The critical shortage of qualified teachers in hard to staff urban schools has been a persistent issue in the U.S. for decades. Teachers and researchers have pointed to the inadequacy of teacher preparation programs to prepare teacher candidates to address the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students and special education students…

As states, school districts, and teachers continue to adopt the inquiry-based principles of the College, Career, and Civic (C3) Framework, social studies teacher education must engage in a concomitant instructional shift to focus its efforts on preparing inquiry-based educators. One possible approach is to organize social studies teacher education…

In the recent past, during the 36 hours of required coursework necessary to become a certified teacher in the state of New York, not a single course deviated from the same model of teacher centered lectures and a long list of "to dos" that would presumably enable pre-service students to face 30 odd children in their own classrooms with…

Over 30 states have adopted the edTPA as a performance assessment for pre-service teachers. While many have adopted the edTPA as a program requirement, few require the edTPA for licensure of individual teacher candidates, but many states are poised to do so. While the edTPA is grounded on experiences with advanced certification and program level…

School-university partnerships have been offered as possible solutions for many contemporary educational challenges. These relationships are generally well accepted by university and school personnel; however, unanswered questions remain regarding their nature and utility. This paper describes one teacher preparation program's efforts to…

Using three tenents of Critical Race Theory, this study examines the influence of edTPAs on diverse early childhood pre-service teachers in a graduate program. Findings suggest that (1) Color-blind admissions policy and practice were at odds with edTPA's perceived academic language demands; (2) A tension emerged between financial demands of edTPA…

The edTPA, a performance assessment designed to generate reliable and valid measures of teaching practice, increasingly is used as a gatekeeping mechanism for beginning teacher licensure in various states, including New York, Washington State, Wisconsin, and Georgia. One of the edTPA's key components is the demonstration of instructional practice…

This personal narrative describes the efforts of a teacher education institution to understand and introduce teacher leadership into the preparation of teachers. The author provides the history and context of the institution as well as the structures and processes the institution used to achieve these goals. The article concludes with lessons…

Teaching in higher education is often not addressed in doctoral education, even though many doctoral graduates will eventually teach. This article describes a biweekly teaching workshop, presents pitfalls and challenges that beginning instructors face, and advocates pedagogical training for doctoral students. Led by a well-known social work…

This article reflects a qualitative exploratory inquiry into the lived experiences of faculty members working within a system of urban schools of education as they supported diverse teacher candidates in completing the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) during its first semesters of high-stakes implementation. Drawing upon…

To maximize children's opportunities for success in school, teacher preparation programs need to support preservice teachers in developing strong knowledge, experiences, and dispositions toward working with diverse families. Yet, it is challenging for programs to assess their candidates' knowledge and dispositions in this area. In this study we…

The edTPA is a teaching performance assessment (TPA) that the states of New York and Washington implemented as a licensure requirement in 2013. While TPAs are not new modes of assessment, New York and Washington are the first states to use the edTPA specifically as a compulsory, high-stakes policy lever in an effort to strengthen the quality and…

Improving teacher preparation is critical to long-term improvement in teacher quality. More than 200,000 new teachers enter classrooms each year. Increasing student enrollment, the retirement of baby boom generation teachers, and high attrition in their first five years (between 40 and 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession) have…

The field of teacher education has long sought to examine the impact of coursework on teacher practice and student learning. Despite the promise of many forms of educational pedagogy and curricula utilized in teacher education programs, many novice teachers continue to feel unprepared and insecure about their teaching. Pre-service teacher…

The limits inherent in field experiences are significant challenges to teacher educators in preservice teachers' preparation. One key challenge is having preservice teachers understand the complexities of what happens in the classroom. This article describes lessons we have learned through the creation of a multimedia case study that have given us…