1st Edition

Navigating Teacher Licensure Exams Success and Self-Discovery on the High-Stakes Path to the Classroom

By Emery Petchauer Copyright 2019
    196 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    196 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Navigating Teacher Licensure Exams offers practical, empirically sourced insights into the high-stakes licensure exams required in most states for teacher certification. This unique resource foregrounds the experiences of diverse preservice teachers, including teachers of color, to understand how they organize their preparation efforts, overcome self-doubt and anxiety, and navigate the high-pressure space of this important testing event. By situating these exams within their social and psychological contexts, presenting real-life cases of success and failure, and confronting innate perceptions of standardized tests, this book provides essential and highly practical support for preservice teachers, teacher educators, and departmental resource libraries.

    List of Figures and Tables. Preface. Acknowledgements I. Thinking Differently About Struggle and Support 1. Introduction: What We Need More Than Test Prep 2. An Inch Wide and a Mile Deep: How Students Pass after Failing the First Time 3. Spiders and Their Webs: Advice Networks for Licensure Exams II. Addressing What’s Felt but Not Seen 4. "Say You’re White and You’ll Definitely Pass": Working Through Ideas About Cultural Bias and Tests 5. The Story of How We Feel: Understanding the Emotional Side of Licensure Exams III. How Faculty Members Can Support Preservice Teachers 6. From Screening Out to Building Up: Frameworks for Teacher Educators 7. People Pass All the Time: Promising Practices for Teacher Educators. Appendix A: Interview Protocols. Appendix B: Advice Network Survey. Index

    Biography

    Emery Petchauer is Associate Professor in the Departments of English and Teacher Education and Coordinator of the English Education Program at Michigan State University, USA.

    "Navigating Teacher Licensure Exams is the long-awaited book that teacher education programs have been desperately waiting for. Petchauer utilizes the power of storytelling to make this an engaging resource for both preservice teachers and teacher educators. The application and extension exercises are wonderful ways to strategize around the practical and emotional nature of licensure exams. This book will make anyone having testing anxieties feel comforted and provides clear, alternative direction to those preparing for the licensure exams. Petchauer’s book is an essential necessity for all those involved in teacher education."

    —Lynnette Mawhinney, Associate Professor of Teacher Education and Chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA

    "This is a forward-thinking, boundary-crossing, humanizing, and provocatively written text. This book should be required reading of every teacher, teacher educator, and test developer who endeavors to more deeply understand the standardized testing ethos. Although this book is focused on teachers and testing, it is laced with implications for anyone preparing to take a high-stakes examination."

    —H. Richard Milner IV, Professor of Education and Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair of Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, USA