Clinical Experiences In Teacher Preparation

Responding to multiple scholarly, policy, and practical calls for a greater focus on clinical teacher preparation, this volume operates on the assumption that few experiences in future teachers’ training are more important than their field experiences. This text introduces the model of critical, project-based (CPB) clinical experiences, which provides teacher candidates with exemplary on-the-ground training, honors veteran teachers as school-based teacher educators, and offers university-based teacher educators new roles that ensure their practices and scholarship are explicitly relevant to all of schools’ constituents. Answering the call for relevant, high quality, clinically-based teacher education, this volume will offer scholarly and narrative examinations of examples of CPB clinical experiences that will be of interest to all involved in and impacted by educator preparation programs.

National and international teacher education organizations and scholars have called for an increased emphasis on clinical practice in educator preparation programs. These recommendations include specific efforts to increase the duration, diversity, and quality of experiences that teacher candidates engage in during their time in P-12 schools while earning their teaching license. This book includes a robust set of chapters that include conceptual, theoretical, and empirical chapters related to innovative approaches in clinical practice in educator preparation. Authors include teacher educators from around the United States and Canada from a variety of types of higher education institutions. The book provides readers with examples, evidence, and ideas to thoughtfully consider their future direction in examining, planning, and implementing clinical practice experiences for teacher candidates.

This text introduces the model of critical, project-based (CPB) clinical experiences, which provides teacher candidates with exemplary on-the-ground training and offers university-based teacher educators new roles that ensure their practices and scholarship are explicitly relevant to all of schools' constituents.

Teaching as a Clinical Practice Profession is a collection of research-based works that represent current clinical-based teacher preparation. Excellent teaching is a clinical skill and exemplary teacher education provides for clinical education in a clinical setting. Strong clinical preparation of teachers is a key factor in students’ success.

A significant trend in teacher education is that of providing more clinical experiences for prospective teachers than was formerly the case, and offering them earlier in teacher preparation programs. This will help teacher educators acquire an understanding of the dimensions of clinical experiences and develop the ability to implement them in their unique situations. To facilitate this objective, the material included in this book combines significant research findings with current thinking regarding effective practice. This combination provides a base from which participants in clinical experiences can approach this important effort with competence and confidence.

In this text Etta Hollins presents a powerful process for developing a teaching perspective that embraces the centrality of culture in school learning. The six-part process covers objectifying culture, personalizing culture, inquiring about students' cultures and communities, applying knowledge about culture to teaching, formulating theory or a conceptual framework linking culture and school learning, and transforming professional practice to better meet the needs of students from different cultural and experiential backgrounds. All aspects of the process are interrelated and interdependent. Two basic procedures are employed in this process: constructing an operational definition of culture that reveals its deep meaning in cognition and learning, and applying the reflective-interpretive-inquiry (RIQ) approach to making linkages between students' cultural and experiential backgrounds and classroom instruction. Discussion within chapters is not intended to provide complete and final answers to the questions posed, but rather to generate discussion, critical thinking, and further investigation. Pedagogical Features Focus Questions at the beginning of each chapter assist the reader in identifying complex issues to be examined. Chapter Summaries provide a quick review of the main topics presented. Suggested Learning Experiences have been selected for their value in expanding preservice teachers' understanding of specific questions and issues raised in the chapter. Critical Readings lists extend the text to treat important issues in greater depth. New in the Second Edition New emphasis is placed on the power of social ideology in framing teachers’ thinking and school practices. The relationship of core values and other important social values common in the United States to school practices is explicitly discussed. Discussion of racism includes an explanation of the relationship between institutionalized racism and personal beliefs and actions. Approaches to understanding and evaluating curriculum have been expanded to include different genres and dimensions of multicultural education. A framework for understanding cultural diversity in the classroom is presented. New emphasis is placed on participating in a community of practice. This book is primarily designed for preservice teachers in courses on multicultural education, social foundations of education, principles of education, and introduction to teaching. Inservice teachers and graduate students will find it equally useful.

Clinical experiences, supported by well-prepared mentor teachers and university-based teacher educators, are essential for developing successful teacher candidates. While the design and structure of these significant learning opportunities often vary among preparation programs, a common feature is teacher candidates work in partnered educational settings engaged in teaching that is closely aligned with coursework and in collaboration with individuals tasked with supporting their growth, development, and entry into the profession. The primary purpose of this text is to provide readers a varied set of examples from teacher preparation programs that have established effective systems, practices, and/or pedagogies to develop and support mentor teachers and university-based educators in becoming effective clinical coaches. The text endeavors to shine a bright light on those programmatic efforts shaping teacher preparation in impactful, meaningful, and sustainable ways. This text will be of primary interest to all those working in organizations, institutes of higher education, alternative licensure programs, and schools and districts involved with the preparation of teacher candidates.

Teacher education is an evolving field with multiple pathways towards teacher certification. Due to an increasing emphasis on the benefits of field-based learning, teachers can now take alternative certification pathways to become teachers. The Handbook of Research on Field-Based Teacher Education is a pivotal reference source that combines field-based components with traditional programs, creating clinical experiences and “on-the-job” learning opportunities to further enrich teacher education. While highlighting topics such as certification design, preparation programs, and residency models, this publication explores theories of teaching and learning through collaborative efforts in pre-Kindergarten through grade 12 settings. This book is ideally designed for teacher education practitioners and researchers invested in the policies and practices of educational design.