Background: Collective learning in teacher education has primarily focused on learning from problematic practices/approaches, depriving preservice teachers of learning opportunities embedded in professional successes. Purpose: The goal of the present study was to explore the value of systematic learning from success as a complementary reflective…

Background: Over the past decade, most of the quantitative studies on teacher preparation have focused on comparisons between alternative and traditional routes. There has been relatively little quantitative research on specific features of teacher education that might cause certain pathways into teaching to be more effective than others. The vast…

Background/Context: This piece draws on literature in justice-oriented teacher education, feminist pedagogy, and postmodern notions of bodies and place to make sense of data generated from a three-year study of an undergraduate teacher education course. A feminist lens was used to engage a body- and place-focused pedagogy that aimed to engage…

Background/Context: For more than a decade, large alternative teacher certification programs (ATCP) such as the New York City Teaching Fellows (NYCTF) have provided qualified applicants with fast-track or "early entry" routes to paid teaching. While early-entry ATCPs enjoy powerful support in the public and private sectors, critics…

Background/Context: Learning to meet students' needs challenges new teachers often focused on procedures, management, materials, and curriculum. To avoid this development pattern, student teachers (STs) need opportunities to concentrate especially on needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. Teacher inquiry (TI) holds promise…

Background/Context: The article examines how international field experiences promote cross-cultural awareness in U.S. American preservice teachers through experiential learning. The findings presented here are based on a 6-year study of a short-term study abroad program in Honduras that included an international field experience component and took…

Background/Context: This paper theorizes and describes a program-wide pedagogical design for teacher preparation that addresses central problems related to supporting beginning teacher candidates in designing engaging classroom interactions in and across diverse contexts. Focus of Study: In particular, we aimed to support the development of…

Background: Much of the research related to Teach For America (TFA) is related to the concerns surrounding whether such teachers should assume primary teaching responsibility and whether alternatively certified teachers are effective in the classroom. This research study takes a different approach and moves the conversation into a new domain of…

Background/Context: This study examines education in the context of neoliberalism and how current educational policies such as high-stakes testing and mandated curriculum create schooling environments hostile to social justice education. Relying on education for liberation literature, teacher education for social justice scholarship, and work on…

Background/Context: More than a century before modern controversies over scripted instruction, the Froebelian kindergarten--the original kindergarten method designed by Friedrich Froebel--and Maria Montessori's pedagogy were criticized for rigidly prescribing how teachers taught and children learned. Today, scripted methods such as Direct…

Background/Context: Educating pre-service teachers to develop multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills for teaching diverse students is a major responsibility of teacher education program coordinators and teacher educators. Numerous studies have discussed and explored the characteristics of teacher preparation that improve pre-service…

Background/Context: Teacher preparation programs are built on knowledge, practices, habits of mind, and professional standards that teacher educators (TEs) intend teachers to possess. Some foundations are explicitly manifest in standards, mission statements, and policies, whereas others are embedded in coursework, field experiences, and social…

Background: Research shows that students who are overrepresented when it comes to failure are underrepresented when it comes to being taught by highly qualified teachers who are well prepared to teach students from diverse backgrounds. Teacher education, as one aspect of the educational system, plays a critical role in preparing teachers with the…

Background/Context: Several studies have argued that the academic struggles of Latino/a students are connected, at least in part, to the dearth of Latino/a teachers and other school personnel who may be better equipped to meet the needs of this group. Others have suggested that there are significant academic benefits to having a more diverse…

Background/Context: Discussion is central to mathematics teaching and learning, as well as to mathematics as an academic discipline. Studies have shown that facilitating discussions is complex work that is not easily done or learned. To make such complex aspects of the work of teaching learnable by beginners, recent research has focused on…