Teaching writing requires explicit pedagogical training. Often pre-service English teachers are not only unprepared to teach writing, but they are also unprepared to provide effective writing feedback. Effective writing feedback: (1) prepares young writers to make sound and thorough writing choices; (2) positively impacts learning; and (3)…

Contemporary societies, whether in the United States or the Pacific are overwhelmingly visual in character. Yet, schools at all levels continue to privilege written text as demonstrations of learning over any other form of communication. A visual curriculum has the potential to strengthen instruction across disciplines and offers students another…

Effective professional development (PD) can be a powerful tool in school success and teacher satisfaction; however, teachers often report their PD experiences as lackluster or not responsive to their immediate needs (Desimone, 2011; Guskey, 2009; Lutrick & Szabo, 2012). Teachers need professional support in today's educational environment to…

The purpose of this study is to discover the experiences and supports that influenced the development of teaching effectiveness at different career stages of National University alumni who were identified as County Teachers of the Year in California. National University is the second largest private, nonprofit institution of higher learning in…

Beginning in May 2014, all education program graduates in New York State (NYS) must pass new and/or revised certification exams in order to become certified to teach in NYS. Early childhood teacher candidates enrolled in an approved NYS teacher preparation program are required to pass the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST), Content Specialty…

In the classroom and beyond, teachers are viewed as exemplars of ethical behavior, clearly and confidently discerning between right and wrong. Despite the availability of resources for ethics instruction, ethical uncertainty and public scrutiny continue to confuse and distress classroom teachers, novice and veteran alike, about their role in…

What is special about the pedagogical interaction between the mainland Chinese in/pre-service teachers and the author in a Hong Kong classroom? Trained at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a critical curriculum scholar, the author highly endorses and has implemented a student-centered research-based project-learning pedagogy with the…

As public schools strive to provide all students access to and success with the general curriculum, potentially leading them to postsecondary educational opportunities that prepare them for fulfilling and engaging careers, recent federal legislation clearly reflects the need to ensure that all students are supported in achieving rigorous…

Of all the collegiate majors that affect society, none is more critical than teacher education. If teacher education students are uninformed or misinformed about issues central to society, they are likely to be inept in responding to queries and opinions voiced by their future students regarding such issues. The current study investigated one such…

The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) has created the Next Generation of Educator Preparation Accreditation Standards. The new CAEP requirements will influence the admission standards and practices of all educator preparation providers moving to national accreditation. The research described in this article examined…

Public schools in the U.S. face ever increasing accountability measures as a result of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB 2001) and the adoption of the Common Core State Standards in the majority of states (Guskey, 2011). Linking teacher evaluation to student outcomes is yet another example of the pressure educators feel in the current U.S.…

Recent immigration trends at the national and local levels indicate that schools are receiving the largest influx of immigrant students since the beginning of the 20th century. According to the U.S. Department of Education (2014), English language learners (ELLs) accounted for nearly 4.4 million students during the 2011-2012 school year. These…

In an era of standardized exams to support No Child Left Behind, the influence a teacher candidate has on a P-12 classroom can greatly impact the academic achievement of students. The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Educators (NCATE) Blue Ribbon Panel Report (2010) suggested that teacher preparation programs and school districts need…

During the last few decades, U.S. classrooms have experienced dramatic demographic changes. This article is based on the results of a larger self-study in which four teacher educators of color participated in a book club designed to discuss the pedagogical possibilities of Yoko Kawashima Watkins' "So Far from the Bamboo Grove" (1986) and…

In the studied university, a recurring discussion among preservice teachers centers around whether good teachers are born or made. Scott and Dinham (2008) examined this issue and found that many preservice teachers believe that some people are born to be good teachers and that this is a genetic trait. Darling-Hammond (2006), however, argues that…