Teacher inquiry helps improve educational outcomes Practitioner Teacher Inquiry and Research explores the concept and importance of the teacher practitioner, and prepares students in teacher education courses and programs to conduct research in the classroom. Author Carolyn Babione has extensive experience in undergraduate- and graduate-level teacher training and teacher inquiry coursework. In the book, Babione guides students through the background, theory, and strategy required to successfully conduct classroom research. The first part of the book tackles the "how-to" and "why" of teacher inquiry, while the second part provides students with real-life practitioner inquiry research projects across a range of school settings, content areas, and teaching strategies. The book's discussion includes topics such as: Underlying cultural and historical perspectives surrounding the teaching profession Hidden stereotypes that limit teacher beliefs about power and voice Current curriculum innovation and reflections on modern developments Practitioner Teacher Inquiry and Research successfully guides and encourages budding teachers to fully understand the importance of their involvement in studying and researching their classroom settings, giving a better understanding of how their beliefs and teaching practices impact classroom learning.

This edited volume explores the progress, challenges, and future prognoses of educator preparation programs (preK-12 and higher education) in the U.S. Using examples drawn from a large, urban-centered college of education, the book provides practical guidance and insights regarding teacher preparation and educational leadership. Edited by former NLU Dean, Robert Muller and authored by NLU National College of Education faculty, the chapters explore how programs that prepare novice teachers, provide advancement opportunities for practicing educators, and develop education leaders have adapted to serve the needs of contemporary school institutions. This work is particularly timely given the myriad challenges facing the nation’s teacher and education leader preparation pipeline, and the critical role colleges of education play in addressing those needs. Primarily focused on leading institutional change in a large, metropolitan college of education, this work will be of interest to colleges of education leaders and faculty, PK-12 and higher education teachers and leaders, policy makers, and the broader teacher preparation and educator development field. Founded in the 1880s, the Chicago-based National College of Education (NCE) at National Louis University serves approximately 3,000 educators annually in its initial and advanced teacher preparation and educational leadership programs. For its commitments to diversity, inclusion and equity within transformative higher education, National Louis University was recognized as a top 20 school in Washington Monthly’s 2022 National University Rankings. The book is divided into four major sections: Prepare: The authors explore how a college of education has approached equipping novice teachers for success as they enter the teaching profession. It focuses on the transformation of initial teacher preparation programs to meet the needs of contemporary schools and districts, and profiles the programmatic initiatives to make those changes. Advance: The authors describe programs that support teachers as they advance in their careers, and the role of continuing graduate education in developing exemplary educators. Lead: The authors address the challenges facing education leaders and adapting their professional development to equip them to lead. It explores efforts to develop a cadre of leaders across education systems with the requisite knowledge and habits of mind to lead amidst unprecedented change. Building the Institution: The authors address several key cross cutting processes that support transformation efforts, including strategy development and implementation, partnership development, technology deployment, human capital development and data utilization.

In Volume III, as in Volumes I and II, the classic topics of reading are included--from vocabulary and comprehension to reading instruction in the classroom--and, in addition, each contributor was asked to include a brief history that chronicles the legacies within each of the volume's many topics. However, on the whole, Volume III is not about tradition. Rather, it explores the verges of reading research between the time Volume II was published in 1991 and the research conducted after this date. The editors identified two broad themes as representing the myriad of verges that have emerged since Volumes I and II were published: (1) broadening the definition of reading, and (2) broadening the reading research program. The particulars of these new themes and topics are addressed.

Very little information about the impact of reflection on teacher performance, teacher retention, and student learning is available in teacher preparation programs. This book provides practical and research-based chapters that offer greater clarity about the particular kinds of reflection that matter and avoids talking about teacher reflection generically, which implies that all kinds of reflection are of equal value. This book addresses five very pertinent concepts: (1) teacher reflectivity in theory and research, (2) teacher reflectivity in teacher education programs, (3) teacher reflectivity with teacher candidates, (4) teacher reflectivity in schools and classrooms, and (5) teacher reflectivity and international perspectives.

The importance of the early years in young children’s lives and the rigid inequality in literacy achievement are a stimulating backdrop to current research in young children’s language and literacy development. This book reports new data and empirical analyses that advance the theory of language and literacy, with researchers using different methodologies in conducting their study, with both a sound empirical underpinning and a captivating analytical rationalization of the results. The contributors to this volume used several methodological methods (e.g. quantitative, qualitative) to describe the complete concept of the study; the achievement of the study; and the study in an appropriate manner based on the study’s methodology. The contributions to this volume cover a wide range of topics, including dual language learners; Latino immigrant children; children who have hearing disabilities; parents’ and teachers’ beliefs about language development; early literacy skills of toddlers and preschool children; interventions; multimodalities in early literacies; writing; and family literacy. The studies were conducted in various early childhood settings such as child care, nursery school, Head Start, kindergarten, and primary grades, and the subjects in the studies represent the pluralism of the globe – a pluralism of language, backgrounds, ethnicity, abilities, and disabilities. This book was originally published as a special issue of Early Child Development and Care.

Practice based research is burgeoning in a number of professional areas. An Ethical Approach to Practitioner Research covers a comprehensive range of issues and dilemmas encountered in practitioner and action research contexts. While principally focused upon practitioner inquiry in education it takes account of, and acknowledges that others engaged in professional practice such as in legal, nursing and social care contexts, face similar issues and dilemmas. It aims to stimulate ethical thinking and practice in enquiry and research contexts. Following moves to promote professional learning and development in the workplace, there is an increase in the number of practitioners engaging in action or inquiry based learning in the workplace supported by university staff or consultants, as evidenced in the emergence of professional learning communities and learning networks. There are many tensions inherent in relationships between practitioners and academics in terms of the setting of the research agenda, the policy implications that may flow from it and the right to publish outcomes. Negotiating that relationship requires ethical probity where each party recognises, understands and respects mutual responsibilities. The book explores this through a wide variety of roles from those of academic researchers, consultants and teachers to professional practitioners as researchers and, importantly, students and children. It therefore illustrates a number of differing perspectives about ethics and research which are allied to those roles Drawing on the expertise of international researchers and academics from America, Australia and Europe, the book provides invaluable support to the novice researcher and illuminates some of the more intricate issues for the more experienced research practitioner.Packed with detailed and thought-provoking examples this book contains both theoretical analyses of ethical matters and offers practical advice to practitioner and action researchers across the fields of schools hospitals and community and family settings.

The importance of educational research for professional development and classroom practice is becoming increasingly significant. This collection looks at both enacting teacher research and the methodologies involved within it.

Given the increasing diversity of the United States and students entering schools, the value of teacher learning in clinical contexts, and the need to elevate the profession, national organizations have been calling for a re-envisioning of teacher preparation that turns teacher education upside down. This change will require PK-12 schools and universities to partner in robust ways to create strong professional learning experiences for aspiring teachers. University faculty, in particular, will not only need to work?in?schools, but they will need to work?with?schools in the preparation of future teachers. This collaboration should promote greater equity and justice for our nation’s students. The purpose of this book is to support individuals in designing clinically based teacher preparation programs that place equity at the core. Drawing from the literature as well as our experiences in designing and coordinating award-winning teacher?education programs, we offer a vision for equity-centered, clinically based preparation that promotes powerful teacher professional learning and develops high-quality, equity-centered teachers for schools. The chapter topics include policy guidelines, partnerships, intentional clinical experiences, coherence, curriculum and coursework, university-based teacher educators, school-based teacher educators, teacher candidate supervision and evaluation, the role of research, and instructional leadership in teacher preparation. While the concepts we share are research-based and grounded in the empirical literature, our primary intention is for this book to be of practical use. We hope that by the time you finish reading, you will feel inspired and equipped to make change within your own program, your institution, and your local context. We begin each chapter with a “Before You Read” section that includes introductory activities or self-assessment questions to prompt reflection about the current state of your teacher preparation program. We also weave examples, a “Spotlight from Practice,” in the form of vignettes designed to spark your thinking for program improvement. Finally, we conclude each chapter with a section called “Exercises for Action,” which are questions or activities to help you (re)imagine and move toward action in the (re)design of your teacher preparation program. We hope that you will use the exercises by yourself, but perhaps more importantly, with others to stimulate conversations about how you can build upon what you are already doing well to make your program even better. Praise for (Re)Designing Programs: A Vision for Equity-Centered, Clinically Based Teacher Preparation: "Jennifer Jacobs and Rebecca West Burns’ book, “(Re)Designing Programs: A Vision for Equity-Centered, Clinically Based Teacher Preparation,” is a must-read for all teacher educators, especially those involved in the creation and/or direction of clinically based teacher education programs. Their text provides a roadmap for higher education and school-based teacher educators to collaboratively design a program that prepares teachers to meet the needs of future students. They not only redefine the terms and language we use within clinical practice programs but also encourage us to reflect upon how teachers should be prepared in an equity-centered, clinically based teacher education program. Their text deserves to be on the book shelves of all teacher educators." - D. John McIntyre

Today, in many contexts the lack of attention to preparing the next generation of teacher educators as well as having a critical mass of faculty who understand the current teacher education research problem lingers. Although the NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel Report (2010), the recent advent of the CAEP standards, and the new AACTE Clinical Practice Commission Report (2017) challenge those responsible for teacher preparation to rethink the design as well as their work within clinical practice, there is much too little discussion about how to prepare the next generation of teacher educators to work differently. Just like Zeichner found almost 20 years ago, teacher education still too often remains “a tangential concern for most and the major concern of only a few” (Ziechner, 1999, p. 11). These concerns raise important questions for those who are currently responsible for pivoting, reinventing, and researching teacher preparation. This book offers insights from teacher education researchers that illustrate the ongoing benefits and persistent challenges of educating and preparing university and school-based teacher educators. This is an important step in understanding the complex roles, practices, and responsibilities associated with high quality teacher education that emphasizes clinical practice.

'Showing how critical thinking and local democracy can be a spur to very real educational development within schools that are facing severe challenges, this book provides us with one very valuable contemporary resource of hope.' Ian Menter, Professor of Teacher Education, University of Oxford, UK Teachers and Academic Partners in Urban Schools identifies and addresses a major problem for practitioners – teachers, student teachers and teacher educators – working in urban schools burdened by highly restrictive teaching methods and pressures to meet unrealistic benchmarks set by government. In this book, Lori Beckett investigates how to negotiate these tensions and challenges and offers an account of how to elevate practitioners’ professional voice on quality teaching along more democratic lines. The book addresses key issues for teachers in urban schools, such as: fractures in teachers’ professional communities; impacts of imposed marketizing policies and forced performative practices on schools; the complexities of teaching and teachers’ concerns about practice, as well as teaching practitioners’ perception of educational/schools policy. Both academic and teacher partners contribute to the work, showcasing the ways they have engaged with each other in joint work and with local government. Through this, the book supports a professional and politicized dialogue about teaching and teacher education, offering a meaningful account of how to fashion a form of educative schooling for students and families with complex needs. Written by a dynamic and experienced author, this book brings Beckett’s experience to bear on a controversial and complex area – addressing the general trend towards increased regulatory policy in education. It is an essential read for anyone interested in a rich analysis of how practitioners can work to reassert their professional voice and regain control of schools and teacher education, and will also appeal to those interested in the larger project of restoring school democracy.