This article presents snapshots of an innovative program in which performing actor, musician, and dancer TAs work as substitute teachers. Through STARRRs (Substitute Teachers for the Arts and 3Rs) Program, New York City principals hire professional performers as licensed substitute teachers. Actors, musicians, and dancers bring their craft into…

This case study examined planning decisions made and challenges faced by an elementary teacher in a high-poverty urban district to promote students' adoption of social norms of interaction for scientific discourse. Through interviews, document analyses, and observations during a science unit, the findings indicated that the teacher's planning…

The Urban Teacher Preparation Academy was developed through a collaborative partnership between the University of Central Oklahoma and the Oklahoma City Public Schools. The goal of the program is to develop effective teachers for urban schools. The development and maintenance of the partnership is discussed through the lens of interorganizational…

The educational accountability movement in the United States under No Child Left Behind has negatively affected urban teachers because of high-stakes testing, narrowed curriculum, and scripted pedagogy. Such conditions have led to teacher stress, burnout, and attrition. Missing from the scholarly literature are the ways in which teachers work to…

In a longitudinal design experiment conducted within an urban teacher preparation program, we employed ethnographic and auto-ethnographic methods to investigate the following questions: 1) In what ways do clinical experiences (CEs) support prospective teachers' (PTs) development of knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for urban teaching?…

The MSU-Wipro UrbanSTEM & Leadership fellowship program was formed to enhance teaching and leadership capacities of teachers in a large urban school district. The program is built on Technical and Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework (Mishra & Koehler, 2006) and its instructional approach uses the power of experience (Dewey,…

Field experiences hold great promise for preparing candidates for effective urban teaching. This article reviews the research investigating the influence of field experiences on teacher candidates' perceptions of urban students from 1995 to 2010. The 36 articles that met the authors' criteria were organized into three general categories: studies…

This qualitative inquiry explores perceptions and experiences of three urban educators who had been involved in PDS initiatives both from the school perspective as classroom teachers and mentors to interns and from the university perspective as urban teacher-educators. These ''boundary spanners'' provided insight into and appreciation for the…

In this study, we take a sociocultural perspective on teaching and learning to examine how teachers in an urban Algebra 1 classroom constructed opportunities to learn. Drawing on analyses of discourse practices, including videotaped classroom lessons as well as other classroom artifacts and telephone interviews, we describe ways that two teachers…

Co-teaching has been used to address access and accountability mandates for students with disabilities. Despite research regarding elements needed for co-teaching success, research shows mixed results regarding co-teaching effectiveness as it relates to student achievement. Given that teachers are the most influential school-related factor…

In this analysis of the extant literature, we examined teacher quality variables that have shown a relationship with teacher efficacy for instructing urban minority students. We focused on the following areas: (a) importance of teachers, (b) teacher quality defined, (c) components of teacher quality, (d) self-efficacy, and (e) teacher efficacy.

This paper addresses Lincoln's [2010. "'What a long, strange trip it's been …': Twenty-five years of qualitative and new paradigm research." "Qualitative Inquiry" 16, no. 1: 3-9] call for greater attention to the question of rapport in qualitative research through a reflexive examination of researcher-participant relationships…

As a proposed solution to the issues plaguing urban schools in the United States, Teach for America (TFA) continues to garner national attention and attract an increasingly competitive pool of applicants from the nation's most elite colleges. In fact, TFA has become the nation's largest provider of teachers to low-income communities and…

Cultural competence in education is a vital part of running an effective classroom with cross-cultural relationships. However, there has been limited research addressing the supports classroom teachers receive from their instructional leaders in being culturally responsive to the students in their classroom. The purpose of this study was to…

This article addresses a unique effort to implement a summer residential program that identifies and inspires potential educators by reaching down the pipeline to academically talented high school students. The primary goal of the program was to introduce participants to various dimensions of urban teaching. The research and evaluation for the…