reported similar ideas, finding the deeply caring relationships they observed at JIS as a meaningful vehicle for teacher to support the personal development of students, but not their academic development. Furthermore, other PSTs echoed Renee’s concerns that the physical touching that seemed to characterize deeply caring relationships at JIS would be culturally inappropriate outside of Mexico and therefore not transferrable into a U.S. context.