Walking Our Talk: The Imperative of Teacher Educator Modeling

Abstract

If teacher educators are to be effective, they must be sure that their own professional house is in order. To that end, effective teacher educators must be absolutely clear about their professional mission. In addition, they must also have the appropriate background and training to be effective in their mission. Further, they must bridge the chasm between theory and practice as they prepare teacher candidates by keeping current in K–12 contemporary classroom practice. Finally, they must model what it means to be an accomplished classroom teacher for their pre-service teachers including the professional option of earning National Board certification. Only when teacher educators meet these four demanding criteria can we feel with reasonable certainty that they are living up to their job.

Keywords:

• teacher education
• effective teaching
• modeling
• national board