The majority of teacher education programs in North America require elementary-teacher candidates to complete separate courses in curriculum subject areas. This model to teacher education limits candidates' readiness to engage in interdisciplinary teaching and focuses preservice curriculum on content-specific pedagogies rather than on general,…

Prospective teachers are often found to have difficulty focusing their attention on students in sustained and constructive ways. Instead, in what is sometimes understood as a developmental matter, beginners may seem highly concerned with their own feelings and needs. This article offers a contrary finding. It examines two cases of prospective…

In this case study, part of a larger study of the Prospect School Teacher Education Program, the author investigates the processes of descriptive inquiry by exploring a moment in their evolution and their effect on the learning of one teacher educator and his students ("interns") as they investigated the teaching of social studies. She also…

This paper stems from a classroom discussion in which one author, a sixth-grade student in that classroom, contended that boys only read books about boys and proposed that the teacher change the situation by assigning books with both male and female main characters. The boys who responded emphatically denied the girl's claim, and the teacher later…

This article describes how a study group for beginning teachers, led by instructors from the teacher education program from which they had just graduated, supported the novice teachers' abilities to survive their induction year and the constraints of school practices influenced by high-stakes accountability policies. Findings demonstrate that the…

Survey data were used to explore the current teaching status and reasons for leaving or considering leaving teaching for 154 career changers who all graduated from a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program over a 9-year time period. Respondents provided information about reasons for leaving teaching, indicating personal/family, career, and school…

This article shares the ways new early childhood teachers carry forward the social justice principles emphasized in their teacher education program into their actual practice. Their participation in a university-sponsored mentoring group served as the context for this study. Through an emergent themes analysis, we explored how they prioritized…

This reflective study explores the history and outcomes of a teacher education collaboration between the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and Lehman College of The City University of New York (CUNY), in the Bronx, NY, USA. AMNH developed and teaches a Lehman course, Museum Resources for Teaching Science, for Master's degree candidates in…

Preparing teachers to be reflective practitioners is the goal embraced by most teacher education programs. Reflective practitioners infuse personal beliefs and values into a professional identity, resulting in the development of a deliberate code of conduct. They challenge assumptions and expectations that may limit their potential for tolerance…

The Children's Defense Fund Freedom Schools provide literacy-rich, summer experiences for both the K-12 children they serve and the servant-leader interns who serve as teachers. In this article, the author expands upon the scholarship of preparing teachers to be culturally responsive pedagogues of language arts instruction by illuminating…

This article describes introductory practices used to prepare future urban teachers to implement critical literacy strategies in their classrooms. Based in a teacher education program designed to prepare teachers for urban multicultural settings, the authors provide an overview of critical approaches to literacy instruction, a rationale for why…

This sixth and last paper in the series describes four elements believed to be crucial to a high quality pedagogy for educational foundations. These four elements are derived from a close reading of the previous papers. The work of Osguthorpe, Sanger, Haniford, and Mucher, four of the authors in this series, is cited as both a source for these…

We suggest that there is a powerful and affirming socialization taking place in African American communities that could be instructive to schools. This article illustrates how educators can build on the strengths found in the black community to effectively teach African American students. Relating the ethos of the barbershop to tenets of…

The purpose of this paper is to present a case study and analysis of programmatic change over two years of reform in a teacher education program. The data shows that the types of change occurring in program reform may not be as substantive as educators may hope to see. Two main obstacles to change that were revealed are workload issues and a lack…

Teachers often resist the label of "leader" and the hierarchical structures that the idea of leader conjures, yet they continue to engage in leadership enactment. This article describes an alternative conception of teacher leadership--"practical leadership"--embodied by leadership enactment through local deliberation and action. This notion is…