Describes a collaborative project designed to better prepare Australian preservice teachers for teaching in remote schools through six-week rural mentorship programs and joint preservice and inservice professional development. Discusses how development of partnerships among cooperating institutions and between teachers, student teachers, and the…

Evaluated the impact of student teachers on the public school teachers and students within the Professional Development Schools (PDS) in which they were placed. Data from observations, samples of student teacher and student work, and interviews with student teachers, mentor teachers, and principals indicated that the PDS-mediated collaborations…

A team of educators, parents, and an outreach consultant developed Unified Plans of Support (UPS) for three students whose academic performance was below grade level and whose social participation was limited. Evaluation outcomes suggest consistent implementation of the UPS was associated with increases in academic engagement and social…

This paper reports on a professional development intervention coupled with an empirical research study focused on a mentor teacher study group. An unanticipated outcome of the study group was an evident development in the sense of accountability displayed by participants toward the work of teacher education in their school. In effect, teachers'…

Wyoming, a rural state with a small population scattered over vast geographic areas, brought a compressed digital video network online to connect the University of Wyoming and the State's seven community colleges. The College of Education at the University received a grant to develop a coaching/mentoring model for teacher interns over distance.…

With the growing recognition that teachers' decisions are guided by their thinking and knowledge, this study examines the educational principles of two experienced kindergarten teachers' classroom decisions and actions and shows how teachers' ideas are related to classroom practice. Data were collected from mid-March to early June and from late…

Field experience has long been considered a valuable component to the professional development of prospective teachers. This paper describes a program to determine whether consistent training and support of the participants in supervised field experiences would impact the overall achievement of prospective teachers and increase each participant's…

Case study as a research methodology was used to provide a dense description and examination of many of the complex factors in the experiences of three selected student teachers and their cooperating teachers. This research effort examined the real or perceived effects of cooperating teachers' supervision on student teachers' attitudes,…

The study described in this report investigated the effects of field-based reflective practice on preservice teachers' sense of self-efficacy. Subjects in the study were 24 senior elementary majors participating in a 4-week field experience. Twelve students were assigned to the experimental school and 12 were assigned to two control schools. Each…

This case study examines the causes of failure for three teaching interns and the interventions that led to their later success. Data collection included interviews with the three elementary level teacher interns, their cooperating teachers, and their university supervisors. All three teacher interns had encountered numerous and severe…

Using a "teaching case" format, this report tells the story of a married couple, Caroline and Rick, who travel to a village school in rural Alaska for their student teaching experience. Although each student teacher engages in innovative teaching practices, the faculty of the school perceives them to lack dedication to the teaching…

Major areas of inquiry found in this paper pertain to: (1) the current status of critical thinking in curriculums; (2) critical thinking as working with knowledge that is open to question and creative response; (3) descriptions of situations where critical thinking is enacted through classroom discourse techniques; (4) the need to wean students…

This study was conducted to examine individual differences with respect to values underlying the assessment of teaching competence in order to enhance the effectiveness and fairness of assessment. Nine classroom teachers who were preparing to be mentors of beginning teachers and five teacher educators indicated the relative importance (expressed…

This paper examines a four-way conference involving a student teacher in high school English, the cooperating teacher, a generalist student teaching supervisor, and an English specialist supervisor. The paper reflects on the interactions in the conference and the impact of having two supervisors with differing priorities for discussion. The…

Within the context of the student teaching experience, a vast body of research examines the role played by cooperating teachers and the benefits gained by student teachers. However, few studies have explored the intrinsic benefits of having student teachers to cooperating teachers and the students in their classrooms. This study, which included a…