‘Caring Community’ impacts teacher ed course experience

Research that studies application of the “Caring Community” to a teacher education course was featured in a recent issue of The Teacher Educator.

Counselor education associate professor Mary Alice Bruce and special education professor John Stellern collaborated on the qualitative study described in the article. Stellern modeled classroom behaviors that create meaningful relationships in a safe and supportive environment. Bruce conducted focus groups with representative members of the class to explore the impact of those behaviors on their experience of the class and the ways in which they used what they learned in their practicum work that semester.

The “Caring Community” is a concept commonly employed in P-12 classrooms, according to Bruce.

“Teachers, counselors and others in the school are working together to engage the students and have them feel cared for, unique and special – so that their energies can be put into their academics,” she says.

Stellern and Bruce identified several parallels between the environment in which most K-12 teachers will work and the higher education classrooms in which they are prepared. They considered ways in which those caring behaviors are already portrayed in teacher education classrooms and in which they might be consciously modeled.

“We talked about certain behaviors, certain underlying guidelines that we practice in our classrooms to try to create that caring,” Bruce says.

Examples of caring behavior include greeting class members to make a connection and understand the dynamics of the room, recognizing and addressing conflicts authentically, and including all members of the learning community. Introducing and reflecting upon the impact of those behaviors should have broad consequences, according to Mary Alice.

“We thought that doing that in higher education classrooms would then have a ripple effect for the students who are now going out to be teachers in the P-12 environment – they would then practice those behaviors in their classrooms,” she says. “That’s what we found.”

The caring behaviors Stellern modeled in class were part of his everyday approach to teaching and interacting with students. The difference this time was the consciousness in which he incorporated and addressed them.

Introducing the “Caring Community” concept did not detract from content delivery in the course.

“He wasn’t taking classroom time to talk about these issues, because they were living it,” Bruce says. As the semester progressed, students’ awareness of the shifts in classroom relationships and the potential to apply what they were learning to their own teaching increased. For example, most of the class members were special education students, with a few individuals from other majors represented. While the potential existed for an insider/outsider barrier to develop between the two groups, students saw how caring behaviors instead created a cohesiveness and spirit of inclusion. They experienced the value of working on classroom relationships and on critical reflection. They also saw how they were themselves modeling caring behaviors during their time in the schools.

“They were being facilitative and compassionately supporting their students, just as John was being facilitative of them,” Bruce says.

‘Caring Community’ impacts teacher ed course experience

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