scholarly journals Lessons from an online teacher preparation Program: flexing work experience to meet student needs and regulators’ requirements in the United States

Author(s):  
Richard Barnes ◽  
Robert Hall ◽  
Verna Lowe ◽  
Carrie Pottinger ◽  
Aaron Popham
Author(s):  
David S. Allen ◽  
A. Jill Wood ◽  
Erica Sponberg ◽  
Täna M. Arnold

This chapter focuses on the praxis behind the development of digitally mediated supervision and distance-based field experiences. The theoretical framework combines past principles of supervision with present technological models. The practical application lies in both a hybrid digitally mediated program at the undergraduate level and a fully functional model at the graduate level. The concerns addressed represent those facing higher education institutions across the United States, and the solutions presented are those initiated at a Mid-Western land-grant institution. The authors examine the hardware, firmware, and cloud technology used to deliver the program, and the reflective feedback model developed for online teacher preparation. Four types of feedback are defined: (1) self-reflection, (2) 10-minute walk-though, (3) focused feedback, and (4) formal evaluation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 182
Author(s):  
Bobbette M Morgan ◽  
Alma D. Rodriquez ◽  
Irma Jones ◽  
James Telese ◽  
Sandra Musanti

This study contributes to the literature on first year teachers by identifying complexities and struggles of becoming a teacher and the implications of district-university partnerships to strengthen our educator preparation program. The importance of partnerships with stakeholders, memorandum of agreements to share data, observations of first year teachers by university faculty, employer surveys, and the first year teacher’s perspectives about how well our university prepared them, as well as how they compare with other first year teachers nationally is addressed. Multiple sources of data were used to provide information about completers, individuals that graduated from the educator preparation program. These include state reports, national trends, and review of survey results next to universities across the United States involved in teacher preparation. Graduates of our teacher preparation program have a 93% retention rate after five years of teaching. The national average is 50% after five years. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 122 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Margaret Smith Crocco

The author responds to several themes that emerge across the articles in the special issue, considering them in light of contexts of schooling, teacher education, and the contemporary historical moment in the United States. The articles raise salient concerns about what the reform movements of the last twenty or so years have meant for scholars, practitioners, and students who are involved in schooling and teacher preparation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-71
Author(s):  
Glenda L. Black

Action research has the potential to reconstruct schools into professional learning communities that are able to identify educational issues and develop appropriate solutions for 21st century learning. Increasingly, teacher education programs are providing action research experiences to encourage analytical thinking and problem-solving skills (Darling-Hammond, 2009, 2012). The purpose of this study was to critically examine the experiences of the teacher educator and teacher candidates involved in the implementation of an action research component over four years in a revised consecutive initial teacher preparation program. A case study design using action research methodology was used in the research, which provided the tools to explore a complex phenomenon within its context: the implementation of an action research assignment in a core course in a teacher preparation program. The perceptions of the faculty teaching the course and the teacher candidates (n=544) in each of the four years provided insight into challenges, benefits, and lessons learned.  The discussion centers on the implementation of action research in a compulsory course in a teacher education program; identifying opportunities and limitations settled into four main categories: structural incongruence, reflection, growth, and recommendations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-87
Author(s):  
Susan Wiksten

This article reports on empirical research findings from a case study of teacher education in Finland and the United States. A sociological perspective was deployed for investigating how the concept of sustainability was addressed in two teacher education programs. One of the programs was located in Finland and the other in the US. The study was carried out in 2015 and 2016. Seventeen semi-structured, open-ended, audio-recorded interviews form the core of the research materials. A thematic analysis of interviews was conducted for identifying articulations related to sustainability in subject-matter specialized teacher preparation. Findings from this study contribute to research on teacher preparation. Notably, by articulating how context-specific culture and social norms contribute to local models of teacher education. Findings from this study indicate that teacher training practices in Finland have encouraged students to articulate sustainability in relation to critical thinking, whereas in the US, sustainability has been articulated in relation to social justice. The key point supported by the evidence is that sustainability was by teachers and teacher educators conceptualized as being about the popularization of knowledge about ecology and biodiversity. The kind of communication that was by teachers and teacher educators described as effective for popularizing knowledge about scientific phenomena were forms of teaching that expanded on content-specific knowledge by connecting it to ethical and civic frameworks of the societies in which students live.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document