The primary goal of teacher education programs is to develop preservice teachers into quality future educators. Preparing these students of teaching for the realities of working with children in schools can be complex. Formal teacher training can offer detailed attention to the self-efficacy of candidates during coursework and early field…

In this article three stages of a holistic early field experience are presented. Before the early field experience, focuses of knowledge acquisition for both classes are highlighted. During the early field experience, the cycle of concrete experience, observation and reflection, and modification application is explained with the structure and…

The National Council for Geographic Education GeoCamp Iceland is a unique field experience designed to energize, inspire, and edify experienced and novice geography teachers. The 2015 institute (nineteen participants from fourteen states) was designed for K-12 educators and in 2017 (twenty-one participants from eighteen states and Washington, DC)…

This commentary addresses the content of this issue from the perspective of educating bilingual learners. Several articles propose the kind of coursework and field experiences needed for the preparation of teacher candidates to be qualified to work effectively with bilingual populations. Others report on specific aspects of teacher preparation.…

Performances and artefacts of student learning provide tangible evidence of their understanding of classroom instruction. Hattie (2012, 2015) uses the term "visible learning" to focus attention on the need for teachers to gather and consider these as evidence of students' ongoing learning, linking these tightly to teachers' pedagogical…

As the intersection between theory and practice, clinical experiences are the shared home through which school and university constituents examine effective pedagogies. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, our teacher preparation programs had built meaningful, face-to-face, partnership-based clinical experiences. The abrupt shift to virtual instruction…

Clinical practice has long been an integral component of teacher education. In the past two decades, however, the call has intensified for more purposeful, inclusive, integrated, and reflective clinical experiences for teacher candidates learning how to teach and, more broadly, what it means to be a teacher. This article aims to offer a conceptual…

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in school closures, shifting to online instruction poses unique challenges for educators. The purpose of the paper is to inform practitioners on how online instruction was facilitated in a science methods course for preservice teachers (PSTs) enrolled in a public university across three campuses. The major…

Inclusion of students with disabilities in general education settings is often contingent on teachers' liberties to use inclusive instructional strategies. The current qualitative investigation used focus group, observation, and interviews of 9 special education teachers to understand their attitudes and beliefs concerning challenges with…

This paper examines the experiences of two colleagues working in close collaboration over several years to create, implement, and assess an innovative and integrative cohort-based, preservice-teacher, field-experience curriculum in a new Bachelor of Education program. Engaging a duoethnographic narrative approach, this paper both inquires into the…

This report studies the best practices necessary to rethink the skills, methods, and pedagogical evolution that teacher education must address. If we are to ensure great teachers are trained, mentored, and retained for our students--the programs themselves must emulate 21st century skills. The examples found in this report have unique elements and…

The Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut is committed to the intentionality of interweaving course work and practice in its 5-year teacher preparation program, the Integrated Bachelor's and Master's program. It offers a wide range of field experiences to teacher candidates. Teacher candidates enter the program at the beginning…

Overseas experiences provide educators with exceptional opportunities to incorporate field study, firsthand experiences, and tangible artifacts into the classroom. Despite this potential, teachers must consider curricular standards that direct how such international endeavors can be integrated. Furthermore, geography curriculum development is more…

Pre-service teachers spend an inordinate amount of time observing teaching and learning in classrooms with the goals of understanding the complexities of that space and impacting their teaching. Consequently, teacher educators are responsible for scaffolding pre-service teachers in the use of appropriate and effective observational skills and…

Federal legislation (Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act, No Child Left Behind) mandates access to the general education curriculum for students with disabilities. As a response, K-12 schools are moving to coteaching models with increased frequency (National Center for Education Statistics, 2008). However, preservice teachers…