Current reform efforts seek to redesign teacher education in alignment with a practice-based theory, a fundamental reconceptualization of higher education demanding a tighter alignment with K-12 school practices. The Faculty Research Residency Model--a Department of Education Funds for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) grant…

Professional development school partnerships can improve teaching and learning in our schools. To support these partnerships, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) developed standards for professional development schools. In this article, we address the questions, "What NCATE standards work from the point of…

This is a study of teachers' visions. Five participants were followed through their pre-service years in the teacher education program and into their first year of teaching to see if their vision was sustained and whether it appeared in their practice. This paper describes the coding process for visions and discusses changes that occurred in…

This paper presents findings from a study surveying student teachers (N = 128) from two universities who reported a significantly greater influence by university-based supervisors on their teaching when they had taken a class with the supervisor prior to student teaching. The student teachers were more likely to report implementing university…

Given the powerful influence of past school experiences on the ways in which future teachers decide to teach, it is important to help preservice teachers more deliberately and critically explore the implications of those influences. This study grew out of an assignment in which 38 secondary education majors were asked to describe high school…

An abundance of research confirms preservice teachers are unprepared to work with diverse populations. This article describes an education program's efforts to support diversity initiatives and provide information and hands-on training to prepare teacher candidates for future work with the diversity they will encounter. Explanations of programs,…

Previous research studies have indicated that some educators do not advocate Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) because of their misunderstanding of the methodology. This article explores the relationship between college-level second language (L2) educators' perceptions and their implementations of CLT. The results of this study show that the…

Cooperating teachers play a vital role in the professional development of student interns. Although they serve as mentors, most cooperating teachers do not receive comprehensive or coordinated preparation for their role as effective mentors. This article presents findings from a qualitative research study exploring the perceptions of nine…

To better prepare teacher candidates to teach for social justice, teacher educators need to know students' understandings of social justice embedded in their personal histories and past and current learning experiences. Using participatory action research, this study examines how 6 early childhood (grades pre-K-3) teacher candidates understood and…

A midwestern urban school district received a Teacher Quality Enhancement (TQE) grant from the U.S. Office of Education to deliver specialized middle-level urban teacher preparation. Five colleges and universities and the school district participated in the 5-year project. This article describes the first course in the TQE "urban strand." The…

Classroom management is often noted as one of the most influential factors in determining success for first-year teachers and as the most influential factor in students' academic success (Marzano & Marzano, 2003). However, according to Haycock (2006), nearly half of this country's new teachers leave the classroom within their first five years, and…

This paper discusses an instructional approach designed to help preservice teachers understand how assessments can be influenced by personal biases. In order to achieve this objective, we developed an analogy-based activity called "The Dog Show Analogy." After participating in the activity, we have observed that the participating preservice…

This research study addresses the issues and challenges for university supervisors of providing supervisory feedback in the accountability climate of No Child Left Behind. Several findings are detailed in the case below and include the following: (a) Feedback on individual learning needs of students differed between informal written observations…

States, universities, and school districts have responded to teacher shortages by designing programs that transition college graduates into teaching careers. The result is an increase in the number of graduate preservice teachers preparing for teaching careers in colleges of education. The purpose of this study is to explore graduate preservice…

As teacher-education institutions implement portfolios across contexts and for multiple purposes, assessment of their effectiveness specific to shifting programmatic goals often takes place. At the institution where this research is based, an effort is underway to shift the focus of the current teaching portfolio requirement from an exit or…