Educational psychology is a curricular requirement for most teacher preparation programs in the world. Knowledge of educational psychology is assessed on examinations for teacher licensure in most jurisdictions, and understanding of psychology is assumed to be indispensible for effective teaching at all levels. Traditional university-based…

Due to the increasing teacher attrition rate, it is crucial that policy initiatives are put into place to retain high quality teachers. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) cohort is one policy initiative that can attempt to effectively increase teacher retention through a multi-tier university-school partnership. The…

Teacher certification exams were put on hold as New York City became the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis in March of 2020. State officials closed testing centers and school buildings, and teacher candidates began to panic as administrators at their student teaching placements worked feverishly to adjust. This changed teacher candidates' ability…

America's public schools are in a crisis. Despite investing more money in K-12 education than most other countries (nearly $15,000 per student annually), educational performance levels are stagnant. One source of the problem is a rigid and deficient process for selecting and employing teachers. Teacher certification laws, intended to ensure good…

All teachers in Australia must now achieve and maintain certification through mandatory accreditation processes that include specified professional learning hours. While key policies that outline teacher professional learning in Australia and New South Wales make no specific reference to a role for universities, this discussion paper proposes that…

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a global shift to remote and virtual learning in PK-12 and postsecondary settings. This article details the use of technology within one teacher preparation program at a large public university to form a "virtually-together" modality of program delivery for course content and clinical internship…

A diverse stakeholder partnership led to the development of a Pre-Elementary Education program through its collaboration among faculty, academic advisement, and administration across higher education institutions. Housed at an institution that serves a minority population, this collaboration led to offering an Associate of Arts degree that is…

This article chronicles a provincial collaboration between ten Bachelor of Education degree-granting universities in Alberta, Canada. This collaboration focused on the newly implemented Teaching Quality Standard (2018) in Alberta and its impact on preservice teacher practicums. Data were collected through curriculum mapping and interviews at each…

In a recent landscape of policies in 50 states and the District of Columbia, I found that states vary significantly in how they authorize, review, and approve teacher preparation providers and programs. What these policies have in common is a requirement that all programs meet the same standards. But in practice, they do not. Too often,…

"Mister, what time is it?" is an account of the evolution of a traditional teacher education program into an alternative certification program in the Arizona borderlands, outlining the theoretical frameworks that shaped the program redesign, program design elements, and challenges encountered along the way. We found many of the perennial…

Across the nation, there is a shortage of teachers who reflect the demographics of students. Even though the teaching workforce has diversified nationally in recent decades, teachers from diverse backgrounds, when attracted, depart schools at a significantly higher rate than white teachers (Ingersoll, Merrill, Stuckey & Collins, 2018). Over…

There is a documented shortage of special education teachers nationwide, and many rural school districts report hiring uncertified or temporary teachers to fill the open positions. To meet the needs of rural schools in our state, Colorado Christian University developed an asynchronous online alternative special education teacher certification…

Teachers of color are generally recruited in five documented ways: (1) Financial incentives; (2) State government mandates; (3) State-supported recruitment programs; (4) District recruitment centers; and (5) Alternative certification routes. This document highlights what the research says is the most effective.

In response to local districts' needs for certified teachers with community roots who understand local schools and students, the authors developed an innovative alternative route for paraprofessionals based on a traditional bachelor's program. Their goals were to provide a rigorous, research-based program that allows paraprofessionals to get a…

This chapter describes how faculty from the "teach"HOUSTON program and physics department collaborated to increase the number of highly qualified physics teachers. Prior to this collaboration, the University had not produced even one physics teacher graduate in the previous decade. A physics teacher education pathway has been established…