As student populations grow and change throughout American schools, teachers face new challenges in meeting students’ needs and preparing them for long-term success.
For educators, both practicing and in training, experience is key.
Jillian Harpster, assistant professor of practice in the Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education, recently led a project to help preservice middle school teachers broaden their practical experiences and to provide seventh- and eighth-graders with the opportunity to engage in the college experience.
The study, which was funded by a Research Faculty Seed Grant from the Office and Research and Innovation, focused on observing preservice secondary English Education majors as they interacted with students from Lincoln’s Park Middle School.
As a Title I school — a designation aimed at closing the achievement gap for low-income students — Park Middle School receives funding for additional staff and curriculum resources, school improvement planning, staff training opportunities, smaller class sizes, and enhanced parent and family engagement.
Findings showed preservice teachers participating in the project gained confidence in their teaching methods and felt more comfortable engaging with students in the classroom. Park teachers noted that their middle schoolers were excited to work with college students, and that their engagement during a visit to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln led many to envision themselves as college students.
In spring 2024, preservice teaching students enrolled in Harpster’s Literature of Adolescents course worked with the middle schoolers in book clubs, reading various books on the seventh- and eighth-grade curriculums. In April, about 500 participating middle schoolers visited UNL's City Campus for a tour, meetings with college students and lunch at a student dining hall, providing a glimpse of further education some of them may not have considered.
“It was an exceptional experience,” said Harpster, a Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools research affiliate. “To have almost 500 students there, and to have many of them say they could envision themselves coming to college here, that was very satisfying.”
Harpster noted that often, early career teachers experience some doubt in their teaching methods and their students’ response to those methods. It usually during their practicum and student teaching year, she said.
“What we found is that for these preservice educators, that actually happened within the six weeks of this middle school experience,” Harpster said. “They started out very confident, feeling very prepared, and then by the third or fourth week, that uncertainty emerged. And then we saw it start to creep back up in weeks five and six.”
Last fall, the preservice teachers were surveyed again and asked to reflect on how their experience with middle schoolers prepared them for their practicum.
“They were so much more confident going into practicum because we had these experiences in the spring,” Harpster said. “These findings show us is that if we can speed up that valley of doubt — basically, take a shortcut past that feeling of despair, with more supports and structures in place — then it sets them up for growth earlier once their solo teaching careers begin.”
Harpster presented findings last November at the National Council of Teachers of English in Boston. She plans an additional, scaled-down version of the project beginning March 28, when her preservice students and Lincoln Public Schools will renew their partnership.
Watching her students become more confident in their teaching abilities has been Harpster’s favorite part of the project.
“I haven’t had a group of preservice teachers yet that have gone into their practicum and student teaching with this level of self-confidence in their work with students,” Harpster said. “It has been great to watch them thrive, and then to have them cite that experience as a catalyst for a lot of what they’re doing now. We don’t want to just prepare preservice teachers to get them into the classroom; we want to prepare them to stay in the classroom long-term.”
