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Just as teacher education programs depend upon practicing teachers for the quality and integrity of their programs, they have a responsibility for playing a role in ongoing support for these educators We begin by describing how we think about a pedagogy of connection for teacher education, building upon the earlier contributions of education scholars, and then briefly discuss the role of teacher education programs in cultivating this pedagogical strategy with teacher candidates and practicing teachers Teacher educators may also benefit from participating in virtual communities alongside teacher candidates and practicing teachers Teacher educators' ability to foster a pedagogy of connection with teacher candidates and practicing teachers is necessary to help them understand the full scope of students' academic, social, and emotional needs and how to effectively respond ([1]) [Extracted from the article] Copyright of Journal of Teacher Education is the property of Sage Publications Inc and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use This abstract may be abridged No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract (Copyright applies to all Abstracts )

Reformers are increasingly calling for and adopting practice-based approaches to teacher preparation, with particular emphasis on identifying and centering core practices. In this article, we argue that organizing teacher education around core practices brings its own risks, including the risk of peripheralizing equity and justice. Situating our argument within the broad economic trends affecting labor and higher education in the 21st century, we begin by examining the linkages between the core practices movement and organizations that advocate market-based solutions to education. We then explore how constructs of practice and improvisation and commitments to equity and justice are taken up, and with what implications and consequences, in core practices scholarship and its applications. In conclusion, we consider how work being done around core practices might contribute to a collective struggle for greater equity and justice in schools and in society.

The U.S. educational enterprise lacks no shortage of debate around divisive issues. Two recent events remind us of this. In October of 2016, the U.S. Department of Education released its revised regulations for teacher preparation programs, which have a heavy emphasis on using P-12 student success as a measure of quality for teacher education programs. (1) While some individuals and organizations have praised the federal government for pushing increased accountability on teacher preparation programs, many others have expressed strong opposition to the suggested ways to do so. For example, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) joined approximately 35 groups (including P-12, higher education, state governments, among others) in expressing formal concerns about the new regulations via a formal written statement. (2) In addition, the national climate has been negatively affected by the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and illuminates a heightened sense of vulnerability and alienation for members of certain social groups; these sentiments are realized for many individuals in our nation's teacher education programs and P-12 schools. The campaign season brought rhetoric that perpetuated racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, religious discrimination, homophobia, and ableism, and the aftermath permeates every formal institution in the nation. Continual discourse and behavior promoting bigotry has been evidenced in various forms most prominently in schools post-election. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), K-12 schools across the United States have been fertile ground for hate crimes and acts of violence against people of historically and traditionally marginalized groups (e.g., people identifying as immigrants, Muslims, African Americans, or lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender [LGBT]). In the first five weeks following the election, approximately 1,100 incidents were documented by the SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2016). The introduction of the new federal regulations for teacher preparation programs and the national divide caused by the presidential election are two major recent events that highlight the potentially costly ramifications of a new sociopolitical climate for teacher education and public education, and challenge each of us to consider what will be required to effectively prepare and support teachers and achieve educational equity for all children in the coming years. Regardless of one's political affiliation, this is a national sociopolitical climate in which we all must exist; however, our existence does not have to be defined by this climate. In our field of teacher education, the emerging educational landscape could have dramatic impacts on professional learning, research, and advocacy as we prepare current and future educators to help P-12 students learn and participate in an increasingly divisive society and help these students develop the ability to make informed decisions about issues that affect their lives and the lives of others in their local community and perhaps globally. The current and emerging sociopolitical climate compels us as teacher educators and teacher education researchers to more closely link our roles and identities as researchers and activists; our activism can be grounded in research, and our research occurs in sociopolitical contexts. Thus, it is incumbent upon us to consider how we prepare teachers in ways that reflect what we already know from research about high-quality preparation and which also prepares them to be advocates and activists for their preparation and subsequent work in P-12 schools. This sociopolitical climate presents an equity imperative that is focused on active resistance against policy directives at all levels (e.g., federal, state, local) that result in exacerbated gaps in access to opportunities to pursue a teaching career, teach with adequate support in a variety of schools, and learn in affirming and supportive environments. …

Prompted by internal and external criticism, demands for accountability, and an authentic desire to better understand processes associated with learning to teach, the field of teacher education--and more specifically, of teacher preparation--is experiencing a vigorous period of change. In some cases, this has resulted in "innovations"--such as current proposals to evaluate and regulate teacher education and preparation programs, reform of the requirements to attain qualified teacher status (QTS), and the creation of systems for evaluating teacher effectiveness--that have been enacted without evidence of potential effectiveness. In addition, because different communities or networks operate using different rules and instruments to achieve intended goals, a persistent problem with respect to teacher education policy and practice is a lack of coherence leading to contradictions in the system. For instance, in the United States alone, a number of complex networks shape policy and practice in teacher education; these include, but are not limited to, university and non-university-based teacher educators, schools' policies and practices, including mentoring and induction, educational researchers with diverse scholarly backgrounds (e.g., political science, economics), accreditation agencies such as Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), regulatory agencies at the local and federal levels such as the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE), and private advocacy groups such as the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). The resolution of contradictions that have emerged out of raising and addressing policy and practice questions in teacher education has in some cases served to move the field forward, but in other cases, has done just the opposite. An international case in point is in England, where the Department for Education has introduced a proposal to reform the current "Qualified Teacher Status" which, if implemented, would effectively transfer the responsibility to judge when a teacher is qualified from university-based teacher education to the school's headmaster after first undergoing a significant period of school teaching. In some cases, these contradictions are far from resolution as advances in related areas of knowledge and practice (e.g., cognitive science) have revealed the enormous complexity inherent in teaching and in learning to teach. These findings bring into question traditional ways of knowing in teacher education as well as current notions of what it means to be an effective teacher and by extension, what constitutes an effective teacher education/preparation program. The role of research at this moment has never been more important as a vehicle that can facilitate learning by examining and reflecting on the "construction and resolution of continuously evolving contradictions" (Engestrom, 1987, p. 79). Contradictions in Teacher Education and the Role of Research Globally and from a cultural and historical standpoint, teacher education has often involved the resolution of contradictions created by questioning, implementing, and reflecting on the system. The most prominent of these are what the goals and purposes of teacher education should be, who should teach and what should teachers know and be able to do, where and how should teachers be prepared, and how quality can be secured, evaluated, and reported. In the sections that follow, each of these issues is "unpacked" with respect to the need for research evidence to inform policy and practice directed at improving the preparation and ongoing development of effective teachers. What Should Be the Goals of Teacher Education? Much discussion has occurred around whether teacher education's key goal is to prepare teachers as autonomous professionals able to adapt the curriculum to the diverse needs of students guided by a strong moral compass, whether teacher preparation should be focused on equipping teachers with technical expertise capable of effectively enacting the curriculum and managing classrooms (e. …

In the past decade, most states have made substantial changes in the expectations they have for K-12 student learning. While the political debates around the "Common Core" have led to some modifications in what states initially adopted, it remains the case that most state standards have shifted toward something like the Common Core State Standards (CCSS; National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) for mathematics and for English Language Arts, toward the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for science (NGSS Lead States, 2013), and toward the C3 Framework for Social Studies Standards (National Council for the Social Studies, 2013) for social studies. As editors of the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE), we called for papers that would speak to how teacher educators should respond to these changes in K-12 content standards. Five of the articles in this issue were submitted specifically in response to this call. We have included two additional articles that, though not directly addressed to the call, are focused on issues that align with changes needed as a result of the adoption of these standards. We see two broad themes in this group of articles. First, teacher educators must look carefully at the new standards, with a critical eye on changes that must be made, not simply in professional development opportunities they provide to teachers but in course- and field-oriented work within their own teacher preparation programs. Second, to enact effective instructional changes, teachers will also need support from other stakeholders, most notably parents and school leaders. The differences between the newer standards and their predecessors are not simply the addition or deletion of topics. These new standards reflect a trend of several decades and highlight a push for deeper student understanding of key concepts and of the foundations of disciplinary knowledge. For example, K-12 students are expected to be able to defend statements they make, using reasons that are appropriate for the subject area and grade level; science students are asked to make claims based on evidence they have collected; mathematics students must explain how they arrived at the solution to a problem; and students discussing a short story should be able to say what they think a passage of dialogue reveals about a character's personality and how the structure and nuance of the text supports their conjecture. Helping teachers prepare for new content standards should not be simply about changing the topics in the disciplinary courses teachers take to align with the list of topics in a state curriculum. Teachers also need to learn how to organize their classroom instruction so that students are called on to explain their reasoning, to challenge the arguments made by their peers, and even to press the teacher for a stronger rationale. Fortunately, recent research on teaching and learning provides approaches that can be incorporated into teacher preparation programs to prepare educators to meet these expectations. Because of the emphasis on justification and evidence in the new standards, it is increasingly important for teachers to learn about methods of inquiry in the subjects they teach. Scholars have long been pressing teacher educators to be sure that teachers' knowledge of subject matter includes knowledge of the ways claims are justified as well as a deep understanding of the facts, concepts, and theories. For example, in Shulman's (1986) classic essay that launched work on pedagogical content knowledge, he said, "teachers must not only be capable of defining for students the accepted truths of a domain. They must also be able to explain why a particular proposition is deemed warranted ..." (p. 9). Although teacher educators often build material on methods of inquiry into their programs, studies such as the one included here on history teachers often show that much work still needs to be done. …

Earlier this year, teachers in the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) district in Michigan engaged in rolling teacher sick-outs to protest their deplorable working conditions. On January 11, 2016, more than 60 schools were closed due to teachers not showing up for work. On January 20, a sick-out forced the district to close 88 of its 97 schools due to more than 865 teachers being absent from classrooms (Lewis, 2016). For years, DPS teachers have voiced their concerns about poor pay, lack of supplies, overcrowding in classrooms, and unsafe building conditions. These are not new phenomena; Jonathan Kozol (2005) has been documenting such "shame of the nation," particularly with respect to traditionally marginalized populations (e.g., schools with majority students of color, schools with students in poverty) for decades. Former Detroit teachers' union president Steve Conn stated, "the young people in this city deserve the same quality education provided in predominantly white suburbs" (Lewis, 2016). According to Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/ us/2016/01/25/qa-look-at-detroit-public-schools-teacher-sick-outs.html), Conn reported that incoming teachers make approximately US$32,000 annually, a salary lower than teachers in neighboring communities. Furthermore, there have been no pay raises in DPS for the past 4 years, and DPS teachers now pay approximately 25% of their health care costs, compared with no required contribution only 5 years ago. Equally concerning are the instructional and learning environments for teachers and students. Many DPS teachers report working in rooms without heat in the winter or air-conditioning in warmer weather, and recent city inspections have found schools with water-damaged ceilings, mold, standing water inside buildings, and rodent infestations. The sick-outs are a response to not only dehumanizing working conditions for teachers but also their resistance to state control of the school district and the governor's restructuring plan. We are calling attention to the teacher sick-outs in Detroit and the factors leading up to them in these pages, because they represent one of the numerous examples throughout the country of educators' resistance to the continued de-professionalization of teachers and teaching and the institutional and structural forms of dehumanization that teachers experience regularly. Furthermore, we believe teachers' professional self-concept is negatively impacted by inequitable working conditions in many high-need schools and communities that are not present in schools that are resource-rich. If teacher professional self-concept indeed plays a significant role in instructional quality and can contribute to student learning success (as illustrated by Paulick, GroBschedl, Harms, & Moller, 2016), what is being done--or should be done--at the building level and within the profession more generally to ensure that educators work in supportive educational spaces and have opportunities to enhance their pedagogy and practice in ways that empower and effectively prepare them to educate youth of various cultural backgrounds? Several of the papers in this issue of Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) raise central questions related to (a) a kind of teacher professional development which fosters social justice-focused critical inquiry (see Brown, 2016), (b) mentoring teachers through instructional dialogue (see Kim, 2016), and (c) cultivating teachers' positive academic self-concept and professional knowledge (see Paulick et al., 2016). We believe that these papers, and others like them, challenge teacher educators and the larger field to consider strategies for professionalizing teachers and teaching as the profession faces a dual challenge. The challenge is that of meeting the needs of more diverse learners and doing so in increasingly complicated contexts that are often farther removed from the lived experiences of many, perhaps most, P-12 educators. We believe that for teachers to do their best work in the classroom on behalf of all children, their physical and sociopolitical work environments must be humanizing spaces that advance professionalization rather than detract from it. …

We are excited to assume leadership of the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE). Our team at Michigan State University (MSU) is committed to carrying on the outstanding stewardship of the previous editors at Pennsylvania State University (PSU). We recognize that American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)--and by extension, JTE--represents a diverse group of professionals invested in the preparation and continued support of educators; these are the same professionals who can have a significant voice in discussions and decision making around issues of teacher preparation, teacher quality, and continued professional support for educators. In recent years, for example, the journal has served as a scholarly platform for the dissemination of rigorous investigations of issues related to teacher education program design and evaluation, and the preparation of teachers who can effectively address the needs of marginalized youth, their families, and communities. Our current vision for the journal's direction over the next 3 years focuses on four areas that we believe will further solidify JTE's position as the leading voice on teacher education and teacher preparation in the 21st century. These areas include the journal's reach, diversity of contributors and perspectives, the relevance of the scholarship represented in the journal, and nurturing of junior scholars in the area of scholarly work and publication. Below we briefly describe our intentions and the work that we have begun in each of these areas. Reach The MSU Editorial Team plans to situate JTE as an even more significant voice in teacher education, on both the national and international stages. To this end, we actively seek a geographically broader pool of authors in relevant fields to submit papers that are research based or are conceptual/theoretical in their orientation. One planned mechanism for doing so is to reach out via JTE Special Issues, "Chats With JTE Editors" conference sessions, communication with scholars and practitioners who are actively contributing in identified fields, and through mechanisms and resources that SAGE and AACTE already have in place. The MSU College of Education has created a JTE Blog which will serve as an additional venue for recruiting national and international scholars in fields that can inform teacher education. We are also in the process of making abstracts of all published articles available online in widely spoken languages, a reflection of our commitment to reach more scholars and practitioners worldwide. Diversity It is our conviction that addressing issues of diversity calls for consideration of a variety of genres and scholarly perspectives. To this end, our intent is to use several strategies. First, we will bring to JTE a wide array of articles--in terms of focus, context, and methodology--that examine the issues and challenges associated with teacher education nationally and globally. Second, we have identified a diverse group of scholars for the editorial review board who bring varied and overlapping areas of expertise. The new composition of the editorial review board allows for multiplicity of methodological approaches, and professional, domestic, and international experiences for examining issues in teacher education and development. Third, we will target challenges related to equity and access with respect to learning to teach within specific subject matter disciplines. Increased attention to these issues will inform the research community, practitioners, and policy makers. Examples include how well future teachers are prepared to teach science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects to children whose native language is not English or who come from significant poverty; what countries might learn from the specific strategies of other nations with respect to improving teacher preparation for student success; and the impact of new learning standards on teacher preparation and professional development. …