Related Links
- Readers' Survey 2008 Home
- Best Blog for Educators
- Best Educational Podcast
- Best Virtual Field Trip
- Best Site from Which You Can Download Free Lessons and Materials
- Best Site for Grant Information
- Best Technology Product for Less Than $100
- Best Technology Tool for Students
- Best Education Software
- Amount You Spend Out of Pocket Each Year on Classroom Supplies
- Best Way to Get What You Need for the Classroom
- Best Public Advocate or Role Model for Educators
- Best New Book About Education
- Top Concern of Parents
- Top Concern of Teachers
- What's Missing from Education Degree or Certification Programs
- Who, from the Past or Present, You'd Like to Teach Your Class for a Day
- Subject That Typically Isn't Taught in Schools That Should Be
- Best Way for Schools to Keep New Teachers from Burning Out
- Best Way to Find Inspiration
- Best Way to Create an Educational Community
- The 2008 Readers' Survey was conducted at Edutopia.org March 26-April 30, 2008. Participants responded to questions in their own words, and their answers were tabulated to yield the top three to five vote getters in each category. The top responses for each question appear with voting buttons to encourage our visitors to participate further.
Advertisement
Readers' Survey 2008: What's Missing from Education Degree or Certification Programs
Credit: iStockphoto
If a majority of our respondents could join in one collective act to improve teacher education, they would likely brew an enormous cosmic espresso and force the education establishment to wake up and take a deep whiff. The words real, reality, actual, and practical came up repeatedly in the answers to this question, as respondents demanded that real-world experiences inform teacher education -- not just in theory but also through the inclusion of classroom experience, technology training, and hands-on student-management opportunities in degree or certification programs.
Long-term apprenticeships, partnerships with mentors, direct experience in dealing with "concerned" parents -- essentially a curriculum that one teacher summed up as "the practical experience of all that educators have to do" -- is what our survey respondents recommend for those training to be teachers.
What do you think? Weigh in on the results.
What's Missing in Ed Degree Programs?
If more teacher ed programs included highly accomplished teachers as real partners (read paid faculty, adjuncts, guest instructors, team teachers.....), not only in instruction of teacher candidates, but also in the designing of their programs, new teachers would also get more of the other two options as well.