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…

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…

Recruiting, preparing, and retaining high quality secondary mathematics and science teachers are three of the most critical problems in the nation's urban schools that serve a vast majority of children from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Although the factors contributing to these problems are complex, one area that has caught…

Traditional measures of teachers' competency have been widely criticized for their lack of authenticity and predictive validity. There is little evidence regarding the technical soundness of traditional teacher licensure tests and little research documenting the validity of such tests for identifying competent teachers or effective teaching.…

Previous research suggests that teacher education programs may have little or no impact on teacher candidates' beliefs about teaching and that teachers' beliefs are difficult to change. As new teacher educators employed at a large urban university located in the Southwestern United States, the authors were dismayed to discover that the instruction…