Examined elementary, middle, and high school principals' perspectives on their first-year teachers' competencies. Survey data indicated that principals had mixed feelings about new teachers' competencies. They believed new teachers needed improvement in discipline, diversity, technology, and curricular integration/flexibility issues. Perceived new…

Reviews various models and interpretations of mentoring, highlighting the explication of mentor teachers' practical knowledge as a contribution to student teachers' learning to teach. Relates research on mentoring to research on teacher knowledge. Opportunities for eliciting mentor teachers' practical knowledge are noted, and preconditions for…

Sixty-one junior and senior high school teachers responded to measures of perceptions of inclusion, needs for effective inclusion practice, and knowledge of inclusion. Teachers felt inadequately prepared for inclusion and indicated their primary need was for more specific inclusion training. They also believed that reducing workloads would be of…

This article discusses issues that relate to building competence in educators' use of the functional behavioral assessment with students with emotional/behavioral disorders. Emerging content for FBA training is provided, including the essential skills in order to develop FBA competence, along with types of training activities that may foster…

Suggests that becoming an expert teacher and judging teaching quality are complex and situational, exploring the use of a conceptual framework for analyzing eight teaching portfolios submitted by new university teachers as an assessment and qualification requirement. The study made a case for analyzing portfolios by asking whether teachers held…

Generalizations about problems and solutions facing teacher education are often oversimplified and misleading. Examinations of teacher supply and demand and teacher ability should consider local demand and content-area need. Teachers with content-area certification have stronger academic profiles than those with general certification. Raising…

Presents information on the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education's requirements for a performance-based system of assessing teacher candidates and the similar requirements of NAEYC within its higher education program approval process. Presents questions to create a systematic teacher assessment plan, websites for further…

Responds to common charges against formal teacher education programs, arguing that contextual knowledge of classrooms and schools is crucial for novice teachers; raw intelligence is insufficient for accomplished teaching; accomplished performance will develop only over many years of effortful, deliberate practice; and high quality teacher…

Provides suggestions for equipping special education teacher substitutes with the information they need to function effectively in the special education setting using a comprehensive three-way approach that involves school district personnel, school administrators, other school leaders, and special education teachers. (SM)

Describes teacher professional development in general, analyzing recent research on teacher professional development in Estonia and noting that faculty development has not earned much attention in teacher education courses or in educational research, nor is there much agreement on approaches to faculty development in Estonia. Estonian teacher…

Assessed the extent to which special education teacher education program graduates applied instructional methods they had learned to the classroom. Survey, observation, and interview data highlighted seven themes: commitment to student success; strategies for successfully teaching all students; knowledge of legal supports; active searching for…

Reviews the development phase of a collaborative inquiry initiative undertaken among staff in the Center for Distance Education, Athabasca University, Canada, to identify competencies required of master's-level experts in distance education. The competencies are clustered in four skill sets, and basic procedures for developing a taxonomy of…

Leading-edge states, districts, and unions are beginning to implement knowledge- and skills-based pay systems for teachers. PRAXIS and other performance assessment tools are described, along with sample assessment and salary schedule combinations. Effective principal leadership and yearly bonuses between $1,500 and $3,000 ensure sufficient…

Considers the potential impact of the study by M. Wang, G. Haertel, and H. Walberg. Their analysis is the first step in understanding and explaining the factors that really do make a positive difference in quality of school learning, rather than simply describing associations between school-related input and output measures. (SLD)

Explores what the "knowledge base for school learning" described by M. Wang, G. Haertel, and H. Walberg might mean for education by describing some cases of school learning from fieldwork in elementary schools. The focus is on psychological dimensions of school learning. (SLD)