Building a Conceptual Framework for Culturally Inclusive Collaboration for Urban Practitioners

Special education teacher preparation is one of the most critical areas of teacher preparation in higher education. The field is even more complicated depending on the environment in which it takes shape given urban, high-needs, suburban, and rural school communities. Equally important in today's teacher preparation paradigm is supplying pre-service teachers with the pedagogical skills necessary to meet the needs of their 21st century learners, especially those students from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds and who attend urban schools. This chapter attempts to construct a practitioner friendly framework to examine inextricable linkages between teacher preparation and the role higher education institutions play in providing pre-service special education teachers the requisite skills necessary to become successful urban educators/practitioners. Teacher preparation programs can better support new teacher retention through CRT and family diversity training.

How Educational Leaders Can Initiate Mentoring Relationships to Support Their Newest Faculty Members

The number of teachers who enter and exit the field of education within their first five years in the profession is said to be near 40-50 percent (Ingersoll, 2012). First-year public school teacher attrition rates have increased from 21.4% in 1988 to 28.5% in 2004 (Ingersoll & Merrill, 2010). At a time when the number of new teachers exiting the profession within the first five years is 40-50 percent (Ingersoll, 2012), something must be done to support new teachers so they can remain and become successful in their field. Research suggests that students who receive instruction from high quality teachers are more likely to show academic gains. How can students get what they need if teacher turnover is so alarmingly high? Teachers need ongoing and job-embedded support to remain in this challenging profession. By combining the two powerful approaches of mentoring and coaching, educational leaders can foster reciprocal relationships between novice and seasoned teachers while increasing the likelihood that the rates of teacher retention could improve dramatically. Schools with mentoring programs in place reported greater new teacher retention rates as compared to those schools without mentoring programs in place (Di Carlo, 2015).

Building a Conceptual Framework for Culturally Inclusive Collaboration for Urban Practitioners

Special education teacher preparation is one of the most critical areas of teacher preparation in higher education. The field is even more complicated depending on the environment in which it takes shape given urban, high-needs, suburban, and rural school communities. Equally important in today's teacher preparation paradigm is supplying pre-service teachers with the pedagogical skills necessary to meet the needs of their 21st century learners, especially those students from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds and who attend urban schools. This chapter attempts to construct a practitioner friendly framework to examine inextricable linkages between teacher preparation and the role higher education institutions play in providing pre-service special education teachers the requisite skills necessary to become successful urban educators/practitioners. Teacher preparation programs can better support new teacher retention through CRT and family diversity training.

Enhancing a Rural School-University Teacher Education Partnership through an E-Mentoring Program for Beginning Teachers

This case study describes an innovative and effective e-mentoring program for beginning teachers that has enhanced Western Carolina University’s (WCU) school-university teacher education partnership. With national data indicating that nearly one-half of beginning teachers leave the classroom within five years, schools and universities are faced with the challenges of providing the support needed to keep new teachers in the classroom and developing them into effective professionals. Like those nationally, the schools in the university’s rural service region were facing new teacher retention issues. The authors of this chapter and their school partners believed that technology-mediated mentoring had the potential to extend the benefits of face-to-face mentoring by providing professional development that engaged new teachers in an external community of learners, was connected to and driven by teachers’ work, and was sustained, intensive, and respectful of teachers’ demanding schedules. The School University Teacher Education Partnership (SUTEP) then developed and implemented this technology-based project.