Common Approach

Abstract

Teacher education programs work so teacher candidates have adequate content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and hands-on experience working with children before they begin their student teaching experience. Schroth and Helfer explore how many diverse learners, who come from schools that faced many non-academic problems, face holes that exist in their background knowledge. These require additional coursework taught by arts and sciences faculty, not in the education school. A deep understanding of child development is also necessary. Teacher candidates need several research-based instructional strategies that they can use in the classroom. Diverse pre-service teachers need opportunities to work with children early and often, so that they can discover whether the career is a viable option for them and to identify areas where they potentially struggle so that they can get additional support if necessary.

To teach in a school is, in the opinion of many, little else than sitting still and doing nothing. Has any man wasted all his property or ended in debt by indiscretion or misconduct? The business of schoolkeeping stands wide open for his reception, and here he sinks to the bottom for want of capacity to support himself—Joseph Caldwell, 1832