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 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…

Preparation of new teachers to work effectively in inclusion settings has not kept pace with demands created by recent reforms. General-education candidates typically receive limited exposure to inclusion strategies at the preservice level, and often their only meaningful preparation comes in the practicum setting. The purpose of this article was…

Research on learning to teach repeatedly cites the disjuncture in teaching practices promoted across universities and K-12 schools. Much of the literature that is focused on this "two-worlds pitfall" (Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1985) describes the influence of cooperating teachers' more traditional teaching practices on teacher candidates'…

Teacher preparation programs are required by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) to assess the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of teacher candidates. Dispositions and the personal values that support them are defined differently by NCATE and other experts in the fields of education and business. In order to…

Research indicates that partner placements--pairing two preservice teachers with a mentor teacher--provide a supportive and collaborative context for learning to teach. This qualitative study examines three partner placements in a 100-hour urban field practicum to understand how preservice teachers experience and perceive partner placements, and…

This study included four preservice interns at a Midwestern university in the United States who were learning to facilitate interactive discussions in English language arts. The authors investigated how the interns' perceptions of their self-selected audience influenced what they noticed, talked about, and learned as they constructed a video case…

This research is an examination of the interactions between 19 pairs of student teachers and cooperating teachers engaged in guided reading instruction in Grades 1 through 3. As the basis for the study, the authors analyzed interaction patterns through conducting content analysis (Van Sluys, Lewison, & Seely Flint, 2006) and discourse analysis…

Describes the development, implementation, and evaluation of a workshop for mentor teachers that reflects the collaborative effort of a university and public school faculties. The workshop focused on giving feedback to student teachers. Evaluation data suggest that mentor teachers felt the workshop provided helpful information, teaching them how…

Surveys of cooperating and student teachers examined what cooperative teachers were already teaching student teachers about classroom management. Results indicated that cooperating teachers were generally not aware of specific authors or books about classroom management and were not going to teach a specific knowledge base about management to…

Devised an instrument to screen for attitudes toward systematic supervisory behavior, perceptions of factors impacting supervision, and beliefs about preferences for and styles of supervision. Surveys of physical education cooperating teachers only found significant results on one subscale: cooperating teachers who coached, taught high school, or…

Surveyed third-grade Massachusetts English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers regarding models of ESL instruction used, noting types of cooperating teachers available to mentor preservice teachers. Independent ESL classrooms tended to be combined with or replaced by pull-out or push-in services. ESL teachers were experienced and usually…

Examined general and special-education student teachers' and cooperating teachers' perceptions of the importance, and use of, various instructional strategies needed in diverse and inclusive classrooms. Surveys ranked 45 instructional strategies on actual use and from most to least important. Results indicated an overall agreement among groups…

Investigated the supervisory beliefs of elementary and secondary cooperating teachers, noting differences in those who had and had not taken a course in supervision and differences between the beliefs of supervisors and cooperating teachers. Surveys indicated that teachers held a continuum of beliefs regarding supervisory styles. The indirect…

Investigated the production of professional portfolios to facilitate dialogs between student teachers and their cooperating teachers. Surveys and interviews indicated that participants' perceptions of the usefulness of portfolios to achieve this end varied from one phase of the process to the next, and student teachers and mentors differed in…