Drawing on critical Whiteness studies (CWS) alongside theories of engagement and critical consciousness, we share the story of two student teachers (STs) who were identified as "fully engaged" during urban student teaching. At the program level, results indicate that the STs' teacher preparation program favored compliant engagement over…

This article describes a community mapping project that urban-based teachers and teacher-candidates did as part of their graduate courses. New teachers are often strangers to the urban communities where their schools are located and often come from very different social and cultural backgrounds than the students they teach, which can cause missed…

As schools adopt more inclusive practices, educators increasingly collaborate and co-teach to meet the needs of diverse learners. Co-teaching has been found to have benefits for students across elementary and secondary grades. However, there is a need for teacher educators to provide more preservice training in collaboration and in co-teaching.…

In this case study, we examine the consequential validity of using edTPA in a social justice-oriented, urban teacher preparation program. According to the developers of edTPA, a primary purpose is to support teacher candidate learning, yet our analysis suggests that edTPA does not support learning when used during student teaching. Our 16…

This is UChicago Consortium's first comprehensive brief on student teachers and the student teaching experience in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). It synthesizes findings from research done in partnership with researchers from National Louis University, University of Michigan, and Stanford University, using CPS teacher data, along with surveys of…

Rehearsals are lesson enactments with feedback prior to implementation with students, and are one facet of practice-based teacher education with an aim to promote ambitious teaching in all contexts. This study explores how rehearsals, related to literacy instruction, were enacted in an urban K-8 school between teacher candidates and their mentor…

This study looks at the experiences of pre-service teachers who began their student teaching assignments amidst the 2012 Chicago Teachers Union strike. Four yearlong student teachers reflected on their understandings of teaching, unionism, and activism before, during, and after the strike. Findings suggest pre-service teachers need greater…

Contextualized in an urban college's teacher education program and its partnership inner-city elementary schools, this qualitative study explores the impact of lesson study on the emergence of a stronger pedagogical content knowledge on mathematics teaching practices of minority preservice teachers. Aiming to raise the mathematics achievement of…

Over 30 years ago, Feiman-Nemser and Buchmann (1985) wrote about "pitfalls of experience" in teacher education. In the current study, I share vignettes of three student teachers engaged in an urban teacher preparation program to highlight how these pitfalls are still operating--and are arguably even more problematic--as we prepare…

UTRPP addressed the i3 Development Grant Absolute Priority 1, Subpart 2: Increase equitable access to effective teachers or principals for low-income and high-need students. UTRPP infused comprehensive, job-embedded professional development (PD) for participating Residents and other teachers; established triads and quads to support Residents; and…

This article explores what happens when school mentors and university faculty co-facilitate a cycle of action research with pre-service science teacher residents in an urban teacher residency. The voices of all three constituents describe the process of doing action research together in community and its impact on their practice. The pre-service…

Background/Context: Student teaching represents a critical component of most teacher education programs. However, there is significant variation both in the contextual factors that preservice teachers (PSTs) encounter in their field placements and in the ways that teacher educators mediate PSTs' learning in relation to those placements. In…

Edward de Bono who invented the term "lateral thinking" in 1967 is the pioneer of lateral thinking. Lateral thinking is concerned with the generation of new ideas. Liberation from old ideas and the stimulation of new ones are twin aspects of lateral thinking. Lateral thinking is a creative skills from which all people can benefit…

This article chronicles the perspectives of two teacher candidates who displayed comfort with cultural issues and teaching for social justice, in contrast with many of their peers in the program who were uncomfortable with diversity. Their field experiences in a piloted urban reading practicum are documented, as part of a partnership with a…

This article explores how student teaching experiences provoke preservice art teachers to rethink curriculum and pedagogy as an organic and living space that is connected to place, community, and local knowledge. Based on a larger qualitative study of urban preservice art education student teachers, the journeys of two student teachers are…