The Future of Teacher Education: Two Papers. Occasional Paper No. 79.

The first paper in this volume, "What Must Be Done to Improve Teacher Education," which consists of remarks delivered at the National Forum on Excellence in Education (Indianapolis, December 1983), notes that while a number of problems with teacher education have been identified, the proposed solutions lack the coherence and compatibility needed to formulate an effective plan of reform. It is suggested that a national commission on teacher education be created to take a broad and objective view of the problems and potential solutions. The second paper, "Needed Research and Practice for the Preparation of Teaching Professionals," maintains that research and practice that will enhance teacher education in the future will be grounded in a profile of the effective teacher that acknowledges the professional requirements of the "school teaching" occupation. While some teaching requirements will always contain aspects of the performance that are labor-like, craft-like, and artistic in nature, the research and teacher preparation programs of the future will increasingly focus on the knowledge and information-processing skills that are requisite to informed professional decision making. Such knowledge and skill will be related to the complex inter-play of teacher judgments that are required for effective response to the multiple and diverse youngsters that attend school, and the multiple and competing functions that schools are expected to serve. (JD)