Tennessee is home to more than 463,000 children under the age of six. Sixty-three percent of these young children have all available parents in the workforce and, thus, potentially need child care. Stakeholders and advocates in Tennessee remain committed to advancing strategies that improve early care and education (ECE) services, including…

The state of Washington is home to more than 566,000 children under the age of six (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017). About 306,000 of these children have all available parents in the workforce and, thus, potentially need child care (Child Care Aware of America, 2017). Like many states in recent years, Washington has committed public and private…

The peripherality of the university supervisor during the student teaching experience has often been considered extraneous to the work of preparing preservice teachers. Despite the supervisor's potential to support learning, the low status of supervision in the preparation of prospective teachers has led to a lack of commitment in preparing,…

Elementary education faculty at this university embedded a Teacher Work Sample (TWS) performance-based assessment into the student teaching experience to assess candidates' ability to impact student learning as required by recent accreditation reforms. The authors conducted an internal evaluation of the TWS for the purposes of strengthening not…

School-university partnerships are promising collaborations for better preparing qualified and competent teachers for the realities of today's diverse American classrooms. Research has been conducted on many aspects of partnerships, but few studies have focused on partnered student teaching placements. In this article, a professor and five of her…

The present study examined the concerns of teacher candidates in an early field experience. Thirty-five teacher candidates completed the Teacher Concerns Checklist (TCC, Fuller & Borich, 2000) at the beginning, middle and end of their early field experiences. Results showed that teacher candidates ranked impact as the highest concern, self as…

A proposal for early field experiences in teacher education is based on the goal of preparing a teacher who will act on developing principles and who will continue to grow in contrast to a technician who acts with no underlying rationale. (CB)

This paper focuses on conceptual and methodological limitations which have been identified in relation to research on field experiences. A point of view is offered as to how research in this area can begin to provide the kinds of empirical data which will be more useful for policy decisions. (CB)

Cruickshank's Reflective Teaching approach to practice teaching is reviewed, critiqued, and compared to Zeichner's (1981-82) critical perspective. A modified version of Reflective Teaching is proposed. (Author/MT)

This study explored the influence of university-based teacher education courses on preservice teachers as they engaged in the field-based portion of their preparation. Forty-two preservice teachers contributed reflective writings about the successes and challenges they faced during field experiences in light of knowledge and skills learned during…

In this literature review, the research on training methods in teacher education is examined and the major variables that have been shown to influence the development of teaching skills are identified. The position is taken that, of these variables, those that address conceptual outcomes are most important. The implications of these variables for…

Practical experiences have grown dramatically in teacher education programs, apparently from a general consensus of the rightness of such experiences as well as the vigorous criticisms of teacher education programs by practicing teachers. A review of research concerning practical experience in teacher education indicates that the knowledge and…

Research on reflective teaching is reviewed in the areas of: its benefits; the Exxon Educational Foundation Project; students' ability to think and talk critically about teaching and learning; identification of variables during the act of teaching; perceptions of teaching; conceptual development and modes of thinking; and the self-concept,…

Guidelines, as developed by the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE), for professional experiences in education are presented. Revisions of these guidelines were conducted by the National Field Directors Forum, a special interest group of the ATE. The major purposes of professional experiences are to: (1) provide opportunities to relate…

Expectations of teacher education students toward field-experience programs were investigated. A checklist was generated that contained potential expectations and was subjected to factor analysis. Implications of the study are presented. (Author/DF)