This study focuses on the use of a mentoring protocol, the reflective dialogue journal, to develop professional competencies for pre-service teachers within a school-university partnership. To examine the effectiveness of the reflective dialogue journal protocol and the processes employed by mentor teachers to assist pre-service teachers with…

The work of mentoring matters. Whether one is looking at the broad-scale enactment of induction programming or the individualized attention focused on new teachers' learning and development, mentors play a pivotal role in new teacher retention and development. As a result, mentors are in a good position to interpret and enact induction policy at…

Requiring teachers to complete a performance-based assessment in the form of a teacher performance assessment is becoming a common way for initial teacher licensure or advancing a license. While some traditionally- and alternatively-licensed teachers from all content areas may have to complete some type of performance-based assessment for initial…

This research addresses lack of student teaching preparation. There is strong evidence that beginning teachers are not trained to adequately teach students due to their lack of preparation/content knowledge. The purpose of this study is to examine the experience of beginning teachers to try to understand why student teachers are not prepared for…

This study compares knowledge as measured by grade point averages and Praxis II scores between first-year special education teachers who completed one university's alternative teacher preparation program (ATTP) and those who completed the university's traditional teacher preparation program (TTPP). A total of 33 teachers, 15 from the ATTP and 18…

This study examined beginning teachers' perceptions of self-efficacy and professional development while engaged in communities of practice. Wenger's research on communities of practice serves as the conceptual framework for this mixed method phenomenological study. Six beginning and tenured teachers were surveyed using the Ohio State Teacher…

As support and professional-development opportunities for teachers begin to move from conference rooms to chat rooms, a burgeoning number of states and districts are drawing on features from course-management software and popular social-networking sites to establish online networks connecting teachers to peers who may live dozens or even hundreds…

This document is intended to assist organizers of professional development activities for arts and sciences faculty members of preservice teacher education programs at Ohio colleges and universities. The following materials are included: (1) a decision matrix to organize the decisions made by facilitators of professional development activities;…

This document is intended to assist organizers of professional development activities for education faculty members of preservice teacher education programs at Ohio colleges and universities. The following materials are included: (1) a decision matrix to organize the decisions made by facilitators of professional development activities; (2) a…