Preparing Teacher Candidates for Diverse School Environments

This chapter shares an Authentic and Culturally Engaging (ACE) Service-Learning framework as a pedagogical approach in equipping teacher candidates with the knowledge, skills and dispositions to be successful in-service teachers in diverse PK-12 school environments. As PK-12 schools become more racially and culturally diverse, there is a need to better prepare teacher candidates for diverse school environments, especially given that many teachers have asserted that they do not know how to teach diverse students. The chapter highlights components of the ACE framework and suggests practical strategies that teacher educators can use in integrating this framework into their courses. The end of the chapter focuses on teacher educators and how they can engage in a relearning process to unpack their previous knowledge regarding social justice and multicultural education in an effort to prepare their teacher candidates for diverse schools followed by a suggested checklist applicable to any teacher preparation course.

Enhancing Quality Teacher Education Programs in Developing Countries

This chapter examines the need to enhance teacher quality by infusing quality benchmarks in every aspect of teacher education. These areas include: Teacher education curriculum design and planning; Curriculum implementation; Principles of good teaching and learning; Interactive and effective teaching methodologies; Appropriate scheming and lesson preparation; Assessment and evaluation; and Class management and discipline. Additionally, the author explores emerging issues in teacher education and suggestions for future direction. Finally, this chapter is intended to advance the debate on ways to maintain and sustain quality benchmarks in teacher education programs.

A Blended Approach to Teacher Education

This chapter describes the effectiveness of a blended approach to teacher education through the use of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) framework. Data was collected from students and faculty involved in the program via online surveys, focus groups, and the use of an editable Google Doc. The study participants provided recommendations for improving the quality of the blended program through the use of digital technologies based on the five NSSE benchmarks. For example, student and faculty interactions outside of the classroom could be enhanced through the use of web-based synchronous conferencing tools (e.g., Skype) to establish ‘virtual' meetings and office hours.

Promoting Culturally Sensitive Strategies to Enhance Physical Education among Immigrant and Refugee Youth

Given the prevalence of overweight and obesity among immigrant and refugee children and youth in America, there is a growing need for physical education, physical activity and sports professionals to incorporate culturally and socially responsive strategies into their programs and activities According to Ike-Chinaka (2013), obesity has been identified as a chronic disease that emerges among immigrant populations after they settled in the United States of America. This chapter will focus on the challenges of newly arrived immigrants and refugee youth, and determinants of participation in physical activity and sports. Additionally, the chapter offers some culturally and socially sensitive tips and strategies that professionals in physical education, physical activity and sports can incorporate into their programs and activities so as to increase the participation among newly arrived immigrants and refugee youth.

Globalization and Teacher Education

This chapter examines the challenges to 21st century content preparation and pedagogy from the perspective of teaching professionals from different African countries: Cameroon, Ghana, South Africa, Lesotho and Zimbabwe. Specifically, the chapter explores the views and experiences of the participants during and after teacher preparation programs. Findings reveal common challenges, specific 21st century skills that are overlooked, and those not yet fully integrated in teacher preparation programs. The chapter offers suggestions for improvement based on the views of participants, research-based literature review, and best practices in teacher preparation programs.

Mentoring and Lived Experiences of Beginning Teachers in a Resident Teacher Program

There has been considerable attention and focus, in the field of education, on development support for beginning teachers. The resident teacher program or a teacher residency is a comprehensive means of providing beginning teachers with support. This initiative is usually organized through the concerted efforts of a college of education and school district. Within this study, attention is given to the potential or real benefits and to the successes and challenges of an existing resident teacher program with six beginning teachers enrolled in an elementary education resident teacher program. The outcome shows that resident teachers' experiences is characterized by double commitment with a lot of responsibilities but double support; ability to bring what's learned in graduate courses into classroom teaching; and confidence to transition into regular classroom teaching after the program.

Mentoring Students through Digital Learning Experiences

The digital world has taken over the traditional ways of communicating. Because of the need to view information and relay the information in a quick yet simple way, communicating through digital technology is the wave of the future. Students are captivated by digital technology and it seems to be an active way to promote learning and or concepts that might have been difficult to relay without the influence of digital technology. Any information used on a computer or disseminated on a computer is known as digital technology. Digital technology can enhance the level of creativity and distribution of information (Digital Literacy, www.icliteracy.info). The purpose of this effort is as follows: 1) give a basic review of the literature on mentoring and digital technology; 2) provide mentoring experiences that relay effective mentoring styles; 3) promote a discussion on the uniqueness of each mentoring experience; and 4) discuss implications and recommendations to enhance learning.

Cultivating 21st Century Skills in Teachers through Project-Based Learning

This chapter describes the implementation of a Project Based Learning (PBL) course in a Bachelor of Education at the University of Namibia, whose aim was to develop student teachers' 21st century skills. The course further offered students a model for applying learner-centered education, which is the recommended pedagogical approach in Namibia. Challenges observed in the course, have been limited opportunities for students to share project products and learning experiences. Also, since students use PBL for learning and not as a pedagogical model, challenges are anticipated in using the approach in their own teaching. Using Communities of Practice, 21st Century Skills framework and Project Based Learning, this chapter proposes a framework for creating learning communities for teachers. Recommending the use of online tools to support mentoring, idea and resource sharing, the framework is envisioned to facilitate the pedagogical application of PBL and teachers' modeling of 21st century skills in practice.

Joint Professional Development of Teacher Candidates and Mentoring Teachers in Using Project-Based Learning for 21st Century Learning Outcomes

One teaching strategy that engages students and teachers in 21st century learning outcomes is project-based learning (PBL). This chapter documents two years of professional development with PBL involving 72 teacher candidates, 19 public schools, and 41 mentoring teachers who jointly created, taught, and evaluated 43 PBL units. An online teacher education course structured the professional development over the last semester for teacher candidates. The semester-long course used the state's professional development materials to structure the design, teaching, and evaluation of the PBL units. The chapter is organized around four main ideas. (1) PBL is an appropriate over-arching teaching approach for classroom teachers to address 21st century learning outcomes. (2) PBL teaching provides teachers a relevant setting for media and technology use. (3) PBL implementation requires ongoing professional development and mentoring. (4) Professional development and PBL teaching can involve both teacher candidates and their mentoring teachers learning from each other.

Perceptions of Teacher Education Candidates to Digital and Learning Technologies

The proliferation of learning technologies and new laws supporting digital content in K-12 education have forced teacher education programs to redefine how candidates are prepared to teach with digital content. In preparing teacher education candidates, technological knowledge is just as important as content and pedagogical knowledge. How do teacher education programs ensure that candidates are adequately prepared to teach with learning technologies and digital content? The answer to this question lies not only in the empirical knowledge of how technology is infused in the teacher education curriculum and used during student teaching, but also in the self-efficacy and the self-assessment of candidates' technological skills. Using Bandura's (1977) self-efficacy theory as a guiding framework, this study seeks to address how prepared teacher candidates are to teach with learning technologies and digital content. Findings from the study show positive efficacy of candidates to digital content and learning technologies.