Internationalizing Teacher Education in the U.S.

Aim/Purpose: The study aims to evaluate Information and Communication Technology (ICT) implementation in academic colleges of education. The article offers a conceptual framework for ICT implementation within teacher education in the information era, which combines an array of frameworks and addresses the needs of teacher education. Background: The study examines the components of ICT implementation within the training as perceived by teacher educators in these colleges, their attitudes towards the contribution of ICT for teaching and learning, and the available conditions and resources in these colleges for ICT implementation in teaching. Methodology: A mixed methodology of quantitative and qualitative nature was utilized. A questionnaire was developed including a set of sequential steps. The sample that responded to the questionnaire included 615 faculty members, which were approximately 25% of the population of lecturers in 8 colleges of education. Contribution: The results enabled insights regarding success and challenges in the implementation of the computerization program. It supplies policymakers as well as practitioners with updated data and enables evidence-based decision-making. Findings: Use of ICT by faculty shows two key factors: basic ICT use and advance collaborative use. Use in teacher training was divided into 5 factors: information management, advanced technological methods, project-based learning, display of information, and learning organization. Two factors were related to the students’ use of ICT in their teaching: integrating ICT in classroom activity, and usage for distance learning. Recommendations for Practitioners: Recommendations for practitioners include empowering the efficiency of ICT implementation, thereby transforming teaching and learning; training pre-service teachers to utilize advanced ICT tools that encourage collaboration, problem-based learning; utilization of the tool developed and used in this study for decision-making and assessing ICT implementation in teacher training; and highlighting the role of the teacher educator as a major factor in translating educators’ beliefs and modelling for students. Recommendation for Researchers: Recommendations for researchers include identifying the possibilities of utilizing the proposed tool in their research and development plans within their teacher training institutes, as a means of assessing the nature of ICT implementation in their teacher education programs. Impact on Society: ICT implementation in education has an impact on the future generation of students, as citizens of the knowledge society and lifelong learners. Teacher educators are at the heart of this process; hence, developing and implementing a tool to measure as well as encourage a paradigm shift in teaching and learning is of utmost importance. Future Research: Future research should include examining the utilization of the developed tool in diverse contexts, as well as using it as an indicator for comparing ICT implementation processes and models between institutes, and for examining the implementation process from a longitudinal point of view, from pre-service education throughout the TPD (Teacher Professional Development) as an in-service teacher.

This paper analyzes the effects of internationalization seen through the Erasmus program in teacher education programs. The study's importance is that teacher training is generally funded for local environments by state systems; subsequently teacher candidates have less opportunity for global curricula. One of Turkey's most vital tools for internationalization is the Erasmus exchange program. Thus, this study focuses on interviews with teacher candidates having international exchange experience and teacher educators involved as program coordinators in their own education faculties. Twelve participants from different teacher training areas at diverse universities were interviewed. The research findings reveal that students' social and cultural skills developed more than their academic competencies and professional teaching skills. Although the program makes an essential contribution to internationalization on both individual and institutional bases; we reveal that course selection problems, difficulties in academic recognition processes, foreign language problems, and the lack of possibility of taking the practicum course abroad have adverse effects on the process. This research addresses knowledge gaps in internationalization policy as teacher candidates, and teacher educators' voices are not heard in such initiatives. The study suggests that education faculties need solid foundations for internationalization efforts.

ABSTRACTAction research methodology is commonly used in initial teacher education programmes as a pedagogical strategy to enhance student teacher learning. Action research is most often used in tandem with school-based practicum components in the latter stage of programmes as a means of bridging the theory-practice divide. It is also frequently used as a capstone assessment to assure prospective teacher capability for reflective inquiry. The study reported here focuses on the perspectives of teachers who were recent graduates of two initial English language teacher education programmes in Chile, who had undertaken action research projects as part of their degree programme. It also engaged the university-based supervisors who had overseen this work. These experiences are analysed in the context of the guiding epistemological and political foundations of action research. The outcomes of this research suggest that the use of action research in initial teacher education contexts may be more problematic than it is often assumed; particularly, where student teachers’ work is professionally isolated. From this, it is suggested that action research in initial teacher education needs to be conscious of potential constraints in school-based contexts, as these may act to limit the current and prospective impact of this learning experience.

Teacher education reform in the United States (US) is a crucial part of a broader educational reform intended to improve teaching practice and, thus, student performance (Darling-Hammond, 2005). Teacher education reform has become an international trend (Bates, 2008; Garm & Karlsen, 2004), which in spite of the different national contexts and traditions, shares a set of similar expectations, foci, and even policy interventions (Loomis, Rodriguez, & Tillman, 2008). Underlying these reforms are the assumptions that the quality of teaching is the most important, if not the only, factor that contributes to changes in student learning, which is shaped by factors such as teacher salaries, working conditions, and public support for public schools (Education Policy White Paper Project, 2009). Teacher education is a major factor in improving teaching quality (Delandshere & Petrosky, 2004). Central to the quality of teaching are teachers' deep understanding of what they need to teach and the pedagogical practices that can be used to represent such understanding to students (D. L. Ball, 2000). These have become important foci for reform in teacher education programs in many countries. Policy initiatives to reform teacher education have been very similarly framed, inasmuch as governments have played important roles in establishing standards for what teachers need to know and do in their classrooms and in developing relevant assessments to regulate what students have learned and done (Tatto, 2006). However, when these surface-level similarities are analyzed more deeply, one uncovers competing forces with different expectations, foci, and approaches to teacher education reform (Cochran-Smith, 2001). Each of these approaches reflects different ideologies and appeals to different political interests, but none receives substantial empirical support (Apple, 2001; Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2001; Zeichner & Ndimande, 2008). Add to this that the contexts and cultural traditions of teaching and teacher education provide little opportunity for important teacher education reform initiatives and ideas to be realized (Feiman-Nemser & Floden, 1986; Little, 1990a, 1990b). Consequently, only an insightful and comprehensive understanding of these competing expectations, foci, and approaches to teacher education reform will have utility in informing future policy making and program development. The research community in teaching and teacher education must accept its notable and irreplaceable role in helping to develop such an understanding through an empirical base focused on the processes and outcomes of reform. In this issue of the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE), eight articles address reform and its complexities in the area of teacher education. In this editorial, we first highlight important arguments and findings that emerge from each article. Next, we challenge some of the authors' ideas with support from existing literature and suggest what further conceptual and empirical work is needed to understand dynamic and complex teacher education reform and its contexts. Reform With Competing Expectations for Learning Outcomes and Teaching Underlying various teacher education reforms are two related and seemingly irrefutable assumptions (Delandshere & Petrosky, 2004). First, the quality of teaching is the most important factor that influences student learning. Second, teacher education plays an important role in shaping quality teaching. However, these assumptions sometimes become conceptually ambiguous when used to guide the development of teacher education reform policy and programs. Theoretically speaking, student learning and quality teaching can be defined differently, depending on how one views society and education. Varying definitions imply a range of foci for teacher education reform. Following are three popular conceptions of student learning and teaching quality, as well as their respective foci for teacher education reform, which have made their way into various teacher education reform documents. …

The relationship between the mission of community colleges and the increasing teacher shortage has become more transparent as many community colleges have implemented teacher education programs to address community needs, the shortage of qualified teachers, and the lack of diversity among teachers. As the community college's teacher education role has increased, many community colleges have responded by adding associate of arts degrees and certificate programs specific to teacher education to tackle the shortage of teachers and the lack of diversity among teachers in the nation's classrooms. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of one community college's pre-service teacher education program in transferring minority students to a university teacher education program and the likelihood of the students graduating with both bachelor's degrees and teacher certification. This longitudinal ex post facto causal-comparative mixed methods case study involved tracking a cohort of minority students over a 6-year period. Data were gathered from existing teacher education program records for native and transfer students at one community college and two four-year institutions. Unstructured interviews were conducted with administrators over the community college's program. For data analysis, ?2 and Phi Coefficients were conducted to compare the minority students' university transfer and graduation rates to native university students' transfer and graduation rates. Results of the study demonstrated that the minority students were graduating at an observably higher rate than both the native to university students and their respective ethnic peers who began college at two-year colleges at the national level. This study's findings might help community college teacher education programs to increase enrollments of minority students and to address the needs of surrounding communities. The findings contributed to the relatively scarce literature regarding minority teacher preparation in community colleges. The study's findings might also be useful to community colleges looking toward or already implementing similar pre-service teacher education programs. Overall, the results indicated that pre-service teacher education programs at the community college level can be effective at producing transfer students who successfully graduate from four-year teacher education programs.

Metaevaluation is the evaluation of an evaluation or evaluation system (Scriven, 1969). It serves as a mechanism to ensure quality in evaluation approaches and implementation. Operationally metaevaluation is defined as “the process of delineating, obtaining, and applying descriptive information and judgmental information – about the utility, feasibility, propriety, and accuracy of an evaluation and its systematic nature, competent conduct, integrity/honesty, respectfulness, and social responsibility to guide the evaluation and/or report its strengths and weaknesses” (Stufflebeam, 2001, p.185). This study was a metaevaluation of an assessment system designed for accreditation requirements to support continuous improvement in teacher education programs at the University of Louisville. The study was intended to serve as a formative metaevaluation to identify strengths and weaknesses in the University of Louisville, College of Education and Human Development’s (CEHD) teacher education assessment system to support improvement of the system and better support continuous improvement of teacher education programs. The study took careful consideration of accountability and accreditation requirements, as well as evaluation and metaevalaution standards and practices. The study utilized Stufflebeam’s structure for metaevaluation (2001), which supports strategic and contextual analysis of the evaluation or evaluation system to address alignment with stakeholders needs. The study employed mixed methods to address four research questions. The research questions were focused on the application of data from the CEHD’s assessment system in driving program improvement and also the reliability and validity of instruments used in the assessment system. The first research question was focused on identifying the types of assessments that best support program improvement in teacher education. A qualitative case study analysis revealed a lack of explicit connections to data within the CEHD’s SLO action plans in which faculty identify plans for improving programs. Implied connections to data, included references to the 10 Unit Key Assessments, Hallmark Assessment Tasks (HATs), and indirect assessment data (QMS student satisfaction survey data. These results indicate that a variety of assessments support program improvement and are in alignment with CAEP standards (2013), the American Evaluation Association (2013), and the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (2011), multiple measures are necessary in sound evaluation and evaluation systems. This study resulted in recommendations to modify SLO templates and action plan prompts to ensure more explicit connections of data to the action plans and even follow-through on action plans. The second research question was intended to identify how assessment data are used to drive continuous improvement in

ost of the urban teacher education programs that existed during the past thirty-five years are now defunct. Even those considered very successful-such as the Urban Teacher Corps, the Cooperative Urban Teacher Education (CUTE) programs of the Mid-Continent Regional Education Lab, Indiana University's Urban Project, and the West Dallas Teacher Education Program at the University of North Texas-no longer exist. Because of the demise of urban teacher training programs, current teacher education programs must serve as a preparation for urban teachers. However, according to the Association of Teacher Educators, generic programs are inadequate as a preparation for urban teachers (Buttery, Haberman, and Houston 1990). Martin Haberman (1987), who has researched and written extensively on the preparation of teachers for urban schools and effective urban teaching, considers them (traditional, campus-based teacher education programs) a waste of time. According to Haberman (1987), the average career of an urban teacher is between three and five years, and in every five-year period approximately one-half of the urban teaching force leaves the profession. As a result, there is a teacher shortage in the nation's 120 largest urban school districts (Haberman 1987). The lack of specific urban teacher education programs and the inadequacy of current teacher education programs as a preparation for urban teachers have contributed to the high rate of urban teacher attrition. Because of an urban teacher shortage, many newly certified teachers, who want to teach immediately after becoming licensed, will begin their careers in large, inner-city schools. Many of those novice teachers, who lack adequate urban teacher preparation, may be overwhelmed by the problems associated with urban teaching. The problems they will face, such as students' antagonism toward school, their lack of respect for themselves and their teachers, poor student discipline, high rates of student absenteeism, stu-

The role of teachers’ education in improving quality education for a functional society is a paper-based upon the need to reiterate the essence of teacher education in Nigeria. The study adopted the use of two research questions, tested using mean, and two hypotheses also tested using Pearson Correlation and t-test statistics. A questionnaire designed with an internal consistency of 0.89 coefficient using Crombach Alpha was administered to lecturers and students from three (3) Colleges of Education (Namely, College of Education Warri, College of Education, Agbor, and College of Physical Education, Mosogar) all in Delta State, and a sample size of 174 was derived based on the number of questionnaires retrieved. The finding of the study revealed that Teacher education contributes to quality education in the Nigerian Society when educationist is acknowledging as a source of reference as custodians of knowledge and as a consultant to consultants. It further demonstrated that there is a statistically significant correlation between teacher education in enhancing quality education and a functional Nigerian Society. It was established that teacher education is the channel for achieving not only educational goals (quality education) but also industrialization, which implies a successful and functional society. The researcher recommends that a feedback mechanism be put in place by the government, policymakers and educational stakeholders to actualize implementation of educational policies on teacher education.

The theory-practice problem manifests itself in education generally and in teacher education specifically. The divide is evident in diverse literatures internationally. The theory-practice split, which is one of many expressions used to describe the phenomenon, cannot be apprehended in a material sense. Instead, it emerges as a perennial problem that educators live through the stories they tell of their lives. This chapter particularly captures the struggle over rigor versus relevance in teacher education. It offers five different categories of pedagogies (teacher leadership, diversity, family, social justice, and technology), which together comprise this volume, International Teacher Education: Promising Pedagogies (Part B). These five pedagogies join five earlier categories of pedagogies (teacher selection, reflection, narrative knowing, teacher identity, and mediation and mentoring), which are found in International Teacher Education: Promising Pedagogies (Part A), and a new lineup of promising teacher education pedagogies that will appear in International Teacher Education: Promising Pedagogies (Part C). In all cases, the featured international pedagogies are not recipes to follow. Rather, they are contextualized artifacts that produce a synergy between teaching and learning and show promise where international transferability is concerned.

What is quality in teacher education, why is it so elusive, and what are the major challenges? We begin with issues that illustrate the sheer complexity of the concept of quality when considered in the context of initial teacher education. Three fundamental challenges to achieving quality in teacher education are examined: the problem of the apprenticeship of observation, the problem of enactment and the problem of complexity. We then identify three additional challenges: dissonance and drift, resistance as a barrier to quality, and cultural barriers to achieving quality. The argument continues with a focus on quality as it may be perceived by the four major players: teacher candidate, mentor teacher, faculty supervisor and teacher educator. Each plays a significant and significantly different role in a program of teacher education. The four different roles lead to at least four different interpretations of the meaning of quality in initial teacher education. We continue our argument by presenting the voices of a number of individuals who have spoken directly to the issue of quality or excellence in programs of teacher education. Finally, we explore perspectives that could help to achieve greater quality in programs of teacher education: listening to those learning to teach, searching for quality learning, fostering metacognition and learning from experience, promoting knowledge integration, and connecting epistemology to the challenge of quality.

Transnational experiences that support university students to enter culturally diverse workplaces have represented a growing movement within higher education settings. This chapter draws from qualitative research on the process of shared reflections between teacher educators in Australia and Malaysia about a university-based transnational program, referred to as an outbound mobility program (OMP), designed to develop pre-service teachers’ intercultural competence and prepare them to be culturally responsive teachers. As with various study abroad programs in teacher education internationally, many OMPs are organised and managed by professional staff in universities and/or third-party providers, and not by academics. In contrast, this OMP was controlled by the teacher-education academics in Australia and Malaysia who worked in partnership to develop and deliver the program through an active engagement in flexible communication channels and dialogic reflections and learning. Findings from this study indicate that the success of the program rests on the mutual respect and trust built amongst the team members over time that enabled them to agentively shape it to meet the needs of pre-service teachers in both countries. This was due in some part to our prior engagement in a twinning program between the institutions but also due to the personal beliefs, interactions and reflective lens team members drew upon and shared before, during and after each of the four annual iterations of the OMP. We posit that without taking time to discuss our beliefs about the value of intercultural understanding, build trust and engage in shared reflexivity, any such program could be compromised.KeywordsTeacher educator partnershipsAgencyOutbound Mobility Programs (OMPs)Intercultural understandingIntercultural capabilityCulturally responsive teachersBeliefs

Introduction During this time of active change in education, and in a world that is becoming characterised by super complexity (Barnett, 2004), initial teacher education (ITE) programmes are under the spotlight internationally. ITE programmes are accommodating changes in school and early childhood curricula and are trying to address the diverse needs of future learners more explicitly (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005) through ongoing reviews. This is a huge challenge, given the competing demands to provide content, theory and experiences for participants in ITE whilst simultaneously ensuring that beginning teachers demonstrate the multiple competencies or required for graduation and induction into the profession. The level of quality of ITE is often considered from a works or pragmatic perspective. Research about works in ITE tends to promote research that gathers evidence about what has worked in the past. Given that this is a relatively new field of inquiry and that the field of education is changing rapidly, what may have worked five years ago may not be appropriate now or for the future. A futures approach to research can include what we already know about what works, as well as providing a place to develop theory related to future needs. Such an approach was used in the Teacher Education for the Future Project. It opened up possibilities for thinking about what could be emphasised in ITE, given our predictions for the future. Influences on the ITE curriculum and its implementation often come from opposing perspectives and therefore create tensions for ITE provision, especially in times of great change. These influences include: traditional and historical concepts of what ITE should provide; teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning (and the aims of education more generally); pressures to get more teachers qualified; and a range of new theories about teacher education and its implementation. This paper discusses these tensions with a focus on the New Zealand context. Firstly, it describes the influences of the New Zealand context on ITE. Then it elaborates on the tensions related to changes to traditional views of teaching and learning, the pressing need for more teachers and how and why new theories about teacher education need to be taken into account. It also outlines some key findings from the Teacher Education for the Future Project (Conner, 2008) and discusses how the process used in this project could be used to inform future ITE programmes. The New Zealand context In New Zealand there are currently more than 27 ITE providers (early childhood, primary and secondary) that compete nationally for students. By 2005, 85 different qualifications were being offered and implemented through a large variety of delivery modes. In New Zealand, these requirements for ITE are determined by the government and are guided by standards for developing programmes (New Zealand Teachers Council, 2005). The Graduating Teachers' Standards (New Zealand Teachers Council, 2007) identify the competencies that graduates of ITE qualifications need to achieve in terms of professional knowledge, professional practice and qualities such as professional values and relationships with students, colleagues, whanau, fono (1) and guardians. ITE programmes need to be closely tied to the more general directions of the education system and must address current Ministry of Education initiatives. Currently, these initiatives target Maori and Pasifika student achievement, literacy and numeracy, sustainability, gifted and talented students and engagement of senior students. These initiatives require teachers to be mindful of what is best for their students when they plan and make pedagogical decisions. The understanding, espousal and advocacy of sociocultural approaches to learning have been given more emphasis in The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) than in previous curriculum documents. …

Among the thorniest of issues that teacher educators deal with is the relationship between theory and practice. Moreover, there are a number of theoretical traditions on which we can draw to create new programs in teacher education or critique ongoing programs. This article discusses the range of theories that are available and their characteristics and orientations. Though critical theory has not been widely used in teacher education, it is valuable in helping us see the connections between commonsense practices in schools and institutions and ideologies in the wider society. Critical theory promises both critique and new directions, as it focuses on issues related to social justice, equality, and democratic values. An example of what a teacher education program that is based in critical theory might look like is included.

Recent challenges concerning the quality of teachers and the programs that prepare them have resulted in responses from professional organizations that have been more widespread and intense than in the past (Robinson, 2011; Wiseman, 2012). The Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation (BRP) formed by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), the merger of NCATE and Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) into Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) to improve teacher education (Cibulka, 2011), and the Teacher Performance Assessment Initiative which emerged from collaboration between the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT), the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) member institutions (Robinson, 2011) are examples of ways that professional organizations have responded to the challenges. In general, calls for performance assessments of teaching to provide both formative and summative information about the quality of teachers, teacher candidates, and teacher preparation programs pervade the current discourse on education at every level, including schools and districts, institutions of higher education, state and national policymaking entities, and professional organizations. As a result, a number of performance assessments have emerged that can provide feedback to teacher education programs about the strengths and weaknesses of their candidates as well as evidence for licensure and certification of teachers. For example, Education Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) was designed to provide information for program improvement through the use of a common set of performance assessments for preservice teachers and has also been adopted by states and districts for summative evaluation purposes (http://edtpa.aacte.org/). The multiple performance measures in systems like edTPA improve upon value added models (VAM) by providing information on teaching quality, not just teacher quality or teacher effectiveness, and provide information sooner than might be accomplished by use of VAM alone (Newton, 2010). For this theme issue, we invited research and conceptual articles related to teacher performance assessments specifically as they affect teacher education, including validation studies of measures used in the assessments. We posed a series of questions that we considered important for researchers to address related to performance assessments, including the following: What are the relationships between current performance assessments and teacher education, either conceptually or in terms of outcomes? What do we know about the use of performance assessments in the context of teacher education, and what do we need to know? How do performance assessments of teachers in schools map onto assessment of teacher education programs, or how don't they? What differences may exist across novice teachers and expert teachers with respect to performance assessment, and how does that impact their professional learning? What are the implications of the relationships between for-profit companies, university teacher education programs, researchers, states, and professional organizations with respect to performance assessments of teachers? What is the relationship between assessment criteria and the research on teaching and learning, and what are its implications for teacher education? How do states make decisions to move to statewide teacher assessment systems? What potential conflicts of interest may exist among various stakeholders in performance assessment efforts? How do policies related to performance assessment of teachers affect opportunities for teacher learning? What can we learn from the history of past efforts to evaluate beginning teachers? What is different this time? What do we know about the validity and reliability of performance assessments and why does this matter? …

Background Engaging teacher educators in improving the quality of teacher education is an ongoing process internationally. In some countries, there is growing conviction that professional teacher education should be based on research-generated knowledge. This trend has led to reforms in teacher education programmes as well as in teacher educators’ roles and professional practice. Purpose This study explores teacher educators’ understanding of research-based teacher education (RBTE) in Norway and Finland with an emphasis on Norway. Norway introduced RBTE in 2017, while Finland has had experience with this approach since the 1970s. Method The study is qualitative, part of a broader research project involving participants from Norway and Finland. It included in-person interviews with 16 teacher educators in Norway and five in Finland. An asymmetric design was adopted because we were particularly interested in exploring the Norwegian context. The analysis undertaken adhered to the principles of content analysis, identifying and categorising the viewpoints of the teacher educators through a grounded, inductive process. Findings Four data-driven categories emerged: Research-based teaching, comprising teaching methods and the acquisition of professional knowledge; Engagement in research, representing teacher educators’ understanding of student teachers’ participation in research activities; Role of research-based literature, referring to reflections on the use of subject literature; and Critical thinking, describing teacher educators’ assessment of developing a critical and self-reflective mindset when engaging in RBTE. Conclusion The participating teacher educators in both countries shared similar views on the key characteristics of RBTE. They were also generally positive about the role of research in their professional practice and its contribution to fostering critically thinking practitioners. However, the study revealed some tensions among Norwegian teacher educators, due to differing academic backgrounds and the cross-pressure demands of research and teaching.