The current study took place in a North Texas public school district. The purpose was to compare levels of teacher self-efficacy among beginning teachers who had participated in traditional and alternative teacher educator preparation programs (EPPs). Additionally, the perceptions of beginning teachers were explored in relation to their…

In the United States, people often feel like they need to choose between pursuing a conventional four-year college degree or working, leaving millions of people with no opportunity to achieve the professional and economic advancement that comes with a bachelor's degree. What if this is a false choice? Apprenticeship Degrees offer a hybrid option…

The purpose of this causal-comparative non-experimental quantitative study was to examine first-year elementary teachers' ratings of their sense of preparedness, compare their ratings based on their ethnicity, and compare teachers' ratings of their preparedness to principals' ratings of first-year teachers' preparedness based on six Texas teaching…

This paper is a report of a design-based research project undertaken to build a blended teacher education program that focuses on cultivating teachers' competencies for personalized and blended learning in K-12 classrooms. Two iterations were designed and examined in total, with 10 teacher educators and two teacher candidate cohorts. Teacher…

This study contributes to the literature on first year teachers by identifying complexities and struggles of becoming a teacher and the implications of district-university partnerships to strengthen our educator preparation program. The importance of partnerships with stakeholders, memorandum of agreements to share data, observations of first year…

In higher education, as many as 50% of educator preparation programs (EPPs) look to a national accreditation agency as one way to provide evidence of the rigor and quality of their programs. Although a large number of EPPs find value in the self-study and external review that come with the national accreditation process, the process itself can be…

This study examined a state-wide, policy-directed teacher evaluation model implemented across public schools and educator preparation programs. Such models are grounded in a theory of action that situates teacher learning within social relationships, yet does not account for the complexity of systems. Results challenge policy's implicit theory…

UTeach is a well-known, university-based program designed to increase the number of high-quality science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers in the workforce. The UTeach program was originally developed by faculty at the University of Texas at Austin but has rapidly spread and is now available at 44 universities in 21 states;…

The National Association of Professional Development Schools recognized the partnership between Baylor University and Midway Independent School District as one of three partnerships to receive the 2017 Award for Exemplary Professional Development School Achievement. This Professional Development School partnership began in 2009 and places the…

A service-learning mentoring project was designed to impact two groups of participants. Five cohorts of pre-service teachers in an elementary preparation program provided weekly mentoring to elementary students identified as needing additional support. During this longitudinal study, thirteen elementary students were randomly paired with a…

Recent policies intended to improve teacher quality have focused on the preparation that teachers receive before entering the classroom. A short-lived federal rule would have required every state to assess and rank teacher-preparation programs by their graduates' impact on student learning. Though the federal rule was repealed, last year some 21…

This compilation of short summaries of Grow Your Own (GYO) teacher resources, prepared for the Texas Education Agency (TEA) by the Texas Comprehensive Center (TXCC) at American Institutes for Research (AIR), is organized around research questions developed by TEA to inform the Texas GYO teacher strategy. This is meant to be a living document and…

The teacher turnover issue impacts education on national, state, and local levels. On a national level, at the beginning of the 21st century 50% of teachers left the profession within the first five years, creating the need for districts to fill vacancies (Gonzalez, Brown, & Slate, 2008; Greiner & Smith, 2006; Heller, 2004; Ingersoll,…

For many non-traditional candidates, the path into teaching is riddled with bumps and detours. They must pay for increasingly expensive coursework and certification costs, attend classes that conflict with work schedules, and forgo wages to complete unfunded student teaching requirements. These roadblocks can deter valuable local…

MathForward™, developed in 2004-2005 in cooperation with the Richardson (TX) Independent School District, was implemented nationwide in 2007. The program integrates TI technology and professional development while focusing on student achievement and teacher efficacy. This study investigated the effect of the MathForward™ program on student…