Because the English learners' (ELs) population is growing in the United States, teacher candidates should be provided with experiences that prepare them to effectively teach and empower linguistically/culturally diverse students. Teacher candidates should be provided with opportunities to learn skills that engage ELs in mathematics. In this…

In this article, first the authors describe the aims of and a definition of social studies education and classroom assessment. Second, the authors provide an overview of issues related to classroom assessment followed by trends in social studies classrooms and assessment. Then the authors address essential systems and best practices related to…

What data should teachers use, and how should they use these data to improve their teaching? In this review, a diverse set of literature that addresses this question is categorized according to three distinct approaches: the diagnostic approach, the methods approach, and the teacher approach. Within the diagnostic approach, teachers collect data…

The current accountability conversation in teacher education is the direct result of the policy paradigms that shape our understandings of schooling and reform. The authors present cases from Georgia and Missouri illustrating how these policy paradigms have resulted in outcomes-based accountability initiatives for teacher education. Specifically,…

This article argues that leadership knowledge should be included in teacher education curricula. The authors discuss the political realities that affect teachers and how these realities are best met with teacher leadership knowledge. Failure to include ideas of educational leadership in teacher education denies teachers an understanding of the…

Educational researchers have increasingly paid attention to how practitioners can access and utilize research knowledge, but the field still has been unable to create a research tradition and corresponding diffusion model that directly and uniformly influences teachers' practice. One reason for this is the contested status of teaching as a…

This three-part article addresses the role of identity as transmitted by my mother and the influences on my life first as a teacher and then as researcher. This ethnography is based on interviews of my mother about her life as a political prisoner in Cuba and her influences on my identity. This article is divided into three acts that address…

Because of the present, increasing economic circumstances, poverty is fast becoming a crisis, and teacher preparation programs must begin to prepare teachers to explicitly address the needs of poor children. The inclusion of poverty in this discourse is in no way intended to discount the issues of race, ethnicity, and gender. The intention here is…

We administered two instruments designed to assess and predict teacher effectiveness, the TeacherInsight Interview (TI) and the Renaissance Teacher Work Sample (TWS), to student teachers (N = 396) at a large comprehensive institution in the Southeastern United States to investigate whether TWS performance predicts TI scores. We first investigated…

This article explores secondary preservice teachers' attitudes toward the use of teacher self-disclosure as a tool for citizenship education. Based on the notion that teacher self-disclosure may function as citizenship curriculum, this study addressed critical issues of teachers' sharing their knowledge about religions (including their own) and…

The recruitment and retention of public school teachers has been an area of concern for many years. Teacher recruitment has been addressed through the development of alternative pathways to teacher certification. Teacher retention has been addressed primarily through induction programs that provide mentoring and other support resources to…

This study compared the effectiveness of three teacher education programs in terms of their impact on teacher competencies. The programs include a traditional 4-year teacher certification program, an alternative certification-based master of arts in teaching program, and an alternative certification program without the master degree option. The…

This article examines a unique approach and a new tradition to encouraging student teacher reflection over time. The concept is based on a collection of vignettes titled "Teaching Ms. Kerbin", which represent the collective reflections of a group of three student teachers. Seven major points of concern are addressed: (1) the first day, (2) working…

Teacher education is under considerable scrutiny, and as often happens with critique, changes are imminent. Levine's "Educating School Teachers" (2006) recently suggested several important changes for teacher education programs, including redesigning the teacher education curricula based on a model of professional development schools (PDSs). As…

In an effort to promote a critical reflective stance in the beginning teacher, this study developed an instructional model for preservice teachers at the undergraduate level. Its sample consisted of students in two sections of a student teaching seminar course taken during their last semester of undergraduate course work. The work took place at a…