29 Aug2017
How Teacher Education Can Elevate Teacher Quality: Highlights From Sept./Oct. JTE
Have you read the September/October 2017 issue of the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) yet? It is now available online and hitting desks around the country. See what Volume 68 Number 4 has to offer!
- In this month’s editorial, “How Teacher Education Can Elevate Teacher Quality: Evidence From Research,” members of the JTE editorial team at Michigan State University highlight the issue’s four articles. Robert E. Floden, Gail Richmond, Corey Drake, and Emery Petchauer note the papers’ findings and the significance of their topics to various stakeholders in teacher preparation.
- In “Predictive Validity and Impact of CAEP Standard 3.2: Results From One Master’s-Level Teacher Preparation Program,” author Carla M. Evans of the University of New Hampshire investigates how the undergraduate grade-point average (GPA) and Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores of 533 master’s-level teacher candidates correlate to their graduate GPA. Her study aims to test the predictive validity of the admissions requirements contained in Standard 3.2 of the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) and finds that while undergraduate GPA is “moderately related to a program graduate’s success,” the GRE requirement “significantly reduces the number of admitted candidates so that the program may no longer be financially sustainable.”
- “Evaluating Prospective Teachers: Testing the Predictive Validity of the edTPA” analyzes longitudinal data from Washington State to estimate the effectiveness of edTPA in predicting teachers’ future employment and “value-added” performance. Authors Dan Goldhaber, James Cowan, and Roddy Theobald of the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research find edTPA scores to be highly predictive of employment in the state’s public schools. When it comes to student achievement, edTPA is significantly predictive in English but not in mathematics. The authors also report sobering data on edTPA pass rates, showing much lower success among Hispanic candidates than among non-Hispanic White candidates.
- “Does New Teacher Induction Really Improve Retention?” Matthew Ronfeldt and Kiel McQueen of the University of Michigan study the popular assumption that early-career induction programs help reduce teacher attrition, for which existing evidence is mixed. Based on nationally available data, the researchers affirm the effectiveness of the practice, finding that first-year induction supports predict less teacher migration and attrition. The article also reports that induction looks similar at different types of schools and among different kinds of teachers, except it is higher among teachers who are Black and those who work in schools with high numbers of English language learners.
- “Focusing on Teacher Learning Opportunities to Identify Potentially Productive Coaching Activities” offers a conceptual analysis of activities for instructional coaches to use with science and math teachers to provide effective support for teacher learning. This analysis by Lynsey K. Gibbons of Boston University and Paul Cobb of Vanderbilt University provides a potential foundation for more research on professional learning for teachers as well as for their coaches.
Online abstracts of each JTE article are accessible to the public, but AACTE members may access the full text online for free. Simply log in to your AACTE profile through the blue button on this page and you’ll connect to the JTE site hosted by SAGE.
Tags: accreditation, assessment, JTE, research, STEM, teacher quality
