Improving Teacher Preparation

A Vision of the Professional Teacher

The National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) believes that every child should be taught by teachers who are well-prepared and competent. A shared vision of teacher education includes the following tenets:

• All children can and should learn.
• Accredited schools, colleges, and departments of education should:
  
  • Ensure that new teachers meet accepted standards of practice, and attain the necessary knowledge, skills, and dispositions to teach independently;
  • Build a body of professional knowledge, and disseminate it through the professional community;
  • Commit to preparing teachers for a diverse community of students;
  • Encourage collegiality, reflective practice, continuous improvement, and collaboration among educators and learns; and
  • View teacher preparation and development as a continuum, moving from pre-service preparation to supervised beginning practice to continuing professional development.

Likewise, the new professional teacher who graduates from a professionally accredited school, college, or department of education should be able to:

• Explain instructional choices based on research-derived knowledge and best practice;
• Apply effective methods of teaching students who are at different developmental stages and have different learning styles, or come from culturally diverse backgrounds;
• Reflect on practice, and receive and act on feedback; and
• Create meaningful learning experiences for P- 12 students.

This teacher has gained those abilities through:

• A broad liberal arts education;
• In-depth study of the teaching field;
• A foundation of professional knowledge upon which to base instructional decisions;
• Diverse, well-planned, and sequenced experiences in P-12 schools; and
• An assessment of competence to practice, through an array of performance measures.