Redesigning Teacher Education: SUNY series, Teacher Preparation and Development

Drawing upon events from his career as a teacher educator, Alan R. Tom candidly analyzes the predominant criticisms of teacher education and rejects the common tendency to infer the teacher education curriculum from such ideas as metaphors for teaching or knowledge. He proposes eleven design principles to serve as a reform agenda including creating programs capable of self-renewal, having faculty model the desired image and skills of teaching, and rethinking the sequence of practice and theory. Each principle identifies a differing dimension for the conceptual and structural redesign of teacher preparation. Four specific change strategies are evaluated as well: task force, top-down, piloting, and family style. The low status of teacher educators and the excessive regulation of teacher education are also examined, as is the failure to give adequate attention to the administrative organization for teacher education.