Student Teacher Dialogue in an Electronic Community of Practice: Cognition Level Related to the INTASC Standards

Abstract

Teachers are constantly being evaluated based upon their ability to provide the best education for their students. These evaluations are done at a macro level, where teachers must meet state and national mandates that deem them highly qualified, and at a micro level, where teachers must display proficiency as effective teachers through teacher education standards. Specific to preservice teachers, the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) aligns standards based upon what preservice teachers should know and be able to do. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency in which student teacher blog posts in an electronic community of practice related to the InTASC standards, as well as determine the average level of student teacher critical thinking displayed in the blog posts related to those standards. Student teachers most frequently blogged about the Professional Learning and Ethical Practices standard as compared to the other nine InTASC standards. It was found that for blog posts discussing InTASC standards, overall critical thinking was displayed at knowledge, comprehension, or application levels. It is recommended that future studies utilize open coding in order to gain a broader insight of the student teachers’ discussions.