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This study reports on changes made within the study, plan, teach and reflect steps of lesson study with pre-service teachers who were learning to teach within a disciplinary literacy course.

Using methods associated with formative experiments and design-based research, this study gathered data over four iterations of the disciplinary literacy course. Data included the course materials, pre-service teachers’ written work, observational notes from research lessons, transcripts of post-lesson discussions and teacher-educators’ analysis sessions and pre-service teachers’ post-program interviews. Data were analyzed within and across iterations.

Initial adjustments to the lesson study process focused on the reflect step, as we learned to better scaffold pre-service teachers sharing of observational data from research lessons. Later adjustments occurred in the study and plan steps, as we refined the design of four-day lesson sequences that better supported pre-service teachers’ attention to disciplinary literacy while providing room for their instructional mentors to provide specific team-based feedback. Adjustments to the teach step included reteaching and more explicit attention to literacy objectives.

This paper contributes to the literature by explicitly applying formative experiment and design-based research methods to the implementation of lesson study with pre-service teachers. Furthermore, it contributes examples of lesson study within a disciplinary literacy context, expanding the examples of lesson study’s applicability across content areas.

The purpose of this paper is to empower teacher candidates to integrate technology into classroom learning. The participating teacher candidates were provided with tools – iPads and software applications to enhance their ability to better meet the needs of all K-2 students. Teacher candidates had the opportunity to explore the range of pedagogical strategies the iPad facilitated through lesson planning and instructional practice. In addition, this research study found that when teacher candidates are given individualized training on the iPad, they have greater comfort with integrating it into their daily practice.

This study employed a case study approach, using both quantitative and qualitative measures. Quantitative methods included the use of two surveys to better understand how teachers have been trained on educational technology. The qualitative analysis explored how teacher candidates utilized the iPad to better meet K-2 student learning outcomes through focus group interviews.

Findings from this study suggest the need for embedded technology integration – through current graduate pedagogical coursework to better prepare K-2 teachers. Teacher candidates require time and regular practice to develop skills and understanding of how best to integrate iPad technology into their teaching. Redesigning a methodology course whereby candidates are developing a deeper understanding of pedagogy, while embedding technology into practice offers students this much needed opportunity. The findings from this study also indicate that, with appropriate training, teacher candidates have the ability to effectively integrate iPad technology into lessons which benefit student learning.

Researchers should be asking whether teacher preparation programs are effectively training teachers for the twenty-first century classroom. This research explores this question and suggests ways to improve current programs to better prepare candidates to meet the variety of learning needs in today’s classrooms. Although the study was small in scale it has broader implications for teacher education programs.

Addressing the diversity of students’ learning needs present in today’s classrooms is a common goal for all teachers. As evidenced through the findings, having the ability to access a variety of learning resources, in particular, iPads, will help teacher candidates better achieve this goal. This research demonstrated how teacher candidates used the iPad to support differentiated instruction in K-2 classrooms.

A one size fits all approach to learning does not work and teachers need to have access to every available resource, including iPad technology, to individualize learning. Findings from this study recommend providing teacher candidates with multiple opportunities to practice utilizing the iPad as a means to adapt, modify, and differentiate instruction to meet the variety of learning needs in K-2 classrooms.

It is important to note that while iPad integration throughout K-2 classrooms is on the rise, there is still limited research in how this technology is actually being used by teachers. This study explored how eight teacher candidates implemented the iPad as a technology tool within K-2 inclusive classrooms.

In order to prepare new members of the education profession, it is imperative that teachers enter their classrooms with the confidence, knowledge, and skills to serve their students from day one. One method for preparing such teacher candidates or student teachers is through school-based field placements during their preparation program. The purpose of this paper is to describe one example of a yearlong field placement and the mentoring relationships that emerged among participants.

This qualitative study used the following data sources: focus group interviews among the teacher candidates, focus group interviews among the mentor teachers, field placement reflections and teaching analyses composed by the teacher candidates, and interviews conducted among teacher candidates and mentor teachers.

Analysis of the data revealed that the yearlong field placement promoted positive mentoring relationships between teacher candidates and their classroom teachers. Specifically the following themes emerged: the “adoption” of teacher candidates into the high school classrooms, risk-taking within the classrooms, the mentor teachers’ use of constructive feedback, and collaborative “mentoring-down-the-hall.”

In recent years, various scholars have investigated the impact of field placement experiences on teacher candidates; however, these studies have lacked a detailed analysis of how such experiences impacted mentoring relationships among candidates and their mentor teachers in a collaborative setting. This paper provides an in-depth study of the perceived experiences of mentor teachers and their candidates.

The purpose of this study is to describe how one US Midwestern university implements quality principles, based on the value added premise in a teacher preparation program that yields accountability, teacher education standards attainment and ultimately improvement of teacher candidates and overall programs.

Data pertinent to students were gathered in a systematic way as they declared a certification area. This data was used to identify students who needed tutorial support and class advisement to assure successful matriculation, program completion and success on identified critical assessments. The two assessments identified were teacher work sample (TWS) and the national physical education certification examination (Praxis II). Meaningful proactive advisement, data sharing and tutorial testing assistance program were the primary approaches used to improve teacher candidate competencies.

Specific course modifications and curricular redesign resulted in positive results on the TWS and Praxis II. The results have been improved teacher candidate performance on knowledge, skills and dispositions measures.

As result of sharing data, a cultural shift occurred within the program. Faculty became more accountable to teacher candidate competency attainment and teacher candidates became more attuned to becoming an effective prospective teacher.

Because this particular teacher education programs implemented quality principles, utilized the value added approach to management and systematically used data that yielded positive results, it has become a model for other teacher education programs.

This study uses one program to provide examples of how management of accountability and standards attainment can lead to administrative, curricular, candidate and overall program improvement.

In this National Board-commissioned study, we examined types of feedback that teacher candidates for certification might receive along with their score reports after completing the Board's assessment process. We designed three standardized forms of feedback and interviewed 29 teachers from the 1993–1994 Early Adolescent/Generalist cohort about their preferences for each of the feedback options and about the inferences that they drew about their performance based on each type. The three feedback formats were (a) cases – extended descriptions of actual performances, annotated with scorer notes; (b) performance syntheses – brief descriptions of the scoring criteria accompanied by a variety of excerpts from candidate materials portraying performances at each level; and (c) illustrative summaries – evaluative descriptions of various candidate responses. Teachers reported that, of the three standardized formats offered to them, they preferred the cases format with its extended descriptions of an actual performance accompanied by annotated scoring notes. In terms of learning effects, candidates drew reasonably accurate inferences about their performance based on both cases and performance syntheses. The central conclusion we reached based on these findings was that feedback needs to be clearly organized around the scoring criteria for the exercise, and that examples of actual performances illustrating the application of the scoring criteria are important. However, teachers also reported that they would have preferred individualized, customized feedback on their own performance, although this option was not offered by the Board. As well, teachers indicated they would have preferred receiving the standardized feedback as “feedfront” to use in guiding them in their teaching and in preparing their assessment materials.

National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) are highly accomplished teachers who have learned to deprivatize their teaching practice, and hence provide a valuable model for teacher leadership. This chapter, which focuses on NBCTs as mentors of teacher candidates in a professional development school (PDS) setting, blends the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards’ Five Core Propositions, Teacher Leadership Exploratory Consortium Standards, and National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education PDS Standards to operationalize teacher leadership among four NBCTs. Utilizing multiple case-study research methods, data were gathered using prereflections, weekly e-mail prompts, and end-of-semester interviews. Six common threads focus on NBCTs serving as bridges from preservice to in-service teaching and creating distributed leadership opportunities.

Purpose – This chapter focuses on how teacher candidates engage in a process of body mapping to narratively inquire into how their daily informal and formal music experiences inform elementary music teaching practices.

Methodology and findings – In a primary/junior music education course at Brock University, teacher candidates utilize a course assignment to create a visual narrative (body map), along with oral and written narratives that outline their music experiences. Through this narrative inquiry, teacher candidates become aware of how their personal lived experiences influence their perceptions about elementary music teaching. This chapter offers conceptualizations of five threads that emerged from the narratives: process of body mapping and musical experience, music everywhere, school influences, family, and fear.

Value – This inquiry deepens understandings of curriculum making possibilities in elementary music teacher education as teacher candidates begin to form their music teacher identity based on their lived experiences. Such visual, oral, and written narratives contribute to increased narrative understandings by demonstrating the power teacher candidates' personal music experiences have in shaping teacher identity and, in turn, teaching practice.

This chapter is based on a self-study of teacher education practices (S-STEP) project that explored the pedagogical practices of a teacher educator and the impact of such practices on a teacher candidate engaged in the process of becoming a translingual teacher. This S-STEP study includes David, a professor in a teacher education program in the greater New York City metropolitan area, and Mary, a teacher candidate enrolled in the program. The purpose of the study was to discover how different class activities influenced the philosophical and pedagogical views of one teacher candidate in the program. The following are the two research questions of the study:

1. How did the class experiences that a teacher education professor, David, designed help teacher candidates conceptualize translingual approach to language and literacy development?

2. How did a monolingual teacher candidate, Mary, develop her role as a translingual English teacher through the completion of these experiences?

How did the class experiences that a teacher education professor, David, designed help teacher candidates conceptualize translingual approach to language and literacy development?

How did a monolingual teacher candidate, Mary, develop her role as a translingual English teacher through the completion of these experiences?

The findings of this S-STEP project demonstrate that the Sociocultural Reflection, the Community Study, and the Linguistic Landscape fostered a translingual approach to language and literacy in the classroom. Moreover, the findings suggest that upon the completion of the projects, one teacher education candidate was able to better define translingualism as a phenomenon of study, ideology, and pedagogy.

Since this investigation is based on a S-STEP project of a single teacher educator and a single teacher candidate, more research with larger populations is needed. Practical implications for teacher educators and teacher candidates in other settings are explored.

In our case study, we explored the perceptions of female-led and male-led educational leadership cohorts mentoring teacher candidates (mostly female) under faculty supervision. The study compares the educational leadership candidates’ cohort experiences and the teacher candidates’ perception of leadership development of individual students and as part of a group. Student teacher candidates engaged in generative mentoring relationships with educational leadership candidates by applying feedback from previous seminars and then revising their experiences in subsequent sessions. Our preliminary findings suggested that the structure of the seminars and collaborative partnerships contributed to student teachers’ understanding and application of pedagogical content knowledge, while critique occurred in facilitated sessions and discussions.

The paper identifies and explores the perspectives of middle school educators regarding the benefits and challenges of an ongoing, emerging school–university partnership. Over five years, professors at one comprehensive, Midwestern university, formed a partnership with a local middle school. While progress has been made to develop the partnership, the authors recognized a lack of shared governance (Essential 7). In particular, they were unsure the partnership was mutually beneficial. The authors interviewed teachers, the principal, assistant principals, guidance counselors, the instructional coach and the youth service center director to gain their perspectives on the partnership.

The authors used an intrinsic, evaluative case study to examine educators perceptions of the benefits and challenges of the partnership (Guba & Lincoln, 1981; Patton, 2002). This approach was used because within this bounded system the authors have an interest in obtaining information to help improve the program and partnership.

Results suggest the partnership was beneficial in a number of ways including hiring of and offering fresh ideas to teachers. Educators also felt there were many benefits for university candidates. Challenges included scheduling, technology access and candidate disposition. Implications are discussed.

Inherent within the research methodology, researchers’ inclusion in the data collection process may affect participants responses.

Researchers discuss the implications of this work, including the role of hiring candidates and clear articulation of a mission for the partnership.

This work adds to research on school site stakeholders’ perspectives on the value of school–university partnerships and includes teachers and the schools’ entire leadership team.