Although preparing teachers to be leaders is a common goal of teacher education programs, often "teaching" and "leading" are located in separate departments" (Mangin & Stoelinga, 2009, p. 56). Recently, however, the assessment of teacher leadership has become important in preservice teacher education. This importance…

This article is a report of the findings from a sample of approximately 2,700 students and 1,000 faculty in the first 50 Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC)-accredited programs for which the online surveys were used. The sample represents nearly all the full-time faculty members surveyed and approximately 30% of the students. On the…

The United States of the twenty-first century is possibly the most culturally/racially diverse country of any nation in history, and families that are culturally/racially different from mainstream society do not always see that schools are meeting the needs of their children. This diversity in culture and language means that each person is…

In response to a critical need in teacher preparation, study abroad programs aimed at developing multicultural competencies in pre-service teachers have proliferated across the United States. Multicultural competencies constitute the ability to challenge misconceptions that lead to discrimination based on cultural difference, reflect on one's…

The racial/ethnic populations in public schools have changed dramatically in recent years and will continue to shift to a majority non-White population. The National Center for Education Statistics (2010) reports 67.3% of the student population in urban districts is composed of students of color. Yet, the population of teachers in the United…

This study aims to begin to uncover the detailed ways that pre-service elementary teachers examine and understand mathematics teaching, the grain size at which they do so, and what constitutes evidence of teaching mathematics for understanding for pre-service mathematics teachers. Thus, the central research questions for this study are: (a) What…

"Mathematics teacher educator-researcher-mentor" is a mouthful, but an accurate title to describe the range of roles of mathematics teacher educators across the nation and around the world. There is limited research about the professional development of teacher educators and even less research specific to mathematics teacher educators. This…

Elementary school children in the United States are not developing acceptable levels of mathematical proficiency (National Center for Education Statistics, 1999), and a major concern of teacher educators is that teachers lack the depth and flexibility of mathematical understanding and the corresponding beliefs they need to teach for proficiency…

Elementary school mathematics teaching begins with the teacher's understanding of the mathematical content to be taught. The teacher knows how to "do" the mathematics, i. e., understands the concepts and truths concerning that mathematics. The teacher then decides how to present the mathematics. Based on the students' background in mathematics,…

In this paper, the author presents a study which explored K-8 preservice teachers' concept images and mathematical definitions of polygons. This study was carried out in which K-8 teacher candidates enrolled in an elementary mathematics content course were asked to sort, identify, and provide definitions of such shapes including triangles,…

The newly developed "Learning To Teach System" for the preparation of teachers in California and the accompanying standards (referred to as the "2042 Standards" since they were derived from Senate Bill 2042 (SB 2042) passed by the California Legislature in 1998) have changed the way some California educators perceive the…

Learning to teach is a complex and multidimensional process. Many teacher educators agree that learning to teach occurs when theory connects with practice, general propositions and abstract concepts are instantiated in clinical contexts, and field experiences are interpreted in light of a coherent knowledge base. The recently redesigned curriculum…