The evolution of pedagogical changes in a multicultural context : journey of a university professor

The expected outcome of teacher education is a teacher who is well prepared with a repertoire of skills and practices that will have positive effects on students' learning and behavior. However, some teacher educators argue that as the demographics of schools change, future educators are no longer well prepared if they have not received training addressing multicultural issues or classroom practices modeling multicultural pedagogy. In fact, few researchers are investigating teacher preparation in a multicultural context. Though some studies investigate the classroom practices of preservice teachers in elementary classrooms, researchers commonly ignore the classroom practices integrated into a university classroom.

I examined the evolution of a professor's university classroom practices and assignments in an introductory course in special education using a cultural-historical perspective. Interviews, observations, and the collection of artifacts were used to collect data. I provided thick descriptions of the course, class assignments, and the cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) framework applied to the course. Interview responses and demographic information were presented in the case study. Overall, findings suggested the professor employed practices such as embedding instruction in meaningful activities, promoting a classroom dialogue for learning, maintaining instruction that is responsive to students, and establishing a classroom community for learning. Limitations of the study and implications for future research are provided.

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Digitization of this thesis was made possible by a generous grant from the Jefferson Trust, 2015.

Thesis originally deposited on 2016-03-14 in version 1.28 of Libra. This thesis was migrated to Libra2 on 2017-03-23 16:36:59.