This paper explores the policy, pedagogy, and practice affordances and constraints of teacher education as an environment to develop pre-service teachers' antiracism commitments. Through critical analysis of interviews with pre-service teachers and teacher educators at three social justice-oriented teacher preparation programs, research findings…

The edTPA is an educative performance assessment designed to assess teacher readiness. It has gained momentum across the country; yet, it has often met with resistance from educators in various roles. This study addressed the gap in edTPA literature by exploring new teachers' perceptions of the assessment as an educative and efficacious tool. The…

Teacher candidates are called on to create effective lesson plans to implement during their student teaching semester, and certain components of lesson plans are recognized as particularly significant. Viewing lesson plans as the foundation for impactful instruction, it is necessary for teacher candidates to have skills in evaluating their plans…

The teacher certification process can be overwhelming for early-career educators. Negotiating teacher identity, completing fieldwork hours, and navigating institutional expectations can stress the most resilient teacher candidates. These pressures are further compounded as teacher certification assessments, such as the edTPA, introduce additional…

Teaching mathematics for conceptual understanding: An examination of elementary and secondary teacher candidates (Under the direction of Dr. Cyndi Edgington and Dr. Temple Walkowiak).This embedded multiple-case qualitative study aspired to learn more about how elementary (K-5) and secondary (6-12) teacher candidates (TCs) incorporated and…

This paper shares findings from the study of a learning sequence designed to support prospective elementary teachers (PTs) in identifying evidence of conceptual understanding and procedural fluency. Conceptual understanding and procedural fluency are widely recognized as important to teaching and learning mathematics, and identifying evidence of…

Following the murder of George Floyd and the wide-spread recognition of systemic discriminatory abuse of power by police, organizations across the country were jolted into reviewing their own policies and practices for evidence of prejudice and racial injustice. Teacher education programs were no exception. As teacher education grapples with this…

The construct of academic language has been part of the field of education for many years. Academic language is included in education initiatives such as the Common Core State Standards and the Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA). Due to the inclusion of academic language in these initiatives, teacher education programs must incorporate…

Policy makers have begun requiring teacher performance assessments, such as edTPA®, with established validity and reliability in teacher education for certification, program approval, and/or accreditation (Darling-Hammond & Hyler, 2013). Proponents of edTPA argue that the measure is an authentic yet standardized way to assess candidate…

Few scholars have raised the question; why are teacher education programs not preparing teachers for global competence and global perspectives pedagogy? The purpose of this article is to explore this question. The study utilizes qualitative and practitioner research methodologies. Four factors marginalizing the preparation of teachers for global…

The 2021 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages forged a fresh perspective for the organization with a virtual setting. Held March 11-13, 2021, the conference offered flexible scheduling for educators balancing a multitude of unique teaching situations in the midst of the COVID 19 Pandemic. The theme, "One…

Efforts to privatize education, eliminate teachers' unions, reduce spending on public education, and quantify student performance have demoralized teachers in the USA, and educators struggle to keep up with the many changes while still effectively teaching and caring for their students. Within these reforms, however, there is support for history…