Submitted by Meghan Selway (not verified) on March 2, 2008 - 13:23.
1. No consistent standards of teacher preparation. Schools of Education are not held as accountable by the state (at least in CA) as they need to be. While general curriculum requirements must be met by the teacher education programs, the substance of the courses is not evaluated. Ex: a content methods course should not just be a discussion of what experiences student teachers have had in the classroom. It should be based on specific strategies for teaching the subject. And, even the general curriculum requirements are minimal or ineffective per below.
2. Theory not practicum. Yes, there exists student teaching in CA where teachers spend time with a master teacher in the classroom, and this is by far what teachers say was the valuable part of their teacher preparation. If this doesn't exist in other states, it must.
3. Theory isn't Taught As It's Preached. Theory is important, but most times, those teaching the theory don't practice what they preach. Basic teaching theory is to model, guide, and provide independent practice/application. Theory should be presented, then the professor should apply it to a school setting and guide potential teachers through the implementation of the theory. Finally, the potential teachers should develop a lesson utilizing the theory and implement it in a classroom with the professor observing and debriefing with comments. Theory in lecture format but not applied is a waste of time.
4. Educators in Teacher Preparation Programs Lack Recent Experience in the Classroom and thus aren't as Effective as Mentor Teachers. Unless professors have had to teach for an extended period of time recently, education professors and their practices have no meaning to the teacher in the program. Education professors in Teacher preparation programs should be required to teach part time in a school or be a guest teacher for a month. Also, mentor teachers who may not have a MA or PHD in Education, should be allowed to be guest lecturers Teacher Preparation programsor better yet, co-teach with a professor.
5. Theories on Teaching Strategies but Not on Resources. Again, while theory is important, it needs to supplemented with instruction on the resources available to teachers in their subject areas - or multiple subject areas. There exists numerous resources, such as Edutopia, that teachers can use to assist in their classroom teaching. Also, many organizations offer amazing lesson plans that teachers can use as a base. Furthermore, teacher programs should initiate a professor or graduate student resource center for subject matter teachers so if a teacher can't find an resource to answer a question about content, they have a place to go to.
6. Teacher Preparation in Content More of a Priority than Teacher Preparation in Teaching. NCLB's main focus is on teachers high qualifications within their specfic content area. While this is important, what programs who recruit experts from the business world have been finding is something most of us teachers know - you may be an expert in your subject area, but conveying the information to children is an entirely different thing. This is one area that is similar to the business world. A good CEO or manager is one whom can be placed in that position in any company no matter what the product or service industry. A good CEO or manager will learn the product or service of that industry. The same can be said for teaching. A teacher needs to know how to teach. A teacher who is a good teacher, should be able to teach many things. Not that we should expect teachers to teach five subjects (as lesson quality with that much preparation would suffer), but a good teacher would know how to read the content, digest it, identify the important points associated with the standards that must be taught, identify challenges students may have in understanding the information, and develop and find strategies to help teach the content to students.
7. Psychology of Children, Adolescents, and Learning and Memory is Paramount but Minimal in Teacher Preparation programs. As a mentor teacher, a colleague sitting in on a co-workers class, a professional development trainer and coach, one of the things I've witnessed is the inability of some teachers to comprehend when a student is not being defiant but crying out for help and how to deal with that or when a student isn't doing work out of laziness but because they lack the skill ability to complete the assignment. Teachers who don't have the innate ability to do this, or didn't have the psychology classes to prepare them, lose their students - emotionally (a straight-A student who has hit the breaking point and acts out in class), sometimes physically (I pulled a student aside due to a change in his demeanor and it turned out he had not been eating to meet his weight requirement for wrestling), or academically (the realization that a student refuses to do work because they can't read the assignment).
All this being said, I wish policymakers read feedback from teachers on sites such as Edutopia and realize that we teachers actually have the answers to improve education.
Real reasons for lack of teacher preparation & solutions
Submitted by Meghan Selway (not verified) on March 2, 2008 - 13:23.
1. No consistent standards of teacher preparation. Schools of Education are not held as accountable by the state (at least in CA) as they need to be. While general curriculum requirements must be met by the teacher education programs, the substance of the courses is not evaluated. Ex: a content methods course should not just be a discussion of what experiences student teachers have had in the classroom. It should be based on specific strategies for teaching the subject. And, even the general curriculum requirements are minimal or ineffective per below.
2. Theory not practicum. Yes, there exists student teaching in CA where teachers spend time with a master teacher in the classroom, and this is by far what teachers say was the valuable part of their teacher preparation. If this doesn't exist in other states, it must.
3. Theory isn't Taught As It's Preached. Theory is important, but most times, those teaching the theory don't practice what they preach. Basic teaching theory is to model, guide, and provide independent practice/application. Theory should be presented, then the professor should apply it to a school setting and guide potential teachers through the implementation of the theory. Finally, the potential teachers should develop a lesson utilizing the theory and implement it in a classroom with the professor observing and debriefing with comments. Theory in lecture format but not applied is a waste of time.
4. Educators in Teacher Preparation Programs Lack Recent Experience in the Classroom and thus aren't as Effective as Mentor Teachers. Unless professors have had to teach for an extended period of time recently, education professors and their practices have no meaning to the teacher in the program. Education professors in Teacher preparation programs should be required to teach part time in a school or be a guest teacher for a month. Also, mentor teachers who may not have a MA or PHD in Education, should be allowed to be guest lecturers Teacher Preparation programsor better yet, co-teach with a professor.
5. Theories on Teaching Strategies but Not on Resources. Again, while theory is important, it needs to supplemented with instruction on the resources available to teachers in their subject areas - or multiple subject areas. There exists numerous resources, such as Edutopia, that teachers can use to assist in their classroom teaching. Also, many organizations offer amazing lesson plans that teachers can use as a base. Furthermore, teacher programs should initiate a professor or graduate student resource center for subject matter teachers so if a teacher can't find an resource to answer a question about content, they have a place to go to.
6. Teacher Preparation in Content More of a Priority than Teacher Preparation in Teaching. NCLB's main focus is on teachers high qualifications within their specfic content area. While this is important, what programs who recruit experts from the business world have been finding is something most of us teachers know - you may be an expert in your subject area, but conveying the information to children is an entirely different thing. This is one area that is similar to the business world. A good CEO or manager is one whom can be placed in that position in any company no matter what the product or service industry. A good CEO or manager will learn the product or service of that industry. The same can be said for teaching. A teacher needs to know how to teach. A teacher who is a good teacher, should be able to teach many things. Not that we should expect teachers to teach five subjects (as lesson quality with that much preparation would suffer), but a good teacher would know how to read the content, digest it, identify the important points associated with the standards that must be taught, identify challenges students may have in understanding the information, and develop and find strategies to help teach the content to students.
7. Psychology of Children, Adolescents, and Learning and Memory is Paramount but Minimal in Teacher Preparation programs. As a mentor teacher, a colleague sitting in on a co-workers class, a professional development trainer and coach, one of the things I've witnessed is the inability of some teachers to comprehend when a student is not being defiant but crying out for help and how to deal with that or when a student isn't doing work out of laziness but because they lack the skill ability to complete the assignment. Teachers who don't have the innate ability to do this, or didn't have the psychology classes to prepare them, lose their students - emotionally (a straight-A student who has hit the breaking point and acts out in class), sometimes physically (I pulled a student aside due to a change in his demeanor and it turned out he had not been eating to meet his weight requirement for wrestling), or academically (the realization that a student refuses to do work because they can't read the assignment).
All this being said, I wish policymakers read feedback from teachers on sites such as Edutopia and realize that we teachers actually have the answers to improve education.