What would be one of the most sensible ways for a country to invest to achieve maximal economic growth? A recent study (Chetty, Friedman, & Rockoff, 2011) by economists at Harvard and Columbia Universities shows that better teacher quality results in significantly higher students' lifetime earnings. And investing in public school teachers…

There are many barriers to the implementation of new practice standards. To implement practices that both prepare and inspire their students, preservice teachers need opportunities to enact reform practices: to prepare and be inspired themselves. These opportunities are found in students' content courses, methods courses, and field placements. In…

This article describes a unique approach to developing and delivering the curriculum for an experimental program that prepares STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) graduates for teaching in high-needs secondary schools. The context for the collaborative design--including the charge, personnel, and purpose of the program--is…

According to national standards for foreign language (L2) teacher education programs established by the ACTFL and the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), L2 student teachers must be supervised by university faculty who are qualified L2 educators. An exploratory study was conducted to better understand the impact of…

The 2012 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education was designed to provide up-to-date information and to identify trends in the areas of teacher background and experience, curriculum and instruction, and the availability and use of instructional resources. A total of 7,752 science and mathematics teachers in schools across the United…

The ESEA Blueprint for Reform states that teachers need "effective, ongoing, job-embedded, professional development that is targeted to student and school needs… [and] aligned with evidence of improvements in student learning." Unfortunately, the professional development approaches advocated, though sensible and compelling in theory,…

This study investigated the relationship between middle school math teacher pedagogical content knowledge as gathered from a teacher assessment and student Standards of Learning scores. Nine middle-school math teachers at two rural schools were assessed for their pedagogical content knowledge in geometry and measurement in the specific area of…

Teachers play a crucial role in the mathematical learning outcomes of their students. The quality of teachers' mathematical knowledge has been of interest to key stakeholders and several lines of inquiry have been running in an effort to better understand the kinds of knowledge that mathematics teachers need to acquire and use to drive their…

This paper reports on change in teachers' perceptions of important elements of their role as teachers of mathematics at the conclusion of a two-year professional learning project. Analyses of written responses to survey items indicated shifts in four categories describing important elements of their role: teaching skills, knowledge, concepts;…

This research examines private liberal arts college professors' learning about teaching, in particular, how they come to pay attention to their students' experiences of learning. This study relies on interview, observation, and document analysis to consider the experiences of 16 professors whose teaching changed as they carried out their work. All…

Classroom teachers need to have a solid foundation in understanding and applying English grammar in order to buttress their content and pedagogical content knowledge and support their students' literacy development. However, teacher preparation programs are challenged to incorporate this kind of content into the existing curriculum, which is…

Schools of education are increasingly under attack. In a speech delivered at Teachers College, Columbia University, in 2009, education secretary Arne Duncan charged that the nation's schools of education were "doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of 21st-century classroom." Although teachers unions have borne the brunt of…

The Content Knowledge for Teaching Mathematics instrument was developed by the Study for Instructional Improvement and Learning Mathematics for Teaching projects at the University of Michigan to measure elementary school and middle school in-service teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching to assist in the evaluation of professional…

For special education preservice teachers to be prepared to assist students with disabilities to achieve their maximum potential in literacy, an innovative, co-taught literacy unit was implemented within existing methods courses. The intensive, 6-week unit was created to prepare all candidates in both mild interventions and severe interventions…

There is growing recognition of the importance of developing young students' informal inferential reasoning (IIR). This focus on informal inference in school statistics has implications for teacher education. This study reports on 26 preservice teachers utilizing Lesson Study to support a focus on the teaching of IIR in primary classrooms.…