This practicum was designed to improve the interpretative skills of 50 preservice teachers enrolled in the early childhood teacher education program, to enable them to modify the curriculum to improve instruction for students with special needs placed in inclusive education settings. The preservice teachers lacked the ability to design appropriate…

This guide is intended to be used in conjunction with the third module of the Program for Infant/Toddler Caregivers (PITC), a four-module video training course for providers of family and center day care. The videos illustrate key concepts and caregiving techniques for a specific area of care, and the guides provide extensive in-depth coverage of…

Translating theory to practice is a major challenge for beginning teachers. An experiment was conducted to help preservice teachers meet this challenge by enhancing their capability to cope with the complexity of the classroom environment through the use of case method during their field experiences. Study participants were seven student teachers…

The minority population in North Dakota is very small, less than five percent. Most of the students at Valley City State University (VCSU) are white and from middle class families; only about eight percent of the student body represent diverse cultures. Public schools in the state also have a low enrollment of minority students. Although these…

The rapid growth of special education programs has exceeded the capability of teacher training programs in West Virginia to fill new positions in schools serving children with learning or behavior disorders. The focus of the Mainstream Practicum Project is to train regular educators who are currently working as untrained, uncredentialed personnel…

This paper discusses the impact that participating in a teacher preparation program has had on Navajo mothers. Mothers play a very central role in Navajo culture, and such impacts, both positive and negative, are important not only to program participants, but also to those working in Indian communities. Informal surveys were conducted with 20…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of using performance and portfolio assessment techniques to diversify assessment in a minority teacher education program at Tuskegee University (Alabama). Both performance and portfolio assessments served as the exit examination. These techniques were used for three reasons: a state…

This study examined changes in novice teachers' feelings of self-efficacy (the belief that he or she can be successful in affecting student performance) and their beliefs about teaching as they completed a clinical experience in their teacher education program. It also attempted to identify factors which influenced these changes and to examine…

This paper describes the experiences of four university teacher education institutions collaborating in an European Union-funded project called the REFLECT project: the Universities of Barcelona (Spain), Exeter (England), Trondheim (Norway), and Utrecht (Netherlands). The project s focus is on the development of reflective competencies in…

This qualitative study examined the personal practical theories (PPTs) of the members of the supervisory triad--college supervisor, cooperating teacher, and student teacher--to discover whether PPTs could provide information about relationships within the triad. Three preservice teachers, three college supervisors, and five cooperating teachers…

This final report discusses the outcomes of a federally funded project that studied visual, auditory, and tactual methods designed to give youth with visual impairments access to microcomputers for curricular, prevocational, and avocational purposes. The objectives of the project were: (1) to research microcomputer systems that could be made…

Salisbury State University (Maryland) and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore are offering a joint Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree. The departments of education at these institutions have formed a collaborative MAT program as a response to the challenges of reform in the University of Maryland system. The 2 institutions are 12 miles…

Students in the Elementary Teacher Education Program at Rowan College (New Jersey) are predominately White and have had little previous contact with minority communities. Reflective classroom activities have been developed to facilitate critical reflection on teaching for diversity and to raise consciousness regarding educational equity. In one…

This study of cultural self-identity is based on stories of mentorship drawn from a 6-month study of 11 female Hispanic preservice teachers enrolled in degree programs at Texas A&M University. These students were interviewed about mentoring influences that contributed to their decision to become teachers, about sponsorship and assistance…

This paper reports on a study evaluating a graduate-level distance education program that provides special education teacher preparation at rural sites throughout Utah. The program was developed by the University of Utah to address problems associated with teacher recruitment and retention in rural areas. The program uses an "integrated"…