Research on Teacher Preparation: Charting the Landscape of a Sprawling Field

Session Type: Invited Session

Abstract

Research on teacher preparation is an emerging, complex, and multi-faceted field, influenced by competing ideas about the purposes of research and of education. Guided by a theoretical framework that conceptualizes research on teacher preparation as situated social practice, this session draws on the results of a major initiative to chart the contemporary landscape of research on teacher preparation. The session features description and critique of three research programs: (1) research on teacher preparation accountability, effectiveness, and program/pathway policies, (2) research on preparing teacher candidates in keeping with current conceptions of how people learn and what they need to know in a knowledge society, and (3) research on preparing a teaching force for a diverse population and to enhance school/social equality.

Sub Unit

• Division K - Teaching and Teacher Education

Chair

• A. Lin Goodwin, Teachers College, Columbia University

Presenters

• Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Boston College

• Ana Maria Villegas, Montclair State University

• Laura Carolina Chavez-Moreno, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Tammy Mills, Montclair State University

• Rebecca H. Stern, Boston College

• Linda Whalen Abrams, Knowles Teacher Initiative

Discussant

• Deborah Loewenberg Ball, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor