Teachers are a critical mass of professionals whose growth within the teaching profession is of great consequence to the effective imparting of knowledge and skills to students. While previous studies maintain that superior subject matter mastery, the ability to relate well to students, and innovative teaching strategies are qualities inherent in…

Alternative certification programs were designed to recruit individuals with work experiences into the teaching profession. This article synthesizes two studies of teachers and teacher candidates who circumvented the alternative certification process. The teachers who participated in the quantitative portion of the study were neither mature in…

Teachers continue to report that classroom management is one of their greatest challenges in the classroom. Classroom management involves teacher's efforts to oversee classroom activities such as learning, social interaction, and student behavior. In this study, we examined the relationship between sources of teachers' certification (traditional…

This article examines how service-learning provides undergraduate teacher candidates opportunities to cultivate deeper understandings of diversity, social justice, and themselves. Participants were from a mid-Atlantic university and a rural southeastern university. Although from different regions, the teacher candidates shared predominantly White,…

This article involved a series of investigations influenced by the Reggio Emilia approach to early education as well as ideas of Paulo Freire. Within a Reggio-influenced classroom, teacher professional development is seen as essential, whereas for Paulo Freire, both teacher and the student are learners. These 2 ideas were brought together in a…

The need to support and retain beginning teachers has become critical given: (1) the shortage of teachers in certain disciplines, and (2) the current emphasis on teacher qualifications and student achievement. In this study, five first year special education teachers in the southwestern section of the United States provided information on the…

Despite their interconnectedness, teacher education, teacher development, and teacher retention are often treated as discrete domains of inquiry. This article and the research on which it reports resist such compartmentalization and instead focus on relationships between teachers' pasts, presents, and futures. In particular, this qualitative study…

Giving a school's best teachers the challenge of supervision will empower them to assume greater responsibility, decision making, accountability, and professionalism. Suggested guidelines for supervising teachers include holding an annual meeting with student teachers, preparing classes for student teachers, demonstrating good teaching and…

The primary reason for failure of merit pay systems is teacher dissatisfaction. A recent study examined trends in teacher attitudes toward the career ladder program of a large metropolitan school district in Arizona. Developed at the state level in response to declining student achievement indicators and failing academic standards, the Career…

Veteran teachers do not have to be official mentors to help their new colleagues. Experienced educators can be lifesavers for isolated novices by reaching out informally. The most practical opportunities occur through chance meetings in hallways and scheduled discussions during common preparation times. (MLH)

When carefully conceived, portfolios can significantly advance a teacher's professional growth and preserve evidence of exemplary teaching. More than a scrapbook or steamer trunk of eye-catching materials, a teaching portfolio is an ongoing, collaborative process that carefully and thoughtfully documents a set of accomplishments attained over an…

Recent studies have used increasingly complex methodologies to estimate the effect of peer characteristics--race, poverty, and ability--on student achievement. A paper by Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin using Texas state testing data has received particularly wide attention because it found a large negative effect of school percent black on black math…

State and federal accountability systems are pressuring public schools to improve the performance of low-achieving students. To respond, schools must be able to recruit and retain high-quality teachers, strengthen curricula, and take other steps to provide struggling students with the help they need. But such efforts are expensive and, as the…

In the year 2000, the Texas Education Agency and the Texas A&M University System teamed up to create an initiative called the University Faculty Fellows Program. Spearheaded by Texas A&M International University in Laredo, the program paired up faculty from the university with area Advanced Placement (AP) teachers in a variety of…

The actual and preferred classroom experiences of 11 teachers and their 254 secondary students were surveyed. Our survey focused on nine dimensions of effective teaching. In contrast to existing research, in which dimensions of teaching practice are experimenter-defined, our survey reflected the educator standards of a particular state (Texas).…