The roles and relationships of clinical faculty (experienced teachers who work with students in teacher education) in university teacher-education programs are examined to see how they might contribute to improvement of teacher education and what obstacles may exist. Implications for education reform are discussed. (SLD)

Practicum experiences and feelings of preparedness to teach were compared for 88 Ontario student teachers in either the fourth year of a "concurrent" undergraduate preservice program or a 1-year "consecutive" graduate preservice program. The two groups did not differ in teaching self-efficacy or the number of classroom…

Faced with an applicant pool deficient in credentials and classroom skills, savvy administrators can spot applicants' potential, discerning those individuals likely to blossom into effective teachers. Important qualities include a strong work ethic, people and communication skills, and enthusiasm for teaching. Deciphering hidden meanings behind…

This article first offers an overview of policy contexts in the four countries of the UK. Second, it reviews recent research into perspectives on special educational needs and inclusion in the preschool years. Third, the rationale and research design of a study to investigate preschool educators' perspectives on these issues are outlined. Five key…

This paper examines the extent to which an intervention program on the use of practical work affected the following two variables: instructional techniques and mathematical ability. An attempt was made to correlate these two variables with age, educational attainment, and teaching experience to determine if there exists a relationship with and…

In an era dominated by issues of school finance adequacy, it seems particularly important to provide evidence that, despite a number of claims to the contrary, educational resources are indeed positively related to improved student achievement. One of the hypotheses of this article is that expenditures per pupil must be disaggregated into more…

This study describes global education as one of the current trends in teacher education in the United States. In this study, preservice and inservice teachers who attended six outstanding teacher education programs in global education were asked to reflect upon: (1) what they valued in their program's content and experiences; (2) their processes…

This book analyzes a collection of 147 stories from more than 50 teachers about memorable moments in their teaching careers. Recurrent themes from these stories, depicting the interactive nature of teaching, the teaching-learning process, and the rewards of teaching, are categorized. Because the work of teachers is generally devalued and…

There continues to be a great deal of debate about the role that field experiences play in teacher development and about the relative contribution of various individual and institutional factors to the socialization process. Field experiences in teacher education entail a complex set of interactions among program features, settings, and people…

This study was conducted to learn how a new "experience" component in education foundations' core course work would be evaluated by teacher-trainees and their critic teachers, who were experienced classroom teachers. Project subjects were 186 men and women (84 senior students in a required Foundations of Education senior level core course, and 102…

This study was undertaken to determine the perceptions of a wide range of citizens and to inform the Mississippi Legislature on the issue of merit pay in education. From each of 50 randomly selected Mississippi school districts, a representation of grades K through 12 was chosen, with all professional and administrative staff members asked to…

A Sacramento County district successfully combines rigorous standards with civic values and service learning, requires both algebra and geometry, and helps students pass the high school exit exam. The community has been involved in raising standards and developing accelerated learning programs at all 29 elementary schools. (MLH)

This article presents a comparison between the professional and curricular conceptions of two samples of secondary education science teachers in Spain, who differed in their years of teaching experience and in whether or not they had participated in a long-duration scientific-pedagogical refresher course. Using the data from their responses to a…

This qualitative study examined the effects of a high-stakes, standardized test on teachers' instructional planning at a rural school. The research addressed this question: How do mandated curricular standards affect teachers' instructional planning and content selection? Ethnographic interviews (Creswell, 1998) examined four secondary teachers'…

This study used a systems perspective to determine whether differences exist between classrooms of expert (n=35) and novice (n=35) teachers on the cohesion, communication, and flexibility dimensions of the Classroom Systems Observation Scale (CSOS). A 50-minute observation using the CSOS was conducted in elementary school classrooms in New York…