Research on Alternative and Non-Traditional Education

Teacher educators face many challenges such as preparing high quality teachers, maintaining up-to-date research based information for programs, and recruiting high quality individuals. In an attempt to meet the challenge of preparing a significant number of teaching candidates, many alternative routes to teacher certification have appeared across the country. The Thirteenth Annual Yearbook of the Association of Teacher Educators provides a collection of well-researched chapters on alternative and non-traditional approaches to teacher preparation. Editors Julie Dangel and Edith Guyton provide three sections to frame the dialogue: successes and challenges, effects of models, and non-traditional models of professional development. This yearbook provides: A cross-case description and analysis of a five site program ranging from small town to highly urban A description of four distinctly different routes to certification that were developed to recruit diverse and non-traditional individuals into teaching A summary of findings of an alternative certification program that career changers either performed well below or exceeded expectations A comparison study of regularly certified first-year teachers with Teach for America first-year and second-year teachers Information on a longitudinal study of 1,702 novice teachers A summary of a unique approach to offering professional development opportunities to meet the academic and personal needs of teachers of English language learners Several barriers to coaching practice, lack of time, teacher resistance to change, lack of trust, and inconsistencies in definition of the coaching role. Details on how online events can be useful and usable by a broad population of teachers. For teachers and teacher educators.