We tested the hypothesis that first-year teachers could take up forms of ambitious pedagogy under the following conditions: 1) that reform-based practices introduced in teacher preparation would be the focus of collaborative inquiry throughout the first year of teaching, 2) that participants use analyses of their students’ work as the basis of critique and change in practice, and 3) that special tools be employed that help participants hypothesize about relationships between instruction and student performance.

Highlighting themes from qualitative case studies of three equity-minded California teachers, this article draws on social learning and activity theories to examine equity-minded teachers’ learning and agency as they responded to accountability-driven language arts reforms in underperforming schools. The article underscores the importance of balanced leadership in an era of high stakes accountability, particularly as it relates to teacher professionalism, learning, and agency.

Although concerns about the moral dimension of teaching have been raised for decades, little attention has been given to empirical research on moral reasoning in preservice teacher education students. Results of only a few previous studies indicate that moral reasoning may be less advanced in education students than in college students majoring in other disciplines. This study (a) compared preintervention levels of moral reasoning in undergraduate elementary and secondary education students and in undergraduates enrolled in courses in philosophy and English literature; (b) implemented an intervention program (classroom instruction in moral development theory and dilemma discussion via online bulletin boards) to advance moral reasoning in undergraduate elementary and secondary education students; and (c) compared pre-/postintervention moral reasoning scores of the intervention group with those of control groups (elementary and secondary education students and students enrolled in philosophy and English literature courses). Results indicate that direct instruction in moral development theory and dilemma discussion advanced students’ moral reasoning scores. These results are preliminary and provide only partial information. To address this limitation, suggestions for future research are provided.

This paper is a commentary on the special issue on teacher research.

An introduction to the special issue on teacher research.

The purpose of our study was to investigate teacher talk during shared planning time to provide insight into the rationales behind teachers’ decision making that may be related to their underlying beliefs about subject matter, teaching, learning, and their students. This study supported our hypothesis that teachers’ collaborative planning time discourse provides a unique lens for understanding teachers’ beliefs.

This qualitative case study investigates the longitudinal impact of research-based professional development on teacher learning and practice with respect to technology. It also examines the conditions that facilitate or hinder teachers’ capacity for change and the process by which changes in knowledge, practices, and beliefs occur over time.

The major research questions for this study were: (1) What are the level and types of support that building principals provide for the preparation of new teachers? (2)What are the obstacles that may be preventing principals from becoming more involved with teacher preparation? (3) What are the types of activities that make sense for principal involvement with field experience and student teaching? (4) What are suggestions for more meaningful collaboration between schools and teacher/administrator preparation programs?

This article looks across the introduction to the Spencer Foundation’s Research Training Grant (RTG) program and the four case studies assessing program implementation and impact. It discusses the importance of institutional context and history, curricular content, financial resources, and organizational structure. The article concludes with recommendations for the preparation of education researchers in graduate schools of education.

This article uses data from two induction programs to explore the possibilities and pitfalls inherent in the ways mentor teachers incorporated assessment of new teachers into their work. We argue that it is not only possible to combine assistance and assessment, but that it is impossible to separate them and still take new teachers seriously as learners.

An evaluation of a two-year professional development project for mathematics and science teachers in grades 6, 7, and 8 that blended face-to-face workshops with online sessions.

The article analyzes the hidden curriculum of a performance-based teacher education program focusing on ways that faculty and students subverted formal program expectations. The study raises cautions for teacher educators regarding the vigor of performance-based reform.

This qualitative self-study examines the impact of California’s state-mandated revision of teacher education programs on a department’s—and individual faculty members’—approach to teacher education. In spite of claims by respondents that this process had little impact on their approach to teaching, the authors’ analysis of interview and conversational data and documents suggests otherwise. Faculty members’ increased use of technocratic language and terminology reflecting compliance with the new state standards reveals a substantive shift in the ways they think about what they do.

This article examines two social justice teacher education programs and considers teacher educators’ conceptions of social justice and the conditions that appeared to support their joint enterprise.

The study reported in this manuscript documents and examines the interplay between novice teachers’ personal theories, their mathematics education coursework, and their field experiences, with particular attention to activities in the teacher education coursework and field experiences that were especially conducive to helping the novices examine their personal theories and implications for their teaching practices.

The author investigates thinking styles among Turkish student teachers, within the framework of Sternberg's theory of mental self-government and determines if thinking styles of student teachers were differentiated, based on such socialization variables as gender, age, educational level, type of university attended, and field of study followed.

This essay tells the forgotten story of the founding of essentialism. After a brief biographical description of the career of William Bagley, the paper describes in detail how essentialism came to be and why it matters. Then, the work connects the principles of essentialism to contemporary debates in teaching, teacher education, and curriculum.

This study sought to fill a gap in current scholarship which has yet to document how mentor teachers, conceptualized as school-based teacher educators, shape and conduct their own work with student teachers assuming the role of full-year undergraduate interns.

Based on a two-year qualitative study, this article traces the impact of an initiative to create professional learning communities in an urban school district struggling to improve student learning. The author describes ideological conflicts that the initiative generates in the district, particularly regarding the roles and responsibilities of teachers.

This article documents one teacher education program’s efforts to become more coherent, focusing on the ways in which the program tries to become more coherent and the challenges to coherence.

Recent initiatives in preservice teacher education have experimented with cohorts as a way to create supportive ties among peers, mutual intellectual support, and a sense of professionalism.

This article examines the types of recurring problems that can inhibit K–12 mentoring team relationships and intervention strategies to remedy those problems.

Drawing on a study of 15 mentor-novice pairs and adapting organizational theorists’ perspectives, this article reveals how mentors help new teachers reexamine classroom challenges with diverse learners. The authors describe a reframing process and three ways of viewing classroom relations: managerial, human relations, and political.

This article describes the collaborative work of three teachers, two Arab and one Jewish, as they taught first grade together in a then new bilingual/bicultural school in Israel.

Croom’s article "Are There Any Questions?" addresses the importance of teachers’ questions, but it contains several flaws. This commentary argues that the synergy resulting from using multiple teacher behaviors in concert is necessary for diagnosing and promoting student understanding.

This commentary describes some of the logistical issues that have such a profound negative effect on the accreditation of teacher training programs. Of special concern is the very short timeline used to phase in new standards.

We argue that the theory-practice dichotomy lacks the richness of Vygotsky's notion of concepts, in which abstract principles are interwoven with worldly experience.

This article relates my efforts as a teacher educator to transform my own curriculum, teaching and assessment practices to better prepare beginning teachers for diverse classrooms.

Drawing on the wisdom of practice of 37 experienced teacher induction leaders and case studies of mentor/new teacher pairs, this study found that mentors can interrupt that tendency among new teachers, focusing them on the learning of individual students, especially those underperforming.

Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data collected over a 5-year period, we argue that in troubled urban school districts, teacher buy-in to curricular reform is best achieved when change agents adapt their program to the daily needs and problems of classroom teachers.