Teacher Preparation for the 21st Century.

This column summarizes recent ERIC documents and journal articles that discuss the preservice and inservice preparation of teachers in order to meet the educational needs of the 21st century. For details about ERIC and ordering ERIC documents, please see the information following these abstracts.

ERIC Documents

ED428259 USING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TO MEET TEACHERS' CHANGING NEEDS: What We Have Learned. Curtis Finch. 1999. 17pp. What will prepare teachers to meet the educational challenges of the future? The author states that three promising professional development approaches are work-based learning, the mini-sabbatical, and the case study method. Also noteworthy are integration and school-to-work programs. Successful integration programs bring about changes in cooperative efforts, curriculum strategies, and administrative practices. Teacher efforts in school-to-work include serving as ambassadors for school-to-work programs, establishing relationships with businesses, and having firsthand knowledge of the workplace. In order for schools to overcome barriers to implementing these reforms, they must create and support a vision of the future.

ED424852 DISTANCE EDUCATION AND TOMORROW'S SCHOOLS. Fastback 439. Barbara L. Ludlow & Michael C. Duff, 1998. 58pp. (Not Available from EDRS; write: Phi Delta Kappa International, 408 North Union, P.O. Box 789, Bloomington, IN 47402-0789). The first section of this booklet defines distance education, and examines its trends, possibilities, and problems. Distance education technologies are discussed in the second section, including "low tech" systems (correspondence, audioconferencing) and "high tech" systems (broadcast television, compressed video, online instruction). Technology costs are also addressed. The third and fourth sections cover elementary through postsecondary education. The fifth section deals with preservice and inservice teacher education, followed by a section that considers the implications of distance education. The final section discusses the potential of distance education to revolutionize tomorrow's schools.

ED416394 SCHOOL-TO-WORK AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR TEACHERS. Resource Bulletin. National School-to-Work Opportunities Office, Washington, DC. 1997. 6pp. (Available from EDRS and: National School-to-Work Learning and Information Center, 400 Virginia Avenue, Room 150, Washington, DC 20024). Innovative approaches to learning in school-to-work systems, such as project-based instructional strategies, are significant departures from traditional teaching practices. Professional development activities must be made available to provide teachers with the knowledge and ability to make a school-to-work system successful. Some strategies for the professional development of teachers in school-to-work systems include: 1) accepting the idea of professional development as a continuous improvement process; 2) helping teachers acquire worksite experiences; 3) making the best use of workshops and conferences, such as a "train-the-trainer" approach; 4) preparing teachers for new roles in school-to-work governance; 5) using teacher networks; and 6) working with teacher unions.

ED414274 PREPARING TEACHERS TO TEACH IN 2007. Richard Bates. 1997. 7 pp. The shape of teacher education is affected by four "message systems": curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and discipline. Seven social issues are important in bringing about changes to schools' message systems: 1) the disorder of information, 2) symbolic analysis of information, 3) economic convergence and stratification, 4) the crisis of political ecology, 5) social diastrophism, 6) environmental degradation, and 7) the inequalities suffered by women. Teacher education for 2007 will need to develop in prospective teachers a holistic and global understanding of education; an understanding of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment as socially constructed; and a commitment to engagement with classroom practice and with the various agents that shape the context of practice.

ED412201 TECHNOLOGY AND THE NEW PROFESSIONAL TEACHER. Preparing for the 21st Century Classroom. National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, Washington, DC. 1997. 51 pp. This report of a National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) task force presents a vision of what teachers must do to take advantage of instructional technology, identifies current teacher education program deficiencies, and suggests what teacher education programs can do to correct the deficiencies. The report recommends that NCATE: 1) stimulate more effective uses of technology in teacher education programs, 2) use technology to improve the existing accreditation process and to reconceptualize accreditation for the 21st century, and 3) improve its own operations through greater use of technology. Case studies that demonstrate innovative technology use in teacher preparation programs appear throughout the text.

ED410201 A NEW VISION FOR STAFF DEVELOPMENT. Dennis Sparks & Stephanie Hirsh. 1997. 115pp. (Not available from EDRS; write Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1250 N. Pitt St., Alexandria, VA 22314-1453). This book explores how three ideas--results-driven education, systems thinking, and constructivism--are shaping a new direction in staff development. Results-driven education judges the success of schooling by gauging what students actually know and what they can do as a result of their time in school. Systems thinking is a framework for seeing relationships, rather than disparate things. Constructivism views learners as creators, rather than recipients, of their own knowledge structures. The book describes how the focus has shifted from the district to the school level, from fragmented efforts to comprehensive plans, from adult needs to student needs, from off-site training to job-embedded training, and from generic skills to a combination of skills, including content-specific ones.

ED395931 WHAT MATTERS MOST: Teaching for America's Future. Report of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, New York. 1996. 161 pp. (Available from EDRS and from: National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, P.O. Box 5239, Woodbridge, VA 22194-5239). The premises of this study are: what teachers know is the most important influence on what students learn; recruiting, preparing, and retaining good teachers are central to improving U.S. schools; and school reform cannot succeed unless it focuses on creating conditions in which teachers can teach well. This report focuses on perceived barriers to achieving these goals: 1) low expectations for student performance, 2) unenforced standards for teachers, 3) major flaws in teacher preparation, 4) slipshod teacher recruiting, 5) inadequate induction for beginning teachers, 6) inadequate professional development opportunities and few rewards for acquiring higher levels of knowledge and skill, and 7) schools that are structured for failure rather than success. The report offers five major recommendations: get serious about standards for both students and teachers, reinvent teacher preparation and professional development, fix teacher recruitment and put qualified teachers in every classroom, encourage and reward teacher knowledge and skill, and create schools that are organized for student and teacher success.

Journal Articles

EJ578684 TEACHING AND TEACHER EDUCATION: A Glimpse Into the Future. Lya Kremer-Hayon. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 42, No. 4 (December 1998): 377-388. This article explores the knowledge teachers will need to have in the future and considers the implications of new teacher education requirements. The article also suggest several ways to change the perception of pedagogical knowledge, school curricula, and school structure, proposing that teacher-education curricula include "core" and "periphery" aspects.

EJ565628 THE PROMISE OF TECHNOLOGY. Lee Sherman. Northwest Education, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Spring, 1998): 2-9. Access to technology in school can motivate students to become more independent learners. To be effective, however, technology must be integrated into the curriculum, and teachers need support and training in the use of technology and related pedagogical methods. They also need mentors and time to learn and experiment.

EJ549261 WHAT TOMORROW'S TEACHERS REALLY NEED FROM HIGHER EDUCATION: A View From the Trenches. Nancy S. Grasmick & Lawrence E. Leak. Educational Record, Vol. 78, No. 2 (Spring 1997): 22-29. Classroom teachers are the most important element of school reform. Maryland's efforts to redesign teacher education involve a partnership among the state university system, the chief higher education officer, and school superintendents. It is designed to facilitate a seamless system of K-16 education, recognizing that schools must have rigorous standards and that higher education is responsible for preparing capable teachers.

EJ541401 LIBRARY MEDIA SPECIALISTS AND TEACHERS IN THE SCHOOL OF TOMORROW. Margorie L. Pappas. School Library Media Activities Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 8 (April 1997): 32-34. This article highlights trends in learning and learning environments, and makes projections regarding the future role of teachers and school library media specialists. The article discusses nonlinear environments, student-centered instruction, school Intranets, the Internet, curriculum design, learning facilitation, teachers as coaches, collaboration, information literacy, access to information, teacher librarians, and inservice training.

EJ534070 BUILDING A SYSTEM OF QUALITY ASSURANCE FOR THE TEACHING PROFESSION: Moving Into the 21st Century. Arthur E. Wise. Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 78, No. 3 (November 1996): 190-192. The articles in a special section of Phi Delta Kappan describe efforts to create a coherent system of teacher preparation and development. Various experts discuss the status of the teaching profession, new accreditation and licensing developments, state reform movements, the effects of National Board Certification, and the need for high entry standards.

EJ524393 A VERY DIFFERENT KIND OF TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM: Professional Development Schools. Anne Wescott Dodd. NASSP Bulletin, Vol. 80, No. 580 (May 1996): 3037. Professional development schools serve both novice and experienced teachers' needs by combining teacher education with professional development and school-restructuring. Such schools and programs are creating new opportunities for learning by teaching, doing, and collaborating. This article describes two such programs.

EJ513033 EDUCATION FOR A NEW ERA. James L. Hoerner. Vocational Education Journal, Vol. 70, No. 8 (November-December, 1995): 22-24. In improving the schooling process, vocational education should be treated the same as other aspects of the learning process, vocational educators must get over the fear of losing their identity, integration must be achieved, academic levels and expectations of all students should be raised, facilities modernized, and links with business established.

EJ514188 PREPARING TEACHERS FOR SCHOOLS OF THE 21ST CENTURY. Elliot W. Eisner. Peabody Journal of Education, Vol. 70, No. 3 (Spring, 1995): 99111. Teacher education demonstrates little affinity with visions of what constitutes teacher competence. This paper examines the education that teachers need to help students handle the vicissitudes of the coming century, noting the uses and limits of theory, the school as an educative environment for teachers, and the ecological character of schools.

The ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education (ERIC/EECE) contributed this column. ERIC documents are abstracted in the monthly index Resources in Education (RIE) and in the ERIC database online or on CDROM. Most ERIC documents (EDs) can be read on ERIC microfiche, which are available in many libraries. In addition, most documents can be ordered in paper copy or on microfiche, and many recent documents can be ordered on the Internet, from the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS), 7420 Fullerton Rd., Suite 110, Springfield, VA 22153-2852 (1-800-443-3742); URL: http://edrs.com/. For complete ordering information, contact EDRS or consult the most recent issue of RIE. An availability source is indicated for those documents summarized in this column that are not available from EDRS. For journal articles cited in the column, refer directly to the journal or contact article clearinghouses such as UnCover (800-787-7979), UMI (800-732-0616), or ISI (800-523-1850) for ordering information. Further information on elementary and early childhood education is available from ERIC/EECE, Children's Research Center, University of Illinois, 51 Gerty Drive, Champaign, IL 61820-7469; (phone: [phone] or 800-583-4135; E-mail: [e-mail]); URL: http://ericeece.org/.

Call for Special Publications Proposals

The Publications Committee is seeking proposals for special publications. These publications might describe desirable conditions, programs, and practices for children from infancy through early adolescence; offer the means for professional development; focus attention on the rights and needs of children and how they might be addressed.

All manuscripts are subject to blind peer review. Proposals should include:

1. Rationale: Explain why the publication is important and timely 2. Scope and Sequence: Clearly outline the text's development and goals. 3. Market Potential: To what audience is the publication directed? How feasible are sales? 4. Comparative Analysis: Compare and contrast your book with a listing of similar or related published works. How is your book different, better, more complete? 5. Manuscript Particulars: Present a time line for project completion based upon acceptance as a starting point. Indicate the approximate number of pages (typed, double-spaced), and whether graphics, figures, photos, illustrations, appendices will be included. 6. Sample Chapter: Enclosed at least one completed chapter that is representative of your writing and organization. 7. Vita: Enclose a vita that conveys through background, education, research, and publications your expertise and qualifications for undertaking the described project.

Send 4 copies of above to ACEI Headquarters, 17904 Georgia Ave., Ste. 215, Olney, MD 20832, Contract ACEI Editor/Director of Publications with questions (800-423-3563).

Royalty Policy:

Effective June 1, 2000, authors/editors are entitled to received royalty payments according to the following policy: Once ACEI's production costs are recouped, authors/editors will received 8% for the first 5,000 books sold for a profit and 10% for the next 5,000 books sold for a profit. Contact ACEI Headquarters for more information.