Based on a qualitative analysis of 38 interviews with midcareer professors at liberal arts colleges in the Midwest, this paper describes the teaching experiences of professors after 20-some years in the classroom. As a result of getting older and becoming more seasoned instructors, individuals cited an increase in their skill and efficiency in the…

The Illinois Educator Preparation Profiles (IEPP) system, housed at the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), provides public information on the performance of Illinois teacher preparation programs (TPPs) across the state. TPPs are scored on 11 indicators grouped into four domains--candidate selection and completion, knowledge and skills for…

This is an era of transformation in the preparation, induction, and assessment of prospective teachers. The tension between local and state control is at the heart of the debate. States should be responsible for establishing performance standards that ensure that new teachers are well-prepared, competent, and ready to teach. This is why the…

Many have labeled the youth residing in detention homes as the forgotten children of society. Education in a detention home can be a catalyst for restoring troubled youth to the right track. However, most detention home education programs and educators are isolated, unregulated, and operated with minimal guidance from either the state or local…

The field of teacher preparation is falling short of its most important responsibility: ensuring that the teachers we train are ready to do the job. For more than a decade,TNTP preparation programs produced teachers who were no more or less effective than teachers from any other program-- some were great, some were poor, most were about average.…

Purpose: Relatively little is known about how principals make decisions about teacher hiring. This article uses mixed methods to examine what characteristics principals look for in teachers. Research Methods: Data were gathered using a mixed method approach, including in-depth interviews with a representative sample of 31 principals as well as an…

This quantitative study investigated the relationship between teacher dispositions, subject content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and reasons that school principals recommend non-renewal of teachers' contracts. Nearly 2,000 school principals in 13 states completed an emailed survey. In deciding whether to non-renew a teacher contract,…

Part-time faculty teach approximately 58% of U.S. community college classes and thus manage learning experiences for more than half (53%) of students enrolled in community colleges (JBL Associates, 2008). Often referred to as "contingent faculty," their work is conditional; the college typically has no obligation to them beyond the…

This quantitative study investigated reasons that school principals recommend non-renewal of probationary teachers' contracts. Principal survey results from three regions of the US (Midwest, Rocky Mountains, & Southeast) were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U statistical procedures, while significance was tested applying a…

In the past, collaboration between universities and high schools has been limited to placing student teachers in a classroom to get acclimated to the teaching environment. Saint Xavier University wanted education students to develop their teaching skills in a deeper manner. A nearby high school, with many students from immigrant families, also had…

This study explored the perceptions of school administrators and teacher educators regarding the effective use of portfolios in the process of hiring new teachers. Three questions helped to focus this study: (1) What are the perceptions of school administrators and teacher educators regarding the value and use of portfolios in the employment of…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to learn about the ways that instrumental music teachers in Chicago navigated the urban landscape. The design of the study most closely resembles Creswell and Plano Clark's (2007) two-part Triangulation Convergence Mixed Methods Design, with the addition of an initial exploratory focus group component.…

We examine whether teachers' communicator style relates to student engagement, teacher-student relationships, student perceptions of teacher immediacy, as well as observer ratings of delivery skills during the implementation of All Stars, a middle school-based substance use prevention program. Data from 48 teachers who taught All Stars up to 3…

Greybull is a small high school nestled among the graybrown buttes of northwestern Wyoming. As in five other states, juniors take the ACT test, not for college entry but to see how they perform and how curriculum might be improved. Principal Mark Fritz said that they do watch the scores and do make changes in the curriculum and that Wyoming has…

The National Center for Research on Early Childhood Education's (NCRECE) program of research is a series of experimental studies of specific approaches to training early childhood (EC) educators to be effective in implementation of curriculum and instructional interactions focused on promoting language and literacy skills, two domains that operate…