The Master of Arts in Teaching program at Empire State College, an alternative teacher certification program focused on bringing career-changing adults to high-needs schools, has an important need in its initial pre-service year. These adult students must be prepared to move into complex, high-needs schools without student teaching and often with…

The Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ), in partnership with the Aspen Institute and the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), has been investigating the urban teacher residency (UTR) -- an innovative response to the longstanding challenges of how to recruit, prepare, and retain bright and capable teachers for…

This dissertation investigates how teaching in a hands-on science center contributes to re/shaping one's teaching identity. Situated at the New York Hall of Science (NYHS) in Queens, New York, my research approach is to conduct a critical ethnography where the focus is on improving the teaching and learning of science for all involved. In…

Urban public schools and their teachers are under siege. From increased standardization, privatization and testing to a growing number of students whose needs are not being met by schools, urban public school teachers face a daunting task. Without a space in which to critically examine their daily experiences within schools, many well-intentioned…