Purpose: The following narratives describe how successful relationships between mentors and pre-service and inservice teachers go beyond observations and feedback. The purpose is to share the multifaceted approach mentors take to support teacher candidates in generative ways so they can develop their potential as practitioners and how they nurture…

Previously the authors have reported on the merits of involving student teachers in school-based curriculum development projects (McCullagh and Doherty, 2018; Earle and McCullagh 2020; McCullagh and Doherty 2021). These projects have involved up to 20 primary science specialist student teachers planning and teaching lessons in a small number of…

The aim of this manuscript is to provide PHETE program coordinators/faculty with recommendations for improving CTs ability to better support TCs during the physical and health education edTPA process. The authors will provide specific examples of how they used their own empirical research findings to improve edTPA success within their respective…

Coteaching, an alternative to traditional conceptions of student teaching in general teacher preparation, may be enhanced if researchers and practitioners achieve consensus with respect to operational definitions and descriptions of practice. The focus of this article is coassessing -- one component of coteaching -- where coteachers…

In 2020, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) created emergency licensure to help address teacher vacancies and shortages in Massachusetts districts and schools. Alternatively licensed novice teachers like those who are issued emergency licensure or provisional licensure are entering the classroom with limited…

Many preservice teachers in early 2020 said farewell to their students one day in mid-March 2020 and did not expect that it was goodbye for the rest of the school year. The abrupt ending of the 2020 school year, and the school year that followed in 2021, left plenty of room for teachers and teacher candidates to grieve the loss of what had been in…

To grow and sustain field placement experiences, a group of elementary education university faculty members from a small private liberal arts university, examined strategies for teacher recruitment, retention, and recognition. Faculty members compiled and categorized data from cooperating teacher exit surveys, intern exit surveys, field…

Investigating symmetric dot patterns provides opportunities for foundational mathematical learning that is not restricted to multiplication alone. Students have opportunities to learn about the properties of symmetry, about the generalization of patterns, about writing and interpreting equations--all areas of study in grades 3-5. And symmetric dot…

This case study examines how two Professional Development School partners, J.D. Lever Elementary School and the University of South Carolina Aiken, identify and ultimately select mentor teachers to work with teacher candidates. This article traces the evolution of this process, starting with selections premised mainly on established personal…

School-based mentors are essential partners with teacher preparation programs in preparing novice teachers to have the knowledge, skills, and professional commitments they need to be strong teachers from day one. In many ways, the demands of mentoring, such as critical conversations with colleagues and reflecting, mirror the kinds of engagement…

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught supervisors of teacher candidates some critical lessons. From our time in quarantine, surfaced the disquisition of a focus on personal and professional work-life balance, creative problem solving in the home, and K-12 teacher candidate supervision. The necessity for self-care during the pandemic and in educators'…

Filled with practical steps for all the stakeholders in the student teaching experience, this article emphasizes the many ways that communication adds to student teaching success, as well as includes useful checklists.

A coteacher huddle occurs when two or more teachers use short, focused meetings either before, during, or after a lesson, to discuss shifts or adaptations to coplanned instruction. In a recent study Soslau, Kotch-Jester, Scantlebury, and Gleason (2018) determined how teacher candidates' participation in huddles changed over time. Tracking how…

Use these practical recommendations to mentor, guide, and support teacher candidates you are hosting in your classroom through four stages of clinical practice.

This Study Snapshot highlights key findings from a larger study examining the validity and reliability of the Kansas Clinical Assessment Tool (K-CAT), a newly developed tool for assessing the performance of teacher candidates. The study team used interviews with cooperating teachers, content experts' ratings of the alignment of the K-CAT to…