Mentoring remains a major component of teacher education programs. Moving away from the traditional apprenticeship model, teacher educators have begun to adopt more affirming coaching practices that nurture the strengths and inner qualities of pre-service teachers. In this self-study, the researcher--an emerging teacher educator hoping to enhance…

Cooperating teachers are a key component to the success of student teaching internships, serving an integral part in "raising" a teacher. To effectively facilitate the student teaching internship, teacher preparation programs must identify cooperating teachers who align philosophically with the pedagogical training delivered by…

This phenomenological study explored the perceptions of cooperating teachers regarding teacher candidate readiness for the student teaching experience in secondary science education. The cooperating teachers who participated in this study were secondary science teachers whose teaching experience ranged between 14 and 30 years. This study was…

In this study relationships between preservice early childhood teachers' self-efficacy beliefs and their mentor teachers' mentoring were examined. Quantitative research method was used in the study by the using multivariate data collections. The Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI) was administered to 96 pre-service teachers and…

Field experience is the culminating experience for pre-service teacher training. As COVID-19 closed schools across the country, pre-service teachers' field experiences were disrupted. This case study examines how a student teacher, a team of mentor teachers, and a university supervisor at a regional public university adapted to remote learning.…

Teacher education involves encountering ethical dilemmas connected to teaching. Student teachers' ethical dilemmas sometimes occur when ideals clash with experiences. The current study focuses on the challenges experienced by student teachers during work placement education. The aim of the study was to investigate ethical dilemmas student teachers…

The purpose of this research was to explore how five White preservice teachers described working with predominantly Black student populations in city school music classrooms. Participants with prior K-12 school music experience in primarily White public and private school settings were assigned to student teaching placements in a city school…

This study seeks to understand the perspectives of children who work with teacher candidates in classrooms that partner with clinically based teacher preparation programs. Researchers interviewed 32 third- and fourth-grade students who work with teacher candidates. The study presents the little-heard voices of children, who spend considerable time…

Many prior studies have examined whether there are average differences in levels of teaching effectiveness among graduates from different teacher preparation programs (TPPs); other studies have investigated which features of preparation predict graduates' average levels of teaching effectiveness. This is the first study to examine whether there…

Over the last two decades, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) has emerged as a pedagogical framework for inclusive teaching and learning. UDL builds on learner variability as a starting point for instructional and curricular design, and aims to minimize barriers in the learning environment. In addition to its widespread use in K12 settings and…

Critical reflection in teachers' professional development has received much attention in the scholarly literature, and there is an overwhelming consensus about its great significance to the quality of teachers' work. Nevertheless, despite the well-established role of reflection, a large gap between the professed goals and the actual reflective…

This qualitative case study responds to calls for research on the ways critical reflection develops in preservice and novice teachers. While evaluating capacity to reflect is a dominant practice in teacher education, few studies explore empirically how different factors impact teachers' reflection. Building from earlier research that…

Shouldn't teachers learn how children think during their training? In this essay, the author considers why they don't and what we might do about it. Many U.S. teachers report that their education is overly theoretical and not of great utility. It's clear that they are required to learn some basic principles of psychology as part of that education,…

Arguably, the student teaching experience is the single most powerful learning experience in preservice teacher education in the United States. Although influenced by the current and past policy context, it is perhaps the oldest as well as the most common partnership between K-12 schools and teacher preparation programs. Despite the centrality of…

The purpose of this study was to conduct an external program evaluation of a higher education teacher preparation program and its partnerships with local school districts using a mixed methods case study approach. A small regional, state-supported university's department of teacher education partnered with two local, high-poverty school districts…