National Council For The Accreditation Of Teacher Education Research Articles

Покликання людини у сучасному світі: відповідальність та очікувані компетенції педагогів

The research focuses on calling phenomenon in the context of the tasks of school reform, definition of the ways of development and motivation of educators. The study analyses social, cultural and humanity aspects of the idea of human calling in the contemporary world as well as the tasks of educators in forming of the system of appropriate competencies of students. The practical issues and international experience of taking into consideration of calling factor in education of teachers and the possibility of use of calling criterion for the assessment of professional suitability of teachers are examined. In particular, the experience of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) in the USA confirms the necessity of measuring not only the knowledge and psychological qualities of the potential teachers, but also of evaluation their ethical virtues. Therefore, if some teachers do experience a calling, it would fall under the “virtue ethics”.
 Regarding to the personal nature of the phenomenon of calling and moral autonomy of the person, it is unreasonable and unmoral to implement a formal requirement of calling from the candidates for any job. Whereas in the system of the professional evaluation, in particular in education, the criteria of ethical virtues and attitudes to work has to be formulated as for the indirect manifestations of the experience of calling of a personality. Such indicators are: passion – abilities – their practical implementation – the aim of social benefit. The list of personal virtues corresponding to the experience of calling in education framed as following: open-mindedness, love to children, respect, sympathy, tolerance, objectiveness, honesty, fairness, insistency, responsibility.

Grade-level overlap and standards mismatch between nationally recognized programs that prepare teachers for grades PreK–3

ABSTRACTTwo related questions are investigated regarding programs accredited by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). First, to what extent do NCATE-recognized elementary teacher preparation programs, which have been approved by the Association for Child Education International (ACEI), prepare candidates to teach in grades PreK–3, grades that the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) considers part of early childhood education? The current results indicate extensive grade-level overlap: 10% of ACEI-accredited elementary programs have grade spans that begin in preschool (or below), 53% begin in kindergarten, 30% in first grade, and 6% in second grade. The second investigation employed a content analysis to compare ACEI’s national standards for elementary teacher preparation with NAEYC’s national standards for early childhood teacher preparation. This analysis indicates that ACEI’s standards include far fewer references to terms that capture essential features of early instruction (e.g., family, community, and observation). Further, while the NAEYC’s standards refer to “self-regulation” four times and “play” eight times, the elementary standards mention neither term. When referring to learners, the NAEYC almost always used “child” or “children,” but the ACEI mostly used “student” or “students.” These results support calls for both stand-alone early licensure and PreK–3 alignment.

Performance Assessment of Teaching

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? …

The Value of Fieldwork and Service Learning

Colleges of education must instantiate their candidates’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions for accreditation. Professors often have candidates reflect on field experience as a way to enhance their learning. This study examines reflections of 43 candidates over a 2-year period. Candidates engaged in an after-school enrichment program as service volunteers and participated with content area teachers in a professional development site to teach lessons as part of an introductory course to middle-level education. Each week candidates met in small groups to share their thoughts and wrote up summaries of their experiences. By reflecting on both, the benefits and value of field experiences and service learning their responses have been examined in light of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) Specialty Area Standards. Ultimately, this research suggests that field experiences and service learning are needed to develop candidates’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions.

Social Justice in Preservice and Graduate Education: A Reflective Narrative Analysis

This research shows how two teacher educators, one from Canada and one from the United States, have attempted to imbue their preservice and graduate education practices with a sense of social justice, despite the downgrading of the importance of social justice by accreditation agencies such as National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) in the United States. Most specifically, narrative exemplars (Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002) are presented and reflectively analyzed through Connell's (1993) three principles of curricular justice, which lead toward or away from social justice in preservice and graduate education. As a consequence of this inquiry into lived educational practice, rich insights into teaching, learning, and human interaction emerge.

How Does Location Impact Meaning and Opportunity? Rural Schools and the NCATE Diversity Standard

Background/ContextWhile there is ample evidence that the K–12 student population is becoming increasingly diverse and the teacher workforce is not, very little literature addresses the specific problems rural teacher education programs may experience attempting to meet the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) diversity standard. A 2005 NCATE-sponsored survey found that an unknown number of respondents indicated difficulty in meeting the requirements of the standard and that “geographically isolated” programs were especially affected. The existing research that targets rural programs tends to describe specific practices. As NCATE and TEAC, the two major teacher education accreditation programs, move toward consolidation, revisiting the expectations regarding diversity is critical.Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of StudyThe purpose of this study was to explore rural SCDEs’ experiences with the diversity standard as well as the implications of these experiences, with the aim of reporting and suggesting possible strategies for enhancing the application of the standard at the institutional and agency levels. We hypothesized that rural schools experience difficulty with meeting aspects of the standard due to the potential limitations associated with the schools’ locations. Research questions focused on how rural programs define diversity, identification of obstacles, priorities for programs, and adaptations. One hundred and sixteen NCATE coordinators and/or deans participated in the study's online survey.Research DesignThis research was an exploratory study that used qualitative and quantitative methods. The instrument included survey questions and items for open-ended responses.Conclusions/RecommendationsRural teacher education programs do experience difficulties with meeting the requirements of the NCATE diversity standard. Respondents singled out recruitment and retention of diverse faculty and candidate's inability to provide high-quality diversity experiences, and location as the biggest issues. Respondents perceived that NCATE focuses on race and ethnicity to the exclusion of other categories. In particular, respondents reported strong beliefs that SES and exceptionalities are more universal and more locally relevant and deserve to be recognized as critical priorities for educating candidates who could build on this competence in working with other diversities—a kind of “transferable skills” perspective. Programs would like to see recognition for “good faith” efforts and would value the opportunity to demonstrate the strengths and generalizability of their diversity programs. As NCATE and the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) move toward consolidation, new frameworks for assessing these frameworks should be considered.

Seeking NCATE Accreditation: Leadership Perspectives and Tips

Accreditation by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) signifiesthat a variety of licensure programs demonstrate a high level of quality in programs, candidates, facultyand operations. NCATE accreditation depends in part upon national recognition of individual licensureprograms by Specialized Professional Associations (SPAs), and on program approval by statedepartments of education. In order to demonstrate that programs meet benchmarks of NCATEProfessional Standard 1 Knowledge, Skills and Dispositions, the unit must provide evidence ofcandidate proficiencies based on assessments, rubrics and candidate data that are aligned withprofessional standards (Retrieved October 22, 2009 from the National Council for the Accreditation ofTeacher Education at http://www.npbea.org/ncate.php). This fact carries with it implications for buy-in atmany levels: the university, the unit that offers degrees and/or certificates, and the faculty.

Data-Driven Decision Making: The Development and Validation of an Instrument to Measure Principals’ Practices

From the perspective of preparing school administrators, principals need to learn to use and believe infactual data when they make their administrative decisions. In alignment with the NCLB, the revisedStandards for Advanced Programs in Educational Leadership have more emphases placed on schooladministrators’ ability and knowledge in using data (Educational Leadership Constituent Council(ELCC), 2002; National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), 2002). TheELCC/NCATE (2002) standards serve as school leadership preparation program standards and canbe used as a cornerstone for the professional development of existing school administrators (Murphy &Shipman, 1998; Murphy, Yff, & Shipman, 2000). DDDM is integral to the key school administrators’skills in the six leadership standards of school vision, school instruction, school organization,collaborative partnerships, moral perspective, and larger-context politics.

Multicultural education in the United States: reflections

The United States’ civil rights history provided the impetus for changes in schools regarding multicultural education. However, definitions and theoretical perspectives of multicultural education remain convoluted. No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the legislation in place purported to equalize achievement, and the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), an accreditation agency which sets standards by which teacher education programs prepare future teachers, have elements which maintain and/or fail to change schooling conditions which leave children in the status quo.

Advanced Proficiency for Foreign Language Teacher Candidates: What Can We Do to Help Them Achieve This Goal?

ABSTRACT: This article examines various issues related to the development of advanced proficiency by foreign language teacher candidates with the goal of providing information and strategies for teacher educators and administrators at the university level. Recent changes in the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) requirements stipulate that foreign language teacher candidates in specific languages (e.g., French, German, Spanish) must achieve the Advanced‐Low rating on the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI)/Writing Proficiency Test (WPT). The article includes descriptions of language proficiency required for foreign language teaching and assessments; a survey of curricula and institutional resources for foreign language education at the university level, which support the development of advanced proficiency; and recommendations for facilitating Advanced language proficiency by foreign language teacher candidates.

Analysis of Exchanges Between Novice and Cooperating Teachers During Internships Using the NCATE/NASPE Standards for Teacher Preparation in Physical Education as Guidelines

To be recognized as an accredited program, Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) programs in the country must abide by guidelines put forward by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE), in collaboration with the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). The guidelines are divided into nine standards and identify a number of outcomes (NASPE, 1998). The purpose of this study was to determine the nature of the exchanges between novice teachers (NTs) and cooperating teachers (CTs), when using the NASPE Standards (1998) as a reference point, and determine if the focus of the exchanges differed over time and according to data source. Six pairs of CTs and their NT participated in the study. Data were collected through recorded conversations between NTs and their CT as well as NTs' logs. Data showed that the majority of conversations focused on planning and instruction (Standard 6) and management and motivation (Standard 4), while few related to diverse learners (Standard 3), growth and development (Standard 2), and communication (Standard 5). The small amount of information shared by CTs in some standards indicates a need for PETE programs to share the guidelines with CTs to make them aware of the importance of offering a variety of topics to interns, because CTs are the primary source of information during this crucial experience.

Taking Stock in 2006

In her history of education research, Ellen Lagemann (2000) suggested that during the 20th century, education had a romance with quantification (p. ix) that was reflected in its penchant for counting, measuring, and calculating in order to resemble the hard sciences as closely as possible. In this editorial, I argue that although education has in no way broken off its love affair with quantification, its current paramour is evidence, and the affair is hot and heavy in teacher education. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that evidence--or at least talk about evidence--is now everywhere in teacher education research, policy, and practice. This editorial describes and critiques the current focus on evidence, making the argument that although it has great potential to improve teacher education, it also has troubling aspects that need to be acknowledged and debated. (1) EVIDENCE EVERYWHERE Teacher education's current preoccupation with evidence is consistent with the way the standards movement has evolved and with the trend toward evidence-based practice in education writ large. It is important to note, however, that although there have long been several lines of research related to the effects of teacher education (Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2005; Kennedy, 1999), the current intense focus on evidence in teacher education practice and policy is a significant departure from far and recent past. The major reforms of the 1980s and early 1990s, for example, demanded that teacher education be more coherent and intellectually rigorous (e.g., Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, 1986; Holmes Group, 1986), whereas reformers like John Goodlad (1990) argued that school renewal and teacher education reform should proceed simultaneously based on moral purposes. During this same time period, revised National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) accreditation standards pushed teacher education to concentrate on the professional knowledge base and be explicit about the conceptual frameworks that guided programs (Christensen, 1996). None of these reforms had much to do with evidence. Currently however, in debates about large-scale teacher education policies and in the federal and state regulations related to individual teacher programs and pathways, evidence is front and center. For example, advocates of differing teacher education pathways often support their positions by citing empirical evidence that they claim demonstrates a positive relationship between particular pathways and school outcomes and conversely, reject the positions of their opponents on the grounds that the opponent's evidence is flimsy or faulty (e.g., Ballou & Podgursky, 2000; Darling-Hammond, 2000). Along similar lines, critics of collegiate teacher education and state certification often make their arguments on the basis of the claim that there is an absence of evidence about their efficacy (e.g., Abell Foundation, 2001; Hess, 2001) and thus conclude that new approaches are needed. The Title II teacher quality reporting requirements that went into effect in 1998 following the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act are perhaps the most striking example of the current emphasis on evidence in teacher education. Title II requires that all states provide annual evidence to the federal government about the quality of teacher preparation, which in turn depends on institutions providing annual evidence to the state about the qualifications (especially scores on state teacher tests) of every candidate recommended for certification. The fourth annual report to Congress on teacher quality (U.S. Department of Education, 2005)--the issued by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings--stated that the collection of objective from every state regarding teacher and certification has made possible the first national systematic and comprehensive data resource about teacher preparation (p. …

Essential Elements of Specialized Middle Level Teacher Preparation Programs

The reason for developing specialized middle level teacher preparation programs seems clear. Young adolesce ts need teachers trained to provide them with developmentally responsive learning experiences that give them the tools and knowledge to be successful. Haying determined that young adolescents are at a unique developmental level, experts in the field of middle level education have long advocated for specialized teacher training programs (Carnegie Council, 1989; Dickinson & McEwin, 1997; Jackson & Davis, 2000; Scales & McEwin, 1996). Recent research supports that stand (Giebelhaus, 1998; Lockart & Butt, 2002). States are slowly responding to the need for specialized teacher preparation programs by adding middle level certifi cates to licensing requirements (Gaskill, 2002). As specialized middle level preparation programs evolve and grow, there is a need to ensure these programs prepare middle level teachers according to the current best practice research. This article will describe a program at Berry College, a small, private college in Georgia recog nized for its teacher preparation program continu ously accredited by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) since 1974. Using the National Middle School Association's (2002) position statement on the pro fessional preparation of middle level teachers as a guide, we applied the essential elements described in that statement to the development of the Berry College middle grades program. Georgia was one of the first states to require middle level certification and to have a number of schools

An Inquiry of NCATE's Move Into Virtue Ethics by Way of Dispositions (Is This What Aristotle Meant?)

The recent turn in teacher education reform in the United States toward hyper "professionalization" and assessment-based accreditation, spearheaded by the largest accrediting agency, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), has moved beyond codifying knowledge and skills to codifying the internal existence of those who desire to become teachers.The reform movement has entered into the territory of the virtue ethic with its emphasis on the notion of "dispositions." Whereas before college of education faculty were accountable for proving each preservice teacher had mastered certain "knowledge and skills," they now must also find ways to measure and assess whether the teacher candidate is the "right sort" of person, to borrow a phrase from ethical philosopher Edmund Pincoffs (1986). In this article I explore how "professionalism" retains some residue of the Aristotelian philosophical labor on dispositions but resituates and rewrites it into a different economy of thought, one built by tools of quantification, enumeration, and accountability rather than the practical wisdom of which Aristotle spoke.

Cookie-Cutter Leaders for Cookie-Cutter Schools: The Teleology of Standardization and the De-Legitimization of the University in Educational Leadership Preparation

The effort to upgrade preparation standards for educational leaders is a world wide phenomenon (Gronn, 2002). In the United States, lacking an equivalent of a national ministry of education as in other countries, that thrust has taken many forms over the past decade but has primarily involved national professional administrative associations as well as state departments of education. The culmination of this movement has become centered in national accrediting bodies for schools of education, specifically NCATE (National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education) and the National Policy Board of Educational Administration (NPBEA) and a sub-unit called ELCC (Educational Leadership Constituent Council). As NCATE, NPBEA, and the ELCC exercise the policing function on university and college programs which prepare educational leaders, the makeup of the standards, their assumptions, and results become critically important. This article argues that this movement embodies the teleology of standardization whose principle objective is to remove the university and college as the primary site for the preparation of educational leaders through ruthless homogenization of university curricula and the debasement of the role of theory. That movement is consistent with the coming drive for alternative certification for profit. When the playing field has been politically leveled, anyone can license educational leaders.

Higher Education Culture—A Fit or Misfit With Reform in Teacher Education?

Collaboration and innovation in teacher education are essential ingredients for preparing teachers for increasingly diverse and challenging school populations. In the United States, one in five children lives in poverty, and the numbers of children who speak English as a second language are increasing rapidly (National Center for Education Statistics, 1997). If institutions of higher education are to prepare teachers for all students, current program structures and faculty roles must change substantially. Current practice, however, shows less than dramatic change. Some advocates of teacher education reform have cited funding patterns in schools of education, adherence to horizontal staffing of faculty assigned to specialized course loads, lack of public school teacher involvement, and an absence of a moral and ethical imperative throughout the program as barriers that continue to prevent reform and growth in teacher education (Fullan, Galluzzo, Morris, & Watson, 1998; Tom, 1997). State policies allowing alternative certification, limiting the number of credit hours in teacher education programs, and prescribing discrete teaching behaviors in the evaluation of teaching also continue to impede program change (Darling-Hammond, 1996). Some faculty may perceive such state policies, along with other regulatory influences such as the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC), and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), as constraining program development in teacher education rather than as guides for quality. The Holmes Partnership accomplished certain outcomes in teacher preparation, such as the proliferation of the professional development schools (PDS) concept, but it did not take strong positions on state and national policy. The lack of unified action in areas of state policy by leading institutions of higher education may have contributed to the stalling of reform (Fullan et al., 1998). The literature of practice in teacher education urges reform that includes collaboration across disciplines essential to educating teachers for increasingly diverse student populations (Blanton, Griffin, Winn, & Pugach, 1997; Darling-Hammond, 1996). Those disciplines may include special education, social work, general education, family and child development, counseling sociology, and educational leadership. Researchers have identified barriers to cross-disciplinary or interdisciplinary collaboration in teacher education that are largely administrative or social in nature. Barriers may include lack of incentives in faculty reward structures, inordinate amounts of time in already burdened faculty schedules, absence of understanding of interdisciplinary program development by administrators, lack of institutional resources, unwillingness by administrators to engage in creative faculty assignments, differences in philosophy among faculty, special interests and protectionist issues held by faculty, rigid thinking, and lack of respect across departments (Glassick, Huber, & Maeroff, 1997; Miller, in press; Miller & Stayon, 1998; Tom, 1997). The culture of higher education has traditionally maintained rigid conceptions about content and practices for preparing teachers (Darling-Hammond, 1997; Tom, 1997). A decade of rhetoric about reform and the proliferation of the PDS concept would suggest that reform in collaborative teacher education is underway (Holmes Group, 1995). Interpretation of the status of institutional reform, however, may depend on whether one reads institutional mission statements and other documents, or whether one talks with faculty. In this article, we discuss findings of a qualitative study undertaken to explore the culture of higher education as it fits with proposed reform in teacher education and further describe existing barriers and supports. Although reports from administrators and official institutional documents continue to describe trends toward reform in definitions of scholarship and reward systems for faculty (Glassick et al. …

Nontraditional Teacher Education Students: A Synthesis of the Literature

Nontraditional students are a growing part of teacher education programs. Nearly 50% of all college students in the United States are at least 25 years old (Aslanian, 1996). The increased numbers of nontraditional students has affected teacher education. Sixty-four percent of all National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE)--approved institutions offer postbaccalaureate programs leading to teacher certification; 40 states provide alternative routes to teacher certification (Carroll & Potthoff, 1997). Although teacher education programs throughout the country have many adult students, literature on nontraditional teacher education students is sparse and unsystematic (Eifler, 1997; Potthoff & Anderson, 1994). Most information about them is from descriptions of alternative certification programs to ameliorate teacher shortages or facilitate career transitions for former corporate and military personnel. These studies provide little sense of how older candidates perform in classrooms or how well teacher education programs meet nontraditional teacher candidate needs. We examined 40 studies of nontraditional students and prospective teachers; only 12 were research-based. Studies of alternative certification programs dominate the literature on nontraditional teacher education students. The studies focus primarily on a subset of nontraditional teacher education students, those changing careers. Researchers lack a shared understanding about characteristics of nontraditional teacher education students; age is only one relevant characteristic. Extensive life experiences and multiple commitments while enrolled in teacher education are more significant than age in determining a person's nontraditional status. Although we draw most heavily upon the research-based studies, we also include insights from program descriptions and synthesize the knowledge gleaned from those studies. In this article, we comment on the characteristics and needs of older students in their education and induction as teachers, beginning with summaries of major points of Kyle (1979) and Knowles (1992). We move from these general profiles to the unique strengths and challenges of nontraditional teacher education students; we present teacher education's responses to this growing population. We show how teacher educators deal programmatically with older students and how they facilitate older students' transitions into their own classrooms. We conclude with a set of practical implications and questions this research generated. Adult Learner Profiles Kyle (1979) noted that nontraditional students have the following characteristics: They attend more than one institution for a degree, attend part-time, have multiple family and professional commitments, are not financially dependent on parents, reflect no predominant socioeconomic status, and represent all racial groups. The studies we reviewed generally affirm this composite picture. The College Board study (Aslanian, 1996), although confirming that nontraditional students are diverse, indicates that the typical adult student is a White, 33-year-old female. Knowles (1992) asserts seven assumptions of andragogy: Adult learners need to know why they need to know something before they start learning it; have a self,concept of being responsible for their own decisions and lives; bring a greater degree of varying experiences into the classroom than younger students do; become ready to learn when forced to deal with their real-life situations; are life-centered in their orientation to learning; are motivated by several factors: negative self-concept, inaccessibility of opportunities, time constraints, violations of principles of adult learning; and favor being active learners over being passive learners (p. 11). College professors generally favor older students, a condition positively affecting their academic performance. Melichar (1994) reports that the 400 college instructors she surveyed were overwhelmingly more positive toward nontraditional students than traditional students in every regard, citing their ability to concentrate, sound reasoning and listening skills, eagerness to learn, initiative, and time management. …

What Should Teachers Know About Technology? A Revised Look at the ISTE Foundations

The 1989 alliance between the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) paved the way for significant changes in policies concerning the incorporation of technology within teacher education. The technology specialty programs and unit revisions adopted by NCATE have formally signaled that technology is an essential component of teacher education that must be accommodated. The cornerstone of all NCATE programs is the ISTE Foundations, which outline what every teacher should know about and be able to do with technology. By themselves, the Foundations have served as models for technology planning and infusion in teacher education across the United States. In 1996, the ISTE group completed a major review and revision of the 1992 Foundations, resulting in a structured set of competencies and performance indicators as foundational elements for all teachers. The revised Foundations are presented along with discussion of major changes in them. The Foundations will serve as benchmarks not only for professional education units involved in the NCATE accreditation process but also for programs across the nation as they integrate technology into the preparation of all teachers.

What Matters Most for Teacher Educators

In the preface to What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future (National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, 1996b), Governor Hunt expresses the hope that this report will launch a great debate about the critical link between improving the capacities of teachers and the future of the United States (p. iii). Through the use of persuasive detail and compelling prose, the report clarifies the crucial role of teachers in educational improvement. For the most part, teachers and schools escape the derision usually heaped upon them in national reports. The new challenges facing teachers form the starting point for arguing the need for better teachers. Teacher educators should certainly applaud one of the commission's basic premises: Recruiting, preparing, and retaining good teachers is the central strategy for improving our schools (p. vi). Recruiting, preparing, and retaining good teachers is at the heart of our job as teacher educators. This report provides both prescriptions and examples of improving recruitment, preparation, and retention of good teachers. The preface foreshadows the centerpiece of the report: Standards for students and teachers are the key to reforming American education (p. iii). At nearly every turn, the authors answer the question, How can we have competent and caring teachers in every classroom? with standards and assessments. In this analysis, I examine the authors' proposals to use standards and assessments to achieve the report's goals. I will also appraise the recommendations for preservice teacher education and the nature of the report's action plan for implementing these recommendations. I will not deal with the many good ideas related to the essential tasks of hiring teachers, the professional growth of experienced teachers, or improving the conditions in which teachers teach. A Positive Beginning The report offers much for teacher educators to rally around. First, the report boldly declares qualified teachers as the most important ingredient in education reform (p. 3). Second, the report places the task of preparing new teachers squarely on teacher educators. Although Darling-Hammond has elsewhere offered an even stronger argument against alternative teacher education programs, she clearly makes the case for college/university-based teacher education in this report. And finally, the report focuses on goals that we can all rally around: recruiting, preparing and supporting excellent teachers in all of America's schools and a caring, competent, and qualified teacher for every child (p. 6). There is a significant omission: Although the authors often call for caring teachers, their know and can do lingo that has emerged as the mantra of the standards movement loses the personal, ethical, and value-centered components of good teaching. The central difficulty with the report is the overemphasis, mis-emphasis, and uncritical emphasis on standards and standards assessment as the means for producing caring and competent teachers for every classroom. The authors provide a standards/assessment solution at every turn. They provide the hoary and the homely analogy of the three-legged stool to rest on: accreditation, licensing, and certification (p. 29). They make outrageous claims for this solution: for example, Because accreditation is not required of teacher education programs, the quality of Programs varies widely. (National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, 1996a, p. 13). This is, at least, a misattribution of causal correlation. There is likely as much variation in quality among NCATE (National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education)-accredited programs as among those unaccredited; many well-known model programs have not chosen to be part of the NCATE accreditation process. To suggest that NBPTS (National Board of Professional Teacher Standards), NCATE, and INTASC (Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium) offer the most powerful tools we have for reaching and rejuvenating the soul of the profession (National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, 1996b, p. …

The evolution of standards for accrediting computer science teacher preparation programs

In 1992, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) adopted guidelines for computer science education teacher preparation programs. The endorsement signaled the emergence of computer science education as a distinct discipline and computer science as a formal secondary subject area. The guidelines were developed through an intense program of research and review by the International Society for Technology and Education (ISTE). Since the passage of the standards, numerous computer science and education professionals have been involved in the process of preparing program folios for review and developing the actual review process. This real experience with the standards helped to identify issues and problems that are common to most programs and that need examination in the current five year review. In this paper, an overview of the guidelines is presented, the review process is described, issues and problems are discussed, and future initiatives are identified.