This third edition includes 136 annotations and abstracts on Professional Development Schools (PDSs). Most resources are published since 1997. Because earlier editions of this publication are now out of print, annotations of several works from the second edition were chosen for inclusion in the current edition. In many cases, the older entries…

This digest examines the spread of mentoring in the United States, obstacles to realizing the potential of mentoring as a vehicle of reform, needed research, and selected issues of policy and practice. While the education community understands that mentors have a positive effect on teacher retention, the question of what mentors should do, what…

This digest reviews available data on Asians and Pacific Islanders (API) to assess their presence in the teaching profession. Although they are a rapidly expanding part of both the population and school enrollments, APIs constitute only one percent of all teachers, and are largely absent from teacher preparation programs, with their mean…

This digest examines prekindergarten teacher licensure, which enables states to ensure a level of specialized knowledge and experience among early childhood professionals. A recent movement toward specialization has led to more states offering early childhood education licenses (which is beneficial since the best predictor of appropriate teacher…

Studies have addressed the substantive knowledge of teachers and the content that is actually taught in classrooms. Some research has indicated that teachers have difficulty teaching certain areas because they themselves lack sufficient understanding about those areas. In considering the kind or amount of subject matter knowledge teachers need,…

The themes of teacher autonomy, practical experience, and program rigor are manifest explicitly and implicitly throughout these papers prepared for the National Commission for Excellence in Teacher Education. Both the problems and resolution approaches presented under each theme suggest what can and must occur in teacher education to enhance the…

Presentations at this conference focused on the following topics: (1) the recruitment and retention of minorities in teacher education; (2) history and social psychology of the issue; (3) futuristic views and minority participation in the 1990s; (4) comparison of teacher education programs in traditionally black and white institutions; (5)…

Presented in this report are brief descriptions of preservice teacher education programs offered by American institutions of higher education and inservice teacher education programs and structures in U.S. urban school districts, designed for the education, preparation, and continuing training of professionals for urban schools. The programs were…

This issue of Investigations in Science Education contains articles about attitude research in science education. It contains the critiques of nine articles about attitude research as well as three responses to critiques. One response relates to a critique published in an earlier issue while the other two responses are paired with the critiques…

This report examines similarities and differences between teacher preparation systems in the United States and the United Kingdom. The first section discusses initiatives to renew and reform teacher education, highlighting four interrelated factors that provide insight into the reasons for conflicting demands for change (public expectations about…

Professional development schools (PDS) offer significant promise for restructuring university-school district relationships around a common agenda of modeling exemplary practice, preparing teachers, and conducting research. Central to the success of such efforts will be the development of shared vision regarding the teaching profession and the…

Proposed reforms in education call for, among other things: developing K-12 schools as field sites for teacher education; professionalizing teachers to give them a greater voice in carrying out the responsibilities of their positions; and providing the opportunity for lifelong career development for teachers. Schools and colleges or universities…

This book offers a collection of papers from a conference focused on various aspects of school/college collaboration, edited so as to form a coherent presentation. The papers are grouped into five chapters, each with its own theme. Chapter 1, on the nature of collaboration, aims to promote inquiry into research, theory, and application concerning…

This volume of papers, written by professors of education, an administrator, and a clinical psychologist, illustrate how the concept of equity can be woven into the professional components of teacher education. In "A Matter of Linkage: Multicultural Education and Educational Equity," Martha E. Dawson maintains that multicultural education is an…

This paper examines the Bank Street College of Education's efforts to infuse technology into all aspects of graduate teacher education. Entitled Project EXPERT (Expanding Educational Repertoire through Technology), the effort called for graduate school faculty to learn to use technology in their own classrooms and to redesign their courses,…