Experiences of Community College Teacher Education Program Participants: A Case Study

Community colleges in Maryland began offering the Associate of Arts in Teaching (AAT) degree in 2001, yet since this introduction nearly a decade ago no research about the experiences of students who participated in such programs has been conducted. This lack of information was problematic from a statewide perspective and for individual community college campuses, including Frederick Community College (FCC) in Frederick, Maryland. Failure to conduct research of this type hindered education officials from comprehending the influence of and making meaningful changes to the AAT teacher training program. In order to understand the impact of the AAT degree, it was important to speak with former program participants to gather insight on their experiences. This qualitative study took an instrumental case study approach, within a constructivist paradigm, to gathering data via individual and focus group interviews with 20 FCC AAT program participants. Typological and inductive data analyses revealed 10 themes: participants expressed very positive feelings about their experiences in the FCC AAT program; FCC provided important foundational information for participants; participants appreciated courses involving real-life context and hands-on activities; reflection is a constant and valued activity for participants who often exhibited full-circle thinking; career identity as a teacher has been an evolutionary process for participants; participants reported a disconnect between the idea versus reality of teaching; participants of non-traditional age felt a strong identity as adult learners; lifelong learning is an important characteristic of participants; participants' experiences as students have impacted their teaching goals and their vision of what characteristics make a good teacher; and the AAT program allowed participants to take or change perspectives. These findings suggested a number of future research opportunities including: career pathways of AAT graduates, student persistence in AAT degrees, review of online versus face-to-face courses, diversity issues in AAT programs, comparison of AAT completers and those who participated in other teacher training programs, transfer experiences of AAT graduates, and qualities related to adult learners. This study allowed the voices of students who successfully completed a community college teacher training program to be expressed and analyzed.