Co-teaching and various forms of team teaching are common in today's schools but have rarely been viewed in relationship to supporting novice special education teachers. Personal compatibility is consistently reported as a key factor in the success of co-teaching. Special educators who co-teach often take a backseat role in the general education…

The Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time (ELT) initiative is designed to improve academic outcomes by increasing the amount of learning time for students. Schools are expected to provide opportunities to teachers for collaborative planning and professional development as well as add time to the school day or year for instructional and enrichment…

In this chapter, we provide an overview of the characteristics, content, procedures, processes, and outcomes of effective educator preparation programs for teachers of students with behavioral disorders (BD). We emphasize the need for teachers of students with BD to be fluent with the identification and application of evidence-based practices and…

In this article, we invite readers into a conversation about ways of being in teaching. Through e-mails, telephone calls, and face-to-face meetings, we use our first conversations with each other as shared moments that we returned to, seeking to better understand how we made meaning in our individual school teaching careers, and how we continue to…

Research on peer placements suggests that partnering two preservice teachers with a mentor provides a better, more supportive context for learning to teach. As extant research has focused more on student teachers' development, less is known about mentors' perceptions and experiences. This qualitative study focuses on seven mentor teachers who have…

The designers of our future built environment must possess intellectual tools which will allow them to be disciplined, flexible and analytical thinkers, able to address and resolve new and complex problems. In response, an experimental and collaborative design studio was designed to inspire and build on students' knowledge and their creative…

What kinds of teacher collaboration are most likely to improve what teachers--and, ultimately, students--learn during their time in school? This study looks within and across different collaborative activities that occurred among one teacher team. Observational data analyzed through a sociocultural theoretical framework suggest how the structure…

The coteaching model for teacher preparation has emerged in recent years as an alternative to the traditional student teaching or practicum experience. Several studies have investigated the process of coteaching and its impact on participants during the actual experience; however, few depict participants' experiences once they obtain positions and…

Framed by sociocultural theory, the purpose of the study was to understand the cultural tools used by science teachers when leaning to mentor and how tool use may lead to the construction of new understandings about mentoring. The participants were 37 experienced teachers enrolled in a federally funded science-specific mentor preparation program.…

This paper describes the integration of cooperative learning (CL) activities into a graduate teacher education course, Collaborative Teaching in English as a Second Language (ESL). Because teachers and researchers have both identified discipline status and relationship issues as challenges to collaboration, this course focused on relational…

Co-teaching is gaining popularity as an instructional delivery service for supporting students in diverse classrooms. In spite of recent research indicating its effectiveness, co-teaching does not always realize its potential; often due to interpersonal or communication issues occurring between co-teachers. This article describes ways co-teachers…

This article offers insight into teacher training that needs to be occurring in the preparation of teachers. The focus is on the preparation practices and one Canadian institution is used to forward concerns. The institution is left anonymous as the intent is not to critique this particular institution but to bring attention to a more general…

Poverty most likely will always be a concern in the United States, particularly in at-risk populations of the public schools. Many students in poverty enter public schools behind in academic and social skills due to a lack of quality early learning experiences. Regular education teachers work diligently to catch these children up in vital skills;…

Throughout the day, students interact with and receive a myriad of services from librarians, school secretaries, custodians, school nurses and security personnel. Everyone inside and outside the building has a role to play in ensuring that students are safe and ready to learn. In many schools, paraprofessionals assist teachers and students in the…

The use of performance-based pay, or merit pay, has become a topic of increased focus in education circles in recent years. Questions about the effectiveness of these types of programs, coupled with a variety of criticisms about the benefits of merit pay, have resulted in teachers viewing this type of incentive structure with much skepticism. In…