For the past six years, the Cranford Public School District and Seton Hall University in northern New Jersey, USA, have been Professional Development School partners. As a result of this partnership, experienced teachers have systematically mentored pre-service candidates in university field experiences. The Japanese practice of Lesson Study was…

National agencies advocate the use of field experiences to help prepare teachers to integrate technology in their classrooms. However, prospective teachers often fail to synthesise the integration of technology with the complexities of teaching during such experiences. This study suggests teacher inquiry, a strategy for helping educators…

This paper describes an effort to provide prospective teachers opportunities to better understand African American male students and better focus on how they learn mathematics. Prospective teachers spent 15 hours over an eight week span mentoring and tutoring African American males without the guise of practicing teachers. Qualitative data drawn…

This article examines the effectiveness of a 1-year full-time credential program in recruiting, preparing, and retaining elementary, secondary, and special education teachers for urban schools. The program was designed to restructure teacher education as a shared school-university responsibility and to reflect best teacher preparation practices…

New views of proficiency in K-8 science that highlight the importance of engaging children in the discourses and practices of science have raised the stakes for elementary teachers and the teacher educators who prepare them. In this paper, a framework for teaching science as argument is presented. The framework is advanced as a means of addressing…

Marking major changes in professional role performance, response to intervention (RTI) is now in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004) as a possible method to improve the identification of specific learning disabilities. Moreover, RTI and related concepts and initiatives have fundamentally influenced more general methods of…

Teachers' personal self-efficacy about their ability to motivate students and encourage learning has been shown to affect the classroom they create and student achievement. Therefore, research has been conducted on ways to increase teacher efficacy for in-service and pre-service teachers. One area of research that has been explored is the impact…

Field experiences are identified as an important component in the preparation of new teachers. As such, methods to supplement field experiences with pre- and post-activities that ready preservice teachers to effectively learn from them warrant further examination. This paper presents one tool that has been used successfully to improve preservice…

Today's increasingly multicultural student population requires that school-community partnerships operate from culturally responsive frameworks. Incorporating significant resources from multicultural communities is an essential component within school-community partnership. Although such a partnership is an essential strategy, it has not been…

This paper examines how Lesson Study (Lewis, 2002) was used in an elementary mathematics methods course held at a Professional Development School and intended to support pre-service teachers to become reflective practitioners while working alongside clinical faculty. Attention is given to detailing the features of Lesson Study that situates the…

This study utilizes a sociocultural activity theory approach to determine how, if at all, undergraduate coursework affects the attitudes of preservice English teachers, enrolled in a graduate teacher education program. Specifically, the study examines if there is any affect on the way the preservice teachers think about the teaching of writing…

In October/November 2009, the Forum on Education Abroad conducted its third State of the Field Survey. This survey provides an annual or biannual assessment of key education abroad issues and topics of interest to Forum members and the field of education abroad at large. Previous State of the Field surveys were conducted in 2006 and 2008. The 2009…

Though the importance of including practicum experiences in programs for the preparation of elementary preservice teachers is generally accepted, the nature of these experiences on the development of skills in teaching science can vary greatly. This study compares the effect of variations in field experiences at two institutions, one which…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how professional skills training in making ethical decisions for redundancy selection, can be utilised though interactive role play, in a virtual learning environment. Design/methodology/approach: A pilot study was undertaken with a group of part time mature students pursuing a professional…

Over the last decade, online distance education has become a common mode of study in most states in the USA, where it is known as virtual schooling (VS), but many people have misconceptions about it. Pre-service teachers' personal histories as students and their preconceptions, misconceptions, and concerns influence pre-service teacher training…