Teacher retention is a significant issue. The COVID-19 pandemic added significant stress to teachers already reporting high-stress levels and thoughts of leaving the profession. Teachers, required to teach online, found themselves in their students' homes, which was a completely new experience. Teachers were privy now to family dynamics, home environment, the stress in the home, ability to access resources, etc. Teachers were trying to navigate and create an online curriculum, find resources to support online learning, and support parents and families during a high-stress period. This created a pressure cooker effect for the profession. Did these experiences influence their thoughts about staying in the profession? This study explored the pre and post-pandemic experiences of teachers. In 2020, 358 teachers completed the pre-pandemic survey, and 145 of the original participants chose to complete the follow-up study in 2021. Findings revealed a significant number of teachers in 2020 considering leaving the teaching profession, but even more alarming was the increase by 2021.

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The pressures created by the Coronavirus-19 pandemic in education and the uncertainty of the evolution of education are central to today’s discussions as the needs of kindergarten through twelfth-grade students are being transformed, and the support offered to educators is being redefined. The increase in disorder and chaos seeks the voice and perspectives of educators. Therefore, this explanatory sequential mixed-methods pilot study investigated the collaborative practices used by middle school science, technology, engineering, and mathematics educators during the onset of the Covid pandemic and explored teachers’ perceptions of collaboration. Survey data from eight teacher participants and interview data from two participants from the same urban school district suggest that all teachers participated in collaboration during the 2020 – 2021 school year. A thematic analysis of the qualitative data suggests that teachers envision collaboration as an opportunity for growth.

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This project was implemented in the fall of 2021 as part of an assignment for an undergraduate developmental reading course. The 18 preservice teachers enrolled in their second core block of methods coursework at Eastern Illinois University were instructed and evaluated on how to implement an interactive read aloud. Each preservice teacher selected a book from a group of 38 children’s books that reflected ethnically diverse cultures, gender identity, and family diversity. The course instructor modeled how to implement a read aloud which included how to select vocabulary to teach, asking thought-provoking questions, and creating dialogic structures for peer discussion. After implementing their read alouds, the preservice teachers were evaluated using the Interactive Read Aloud Scoring Rubric. As a result of these presentations and class discussions, preservice teachers gained both knowledge and confidence on how to successfully plan and implement a read aloud to their students.

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Accreditation calls on educator preparation programs to determine their program impact by evaluating the teaching effectiveness of program completers and to measure these completers’ impact on their P-12 students’ learning and development. In an innovative twist and taking a more democratic and scholarly approach, we conducted our self-study by engaging our graduate teacher candidates in a qualitative research study of our completers. Four completers, representing each of our programs, participated in the study. Their teaching competencies and impact on their student learning were measured against the four domains of our program’s candidate learning outcomes: Intentional teaching, data literacy, cultural competence, professional practice and leadership. Teacher candidates collected data on demonstration of these four domains through focused interviews and classroom observations of program completers and through surveys of their employers. Consolidated data analyses were conducted to determine key findings and to extract implications. Findings highlighted the strengths of our program to be intentional teaching, cultural competence, and professional practice and leadership. Greater focus on data literacy emerged as an area for improvement. Conducting the study of our program impact as a research project opened another avenue for development of professional knowledge and research skills in teacher candidates. It also established the viability of such studies for determining program impact.

This study examined how preparation in subject content, preparation in subject pedagogy, student behaviors and teacher collaboration contributed to teacher self-efficacy in instruction. Full-time teachers with no more than 5 years of teaching experience who participated in the 2013 teaching and learning international survey (TALIS) were included in the data analyses. The results show that there was a significant correlation between preparation in the subject pedagogy and preparation in the subject content and a significant correlation between preparation in the subject pedagogy and student behaviors. Preparation in the subject content, preparation in the subject pedagogy, student behaviors and teacher collaboration each contributed unique variance to teacher instruction self-efficacy. Implications for teacher education and curriculum are discussed.

This paper discusses findings of a formal investigation into the impact of specialized courses on the development of pedagogical content knowledge of teacher candidates pursuing certification to teach mathematics in secondary schools. This study is two-phased, with phase I beginning in the final year of participants’ teacher preparation program and phase II during the first year of teaching with a subset of phase I participants. The study investigates the development of beginning secondary mathematics teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) about teaching and learning mathematics over this two-year period. Data were compiled from multiple sources: a researcher created PCK inventory, interviews, classroom observations, and an exit survey. Each source provided information for understanding how beginning secondary mathematics teachers developed their PCK and insight into participants’ perceptions of their development. Findings from this study indicate that PCK developed through its explicit integration in the specialized courses. Participants were given assignments and opportunities to connect their Content Knowledge (CK) and Pedagogical Knowledge (PK) and begin transforming these types of knowledge into PCK. The role of self-reflection and collaboration with others was also found to be instrumental in PCK development. Having opportunities to develop all aspects of knowledge was not always available for participants in all situations. At times, there were PCK tasks that were beyond to scope of the given experience or participants were limited in their freedom to exercise their knowledge. This data demonstrates that participants needed opportunities and the agency to act on those opportunities to develop their PCK.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine the emergence of resilience in the context of reflective practice facilitated during a 90 Hours field experience. The surveys administered to teacher candidates (n=90) preceding and following the field experience comprise the data. Among the five questions in the surveys, the focus question looked at teacher candidates’ expectations of themselves and their cooperating teachers. The resilience factors, including the personal resources of courage and motivation, along with the contextual resource, mentor relationships, emerged from an analysis of the data. However, continued analysis of the data revealed a confluence of the personal and contextual resources. The personal resources, courage and motivation, were supported by the contextual resource, the mentor relationship with the cooperating teacher. Continued discussion includes teacher candidates’ comments, while drawing connections among reflection, resilience, and the success of teacher candidates in their field experiences.

The purpose of this qualitative research is to examine listening since it essential for effective communication yet is not well understood (Murphy, 2019; Worthington & Fitch- Hauser, 2018). The aim is to address the listening gap in the field of teacher education (Haroutunian-Gordan & Waks, 2010; Kourmousi et al., 2018; Schultz et al., 2008) by interviewing two elementary teacher candidates about listening. The emerging constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) results in an analogy of listening based on a communication atom with listening represented as protons and neutrons located in the nucleus of the atom and electrons representing speaking found in levels surrounding the nucleus. Listening is further explained through the interaction of: a) senses – auditory and visual, b) dispositions – critical, inquisitive, and introspective, and c) self-understanding – beliefs and values. Speakers assert a message through vocalization and gesticulation based on their self-knowledge. The mutual attraction of listening protons and speaking electrons binds the communication atom into a coherent whole. Neutrons in the nucleus represent self-talk. A fundamental outcome of this research is that listening generates voice. Implications are based on listening that facilitates the development of: voice and identity, safety in the classroom, dispositions including curiosity and patience, and self-talk. Listening is essential for fostering rich academic conversations and productive discussions among teacher candidates, mentor teachers, and K-12 students.

Self-reflection using candidate teaching videos in early field experiences is a strategy that may help candidates enhance their teaching constructs and abilities. This study reports on how a self-reflection, expert discussion, self-reflection video feedback cycle changed three pre-service secondary (Grades 6 – 12 certification) teacher candidates’ (two mathematics and one biology) ability to document specific targeted aspects of their teaching. Candidates submitted three separate videos of instruction and responded to a series of prompts modeled after edTPA task two and three prompts. Additionally, candidates were asked to place timestamps on their videos where they believed they answered each of the reflection prompts. The results show that while candidate responses remained brief there was a marked improvement in detail and depth of answers throughout each reflection cycle and after the submission each video. Candidates’, however, still had difficulty using the “video interactions” (timestamps) to substantiate their comments. Future studies need to follow-up on this research with a larger sample size.

This case study research represents an attempt to understand conceptions of school engagement in a rural, isolated, agricultural mid-western community. Local school administrators, in collaboration with a regional university, chose to make student engagement the focus of deep inquiry in order to better address student concerns, improve teaching, and student outcomes (Association of Teacher Educators, 2007). Researchers conducted 27 interviews with a representative sample of students, teachers, and parents in a local high school, using an interview protocol specifically designed for each constituency. Interview data was coded considering 4 aspects of student engagement (behavioral, social-emotional, cognitive and agentic). The study results point to a mostly behavioral, or compliance driven concept of engagement among all groups interviewed. Examination of data also shows that students tended to voice a desire for a higher degree of agentic engagement, along with a strong need for positive relationships with teaching faculty. This points to a need for both shared conceptions of elements of a change process (Costa & Kallick, 1995) and for teacher educators to more deeply address preservice students’ understanding of engagement, as well as a potential to shift to a conceptual understanding of student engagement that is more agentic in nature. Implications include avenues toward broadening conceptions of engagement among staff, students, and parents; increased understanding and implementation of educational strategies designed to increase engagement at both the classroom and school levels; and catalyzing changes in educator preparation programs that improve candidates’ understanding of isolated rural school communities.

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