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Full-Text Articles in Education
Looking Back In Order To Move Forward: Lessons From Covid-19 For Teacher Education, Kiersten Greene, Lizabeth Cain, Elizabeth Brennan, Brianna Vaughan
Looking Back In Order To Move Forward: Lessons From Covid-19 For Teacher Education, Kiersten Greene, Lizabeth Cain, Elizabeth Brennan, Brianna Vaughan
Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning
This article provides critical perspectives on education technology integration in a teacher education context in a post-pandemic world. The authors—two early career teachers, one in a pre-school and one in an elementary school, and two elementary teacher education faculty members at a mid-sized public university—use the U.S. Department of Education’s 2016 guiding principles for educational technology in teacher education for analysis. The commentary evolves directly from and reflects the authors’ collective experience across the P-20 spectrum in education technology, with close attention paid to what was learned during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent pivot to remote learning …
“I Changed My Mind”: Exploring Why College Students Change Majors To Become Teachers, Ross Bussell
“I Changed My Mind”: Exploring Why College Students Change Majors To Become Teachers, Ross Bussell
Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning
While teacher education programs have long studied what draws students to choose a career in teaching, a less studied aspect of teacher candidates relates to students who change majors to become teachers. As a phenomenon that is common in teacher preparation, I am interested in better understanding why this happens. This article centers around six participants who began college choosing a science major, changing their course of study after at least one full year. Through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, a discussion of what led the participants to change majors, what they were looking for when deciding to become teachers, and …
Thinking About Teaching: A Rural Social Studies Teacher's Path To Strive For Excellence, Dana F. Serure
Thinking About Teaching: A Rural Social Studies Teacher's Path To Strive For Excellence, Dana F. Serure
Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning
Thinking About Teaching: A rural social studies teacher's path to strive for excellence by Casey Jakubowski (2020) offers insights about the macros and micros of teaching. The book is geared toward educators and teacher candidates who seek to know more about the teaching profession. The book comprises four parts, including: 1) an introduction of practice which details twenty brief chapters of hot education topics, 2) curriculum and instruction, 3) rural education, and 4) a conclusion that pinpoints recommendations about teaching based on his experience that spans twenty years in the education field. Throughout the book Jakubowski expresses his professional journey …
Guns, Classrooms, And Politics: Eliciting And Reflecting Upon Education Student Beliefs In The Age Of School Shootings, James K. Rigney, Gage Jeter
Guns, Classrooms, And Politics: Eliciting And Reflecting Upon Education Student Beliefs In The Age Of School Shootings, James K. Rigney, Gage Jeter
Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning
Unearthing the perspectives students bring with them in their college-level education coursework is especially important as education instructors are tasked with interrupting the unexamined proliferation of dominant ideologies among future educational professionals. The introduction to education course serves as an important site for this interrogation. One trend largely unexplored in the scholarly literature is the pedagogical use of controversy in introduction to education coursework. This study analyzes student discussion of the controversy of school gun violence within a redesigned introduction to education course. Data for this study come from student postings and final reflection papers in an online section of …
Comparing Special Education Teachers’ Personality Profile With Their Choice To Teach, Laron A. Scott, Lauren Bruno, Philip Gnilka, Lindsay Kozachuk, Katherine Brendli, Vivian Vitullo
Comparing Special Education Teachers’ Personality Profile With Their Choice To Teach, Laron A. Scott, Lauren Bruno, Philip Gnilka, Lindsay Kozachuk, Katherine Brendli, Vivian Vitullo
Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning
Researchers have yet to examine the association of Holland personality profiles as it relates to special education teachers. In response to this need, we report the personality and vocational profiles (Holland Codes) of 134 special education teachers across a special education training program. The purpose of this paper is to summarize findings from the Self-Directed Search measure commonly used to assess the personality of participants in an occupation and suggest implications for participants’ choice in becoming a special education teacher. Our focus was on personality match with vocational choice to include participants’ demographic (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, and geographical location) profile. …
Covid-19 Modifications To A Service-Learning Project Designed To Prepare Special Education Students To Be Effective Participants In Transdisciplinary Collaborations, Kathy R. Doody, Katrina Fulcher-Rood, Pamela Schuetze
Covid-19 Modifications To A Service-Learning Project Designed To Prepare Special Education Students To Be Effective Participants In Transdisciplinary Collaborations, Kathy R. Doody, Katrina Fulcher-Rood, Pamela Schuetze
Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning
This research study examined the impact of COVID-19 on university students’ perceptions about the effectiveness of a community-based service-learning project designed to prepare graduate students in special education and undergraduate students in psychology and speech-language pathology to work in transdisciplinary teams in early childhood settings. Students were placed into transdisciplinary teams and assigned to one of two community-based early childhood programs to administer a universal screening tool that assessed young children in several domains. The project was in its sixth year when the country stood still because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The project was re-envisioned, mid-course, to provide an equitable …
Making The Transition To Virtual Methods In The Literacy Classroom: Reframing Teacher Education Practices, Lindsay Stoetzel, Stephanie Shedrow
Making The Transition To Virtual Methods In The Literacy Classroom: Reframing Teacher Education Practices, Lindsay Stoetzel, Stephanie Shedrow
Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning
In response to the COVID 19 pandemic universities and colleges abruptly closed and teacher educators had little time to move instruction from face-to-face classrooms to digital learning environments. This sudden shift created a myriad of obstacles as instructors worked to retain pedagogically sound and effective instruction digitally—while also preparing novice teachers to teach online themselves. Adding another layer of complexity was prospective teachers’ lack of knowledge and hesitation regarding technology tools, as well as how to meaningfully integrate the tools into their teaching. Facing these challenges, we as literacy teacher educators drew upon effective methods of teacher education, literacy practices …
Assessment Of Pre-Service Teacher Dispositions, Elizabeth Bradley, Patricia Isaac, Joseph King
Assessment Of Pre-Service Teacher Dispositions, Elizabeth Bradley, Patricia Isaac, Joseph King
Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning
Measurement of pre-service teacher dispositions is an important part of teacher preparation programs. A strong correlation exists between dispositions of teachers and the quality of their student’s learning. Teachers, in addition to sharing content knowledge, are responsible for demonstrating and sharing core values relating to virtues such as honesty, justice, fairness, care, empathy, integrity, courage, respect, and responsibility, and these values must guide their own conduct and interpersonal relations. As teachers serve pupils who are minors, their conduct and potential to serve effectively and ethically in the profession must be evaluated. However, a thorough faculty-led instrument to assess pre-service teacher …
Literacy Curricula, The Common Core, And Defending An Unpopular Profession: The Lived Experiences Of Undergraduate Preservice Literacy Teachers, Susan A. Sturm
Literacy Curricula, The Common Core, And Defending An Unpopular Profession: The Lived Experiences Of Undergraduate Preservice Literacy Teachers, Susan A. Sturm
Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning
This study explored the lived experiences of eight pre-service teachers, specifically their understandings of teaching Common Core-aligned English language arts (ELA) and their feelings about becoming teachers of literacy amid the current era of accountability. Phenomenological methods were used to interview participants and analyze data for significant statements made by all eight pre-service teachers involved. Major themes to emerge include that pre-service teachers felt prepared to design ELA lessons but unprepared to develop an ELA curriculum; they felt the Common Core State Standards had changed everything about teaching; and they were anxious about becoming teachers during a time of great …
Being In Tension: Faculty Explorations Of The Meaning Of Social Justice In Teacher Education, Mary Shelley Thomas, Christine D. Clayton, Shin-Ying Huang, Roberto Garcia
Being In Tension: Faculty Explorations Of The Meaning Of Social Justice In Teacher Education, Mary Shelley Thomas, Christine D. Clayton, Shin-Ying Huang, Roberto Garcia
Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning
This study explores faculty perspectives of social justice in teacher education within one New York institution with a social justice focus. Grounded in the institution’s self-study process for accreditation, the researchers were a part of a team that collected data from structured interviews, including a card sort, of 42 full time teacher educators across 16 programs in the institution. Informed by sociocultural theories (Vygotsky, 1978, Wertsch, 1991), a content analysis revealed the language selected by faculty as well as their meaning-making process and describes how individuals contextualized those meanings. Findings demonstrated a range of meanings and lack of a shared …
The Role Of The Clinical Educator In Teacher Preparation: An Exploratory Study Of Perceptions Of Preparedness, Kristen M. Driskill
The Role Of The Clinical Educator In Teacher Preparation: An Exploratory Study Of Perceptions Of Preparedness, Kristen M. Driskill
Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning
As the demands on P-12 teachers increase, so do the demands on teacher preparation programs. In higher education institutions across the country, coursework is regularly updated to reflect changing academic standards, increasing diversity in classrooms, rigorous certification exams, etc. In addition, accreditation standards have been updated to reflect the need for P-12 partnerships in best preparing teacher candidates. As a result, clinical practice has come under focus. Yet the role of the clinical educator remains unclear. There is a gap in the literature regarding the preparedness and support of clinical educators, particularly addressing their role in developing teacher candidates along …