Teacher preparation programs face great challenges in ensuring their graduates are prepared for the demands of today's classrooms. The authors explore how teacher accountability has evolved based upon federal legislation leading to adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Recognizing that future teachers will be held accountable…

This paper describes a community-based after-school tutoring project, where families are participants together with their children. There are 50 family members involved in the project, several have multiple children enrolled, and four families were selected for an in-depth case study. The goals of this mixed method study were to determine why…

This project description examines how a teacher education program integrated new instructional technology through the creation of a Technology Facilitator position in the department. The project proceeded through a three-tiered system of learning "literacy" to establish a knowledge base amongst faculty members, "augmenting"…

This paper proposes a framework for the development of culturally responsive practices in beginning teachers to meet the needs of diverse students in multicultural classrooms. The framework describes the trajectory beginning teachers undergo toward becoming culturally responsive and discusses how teacher educators in liberal arts colleges can…

Some states have used new teacher performance assessments in an attempt to improve teacher quality for more than two decades. New teacher performance assessments include performance expectations, scoring rubrics, and writing prompts, which are organized into subject-specific handbooks. Teacher candidates completing performance assessments assemble…

Researchers and teacher educators have given increased attention to co-teaching during the student teaching experience. Co-teaching facilitates an apprenticeship arrangement that encourages modeling of classroom practice for the candidate and a chance to implement directly what is being learned by the apprentice. The co-teaching model can be…

Informed by the narrative inquiry approach (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990), this qualitative study examined preservice teachers' narratives to investigate what they think, know, and believe in teaching English learners. Beyond just telling stories, narrative structures and meanings were examined with the goal of gaining insight of the preservice…

Defining and assessing dispositions continues to be a conundrum for many teacher education programs, particularly when significant dispositional concerns arise that warrant intervention. This study focuses on the analysis of dispositions intervention data from one institution to identify the trends and patterns that could further inform the…

Two separate research studies explored two types of experiential learning, situated learning and service learning, used in a liberal arts university setting to further understand their importance in the learning process. From both the service learning and situated learning research, two main findings emerged, limited student reflection and…

Although many researchers have focused their efforts on studying first-year teachers, little research has been conducted about experienced new teachers, educators who have teaching experience but are new to a school or school system. This qualitative study of the experiences of three experienced new teachers reveals that many experienced new…

This study is part of a larger study that uses mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative methods) to investigate preservice teachers' knowledge and understanding of multiculturalism and to prepare preservice teachers to work in diverse classrooms. The results indicate two findings: 1) that preservice teachers come from homogeneous backgrounds;…

Little is known about the kind of learning that occurs when teachers' professional development is situated at the intersection between university coursework, school practices and the lived realities of local communities. This study explores five years of data from a graduate seminar for inservice teachers, which examines how schools are situated…

Federal educational technology grant coordinators from seven small liberal arts colleges were interviewed to determine the ways in which technology had been infused in teacher education programs over the life of the grant. Substantive integration of technology had occurred in each of the schools. Traditional change models were unable to explain…

There is a tremendous gap in the research of the moral and ethical dimensions of teacher dispositions. Teacher dispositions need to be reviewed, re-evaluated and constructed with a plan in mind to accommodate what we, as educators, now know about the legitimate and unique differences in learning at every age. The purpose of this research was to…

This research project examined how student and practicing teachers interacted and learned reading methodologies during an intensive literacy institute. When developing this learning opportunity, careful consideration was given to best practices and calls for reform in teacher education. The curriculum focused on fostering extensive knowledge…