Describes Kentucky's Alternative Training Program for the Preparation of Candidates for Initial Certification, presenting the story of one individual who made a career change to teaching after 15 years as a broadcast journalist. The paper discusses state guidelines, the mentor teacher, the school district alternative training program, the…

A study involving two kindergarten teachers found that reciprocal peer coaching produced an increase in use of suggestions, prompts, questions, and related talk to facilitate students' social interaction with classmates and fostered the use of spontaneous adaptations in the academic materials, skills, or social interaction of student pairs.…

This study examined the relationship between 18 pairs of special-education resource teachers and the paraeducators they supervise. Teachers were divided in their beliefs about the fundamental role of paraeducators, whether as assistants to the teacher or to the student. Teachers also expressed reluctance about their supervisory role, preferring to…

The importance of communication skills for students with the most significant disabilities is highlighted. Specific attention is paid to the need to recognize and understand unconventional means of communication. Ideas for augmenting the student's communicative efforts are provided, and the critical importance of team collaboration is emphasized.…

This article highlights major points of each of the articles in this special issue on the research to practice gap in special education. It then considers some broader implications, especially the need to foster and establish collegial networks to counter the isolation in which many teachers currently work. (Contains references.) (DB)

This article describes steps taken by the faculty in the Department of Special Education at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire to develop, implement, and make programmatic decisions based on the results of performance-based assessments. It illustrates these steps with the example of the educational goal of having students understand the…

Explored the impact of mentoring via the Internet within two special education teacher preparation programs in which graduate students mentored undergraduate students. Data from pre- and post-intervention surveys, Internet interactions, and video conferencing indicated that participants considered Internet mentoring a positive experience that…

Examined a partnership and a single-placement model of early field experience, using mentor and preservice teacher interviews, preservice teacher ime logs, and planning session transcripts. All respondents valued their experiences, but those in partnership placements felt better supported and engaged in greater instructional risks within the…

A third-grade teacher and an English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teacher collaborated to ensure the academic success of English language learners through "a priori" teaching. The ESL support teacher used verbal and interactive strategies to pre-teach key concepts, skills, and academic language relevant to the subject matter being covered…

Building partnerships to improve students' performance (Fitzgibbons 2004, Small 2002) is not a new concept to the education profession. Borrowing tenets from the business world and universities, schools have come to realize that interdisciplinary collaborations enhance the cohesiveness and achievement of the particular school and district as a…

This article is part of a series of articles edited for this issue of "Childhood Education" relating to varying viewpoints and teaching strategies across the continuum of age groups, from early childhood to graduate education. Within this article the editors provide the text of an article written by a retired teacher educator whose…

Library media specialists have been collaborating with classroom teachers for years and have long been advocates for tying the classroom curriculum to the library media center in real-world ways. Current reading research focuses on the many aspects of learning to read, including phonics and alphabet recognition, vocabulary building, fluency, and…

Sociocultural and cultural-historical theories urge us to study the social relations and interactions of faculty embedded in local and particular contexts. They promise deeper insights into the work of college and university faculty.

In this article, the authors--the teacher educators who obtained a grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations (AVD)--explore what it meant for teachers and teacher educators involved in the PorTRAIT (Practitioner or Teacher Researchers As Inquiring Travelers) program to enlarge their views of teacher research and their own classrooms by being…

To date, most of the literature on the use of cohort groups in teacher education has focused on the benefits and limitations of the use of cohorts within teacher education programs. This study extends this knowledge base by exploring the sources of these underlying tensions by soliciting qualitative reflections of faculty. The purposes of this…