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Although there has been significant research examining the practice of culturally responsive teaching, little empirical work to date has examined the role that community-engaged, teacher preparation models play in shaping prospective teachers’ orientation toward cultural responsiveness. This study of 60 preservice teacher candidates enrolled in a program of community-engaged teacher preparation at a midsized Midwestern public university specifically examined the ways in which caring relationships between preservice teachers and volunteer community mentors scaffolded candidates’ contextualized understanding of culture, community, and identity of children and families. Findings provide evidence that as candidates experience authentic caring within the space of supportive relationships, they emerge equipped to care in more authentic, culturally responsive ways for their students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the experiences of a group of nine community-based mentors of teacher candidates who partnered for several years through a local, community-based organization with the graduate elementary and secondary teacher education programs at a research university in the Pacific Northwest. Following a brief discussion of the history of partnerships between teacher education programs and local communities, we report the findings of a study of the perspectives of these community mentors on their work with teacher candidates and university teacher educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attracting and retaining high-quality teachers is especially challenging in urban districts. It is in these communities where teacher candidates must begin their preparation. This article provides a conceptual framework and programmatic examples used to develop a community-based urban teacher preparation model within a third hybrid space where community scholars, school practitioners, and university faculty come together to create a “pipeline” of community-minded teachers committed to teaching in their communities. Bridging the gap between content-based preparation at universities and culturally situated pedagogical training within the very urban classrooms where teachers are likely to be hired results in teachers with higher levels of self-efficacy, agency, and confidence. In turn, this positively affects teacher persistence, resilience, and higher rates of retention over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide, teacher educators and policy makers have called for teacher preparation that is more deeply linked to practice. Yet we know little about how such linkages are achieved within different international programs. We examine the degree to which programs provide opportunities to learn that are grounded in practice, during university coursework. We report on observation data (N = 104 hr) from the methods courses in six programs in Finland, Norway, and California. Using an analytical framework decomposing the conception of “grounding in practice” in teacher education, this article provides evidence regarding the successes and challenges of incorporating practice in teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) offers elaborate empirical and theoretical conventions for becoming an effective teacher of diverse youth. Empathy has been found to improve classroom teachers’ capacity to (re)act or respond to youth in ways that produce evidence of CRP. However, there are too few instructive models in teacher education that help connect teacher candidates’ knowledge of students and communities to development of efficacious physical habits, tendencies, and trends in observable behavior or teacher dispositions. The application of empathy operationalized through perspective taking is one such model useful to preparing teacher candidates to make professional decisions that produce evidence of CRP. Engaging teacher candidates in perspective taking—adopting the social perspectives of others as an act and process of knowing—invites them to obtain (and reason with) new knowledge of students and the sociocultural context where she or he will teach. Recommendations for modeling and practicing perspective taking in teacher education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the characteristics of early childhood education (ECE) preservice teachers (PSTs) who were identified as closed minded and their capacity to deal with controversial issues. We define open-mindedness as the willingness to consider experiences, beliefs, values, and perspectives that differ from one’s own. First, we used quantitative surveys to identify PSTs with less open-minded thinking dispositions among those who responded (n = 84). Then, we selected and ultimately interviewed five participants who indicated that their religious views played a significant role in the way they developed their epistemological and ontological views. Interviews suggested that concepts of social justice and the common good were seen as inimical to their core religious beliefs. As such, some respondents avoided these ideas without sufficiently entertaining the complexity involved with their religious beliefs and democratic ideals. This study has numerous implications for the macrocurriculum of teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the predictive validity and policy impact of Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation minimum admission requirements in Standard 3.2 on teacher preparation programs (TPPs), their applicants, and the broader field of educator preparation. Undergraduate grade point average (GPA) and Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores from 533 program graduates in one master’s-level TPP were examined for their ability to predict graduate GPA and the effect minimum admissions criteria had on enrollment. Findings indicate that only undergraduate GPA is moderately related to a program graduate’s success, controlling for student background characteristics. The study also finds that implementing GRE scores as a criterion in admissions decisions significantly reduces the number of admitted candidates so that the program may no longer be financially sustainable. These findings suggest many negative consequences may result from minimum admission requirements and more research is needed to evaluate the potential impact on other TPPs, teacher labor markets, and student learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shares findings from a qualitative study of an undergraduate urban education fellowship designed to connect teacher-candidates with activist teacher communities and explore questions of social justice, equity, and multicultural teaching. Fellows attended conferences, professional meetings, and on-campus dialogues over one semester. Interview transcripts and meeting notes were analyzed through the lenses of teacher inquiry and transformative learning theory. Findings reveal how teacher-candidates experienced shifts in their viewpoints through encountering new perspectives, discomfort with returning to their lives with new understandings, and a strong drive to further their learning about urban education. Within the context of a persistent gap between a mostly White, middle-class teaching force and a racially and socioeconomically diverse student population, this study offers an image of transformative preservice teacher education in which teacher-candidates encounter professional communities outside of the confines of the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present study was to examine the impact of training plus coaching on special education preservice teachers’ use of embedded instruction learning trials (EILTs) within ongoing activities of inclusive preschool classrooms. A multiple baseline across participants design was used to investigate the relationships between coaching and preservice teachers’ implementation of EILTs across settings and over time. Corollary relationships between preservice teachers’ implementation and child learning outcomes were also examined. Results indicate training plus coaching is an effective method for increasing preservice teachers’ use of EILTs. Preservice teachers generalized their use of EILTs to another setting and maintained their use during follow-up sessions conducted 1 to 8 weeks after coaching ended. Moreover, as preservice teachers’ accuracy of implementing EILTs increased, percentage of children’s correct responding increased. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a descriptive analysis of 53 naïve assessment constructors’ explanations for selecting test items to include on a summative assessment. We randomly assigned participants to an informed and uninformed condition (i.e., informed participants read an article describing a Table of Specifications). Through recursive thematic analyses of participants’ explanations, we identified 14 distinct strategies that coalesced into three families of strategies: Alignment, Item Evaluation, and Affective Evaluation. We describe the nature of the strategies and the degree to which participants used strategies with frequency and effect size analysis. Results can inform teacher education on assessment construction through explicit instruction in the three families of strategies identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents responses from four College of Education deans to a series of questions posed by the Penn State University Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) editorial team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership (MTE-Partnership) was formed to address the undersupply of new secondary mathematics teachers who are well prepared to help their students attain the goals of the Common Core State Standards and other college- and career-ready standards. This national consortium of more than 90 universities and 100 school systems has been organized as a Networked Improvement Community (NIC), which combines the disciplined inquiry of improvement science with the power of networking to accelerate improvement by engaging a broad set of participants. Initiating a NIC involves a number of challenges described in the NIC Initiation Framework. This case study analyzes the MTE-Partnership’s progress in one domain of that framework: network leadership, organization, and operation. Areas of discussion include convening the network, establishing a membership framework and participation structures, building leadership and hub functions, developing a communications infrastructure, and finding necessary resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors argue that teacher education needs to make a fundamental shift in whose knowledge and expertise counts in the education of new teachers. Using tools afforded by cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and deliberative democracy theory, they argue that by recasting who is considered an expert, and rethinking how teacher candidates and university faculty cross institutional boundaries to collaborate with communities and schools, teacher education programs can better interrogate their challenges and invent new solutions to prepare the teachers our students need. Drawing on examples from joint-work among universities, schools, and communities in a variety of teacher education programs, they highlight the possibilities and complexities in pursuing more democratic work in teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite much debate in the literature, accrediting agencies continue to require that teacher education programs demonstrate that candidates possess requisite sets of dispositions deemed necessary for licensure. At least three unresolved and important questions remain unanswered that directly affect programs’ abilities to do so: Are dispositions immutable aspects of character or are they learned through experience and as such, are they subject to revision through education? How does the larger context of a program affect the development of dispositions? What is the link between observable actions and dispositions? While seemingly disparate questions, this article argues that John Dewey’s discussion of habits offers a theoretical framework that points to answers that respond to mandates and also open avenues for complex educational engagement. To make the case, the article presents a theoretical response to questions about dispositions grounded in Dewey’s conception of habits and then uses that conception to address each of the three proceeding questions in turn. The article’s central argument is that teacher educators should conceptualize dispositions as being comprised of clusters of habits. Habits describe our predispositions to draw upon modes of response to situations and problems that arise within specific contexts. Furthermore, the article concludes that regardless of the type of disposition involved, teacher education programs must create contexts that encourage the development of intelligent habits to inform intelligent dispositions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Commonsense reasoning says that quality teacher education relies on quality teacher educators. Yet, there is minimal attention to what teacher educators should know and be able to do. Unquestionably, teacher educators cannot teach what they do not know; but what should they know, and should they be prepared? This study of 293 teacher educators investigated the following: What do current teacher educators consider to be the foundation elements of their practice? How do they evaluate their own preparation in these areas? How can their experiences inform the preparation of teacher educators? We use Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s theorizing about “relationships of knowledge and practice” to understand knowledge essential to teacher educating (a term we use to differentiate teaching teachers from teaching students). Our findings reveal that practicing teacher educators often feel unprepared to assume their role but can offer helpful insight into how we should think deliberately about quality teacher educator preparation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While few would disagree that a key component of educating teachers to teach happens on the job, research rarely explores the schoolhouse as a site for teacher education. This study thus focuses on inservice as distinct from preservice teacher education and explores how beginning teachers’ learning about mathematics and literacy instruction was supported within 24 elementary schools in two midwestern school districts. A mixed methodology was used in this exploratory study, including social network and interview data analysis, to examine beginning teachers’ advice- and information-seeking behaviors related to mathematics and literacy. Findings revealed that formal organizational structures inside schools were critical for shaping beginning teachers’ opportunities to learn about instruction, including grade level teams and formal leadership positions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this study is to explore the knowledge demands of teacher educators as they teach disciplinary content to preservice elementary teachers, specifically in mathematics, and to understand how such knowledge is different from that used by K-12 teachers. Drawing from a database including teaching and learning artifacts from five iterations of a content course for preservice teachers, the authors illustrate different forms of knowledge observed across different mathematics teacher educators’ practice and discuss how the observed knowledge forms are different from knowledge used by K-12 teachers in their practice. Finally, the authors discuss how the process used in this study can identify potential components of a knowledge base for teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Currently, the field of teacher education is undergoing a major shift—a turn away from a predominant focus on specifying the necessary knowledge for teaching toward specifying teaching practices that entail knowledge and doing. In this article, the authors suggest that current work on K-12 core teaching practices has the potential to shift teacher education toward the practice of teaching. However, the authors argue that to realize this vision we must reimagine not only the curriculum for learning to teach but also the pedagogy of teacher education. We present one example of what we mean by reimagined teacher education pedagogy by offering a framework through which to conceptualize the preparation of teachers organized around core practices. From our perspectives, this framework could be the backbone of a larger research and development agenda aimed at engaging teachers and teacher educators in systematic knowledge generation regarding ambitious teaching and teacher education pedagogy. We conclude with an invitation to the field to join with us in imagining approaches to generating and aggregating knowledge about teaching and the pedagogy of teacher education that will move not only our individual practice but also our collective practice forward. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many educational researchers across the United States have found that inquiry-based learning (IBL) supports the development of deep, meaningful content knowledge. However, integrating IBL into classroom practice has been challenging, in part because of contrasting conceptualizations and practices across educational fields. In this article, we (a) describe differing conceptions of IBL, (b) summarize our own studies of IBL in three fields of education, (c) compare and contrast the processes and purposes of IBL in our studies and fields, and (d) suggest numerous opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaborations on IBL curriculum, teaching, and research that could bolster its inclusion in K-12 education. We ground our exploration in knowledge-generating conceptualizations and practices in these fields. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This interpretive study investigated how 12 graduates from a justice-oriented teacher preparation program described their teaching goals, practices, and influences on those practices after their 1st year of teaching in an urban school. Relationships among these teachers’ orientations toward socially just teaching, self-reported socially just teaching practices, and self-reported preprogram, program, and postprogram influences were explored. Teachers who were individually and structurally oriented exhibited a sociocultural consciousness and described socially just teaching in various combinations of culturally responsive pedagogies, consciousness-raising, and advocacy; whereas individually oriented teachers focused primarily on “color-blind” caring relationships with their students. Factors that seemed to influence a more structural orientation to socially just teaching included (a) cross-cultural experiences before and during teacher preparation, (b) program course content and field experiences that challenged previous thinking, and (c) administrative and collegial support during the 1st year of teaching. Implications for teacher education practice and research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In response to the existing accountability movement in the United States, a plethora of educational policies and standards have emerged at various levels to promote teacher assessment competency, with a focus on preservice assessment education. However, despite these policies and standards, research has shown that beginning teachers continue to maintain low competency levels in assessment. Limited assessment education that is potentially misaligned to assessment standards and classroom practices has been identified as one factor contributing to a lack of assessment competency. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to analyze the alignment between teacher education accreditation policies, professional standards for teacher assessment practice, and preservice assessment course curriculum. Through a curriculum alignment methodology involving two policy documents, two professional standards documents, and syllabi from 10 Florida-based, Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education–certified teacher education programs, the results of this study serve to identify points of alignment and misalignment across policies, standards, and curricula. The study concludes with a discussion on the current state of assessment education with implications for enhancing teacher preparation in this area and future research on assessment education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Opp analyzes changes in freshmen interest in teaching using Cooperative Institutional Research Program data from 1966 to 1988. The changes in freshmen interest in teaching by sex, race, high school grade point average, level of schooling, probable major, and type of institution are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Livingston and Borko examine the implications of theory and research on pedagogical expertise for teacher education. They describe an investigation of the thoughts and actions of a small number of expert and novice teachers. Differences among the teachers are analyzed from two perspectives: teaching as a complex cognitive skill and improvisational performance. They then offer recommendations for teacher education practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most commonly used rationale for the elevation of preservice teacher education from the undergraduate to the graduate level is to reserve the baccalaureate years for the completion of a well-balanced liberal arts education and an academic major. A more defensible end academically respectable course of reasoning for graduate-level preservice teacher education focuses on the inherent similarities between the traditional characteristics of graduate studies and preservice teacher education. Given these similarities and the potential advantages of graduate-level preservice teacher education. Funkhouser argues that the undergraduate status quo may be difficult to defend in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the possible alternative in the structure and format of the foundations component of a teacher education program in the U.S. A modular approach to the teaching of foundations appear to be an acceptable organizational model. The first proposed module investigates the concepts and principles inherent in a pluralistic society, while the second module will present and explore the principles of democracy. Certain administrative questions arise in the implementation of a modular organization model particularly on the credit value of a module. The departmentalization, team teaching models and competency-based models are discussed. In line with these modules, teacher educators have agreed that the more closely the theoretical construct is related to actual application, the more effective the application will be.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the professional development of teacher educators, mathematical knowledge needed for teaching preservice elementary school teachers, and practice-based teacher education.

The article evaluates the author's efforts to determine the predictive validity of the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory (MTAI). Using a longitudinal approach, the study is an attempt to obtain an indication of the predictive validity of the MTAI. The study also attempt to provide empirical data for the study of response stability. Furthermore, if MTAI is used for predictive purposes before completion of the teachers training and acquisition of their experience, the use of the modified keys can be recommended.

The article discusses the review of research on measurement applications in teacher education. In programs of teacher education, there are at least four ways in which evaluations have been used. First is to help in selecting students who are highly capable of entering and succeeding in teaching careers. Second, is to assist in advising students academically and guide them when problems occur. Third, is to help in evaluating student achievement in the courses of education and experiences that comprise the program. And lastly, to aid in certifying teaching competence at the end of the teacher education program.

The article focuses on the Research about Teacher Education (RATE) Project conducted by the American of Colleges for Teacher Education's Research and Information Committee. This project was intended to address the problem of gathering consistently accurate information across the same dimension at various institutional campuses. In relevance to this, the research committee has developed some standards for reliable and accurate collection of information. Further, they also address the criticism on teacher education in terms of inability or lack of interest to study the structures for the process of educating and preparing teachers for their roles in schools.

The article provides an overview of the articles related to the current and proposed usage of electronic devices in preservice teacher education. The article include "Using a Local Area Network in a Challenge of Education," by G. W. Bright, "A Microcomputer-Assisted Mathematics Diagnosis and Remediation Program," by G. G. Bitter and A. Cameron, "ERIC: An Essential Online Tool for Educators," by S. Dunman, "Use of Stimulated Recall in Videotape Analysis of Student Teacher Performance," by D. V. Martin, and "Social Studies Teacher Education: The Role of Interactive Videodisc in Understanding Cultural Diversity," by H. L. Carlson.

The article discusses the perspective of John Holt, a teacher and author, regarding education of teachers. The study conducted by Holt on elementary student teachers yielded some data that at that time seemed impossible to explain. A questionnaire on student teaching was administered in an attempt to account for these disturbing data. The result of the questionnaire was not reassuring. Despite of this result, some sobering question arise. Furthermore, even with uncertainties, many has agreed that student teaching is the essential of teacher education.