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Teacher Persistence: A Crucial Disposition, With Implications For Teacher Education, Karl F. Wheatley

Essays in Education

Teacher persistence helps foster effective teaching. Specifically, teacher persistence may promote high expectations for students, the development of teaching skills, teachers’ reflectiveness, responsiveness to diversity, teaching efficacy, effective responses to setbacks, and successful use of reformed teaching methods. Common evaluation practices in teacher education may undermine teacher persistence. Teacher educators might support the development of teacher persistence by emphasizing the knowledge that makes persistence a rational response to setbacks, by teaching self-regulation skills that support persistence, and by using evaluation practices that require greater effort and persistence of students. The importance of fostering thoughtful teacher persistence is discussed, along with …