In this study we asked beginning elementary teachers about their needs as first-year teachers and the adequacy of their preservice program in helping to meet them. The new teachers varied in satisfaction with their preparation but showed considerable consensus on their needs. They felt the study of both theory and practice should be conducted in…

This study reports on the impact of mentor teachers using an explicit pedagogy with their student teachers. Seven mentors participated in workshops before the school year started and received ongoing support throughout the year about how to explicitly teach student teachers the strategies and skills needed to be an effective teacher. Observations…

This article examines the process of learning to teach an educational foundations course and explores the complexities of designing and teaching an educational foundations course based on the current educational foundations scholarship. The author details his graduate school experiences related to the pedagogy of educational foundations, connects…

This essay attempts to shed light on key influences on the process of becoming a social foundations educator, focusing on the problem of how to conceptualize the work and aims of a social foundations practice. A suggested solution to this problem lies in the concept of "theorizing practice." The essay briefly elaborates this concept, and its…

Although scholarship has described the challenges inherent in becoming a teacher, less attention has been paid to the process of becoming a teacher educator. Within this paper, I describe the intellectual and pedagogical struggles I have experienced as a graduate student and novice teacher educator committed to the goals and aims of multicultural…

Educational foundations courses that incorporate the study of history make implicit and explicit claims about what the study of the past can achieve for prospective teachers. This article shows how a seminar investigation of one educational foundations course spurred rich debate and generated new conceptual ideas about how to better communicate…

This sixth and last paper in the series describes four elements believed to be crucial to a high quality pedagogy for educational foundations. These four elements are derived from a close reading of the previous papers. The work of Osguthorpe, Sanger, Haniford, and Mucher, four of the authors in this series, is cited as both a source for these…

This article describes a case study of an educational organization, the Big Picture Company, trying to implement a highly unusual school design. It offers a close look at its professional development strategies and how its comprehensive program helps create a culture where teachers can, and do, learn. I detail five professional development…

Grounded in culturally relevant pedagogy, this case study explored the practices of a general education classroom teacher teaching middle grade English language learners (ELLs). The purpose of this study was to examine the teacher's beliefs about her role in teaching ELLs, and the relationship between her teaching approaches and the students'…

This article serves as an overview to a series of articles on the teaching of educational foundations in programs preparing teachers for elementary and secondary schools. The series consists of six articles, four of them written by collegiate faculty members who at one time apprenticed with this writer, plus this article and a brief concluding…

In a policy climate driven by tests and external mandates, theories of school reform that place teachers, their knowledge, and their relationships at the heart of school improvement have garnered attention as promising alternatives. Yet little exists in print about how such theories actually work or what these approaches look like in practice.…

This article describes a number of internal organizational initiatives within an urban teacher education program designed to foster inclusive, responsive practices by newly licensed general and special education teacher candidates. After implementing a merged preparation program for both special and general educators, we captured faculty and…

In Eleanor Duckworth's class "T-440: Teaching and Learning" at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, students sometimes wonder how Duckworth's model of teaching and learning works in elementary classroom settings. In this article the author, a graduate of "T-440" and a 6th grade teacher at the Smith College Laboratory School, chronicles her…

This article describes a curriculum developed by the author and the children in her public school kindergarten class. Teaching practices that foster children's intellectual--and overall human--development are documented. The goals and purposes of schooling are discussed as well as issues pertaining to the role of the teacher, structures that…

Four years ago, the author assumed the job of Director of Education for a school serving elementary children who had been traumatized by homelessness and associated problems, such as family, domestic, or community violence. The paper relates the struggle of her staff to create a healing school out of a chaotic program that lacked both an effective…