Shaping New Models for Teacher Education

Overview & Synopsis

American teacher education is stuck in an unproductive and dysfunctional pattern. American teacher education programs graduate thousands of newly certified teachers each year, but the evidence that even half of the new graduates are dynamic and capable teachers is weak. The reputations of the teacher education programs through which they pass are poor, both within the academic community and in the field of K-12 education. In this article, the author stresses that the time has come for dramatic, fundamental change in the way teacher educators prepare the teachers of America's fifty-five million school children. The dramatic change needed will require a redefinition of teacher education, taking it beyond preservice preparation to include the ongoing support of teachers throughout their professional lives. Reforming teacher education needs a comprehensive re-conceptualization of what effective teacher education can be; an empirically based and radically local framework that addresses the two major issues confronting teacher educators: (1) "the problem of practice"; and (2) the "challenge of succession". The author discusses how to develop new models of teacher education. (Contains 1 figure.)