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Critical, collaborative learning activities in teacher education programs prepare pre-service and in-service teachers to work collectively with a social justice stance in their work (Lieberman & Po...

Background: This study examines the role of a weeklong experiential residency program on teachers’ beliefs about self and practice. Purpose: The goal of two separate intensive experiences was to help teachers generate new insight about the place of students, the teacher, and the school that extended beyond a surface-level understanding of experiential education. Methodology/Approach: Through a qualitative approach, the research team used field notes, course documents, participant reflections, researcher journals, and follow-up interviews to analyze the impact of participants’ immersion in either of the experiential outdoor residencies. Findings/Conclusions: The unpredictable nature of the physical and social environment of the experiential week helped teachers to see the central role of community in the learning process. Furthermore, teacher responses to the experience defied simple categorization along a prior theoretical construct. Teachers indicated a growing confidence in their ability to seek out and overcome challenges across multiple domains. Implications: These teachers were challenged to integrate multiple social and emotional aspects of self into their learning, while envisioning the same for their own students. Their experiences and reflections support an expanded role for immersive experiences outside of the traditional classroom in teacher education.

Given the well-documented pervasiveness of high-stakes assessment in preK–12 schools, many researchers have investigated how testing affects students. In this article, Sarah Byrne Bausell and Jocelyn A. Glazier explore the ways that high-stakes testing influences beginning teacher socialization and the ways that teacher colleagues shape one another's responses to these policies. The authors use discourse analysis to examine six years of transcripts collected from a series of quarterly teacher discussion groups, during which elementary school teachers talked about their work within the testing landscape. Their findings indicate that high-stakes testing deeply affects teacher beliefs, practices, and socialization behaviors, thus revealing a troubling tendency to position students as numbers and a sharp decline in talk about teaching philosophies and practices develops alongside the testing policy landscape. Bausell and Glazier recommend that teacher educators prepare future teachers with an understanding of the ways teacher socialization unfolds so that new teachers can be mindful of the factors that may shape their practice.

Building from the theories of Dewey and Kolb and Fry, we sought to examine the impact of experiential education in teacher education on teacher beliefs and practices. The teacher education model de...

A critical issue in teacher education is the ongoing support and professional development of novice teachers. This study explores a professional development project, Reconnect and Recharge, for new...

Collaboration is a well-used term in the field of education, identified as promising practice for student learning and teaching learning alike. However, collaboration comes in different shapes and sizes, leading to radically different ends. The authors examine teachers’ own understandings and practices of collaboration with teacher colleagues within their school contexts and within a professional development model designed to allow for collaborative conversation between teachers. Implications for teacher education are then considered.

As classrooms become increasingly diverse and students need more complex skills for collaboratively addressing transnational issues, we need a better understanding of the factors that contribute to globally competent teaching. Education research has highlighted the benefits of study abroad and overseas teaching, as well as local cross-cultural immersion, but these options are not always feasible. We sought to identify the various means by which teachers develop global competence. Through this qualitative case study of 10 global educators, we found that international travel, though present in some instances, was not always necessary. In fact, it was an accumulation of experiences that prompted teachers to incorporate global perspectives, lessons, and skill development throughout their careers. Thus, globally competent teaching may be better conceptualized as a path, rather than as an end goal.

This article provides a description of service learning implemented in a course entitled "Working With Socioculturally Diverse Families" for teacher education candidates (preK–grade 5). Students participated in 30 hours of service learning in which they provided support and service to diverse mentor families and implemented family events at participating schools. Students’ reflections from focus group interviews conducted after the course regarding their service learning experiences were coded and analyzed. Students reported learning about the dynamics of family diversity, how family resources and backgrounds influence children's school success, and how family involvement should be viewed as a continuum given the diverse priorities and resources of families. Recommendations for the use of service learning in the preparation of early childhood teachers are presented.

In this article, the author uses positioning theory to better understand the complexity of teacher learning about culture in the company of diverse colleagues. Analysis of a yearlong dialogic professional development experience among high school English teachers revealed that although an African American male's storyline informed the group of otherwise white teachers, his position as cultural “expert” limited his and his colleagues ability to reposition themselves. Teacher educators working with increasingly diverse teacher cohorts must consider how best to maximize learning opportunities, open communication, and free participants from subject positions (such as “expert”) that may inhibit overall group learning.

This article narrates the experience of one middle‐school English teacher as she comes to learn about and practise critical literacy. This research documents some of the challenges associated with integrating this innovative practice in today's US classrooms. Furthermore, the author raises questions about how teacher educators can provide realistic portraits of critical literacy for their students to encourage future teachers to embrace rather than abandon this socially just practice.

Making Meaning of Whiteness: Exploring Racial Identity with White Teachers. Alice Mclntyre. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997. 193 pp.