Department of German

Spencer Grant--TA Development
Teacher Researchers: Shana Semler, Katie Sprang, John Taylor
Mentor: John Norris

Graduate Teaching Assistants:
Socialization and Professional Development in the GU Curriculum

Focus
As participants in the "Supporting Teacher-Researchers in a Comprehensive curriculum Renewal Project in a College Foreign Language Department," the research team of Shana Semler, Katie Sprang, and John Taylor is investigating the role of graduate teaching assistants within the German Department's Multiple Literacies Curriculum. The team's main foci are to examine teacher socialization into the GUGD and teacher professional development via the Department's curriculum, which is well articulated and used by individuals in the Department to structure ongoing efforts to enhance FL instruction at both undergraduate and graduate levels. To further explore these goals the Teacher Development team has designed four research questions:

· By what formal and informal processes are graduate student instructors familiarized with the various features of the Multiple Literacies curriculum?

· What aspects of the Multiple Literacies curriculum facilitate and challenge graduate teacher development at the beginning, intermediate and advanced levels of the curriculum?

· How do graduate teachers realize the goals of the Multiple Literacies curriculum in the course of teaching at beginning, intermediate and advanced levels of the curriculum?

· How does familiarization (being and becoming familiar) with the Multiple Literacies curriculum relate to a graduate teaching assistant's overall goals for both individual development as a teacher and as a professional?

Change in Plans
Since the beginning of the participants' tenure on this project there has been no change in the membership of the research team, although the dynamics of the members' participation has changed in that John Taylor is no longer living in the Washington, DC area and has therefore not participated in any of the formal data gathering activities since August 2001. He does, however, remain in contact with the group through conference calls and e-mail. Shana Semler, who was a junior member of the research team at the outset of the project a year ago, has grown substantially in the past year due to her experience on the project. She has assumed a pivotal role in the data collection this semester. There has been some change to the intended structure of the informants for the project, as follows:

· The researchers had initially planned to include a new graduate student with previous teaching experience in an American university environment among the research informants, but no new graduate students entered the Department with this type of background. Instead, the participants invited an incoming graduate student who has teaching experience in a German Gymnasium.

· Originally, the Teacher Development team had intended to include a "pre-curricular revision" informant to investigate how active involvement in the curricular revision process affected the developmental path of graduate students in the department. No one who fit that profile was able to participate; instead, the team will use data from Astrid Weigert, who was interviewed as a baseline informant.
· Finally, the Department's new Curriculum Coordinator has agreed to participate as a research informant. Data from him are expected to be particularly valuable and informative, given his prior experience and background knowledge. It will be interesting to examine if and how participating in the departmental community impacts this informant's thinking about teacher development and socialization, both in general terms and in the specific curricular environment of the GUGD.

· Further details about the informants follows in the attached Project Overview presented at the Department's annual retreat.

Project Summary

Between October and December of 2000, the members of the Teacher Development research team considered aspects of teacher development and teacher socialization that are relevant in the GUGD's unique situation and that it was appropriate for them to measure. Beginning in January 2001, with the assistance of their mentor, the team designed specific research questions and methods by which to collect data. Currently, John Taylor and John Norris live out of town and Katie Sprang does not teach at Georgetown; thus, most communication between the participants takes place via e-mail and telephone conference calls. The team uses these media to engage in a dialogue on the various aspects of the research questions, to analyze data, and to plan the team's future activities. The use of e-mail allows the team to keep a record of its correspondence. The two participants living in the Washington, DC area also meet regularly to discuss details of the data collection process (e.g., designing interview questions and prompts for journal entries, considering the research timeline for upcoming deadlines, analyzing interview data, etc.)

After formulating their research questions and compiling a bibliography of current graduate teaching assistant development projects, the participants decided that a qualitative case study approach would best address their research questions. The team conducted base-line interviews with the level coordinators and those professors who played an integral part in the design and implementation of the Department's curriculum. The purpose of these interviews was to gain a better understanding of the intended and perceived developmental path of graduate teaching assistants from a supervisory perspective. After transcribing and analyzing the data collected from these interviews, the participants used them as a basis from which to construct the pre- and post-semester interviews for the research informants. These interviews are expected to shed light on various aspects of professional development of the informants. Furthermore, the team designed a series of journal topics based on this baseline analysis. These journal topics are intended to show how the informants address pedagogical issues that occur within the Multiple Literacies curriculum. Journal writing occurs bi-weekly for 30 minutes in response to specific prompts designed by the Teacher Development team. Finally, the team will examine the informants' teaching philosophy statements, both to assess their understanding of their role in the Multiple Literacies Curriculum and to determine the extent to which participating as a member of the departmental community of practice affects graduate students' thinking about teaching and learning a foreign language in a university setting at the undergraduate level. Indeed, the team hopes that the informants' journal entries and teaching statements will provide further insight into how these individuals view themselves and the issues discussed in the pre-and post-semester interviews.

The participants designed the following timeline by which to complete these tasks within the Spencer Foundation's time frame.

· PHASE (1): Collecting baseline data from faculty on formal aspects of teacher training (Timeline: data collection = April/May, 2001; data analysis = summer, 2001)

· PHASE (2): Using longitudinal case studies to investigate teacher development and socialization: interviewing, journal writing, collection of teaching statements (Timeline: data collection = Fall, 2001 and Spring, 2002 semesters; data analysis = on-going, 2001-2002)

· PHASE (3): Interpretation, member checking, reporting (Timeline: Spring, Summer, 2002)

Thus far, the participants have completed phase 1 and are engaged in phase 2. From the team's initial analysis of the baseline data, it was concluded that key faculty members are aware of the documented procedures that are intended to structure and support teaching assistants' professional development. It also showed that, although significant overlaps in understanding exist among faculty members about the intended goals and outcomes for graduate teacher development in the Department, individual differences exist nonetheless, in their understandings and opinions about how the process should be realized on the ground. Importantly, the faculty could not consistently determine how the graduate teaching assistants developed while teaching beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels of the curriculum. One person perceived that the opportunity to teach at each level (with ascending difficulty) would provide insights; another thought that the graduate teaching assistants' foreign language abilities were a critical factor.

Participants' Learning

As a group, the participants are learning how to hone their research skills. As participant researchers, they have improved their interviewing and data analysis skills. Furthermore, they now understand the importance of distinguishing between research and methodological questions. Finally, the participants are beginning to understand the important relationship that exists between these two types of questions with respect to how the methodological approaches toward research project must support the research questions in order for a project to yield valid and acceptable results.

Appendix Materials

To exhibit the participants' progress with their investigation of graduate teaching assistants within the Multiple Literacies curriculum, several documents are attached: Questions for baseline data; Sample e-mail communication on research plan between teacher-researchers and mentor; Interview questions for graduate teachers/pre-curricular advanced teacher/new curriculum coordinator; Presentation at Departmental Retreat, May 4, 2001; Research Questions and Data types.