Exemplary Clinical Models Of Teacher Education

Across settings, teacher education programs utilize innovative practices to prepare teacher candidates, yet rarely is this work shared in a way that is accessible to stakeholders. This book presents exemplary models utilized by universities in a variety of settings, with the objective of sharing with readers a sampling of research-based teacher preparation models that are currently in place at accredited universities and colleges across the country, in an effort to help others that are developing or redesigning their programs. Authors of the included chapters focused on the setting in which their college/university is located. Location impacts every aspect of a clinical model of teacher preparation, including the number and proximity of placements that are available for teacher candidates, access to resources, and diversity of experiences. The authors, in describing their clinical model, address how their location impacts their model, sharing information about the resources to which they have access, how they make use of available resources in potentially unique ways, as well as how they overcome a lack of resources to provide a meaningful and diverse experience for their candidates. Readers will be able to use this book to learn more about how similar colleges/universities are embracing their locations and resources to further the learning of their candidates and to implement these ideas within their own programs. All those involved in teacher preparation - state-level policy makers, university and P-12 administrators, and educators who bridge university and school settings to work together to prepare teacher candidates - will benefit from this book. It can serve as a resource for these individuals to help inform them of how universities and colleges across the country are implementing a clinically-based teacher preparation program so that they have a model for creating, implementing, assessing, and maintaining their own program. Additionally, teacher education faculty and staff may utilize it for help with self-studies and accreditation purposes, and as a text to use within courses in principal and/or superintendent preparatory programs.

Across settings, teacher education programs utilize innovative practices to prepare teacher candidates, yet rarely is this work shared in a way that is accessible to stakeholders. This book presents exemplary models utilized by universities in a variety of settings, with the objective of sharing with readers a sampling of research-based teacher preparation models that are currently in place at accredited universities and colleges across the country, in an effort to help others that are developing or redesigning their programs. Authors of the included chapters focused on the setting in which their college/university is located. Location impacts every aspect of a clinical model of teacher preparation, including the number and proximity of placements that are available for teacher candidates, access to resources, and diversity of experiences. The authors, in describing their clinical model, address how their location impacts their model, sharing information about the resources to which they have access, how they make use of available resources in potentially unique ways, as well as how they overcome a lack of resources to provide a meaningful and diverse experience for their candidates. Readers will be able to use this book to learn more about how similar colleges/universities are embracing their locations and resources to further the learning of their candidates and to implement these ideas within their own programs. All those involved in teacher preparation – state-level policy makers, university and P-12 administrators, and educators who bridge university and school settings to work together to prepare teacher candidates – will benefit from this book. It can serve as a resource for these individuals to help inform them of how universities and colleges across the country are implementing a clinically-based teacher preparation program so that they have a model for creating, implementing, assessing, and maintaining their own program. Additionally, teacher education faculty and staff may utilize it for help with self-studies and accreditation purposes, and as a text to use within courses in principal and/or superintendent preparatory programs.

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.

Preparing teachers to work in our nation’s classrooms presents an array of challenges for teacher educators. Recently, organizations such as the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) released reports calling for change, supporting clinical teacher preparation, and encouraging links between university faculty, clinical faculty (P-12 educators), and pre-service teachers. This book (as well as its companion text, Case Studies of Clinical Preparation in Teacher Education: An Examination of Three Teacher Preparation Partnerships) responds to calls for change in teacher education. Sponsored by the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) and its Commission on Clinically-Based Teacher Preparation, the book includes program descriptions, theoretical frameworks, and research studies. Initiated in response to Dr. Nancy Zimpher’s keynote speech at ATE’s 2011 Annual Meeting, the Commission on Clinically-Based Teacher Preparation set out to identify exemplary programs of teacher education, promising practices within those programs, and research related to the programs’ clinical practices. This text represents the Commission’s findings.

Preparing teachers to work in our nation’s classrooms presents an array of challenges for teacher educators. Recently, organizations such as the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) released reports calling for change, supporting clinical teacher preparation, and encouraging links between university faculty, clinical faculty (P-12 educators), and pre-service teachers. This book (as well as its companion text, The Power of Clinical Preparation in Teacher Education: Embedding Teacher Preparation within P-12 School Contexts) responds to calls for change in teacher education. Sponsored by the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) and its Commission on Clinically-Based Teacher Preparation, the book includes program descriptions, theoretical frameworks, and research studies. Initiated in response to Dr. Nancy Zimpher’s keynote speech at ATE’s 2011 Annual Meeting, the Commission on Clinically-Based Teacher Preparation set out to identify exemplary programs of teacher education, promising practices within those programs, and research related to the programs’ clinical practices. This text represents the Commission’s findings.

For decades teacher education researchers, organizations, and policy makers have called for improving teacher education by creating clinically based preparation programs (e.g. CAEP, 2013; Goodlad, 1990; Holmes, 1986, 1995; National Association for Professional Development Schools, 2008; National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Educators, 2001, 2010; Zeichner, 1990). According to the NCATE Blue Ribbon Report (2010), this approach requires extensive opportunities for prospective teachers to connect and apply what they learn from school and university based teacher educators. Similar to preparing medical professionals, clinical practice in teacher education requires the complex and time intensive work of supporting teacher candidate ability to link theory, research, and practice as well as on-going inquiry into best pedagogical practices. Therefore, clinically intensive programs expect prospective teachers to blend practitioner and academic knowledge throughout their programs as "they learn by doing" (NCATE, 2010, p.ii). However, most of the literature to date on clinical practice has been conceptual and often relies on describing program design. The purpose of this book is move past description to study and understand what teacher education programs are learning from research about innovative clinical models of teacher education. Each book chapter highlights research about how programs are studying a variety of outcomes of clinical practice. After an introductory chapter that helps to define and situate clinical practice in teacher education, the book is organized into four sections: (1) Outcomes of New Roles, (2) Outcomes of New Practices, (3) Outcomes of New Coursework/Fieldwork Configurations, and (4) Outcomes of New Program Configurations. The book wraps up with a discussion that looks across the chapters to find common themes, share implications for teacher educators, and set the course for future research.

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.

This yearbook addresses the nation's pressing need to train and retain good teachers as it explores exemplary practices in teacher education. Areas of critical concern include enhancing professional development; methods for improving teaching and learning; transformations through mentoring and social interaction; and effective models for alternative programs in teacher education.