Chapter 2: The Social Cognitive Perspective in Dispositional Development

As educators nurture, observe, and provide feedback to preservice teacher education candidates, all the papers, projects, lesson plans, and clinical evaluations culminate in one pivotal question: “Would we want that candidate teaching our (grand)sons and (grand)daughters?” If we answer “yes,” we would applaud the high school teacher who effortlessly determines the longitude and latitude of London and the elementary teacher who expertly describes the food chain of rural Wisconsin. We would enthusiastically acknowledge the teacher who embraces cooperative learning and PowerPoint slides to facilitate his content goals. But we would want more. We would prize a teacher whose dispositions (see Appendix for a definition of dispositions and other key terms) toward teaching and learning compelled him to know each of his students’ strengths, areas for growth, inclinations, and aversions; who honors student culture and prior knowledge, and who commits to the development of the whole student (not just his cognition) to inform instruction leading to learning.