This study examines and analyzes the impact and support of preservice teachers on 74 featured P-5 students' learning outcomes during units of instruction in three practicum tiers in an early childhood education program. The quantitative results indicate a significant difference in the P-5 students' gains on the pre- and post-assessment…

This study explored the perceptions of preservice teacher candidates who participated in a pilot partnership between a public teacher education preparation program and Junior Achievement (JA). The partnership was grounded in the premise that providing early field experiences to preservice teacher candidates was a necessary requirement of quality…

This is a case study about how teacher education might better prepare rural teacher candidates for rural schools. Parents, teachers, community members, and students associated with a rural school described what is important in the preparation of teachers for today's rural schools. Their goals and wishes for their children's school and…

This study examines the motivating factors that prompted post-baccalaureate students to change careers and to pursue an initial teaching license. Researchers collected survey data from 346 nontraditional teaching candidates who were part of either an initial licensure master's degree program or a statewide nontraditional licensure program.…

Diane Ravitch has emerged as one of the most powerful forces for real education reform. She is a tireless crusader against the baseless claims that drive current educational policy and a clear-eyed visionary of what needs to be done. While at one time she left the educational community and then returned (both of which she addresses in this…

This promising practice explores the use of young adult literature as a supplement to texts in an undergraduate introduction to a special education course. Literature portraying adolescent characters with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were used to build schema of preservice teachers. Participants' knowledge and attitudes about ASD were…

This article explores the place of teacher dispositions in English teacher preparation by contextualizing the issue of dispositions in English teacher preparation. This allows consideration for the importance of developing professional dispositions during English teacher preparation by recognizing that various stakeholders (teacher educators,…

This study addresses the following research question: How does telementoring urban high school students by English teacher candidates develop candidates' cultural competence and impact mentees' cultural identity development? Mentee-mentor exchanges were analyzed to uncover how mentees used writing to develop cultural identity, how…

This article address the falsehoods regarding No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top legislation, the educational reformers' stance that schools are failing, the privatization movement in education, and the issues of technology in the schools. The importance of poverty is emphasized, although policymakers ignore it and advocate school…

The purpose of this study was to use the Stages of Concerns (SoC) framework established by Hall and Loucks as a way to usefully identify types of teachers. Teachers who participated in the study were attending a professional development program called Great Expectations (GE). A modified version of the SoC questionnaire was used, so an exploratory…

The value of research-informed classroom practices is well recognized and thus this qualitative study was designed to explore, from multiple perspectives, the experiences and influences of classroom practices for students with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). The inductive analysis of 11 focus groups and three interviews involving 60…

Recent research on teacher diversity has highlighted the challenges new teachers of color face when they enter diverse school settings. In this study the pedagogy of three sociopolitically conscious teacher educators is investigated to understand how they tailor preparation for teachers of color. Findings revealed that teacher educators'…

This study is an examination of early childhood preservice teachers' kindergarten internship experiences to identify the supportive and challenging conditions for their learning and explore in what ways those conditions are productive or unproductive for them, based on ecological perspective as a theoretical framework. Qualitative data were…

This article describes a case study of an online literacy methods course offered at a small, midwestern university. Formal and informal instruments were used to assess students' backgrounds, interests, and dispositions. Archival course data were analyzed to examine interactions among content, course design, and student characteristics.…

This study examined the use of measures of student learning computed using end-of-year assessments (distal measures) versus measures of student learning associated with a single lesson (proximal measures) as criterion scores for the validity of observations of teachers' pedagogical skills. The validity coefficients computed using distal…