Teacher Preparation In The United States

Teachers make a difference. The success of any plan for improving educational outcomes depends on the teachers who carry it out and thus on the abilities of those attracted to the field and their preparation. Yet there are many questions about how teachers are being prepared and how they ought to be prepared. Yet, teacher preparation is often treated as an afterthought in discussions of improving the public education system. Preparing Teachers addresses the issue of teacher preparation with specific attention to reading, mathematics, and science. The book evaluates the characteristics of the candidates who enter teacher preparation programs, the sorts of instruction and experiences teacher candidates receive in preparation programs, and the extent that the required instruction and experiences are consistent with converging scientific evidence. Preparing Teachers also identifies a need for a data collection model to provide valid and reliable information about the content knowledge, pedagogical competence, and effectiveness of graduates from the various kinds of teacher preparation programs. Federal and state policy makers need reliable, outcomes-based information to make sound decisions, and teacher educators need to know how best to contribute to the development of effective teachers. Clearer understanding of the content and character of effective teacher preparation is critical to improving it and to ensuring that the same critiques and questions are not being repeated 10 years from now.

Teacher Education in America is a thought-provoking analysis of the major issues and problems surrounding teacher preparation. Christopher Lucas offers valuable insights into this ongoing debate. Including an illuminating account of the history of teacher education in the United States.

As countries become increasingly interdependent, student populations in the United States are becoming more culturally diverse. These students’ transnational perspectives present significant challenges to teachers, but a disconnect exists between the skills teachers need and those provided to them by colleges of education. As teacher preparation programs continue to cater to historic models of diversity, the programs show a glaring lack of recognition for the recent changes in school and community populations. Internationalizing Teacher Education in the United Statesexamines the impact of globalization on teacher education in the United States, explains the current barriers to teacher education becoming more internationally minded, and presents possible solutions for teacher education programs to consider. Other books address the multi-national challenges faced by American education in the 21st century, but this book takes it one step further, offering teacher educators practical and theoretical explorations of their vital role in the education of contemporary student populations in the United States.

Starting in New England with academies, seminaries, institutes, and the birth of the state normal schools, Kelly Kolodny and Mary-Lou Breitborde explore the origins of teacher preparation in the United States as these schools expanded geographically, in substance and form, throughout the south and west.

Preservice teacher education curriculum and instruction were surveyed to reveal the state of the art, to identify issues and problems, and to submit suggestions for improvement. Part I, "The Teacher Education Curriculum," presents an overview of current practice in the preservice curriculum. It considers both the general and professional education requirements of prospective teachers, notes related problems and issues, and raises questions or makes suggestions for resolving them. Part II, "Alternative Teacher Education Curricula," provides truncated reviews of 22 newer ideas for the preservice curriculum, most of which have received only brief or minimal attention from teacher education practitioners. Part III, "Instruction in Teacher Education," focuses on teaching method and instructional alternatives. The major alternatives highlighted are microteaching, simulations, Reflective Teaching, and use of protocol materials. Part IV, "Summing Up," synthesizes the many suggestions made throughout the book, and might serve as an agenda for improving preservice curriculum and instruction in teacher education. (JD)

Casting light on the historical and social forces that led to the sea change in the ways American teachers are prepared, Teaching Teachers is a substantial and unbiased history of a controversial topic.

This book provides a framework, concrete examples, and tools for designing a high quality, academically-robust preservice teacher preparation program that empowers teachers with the depth of professional knowledge and the skills required to become adaptable, responsive K-12 teachers ready to engage with diverse groups of students, and to achieve consistent learning outcomes. Renowned teacher educators Etta R. Hollins and Connor K. Warner present a systematic approach for developing a teacher preparation program characterized by coherence, continuity, consistency, integrity, and trustworthiness, as well as one that is firmly grounded in collaboration between faculty, community members, and other school practitioners. This book offers an evidence-based roadmap relevant for teacher educators, administrators, scholars, agencies at the state and national levels, and any organization that serves teacher educators.

"This book moves beyond the purported dichotomy between university-based teacher education and alternatives such as Teach For America to consider their common challenges and suggest a starting place from which to imagine a future of more effective teacher preparation. In focusing on the experiences of the first Teach For America cohort between 1990-1992, the book anchors its analysis in a particular historical moment, allowing a significant accounting of a pivotal time in [teacher] education as well as thoughtful consideration of both change and continuity in how teachers have been prepared and entered the classroom over the decades since. Through its use of oral history testimonies, Schooling Teachers offers important stories about individuals' personal experiences and actions, but also reveals the broader collective and social forces that shaped and gave meaning to those experiences. Richly detailed qualitative data, in the form of oral history, enables the authors to draw from the specific narratives some general insights that speak to the larger issues of staffing and supporting urban schools"--