Preservice teachers get their first teaching position hoping to take the first step toward becoming professional educators and expecting support from experienced colleagues and administrators, who often serve as their mentors. In this article, the authors present the story of Kristine (a pseudonym), who works at a middle school in a large U.S.…

The Multi-Site Teacher Education Research project (MUSTER) explores initial teacher education in five countries--Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, and Trinidad and Tobago. National research teams collected and analysed data on key dimensions of the training process, which included the characteristics of those selected for training, the…

This document describes the contributions made by the Primary Education Quality Improvement Program (1996-1999) to the broad goals of improved access, equity, and quality in girls' primary education in Pakistan. In Balochistan, the largest but least developed province of Pakistan, an innovative approach to educational development was successfully…

In this article, the author relates her difficult experiences as a novice teacher when she started teaching bilingual third-graders in Spanish at Spangler Elementary School in 2002. She relates that her teaching strategy of balancing rigor and sweetness had its rewards as her students' rate of reading proficiency on the Colorado Student Assessment…

This paper introduces the design for a study to investigate application of a cognitive apprenticeship approach to preservice teacher education. The research will be informed by and build upon the findings of a previous Master of Education dissertation. In particular, the study seeks to investigate answers to the following research question: To…

One of the major accomplishments of the New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) sponsored by the Council of Chief State School Officers has been the development of a set of standards describing what beginning teachers should know, be like, and be able to do. These standards have been translated into content-specific standards for…

This paper examines an intervention to change prospective elementary teachers' knowledge and beliefs about mathematics education. The intervention consisted of a sequence of mathematics courses, a methods course, and a curriculum seminar in which establishing a community of learners was a central feature. The concept of community embodies the…

The Mentor Teacher Program in the state of California is designed to retain capable teachers by expanding their rewards and opportunities. This report focuses on the character and quality of mentoring in an alternate route program sponsored by a large urban school district. A 30-hour required training course for mentors introduces them to their…

This book deals with the crises and emergencies that a teacher may have to deal with in the classroom, as well as problems in interpersonal relationships with students, interns, parent and peers. Each chapter deals with different facets of problems that may arise in the classroom, illustrated by case studies that typify the situation under…

The responsibility for ensuring that beginning teachers are competent to teach in the nation's classrooms should be that of teacher education institutions, according to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). Teacher education institutions must employ an assessment system that: (1) assesses specific competencies as…

In the summer of 1986, representatives from Southern Oregon State College, the Northwest Regional Laboratory, and the Josephine County School District formed a consortium to design an induction program for beginning rural teachers. During its first year, the consortium presented special on-site graduate credit courses addressing problems new…

In education, as in business, management is concerned with three production factors: human resources, finances, and technology. Differences between the education and business spheres become apparent when a comparison is made of the installation of a new piece of engineering equipment with the orientation of a new teacher. If as much care was taken…

The articles in this collection present the views of teacher educators in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Soviet Union on inservice, or "lifelong" teacher education. The first section contains five essays: (1) a new teachers' training project in Czechoslovakia; (2) further education of teachers and educational personnel in the…

Southern states are introducing one or more of a combination of five approaches to teacher education and certification, all of which are aimed at improving the quality of new teachers. These include: (1) adding test requirements at or near the end of the bachelor's degree teacher education program; (2) lengthening the probationary period for new…

A competency-based educational project was done to develop an inventory of the competencies that beginning teachers of industrial arts education (K-12) in Pennsylvania must demonstrate to meet standards for satisfactory performance. Three regional workshops were held where the participants, selected by a steering committee using specific criteria,…