Education Commons^™

Teachers’ Opinions On Teacher Preparation: A Gap Between College And Classroom, Jason Ashley

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

Teacher preparation evaluation has expanded rapidly since 1998, pushed by “failing” rhetoric adopted by many educational leaders, such as Michelle Rhee, founder of the Students First organization. Led by the ideas and arguments put forth by Diane Ravitch, others think that there is too much focus on red herrings and that there are, in fact, problems with the educational system, but not the ones with which decision and policy makers have become enamored. Despite this dichotomy, the former group is prevailing, giving the American education system a narrative of inadequacy and failure, and making the idea of data driven evaluation, …

Preservice Teachers And Writing: An Analysis Of Academic Performance--Research, Laurie A. Sharp

Kentucky Journal of Excellence in College Teaching and Learning

It is necessary to address literacy throughout the curriculum, and writing is an effective tool for achieving it. This study sought to compare the academic performance of undergraduate students (n= 121) who sought teacher certification at elementary level (pre-kindergarten –6th grade) andsecondary level (7th grade –12th grade).This study used a causal-comparative, quasi-experimental research design to compare the academic performance between these two groups in five university courses that were common among all education majors and contained a strong writing component. Data were collected in the form of final grades earned after completion of each of the five courses and analyzed …

One Good Lesson, Community Of Practice Model For Preparing Teachers Of Writing, Latrise P. Johnson, Elizabeth P. Eubanks

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Many writing initiatives have been advocated as ways to improve student writing. However, in order for teachers to successfully teach writing, they must be exposed to a variety of classroom-tested approaches (National Writing Project, 2003).With this in mind, a summer teaching writing course that met at a local high school combined the study of several approaches to teaching writing and field-based teaching and then employed one classroom-tested approach. Using Wenger’s (1998, 2010) communities of practice model, the teaching and learning about writing instruction centered on “practice” within the community and emphasized that preservice teachers act as social participants--that is, meaning-making …

Summer In The City: Respect And Autonomy In The Urban Classroom, Matthew Brill

SPACE: Student Perspectives About Civic Engagement

This article is a reflection on my time as a STEP-UP fellow. In the course of the article I discuss what I believe I have learned about education from my time in this program.The lessons learned about urban education are valuable to any educator.

Teaching Reflective Writing: Thoughts On Developing A Reflective Writing Framework To Support Teacher Candidates, Donna L. Pasternak, Karen K. Rigoni

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

To achieve licensure in the United States, many teacher candidates must demonstrate competency as reflective practitioners. This requires many of them to describe their experiences through reflective writing, a mode of writing that is far from the academic writing that is taught throughout their baccalaureate education. Much reflective writing is being assigned to teacher candidates without it being taught. In an effort to intervene in that pattern, the authors examined multiple sources and developed a framework to teach to their teacher candidates to support them to communicate their practices as effective, reflective practitioners. This paper documents the evolution of creating …

Working Together To Foster Candidate Success On The Edtpa, Barbara A. Burns, Julie J. Henry, Jeffrey R. Lindauer

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

This action research study examined the effectiveness of one model for supporting candidates in their work in preparing and submitting their edTPA portfolios. Surveys of student teachers and their cooperating teachers were administered and analyzed to determine how the model impacted their experiences with the edTPA. This data can inform implementation efforts at other campuses.

Impact Of A Yearlong Placement In A Pds On Teacher Interns’ Dispositions And Abilities To Teach Middle School, Chantelle Renaud-Grant

Georgia Educational Researcher

As students prepare to enter college and the workforce, there has been a demand for them to be more independent, critical thinkers, innovative designers, and thoughtful collaborators. This preliminary study describes how a Professional Development School (PDS) partnership, between a middle school and a university, provides a more authentic teaching opportunity for middle grades teacher interns compared to the traditional, middle grades internship route. An authentic teaching experience provides a successful transition from “student to teacher” through a collaborative work environment; observing and developing the dispositions of an effective teacher; and learning the culture and structure of a school. The …

Special Educators Speak Out On Co-Teaching Knowledge And Skills, Cynthia Shamberger, Kendra Williamson-Henriques, Noran Moffett, Yolanda Brownlee-Williams

Journal of Research Initiatives

This study explored practices and attitudes of special educators from various states around the country regarding what they consider to be the most important elements for effective co-teaching. Results indicated that co-planning, communication skills, and shared instruction were the most critical factors in effective co-teaching. Professional development was found to be the most common way that participants gained co-teaching knowledge and skill. Future implications for research suggest that teacher preparation programs and districts use e-learning to support pre-service and in-service programs and initiatives related to co-teaching.

Future implications for research suggest that teacher preparation programs and districts use e-learning to …

School Reform In Canada And Florida: A Study Of Contrast, Catherine S. Boehme

New England Journal of Public Policy

Alberta and Florida have instituted school reform initiatives over the past fifteen years in an effort to improve the quality of their schools. Alberta has focused on systemic improvement by engaging the community in educational needs assessment, raising the high standards of teacher preparation, and improving effective instructional practices through professional development. Florida’s efforts have concentrated on holding students, teachers, schools, and districts accountable for high-stakes testing results by increasing the number and rigor of required assessments and increasing the negative consequences for low achievement scores. The 2012 PISA scores reveal that Alberta’s students are maintaining their high rankings relative …

Re-Thinking Personal Narrative In The Pedagogy Of Writing Teacher Preparation, Mary M. Juzwik, Anne Whitney, April Baker Bell, Amanda Smith

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

How can teacher educators mobilize contemporary understandings of personal narrative -- as socially and dialogically shaped in the context of culture and as instrumental to sociocultural processes of self-authoring -- in the teaching of narrative writing and, more specifically, in the work of teaching teachers to teach narrative writing? Rarely do teachers teach strategies that might result in good narratives. Rarely do narrative texts written in school (or any other kinds of texts written in school, for that matter) actually go anywhere beyond the teacher, thus failing to offer students experience in negotiating meanings with readers, working out the versions …

Reframing Responses To Student Writing: Promising Young Writers And The Writing Pedagogies Course, Michael B. Sherry, Ted Roggenbuck

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article describes an attempt to provide future teachers with an opportunity to practice evaluating and responding to student writing through a collaboration among members of an NCTE committee, a blended writing pedagogies course composed of education, creative writing, and professional writing students, and middle school teachers and their students in two states. Students’ texts were drawn from the NCTE’s “Promising Young Writers” contest, for which college students acted as judges and provided feedback to the middle school writers. We argue that the experience of responding to actual student writers about the texts they had submitted provided potentially important opportunities …

Student Teachers’ Implementation And Understanding Of Repeated Picture-Book Reading In Preschools, Clodie Tal, Ora Segal-Drori

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Research conducted among student teachers during three academic years (2010-2011; 2011-2012 ; 2012-2013) at Israel’s Levinsky College of Education sought to ascertain (a) the extent of implementation of repeated picture-book reading (RPBR) with preschool groups each academic year ; (b) how does the implementation of RPBR progress throughout the years of the study ? (c) students’ understanding of the value of RPBR; and (d) the perceived benefits and difficulties of RPBR by student-teachers. Of approximately 250 students who completed questionnaires each semester, most report that they regularly perform RPBR – implementation in 2013 was 96% for students in the four-year …

Middle Level Teacher Preparation: Principals’ Perceptions Of New Teacher Preparedness--Research, Chris M. Cook, Penny B. Howell, Shawn A. Faulkner

Kentucky Journal of Excellence in College Teaching and Learning

Drawing on the Framework for Effective Middle Level Teaching(Faulkner, Howell, &Cook, 2012; Howell, Cook, Faulkner, 2013), this interpretive, exploratory study utilized survey methodology to analyze 38 middle level principals’ perceptions of effective teaching practices and the preparedness of newly hired middle level teachers. The findings suggest there is difference in perceptions of new teacher preparedness between principals with middle level teacher certification and principals that were prepared to teach at other grade levels. While both groups acknowledged the need for better teacher preparation, principals with middle level teacher certification reported that newly hired teachers were less prepared for effective middle …

Essential Elements For Preparing Future Teachers In Early Childhood Education Using Common Core Standards--Research, Jaesook L. Gilbert, Susan Griebling

Kentucky Journal of Excellence in College Teaching and Learning

The purpose of this paper is to discuss suggestions on what pre-service teachers need to know in order to be ready to teach in today’s kindergartens where the implementation of the Common Core State Standards reflects best practice. The introduction of the Common Core State Standards in Kentucky has ushered a new culture in kindergarten. Kindergarten used to be seen as a preparation year in which children could be equipped in listening, walking in lines, getting along with others and learning letters. Today, children in kindergarten are expected to

begin reading, writing, adding and subtracting. Rigor begins early in the …

Changing Landscapes And Paradigm Shifts: Integrating The Common Core With Educator Preparation--Commentary, Verna Lowe

Kentucky Journal of Excellence in College Teaching and Learning

Educator preparation and P-12 education are on a trajectory of changing landscapes and shifting paradigms to meet the needs of providing a world-class education to our children and youth who will be prepared to thrive in their personal and professional lives in this century. This shift moves from the “yesterday of schooling and educator preparation” involving a system of good intentions that worked for a percentage of learners to a holistic structure designed for all students and stakeholders.

Preparing Teachers – The Importance Of Connecting Contexts In Teacher Education, Misty Adoniou

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Everybody wants quality teachers in schools. How are such teachers developed? In this article a model is presented that describes four contexts crucial to the preparation of teachers: the personal, the university, the practicum and the employment contexts. The ways in which these different contexts can and should work together in the education and development of teachers are discussed. The model was developed as a result of a 16 month inductive study into the first year experience of 14 beginning teachers who were graduates of a Bachelor of Education in Primary teaching in an Australian university. Whilst the findings of …

“Miss, I Am Not Being Fully Prepared”: Student - Teachers’ Concerns About Their Preparation At A Teacher Training Institution In Jamaica, Carmel G. Roofe, Paul Miller

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The issue of teacher preparation continues to occupy academic discourse relating to student outcomes and student achievement (Stronge, Ward & Grant, 2011). Research has supported the view that there is an inextricable connection between student outcomes, quality of teaching and teachers, and teacher preparation (Darling-Hammond 2005; Grover 2002). Similarly, theories about students’ self efficacy beliefs (e.g. Bandura, 1977; Dweck, 2000) and Institutional Habitus (Bourdieu, 1977) have been advanced in relation to students’ study experience, motivation and coping mechanisms. Using data from a focus group comprising 30 third year students enrolled in a four year teacher training pogramme in Jamaica, this …

Grandchildren In The Classroom: Student Teaching For The Next Generation, Linda Neuzil, J. Michael King

Kentucky Journal of Excellence in College Teaching and Learning

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) released the Blue Ribbon Panel (BRP) report on clinical preparation and partnerships for improved student learning, in November 2010. The report stresses the need for candidates to “blend practitioner knowledge with academic knowledge as they learn by doing” (NCATE, 2010, p. ii), stressing the importance of clinical preparation and P-12 partnerships in teacher preparation. The NCATE BRP Report calls for the transformation of teacher education through the application of clinical practice. Teacher candidates must have additional opportunities to “blend practitioner knowledge with academic knowledge as they learn by doing” (NCATE, 2010, …

Standardization And Whiteness: One And The Same? A Response To “There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here”, Gary Weilbacher

Democracy and Education

The article "There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here: A Critical Race Perspective" by Cleveland Hayes and Brenda C. Juarez suggests that the current focus on meeting standards incorporates limited thoughtful discussions related to complex notions of diversity. Our response suggests a strong link between standardization and White dominance and that a focus on standards has helped to make White dominance and the discussion of race, class, gender, and language virtually invisible in teacher preparation.

Teaching Students With Disabilities: A Web-Based Examination Of Preparation Of Preservice Primary School Teachers, Jennifer Stephenson, Sue O'Neill, Mark Carter

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

With increasing expectations that preservice teachers will be prepared to teach students with special needs in regular classrooms, it is timely to review relevant units in teacher education courses. Units relevant to special education/inclusion in primary undergraduate teacher preparation courses in Australian tertiary institutions, delivered in 2009, were examined. Information was gathered through a series of Google searches, and available information was very limited for some units. Sixty-one units in 34 courses met criteria for inclusion. Units typically ran for one semester with 30-40 hours of instruction. Just under half the instructors for whom relevant information was available had an …

Teaching Elementary Children With Autism: Addressing Teacher Challenges And Preparation Needs, Ruth Busby, Rebecca Ingram, Rhonda Bowron, Jan Oliver, Barbara Lyons

The Rural Educator

Teachers’ perception of self-efficacy may have a significant impact on their ability to accept the challenges inherent in including children with autism in their classrooms. The Nominal Group Technique (NGT) was used to identify perceived challenges and needs of 31 graduate students in a university course of which 14 of the 23 students were actively teaching in rural schools located in southeast Alabama. Five faculty members used the resulting NGT data to draft six recommendations for improving the teacher preparation program at Troy University.

Student Teaching Practice In Two Elementary Teacher Preparation Programs, Ping Liu

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This study examines student teaching of elementary teacher preparation programs in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the United States of America (USA). Two programs comparable in program design, course requirements and goals were selected for exploration. The key aspects that were studied about student teaching include its unit ratio in a program, features of placements, written work by student teachers and evaluation. Findings indicate that these programs share the same basic elements related to student teaching but differences exist in student teaching sequence, focus on candidates’ practice to assume teaching responsibilities, participation in evaluation and level of peer …

Enablers And Constraints In Achieving Integration In A Teacher Preparation Program, Craig Deed, Peter Cox, Vaughan Prain

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

There is broad consensus that effective teacher preparation programs should enable pre-service teachers to integrate learning experiences at university and school. However, as noted in many reviews and studies, achieving this integration remains a significant challenge. In this study we aimed to identify factors that influence developmental coherence in pre-service teachers’ learning in the first eight weeks of a one-year preparation program, entailing university-based and school-based experiences. The pre-service teachers were expected to integrate learning in both contexts as preparation for their first five-week practicum. Our study aimed to identify their judgements of the value of various components of the …

Helping Teachers Develop Positive Dispositions About Technology-Based Learning: What A Brief Global Learning Project Revealed, Carol A. Smith, Heather Schugar, Cynthia A. Moyer

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

Research indicates that teachers’ dispositions significantly influence their integration of computer technology into classroom instruction. This article reports findings from a mixed-methods study that examined shifts in teachers’ dispositions about learning that occurs through information and communication technologies (ICT’s). Graduate students and remote professionals engaged in a one-semester learning project that included synchronous and asynchronous com­puter-mediated discussions of course content. The study sought to determine whether or not this exposure to ICT-based learning might be accompanied by a positive or negative affective shift, and to identify the salient features of such a shift. Quantitative analysis of responses on question­naires administered …

Are Teaching Effectiveness And Retention Influenced By Various Routes To Special Education Certification?, Steven A. Crites Dr., Bianca Prather-Jones, Rachelle M. Bruno, Stephen C. Walker

Kentucky Teacher Education Journal: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Kentucky Council for Exceptional Children

This study reviewed and interpreted the results of survey data that compared the self-perceived performance and self-efficacy on several dimensions tied to the CEC standards for teachers of students who access the individualized general education curriculum. Teachers prepared through traditional undergraduate approaches, post-baccalaureate certification options for general education teachers, and an alternative certification program were asked about job satisfaction, success rate on the Praxis II tests, and other factors related to retention. Although all three programs are designed with the same content standards established by the field (Council for Exceptional Children, 2003), there are some significant differences between them, e.g., …

Creating A Masters In Numeracy Program, Eric Gaze

Numeracy

The Master of Science in Numeracy program at Alfred University received full approval from the New York State Education Department (NYSED) in May of 2007. This first-of-its-kind program seeks to provide teachers at all levels, from across the curriculum, the skills, and more importantly the confidence, to introduce relevant quantitative concepts in their own disciplines. Created to be a complement of the MS Ed. in Literacy, the 30-hour MS in Numeracy program consists of four required core courses (Teaching Numeracy, Teaching with Data, Assessment and Learning Theories in Numeracy, and Doing Science and Numeracy), five electives from a list of …

Preparing Teachers For Rural Appointments, Zoe A. Barley

The Rural Educator

Rural schools face difficulties recruiting or retaining qualified teachers. Prospective teachers need help better understanding the nature of rural teaching. Despite many pluses, collegial isolation, low salaries, multiple grade or subject teaching assignments, and lack of familiarity with rural schools and communities are challenges to new teachers in rural schools. This study examined nine mid-continent institutions for five components identified as preparing and retaining teachers to teach in rural schools. From the 120 teacher preparation institutions in the mid-continent, 17 confirmed the existence of a rural program emphasis. Nine of the 17 had three or more rural programs. Three of …

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Their Preparation For Teaching Linguistically And Culturally Diverse Learners In Rural Eastern North Carolina, Debra D. O'Neal, Marjorie Ringler, Diane Rodriguez

The Rural Educator

The number of English language learners (ELL) students in the US is increasing dramatically. The growth is even more evident in rural areas of the United States such as North Carolina where teachers are facing classrooms with a majority of second language learners. The authors conducted a study interviewing 24 teachers at a rural elementary school in eastern North Carolina. Teachers were interviewed regarding their perceptions of their preparedness to teach English language learners in the mainstream classrooms. Findings revealed that teacher training programs have not prepared these individuals for the student population they face today regardless of the year …

Preparing Teachers For Rural Appointments, Graeme Lock

The Rural Educator

Education authorities continue to experience difficulty in recruiting and retaining teachers in rural and remote schools. In Western Australia (WA), a state noted for its vastness and number of schools located in rural and remote settings, a scheme developed by the Western Australian Department of Education and Training (DET) and the WA Chamber of Minerals and Energy aims to address this challenge by offering financial support to student teachers who wish to undertake their final practicum in a remote or rural education district in which they hope to work after graduation. The Student Teacher Rural Experience Program (STREP) assists with …

Context, Process And Change: The Status Of Prospective Teachers' Perceptions Of Teaching Process, Abdurrahman Sahin, Hulusi Cokadar, Muhammet Usak

Essays in Education

Teacher candidates come to teacher education programs with beliefs shaped out of traditional contexts in their earlier lives. Those beliefs influence their new learning outcomes. It is therefore important for teacher education programs to identify the degree of perceptions that entry- and exit-level candidates hold. The purpose of this study is to identify and compare entry- and exit-level candidates’ degree of perceptions about teaching process and to understand if their perceptions relate to their personal variables. This is a descriptive study. The data were gathered by 28-item Teaching Process Perception Scale developed by the researchers. Collected from 267 teacher candidates …