Innovative Practices In Teacher Preparation And Graduate Level Teacher Education Programs

Educators play a significant role in the intellectual and social development of children and young adults. Thus, it is important for next-generation teachers to have a strong educational background, as it serves as the foundation to their understanding of learning processes, leadership, and best practices in the field of education. Innovative Practices in Teacher Preparation and Graduate-Level Teacher Education Programs presents critical and relevant research on methods by which future educators in high-level courses are equipped and instructed in order to promote the best experience in academic scholarship. Featuring discussion on a diverse assortment of topics, such as social justice for English language learners, field-based teacher education, and student satisfaction in graduate programs, this publication is directed at academicians, students, and researchers seeking modern research on the approaches taken by instructors to qualify and engage future educators.

While online learning has become pervasive in many fields in higher education, it has been adopted somewhat slower in teacher education. In addition, more research is needed to empirically evaluate the effectiveness of online education in teacher preparation. Teacher Education Programs and Online Learning Tools: Innovations in Teacher Preparation presents information about current online practices and research in teacher education programs, and explores the opportunities, methods, and issues surrounding technologically innovative opportunities in teacher preparation. It presents empirical evidence of teacher candidate learning and assessment in the context of various online aspects of teacher licensure.

This is the foundational book for the new series, Teacher Education, Learning Innovation and Accountability. The book canvasses research, practice and policy perspectives in teacher education across diverse geographic, social and political contexts. It explores the lifespan of teacher development from initial preparation through to graduate classroom practice as it occurs in an intensifying culture of standards and regulation. The characterization of initial teacher education (ITE) in a crucible of change permeates throughout the book. The chapters open up new ways of thinking about innovation and accountability in ITE and the professionalization of teaching, exploring fundamental questions, such as “Who are the actors in teacher preparation and how do they interact? How can we learn about the quality of teacher education? Where can we hear the voices of teacher educators and preservice teachers, as well as school-based teacher educators? What are the new and emerging roles of others in teacher education who have not been involved previously, including employing authorities?” (p. 22). While the book provides responses to these and other provocative questions, it also offers new insights into innovative teacher education from a wide range of policy and practice contexts.

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.

Inspiration and Innovation in Teaching and Teacher Education is an edited collection that offers a variety of conceptual and research-based discussions on teaching and teacher education in Canada and internationally. The ideas, research, and practices presented in the book focus on three broad themes: the essence of teacher education, innovative practices in teacher education, and emerging issues in teacher education. The book includes chapter contributions from a group of international scholars, teacher educators, and teachers who are adopting innovation in how they are conceptualizing teaching and teacher education and in how they are engaging in the practices of teaching and teacher education. The contributions examine emerging issues that have far-reaching implications for what we do in teacher education, elucidating the successes, opportunities, and challenges inherent in teacher education. The contributors to this book are inspiring others to examine their own beliefs and practices about what constitutes effective teacher education.

This book provides an evidentiary basis for policy decisions regarding initial teacher education and beginning teaching and informs the design and delivery of teacher preparation programs. Based on a rigorous analysis of international literature and the policy context for teacher education globally, and assessing data generated through a longitudinal study conducted in Australia, it investigates the effectiveness of teacher education in preparing teachers for the variety of school settings in which they begin their teaching careers. Over four years, the Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education (SETE) project tracked roughly 5,000 recently graduated teachers and 1,000 school principals in Australia to capture workforce data and gauge graduate teachers’ and principals’ perceptions of their initial teacher education programs. This book offers a synthesis of the research findings and uses the SETE as a catalyst for innovative theorization of the effectiveness of teacher education.

Educators learning how to meaningfully integrate technology into their teaching practice will find resources and action plans to prepare them for today’s tech-infused lessons. Advancing teacher preparation to full adoption of technology infusion is no small undertaking. Written by 20 experts in the teacher prep field, Championing Technology Infusion in Teacher Preparation provides research- and practice-based direction for faculty, administrators, PK-12 school partners and other stakeholders who support programwide technology infusion in teacher education programs. Such organizational change involves almost every individual and system involved in teacher preparation. Topics addressed include: • Defining technology infusion and integration. • Systemic planning and readiness of college-level leadership. • Programwide, iterative candidate experiences across courses and clinical work. • Technology use and expectations for teachers and students in PK-12 settings. • Instructional design in teacher preparation programs to include integration of technology in face-to-face, blended and online PK-12 teaching and learning. • Strategies to support induction of new teachers in PK-12 settings. • Technology use, expectations, and professional development for teacher educators • Models for effective candidate and program evaluation. • Roles for government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in nationwide collaboration for technology infusion in teacher preparation. This book will help administrators in colleges and schools of education as well as teacher educators in preparation programs support the developmental needs of teacher candidates as they learn how to teach with technology. With action steps and getting started resources in each chapter, the book is well-adapted for small group study and planning by collaborative leadership teams in colleges and schools of education. The book is also appropriate for the study of effective organizational change in education by graduate students.

In this compelling and timely collection, Eric Wearne and a group of diverse contributors make the case for a new approach to teacher preparation and certification, in which institutions are empowered to educate, prepare, certify, hire, and develop teachers who have been prepared by different educational traditions. In the first part, contributors offer a background in history, policy, and economics to argue the need for more creativity in teacher preparation. In the second part, Wearne and contributors showcase how a variety of different, creative educational organizations have prepared teachers more clearly suited to their specific school models— from Montessori teacher preparation, to teaching online, to teaching in classical schools. Overall, this collection prompts those involved in teacher preparation to work to find creative solutions for improving teacher education, certification, and hiring and is relevant for scholars, policymakers, educators, and administrators working in or studying teacher education programs.