There are few areas where American teachers are as united as they are in their dissatisfaction with their professional learning and advancement opportunities. The lack of meaningful offerings affects states' ability to attract, develop, and retain strong teachers, which in turn impedes schools' ability to help students fulfill their potential.…

In colleges of agriculture leadership education is one area of study where enrollment and demand are outstripping the capacity of institutions to deliver the coursework. However, few faculty members are prepared to teach leadership contextually based in agriculture. Responding to this challenge, the Leadership Education Institute (LEI) for faculty…

House Bill 1706, passed by the Oklahoma state legislature in 1980, reflected a concern by the public for improved quality in teacher preparation, and mandated curriculum examinations in subject areas, higher admission requirements, and one year of apprentice teaching, among other significan features. Spurred by the passage of this bill and by…

Oklahoma Statute HB1549 required that a new competency-based system be established for teacher preparation programs. This handbook for accredited teacher education programs contains four sections: (1) the complete text of the Oklahoma Teacher Preparation Act, Enrolled House Bill No. 1549, signed by Governor Frank Keating on June 8, 1995; (2)…

The Oklahoma Commission for Teacher Preparation was established in 1992 to develop a new competency-based teacher preparation and professional development system. The commission's report begins with the Vision Statement and responsibilities of the new system, followed by "A New Vision: Educators as the Key to Educational Excellence" by…

The passage of Bill 1706 by the Oklahoma State Legislature is a major step toward building professional schools of education and a true profession. Through the specifications of this law, the total process is to be strengthened, since changes in teacher education are severely limited if done in a piecemeal fashion. There are five major points…

The report of the seminar on inservice vocational education personnel development contains the transcripts of 14 speeches and the reports of six discussion groups. The papers are organized under four main headings: the context of inservice education, which contains three papers on inservice education philosophy, requirements, and responsibility;…

Noting recent state legislation (HB 1706) in Oklahoma that is focused on the improvement of teacher preparation programs at the university level, this paper details the implementation of such improvements at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. The first section of the paper considers requirements for improved classroom preparation in both…