Teachers for a New Era: Research & Study
Overview | Evidence of Learning | Findings & Reports
Overview
Much of the work of TNE will be carried out by small groups of COE, A&S, and P-12 faculty working on specific issues. According to Co-Director Bill McDiarmid, "These groups are intended to be laboratories where partners dig into the issues in renewing teacher preparation from the undergraduate phase through the first five years of a teacher’s career. They look at current data and review extant literature, decide what additional data is needed, derive design principles, and develop new learning opportunities."
The plan is for the study groups to work intensively through the current academic year and share their results along the way to inform possible course and program changes. Some study groups, such as those for elementary teacher preparation, will accommodate faculty with expertise across the core content areas — literacy, math, science, and social studies. Another study group will deal with the issue of preparing teachers for urban schools. In addition, a committee is working to create an education minor.
Other research to inform preservice teacher preparation includes collaborating with school districts to build large databases that enable educators to correlate information about student achievement with information on teachers, including the pathway they followed into teaching. Through the use of statistical modeling, other factors, such as school climate and culture, will produce a more robust picture of student achievement than has been previously available. This research will be complemented with finer-grain studies of preservice teachers’ learning at the University and the performance of teacher-graduates and their pupils in P-12 classrooms.
TNE Research Colloquia
A Teachers for a New Era Research Series
UW Teachers for a New Era has funded a variety of research aimed at improving our use of evidence to drive programmatic change.
The researchers involved have met monthly to share their work. The TNE Research Colloquia Series has two main purposes. The first is to inform our colleagues, both in the CoE and across the University, about the research efforts. The second purpose is to extend the conversation about what we should do in response to the data we have collected. We have posted videos of the series in hopes of extending the conversation even further.