Education Commons^™

Preservice Teachers' Community-Based Field Experiences, Erica R. Hamilton, Kelly C. Margot

Funded Articles

There exists much potential for the use of community-based partnerships to support preservice teachers’ learning and development. These opportunities can also expand preservice teachers’ understanding of when and where teaching and learning take place. This paper reports the results of a qualitative, yearlong pilot study focused on secondary preservice teachers’ (N = 42) weekly community-based field experiences at a newly opened secondary public museum school, located in a large Midwestern urban area. Specifically, preservice teachers worked weekly with sixth grade students in an urban public museum setting as part of a required undergraduate content area literacy teacher education course. This …

Implementing The Change Process For Staff And Student Success: An Instructional Module, Catherine Meyer-Looze, Suzanne Richards, Sharalyn Brandell, Lisabeth Margulus

Peer Reviewed Articles

Successful schools have a clearly defined vision for student success, usually measured by college and career readiness standards. They are able to articulate success indicators for student performance as well as success indicators for the staff performance needed to meet those student indicators. Successful schools are able to describe a theory of change, or change model, which drives their school improvement process to close the gaps between their current reality and their desired future state or vision. This article discusses change theory, describes the tenets of a change model, and illustrates those tenets describing a grant-funded change initiative in one …

Enthusiasm In Teaching, Bob Schoofs

Scholarly Papers and Articles

Author discusses the importance of enthusiasm for effective teaching, and methods to improve you enthusiasm.

Teachers’ Perception Of Stem Integration And Education: A Systematic Literature Review, Kelly C. Margot, Todd Kettler

Funded Articles

Background: For schools to include quality STEM education, it is important to understand teachers’ beliefs and perceptions related to STEM talent development. Teachers, as important persons within a student’s talent development, hold prior views and experiences that will influence their STEM instruction. This study attempts to understand what is known about teachers’ perceptions of STEM education by examining existing literature.

Results: Study inclusion criteria consisted of empirical articles, which aligned with research questions, published in a scholarly journal between 2000 and 2016 in English. Participants included in primary studies were preK-12 teachers. After quality assessment, 25 articles were included in …

Developing A Professional Vision: The Role Of Faculty Learning Labs As A Peer-Mentoring Model, Mary A. Bair, Nancy Defrance, Nagnon Diarrassouba, Terry Stockton

Peer Reviewed Articles

This paper describes a faculty development project in which four teacher educators, who were part of a larger Faculty Learning Community, used an innovative model called the Faculty Learning Lab to support each other in critical reflections about their teaching. Within the learning lab, which was guided by Knowles’ adult learning theory, each faculty member invited colleagues to observe a lesson, priming their observations with a description of desired learning objectives. Learning lab members shared their noticings regarding evidence of student learning and their hypotheses about the interaction of factors that may have affected the learning. Exploratory analyses indicate that …

Faculty Development Through Cognitive Coaching, Mary A. Bair

Peer Reviewed Articles

This paper describes a faculty development project in which 12 teacher educators used the Cognitive Coaching model to engage in critical reflections about their teaching. Each identified an aspect of their teaching they wanted to improve and a colleague to serve as coach. Participants engaged in Cognitive Coaching cycles, consisting of planning and reflecting conferences. These experiences uncovered the promise and challenges of nurturing faculty development through Cognitive Coaching. Preliminary findings indicate that the educators’ participation facilitated professional collegiality, personal self-renewal, and pedagogical improvement, suggesting that Cognitive Coaching has the potential to be an effective approach to faculty development.

Crossing The Educational Rubicon Without The Tah: Collaboration Among University And Secondary-Level History Educators, Gordon Andrews, Wilson J. Warren, Sarah Drake Brown

Peer Reviewed Articles

In April 2011, Congress slashed funding for a majority of programs tied to education. Several programs related to professional development for teachers did not survive. While cut severely—from $119 million in Fiscal Year 2010 to $46 million (a loss of $73 million or 61% of its funding)—Teaching American History (TAH) grants lived, albeit by their fingertips, another day. Yet, given the economic challenges the United States faces and what appear to be prevailing attitudes in regard to social services and teacher development, it has become clear that history educators cannot rely on federal funding to support efforts to improve the …