Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Powerful Partnerships: A Community Program For Low Income, High School Dropouts And A University, Katherine R. Robbins-Hunt Ph.D., Beth Hatt, George Flowers

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

This session provides community and university staff results of a study examining the partnership between a community development program targeting low income, high school dropouts and a teacher preparation program. Presenters will describe methods for maintaining partnerships and discuss outcomes of the program in the areas of GED preparation, job skills training, health and wellness programming, and community service opportunities.

Breve Reseña Histórica De La Preparación De Magisterio En Los Estados Unidos, Jaime Grinberg

Department of Educational Foundations Scholarship and Creative Works

This work presents a brief historical analysis of the history of teacher education and development in the US, during the19th and 20th centuries. It provides information about the conditions and evolution of such preparation, including the development of Normal Schools into University settings, political pressures, the impact of market oriented decisions, and the relationships with social aspects such as gender, social class, and status of the teaching corps, as well as discussing the pathologizing discourses of professional development for teachers. Such preparation has been uneven, often fostering a low intellectual profile, and with a focus on technical knowledge, which contributes …

Teachers' Preparation To Teach English Language Learners (Ells): An Investigation Of Perceptions, Preparation, And Current Practices, Pamela K. Correll

Theses and Dissertations--Curriculum and Instruction

This qualitative case study examined the perceptions of 79 elementary teachers regarding their preparation to teach students learning English as a second language (ELLs). The focus of this inquiry centered on factors related to the preparation of teachers for serving non-native English speaking students. The research questions that guided this study are: (a) What are teachers’ perceptions of their preparation for teaching English learners?; (b) What types of preparatory experiences do teachers perceive as supportive of their preparation for teaching ELLs?; and (c) How do teachers’ perceptions of their preparation shape their practices with ELL students?

Findings of this study …

Math Teachers' Experiences Learning And Teaching Math, Kathryn Couch

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Abstract

In a charter school in the Southwest United States, elementary students were struggling to

attain proficiency in math and have been failing to meet the standards in math on the

Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards test. As a result, these students may not have

been prepared for more advanced math courses as they continued their schooling, and this

failure to attain proficiency in math may continue to impact the school's ability to make

adequate yearly progress. The purpose of this explanatory case study was to explore the

perspectives of elementary math teachers toward teaching math, their preparation to teach …

Faculty And Student Perceptions Of Reading And Language Arts Preparation And Preparedness For The State Subject Area Test, Ingrid Ahrens Massey

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Since changes to the reading/language arts State Subject Area Test (SSAT) in late 2010, elementary education teacher candidates at a teacher training college in the Southern United States have experienced declining scores resulting in test failure and delaying student teaching and graduation. The purpose of this case study was to identify factors that students and faculty perceived as most beneficial in preparing students to pass the SSAT. Constructivism served as the conceptual framework for this study addressing the effects of collaboration, hands-on learning, and application of knowledge. Purposeful sampling was used to recruit 6 elementary education students who had taken …

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 …

The Edtpa And Pds Collide In A Culture Of Care (Coc) Model, Lori Piowlski, Elizabeth Finsness

Elementary and Literacy Education Department Publications

No abstract provided.

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 …

Economic Literacy: Measuring The Economic Human Capital Of Arkansas K-12 Teachers, June Marie Freund

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Economic literacy is recognized as a deficit quality in the United States, no more prevalent than during the last great recession. It is paramount the K-12 educational system lead the movement to educate the public on economic content and issues, as it is the one institution that has direct contact with all citizens. The question then must be asked, how economic literate are teachers entrusted with the responsibility of imparting economic knowledge to his/her K-12 grade level student. A sample of Arkansas teachers at each grade level K – 12 were tested using national normed economic literacy tests designed to …

Plunging Beneath The Surface: Uncovering Internal Dispositions, Lori Piowlski, Karen Colum

Elementary and Literacy Education Department Publications

Teacher preparation programs face the challenge of measuring candidates’ competencies that can be considered internal dispositions; which impact the quality of their instruction. This study delves into candidate edTPA scores in correlation with their IDI mindsets to support program development.

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.

Exploring Stakeholders' Perceptions Of The Evaluation Of Early Fieldwork Experience In An Undergraduate Teacher Preparation Program, Amber R. Peacock

Theses and Dissertations

This study is a qualitative meta-evaluation of the early field experience (EFE) program at a small, private, undergraduate teacher preparation program in Virginia focusing on the perceptions of preservice teachers, cooperating teachers and course instructors about the EFE evaluation objectives, evaluation experience, and resulting data usage. The EFE evaluation protocol at the study site is explored using a participatory-oriented evaluation model that solicited the perceptions of stakeholders. Analysis of EFE evaluation documents and semi-structured interviews with the stakeholders were conducted to explore the extent to which (1) official EFE objectives are congruent with the EFE evaluation, (2) the intended evaluation …

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 …

Providing The Fuel Needed To Blast Teacher Candidates Into Employment, Lori Piowlski, Peggy Ballard

Elementary and Literacy Education Department Publications

The 21st century learner has many facets that a teacher must be able to gleam and respond to, as identified in the increasing number of teaching standards that require teachers to meet the needs of all diverse learners through instruction and assessment that engage and encourage all students. The increasing diverse composition of students brings new challenges that teacher preparation programs must address to prepare effective teachers ready to embrace these students in a classroom that is responsive to the needs of all students. This study focuses on the program development of teacher candidates learning in block three courses (the …

Teaching, Learning, And Leading With Schools And Communities: One Urban University Re-Envisions Teacher Preparation For The Next Generation, Ann Marie Ryan, David Ensminger, Amy J. Heineke, Adam Kennedy, David P. Prasse, Lara K. Smetana

Education: School of Education Faculty Publications and Other Works

Colleagues in the TLLSC program at Loyola University Chicago analyze the trajectory of teacher education and how it can be improved.

Picturing The Reader: English Education Pre-Service Teachers' Beliefs About Reading Using Photovoice, Michael Dicicco

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As students begin secondary school, they are charged with learning more content, at a faster pace and with increased pressure from accountability measures (Dreschler, Shumaker, & Woodruff, 2004). If secondary students' reading difficulties are not identified and remedied, the gap between struggling readers and their peers widens every academic year (Edmonds, Vaughn, Wexler, Rutebuch, Cable, Tackett, and Schnakenberg, 2009).

The task of reading instruction primarily falls on English teachers, but Strickland and Alvermann (2004) note that while secondary English Teachers do have more preparation in reading instruction compared to other content area teachers, they are not as prepared as they …

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 …

The Impact Of Troops To Teachers Participants On Student Achievement: A Causal-Comparative Study, Kurt Osuch

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this causal-comparative study is to examine the impact of Troops to Teachers (TTT) participants on student achievement by comparing the mean scores of Texas students in the eighth grade during the 2011-2012 academic year taught by TTT participants with the mean scores of all other Texas eighth grade students on each of four mandatory standardized examinations. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) provided the archival data used in the evaluation, which consisted of limited teacher demographic information, as well as individual student scores on the vertically equated 2011-2012 version of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness …

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 …

Learning To Teach Mathematics And To Analyze Teaching Effectiveness: Evidence From A Video- And Practice-Based Pre-Service Course, Rossella Santagata, Cathery Yeh

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Although emerging consensus exists that practice-based approaches to teacher preparation assist in closing the distance between university coursework and fieldwork experiences and in assuring that future teachers learn to implement innovative research-based instructional strategies, little empirical research has investigated teacher learning from this approach. This study examines the impact of a video- and practice-based course on prospective teachers’ mathematics classroom practices and analysis of their own teaching. Two groups of elementary prospective teachers participated in the study—one attended the course and one did not. Findings reveal that the course assisted participants in making student thinking visible and in pursuing it …

Ua64 Cebs Magazine: The College Of Education And Behavioral Sciences At Wku, Charles S. Evans Dean, Pam Pierce, Editor-In-Chief, Wku College Of Education & Behavioral Sciences

College of Education and Behavioral Sciences Publications

No abstract provided.

Ready2teach: Shifts In Teacher Preparation Through Residency And Situated Learning, Ryan Andrew Nivens

ETSU Faculty Works

Residency models for education in the medical profession have existed for many years. Nationwide, policies are being implemented to bring this model to the field of teacher preparation. How this plays out within education programs is less researched, and there is a need to document the transition from traditional teacher education, that is, education that is based heavily in the college classroom, to a residency model, where preservice teachers spend a significant amount of time in an elementary school classroom. This paper describes how a year-long residency model is implemented and presents the changes in curriculum, scheduling and challenges encountered.

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 …

Practicing And Preservice Teachers' Sense Of Efficacy For Character Education, Carolyn Lowe

Honors Scholar Theses

This study explored preservice and practicing teachers’ perspectives on their preparation to support students’ character development and their sense of efficacy in implementing classroom practices related to this area of education. The research questions framing the study were as follows: (1) What levels of efficacy around character education do practicing and preservice elementary teachers from the same teacher preparation program report? (2) How do efficacy levels differ between practicing and preservice teachers? (3) What influences on their efficacy for character education do practicing and preservice teachers report? The study involved a survey of 79 practicing and preservice teachers, with similar …

Culturally Proficient Teachers, Lori R. Piowlski

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Action needs to be taken by teacher preparation programs to prepare culturally proficient educators who are able to deliver equitable instruction and inspire all students to strive for greatness if the achievement gap is to be closed. Existing literature mainly describes the importance and urgency to prepare future teachers for the changing demographics with classrooms across the United States. There is not significant literature on how it is being done. Therefore the purpose of this qualitative study was to discover how university teacher education programs are preparing teachers to be culturally proficient. A cross-reference of data collected from Adequate Yearly …

“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 …

Exploring The Experiences Of Counselor Educators Recognized For Their Excellence In Teaching, Allison E. Buller

Dissertations

Teaching is a deeply held value for counselor educators. Nonetheless, counselor education programs have historically provided only minimal attention to preparing doctoral students to actually teach. Furthermore, little of the research in the field of counselor education addresses the way counselor educators are prepared to teach. Using qualitative methods, this author engaged counselor educators identified as excellent teachers in an examination of meaningful experiences that contributed to their development as faculty in counselor education. By exploring experiences that prepared them to teach, excellent teachers provided the next generation of faculty members with rich descriptive strategies for teacher preparation in counselor …

Multicultural Dispositions: A Viable Tool For Teacher Training, Franklin Titus Thompson

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

The practice of assessing the dispositions of pre-service educators has gained increasing attention among institutions of teacher preparation. Current debate often centers on the needs and views of P-12 children, researchers, and policy makers, at the expense of a forgotten voice—teacher candidates. In particular, this study examines the multicultural portion of the larger dispositional debate. Education majors (N=420) from a Midwestern metropolitan university were asked to rate the viability of 13 selected multicultural dispositions as a training tool. Utilizing a 9-point Likert Scale, respondents gave strong support for multicultural dispositions not only during the posttest (M=8.38) but also the pretest …