Chapter 7: The USF-Pepin Academies Summer Institute: Preparing Pre-service Teachers Within an Urban Charter School to Work With Students With Disabilities

With the call for increased accountability and improved teacher quality (NCLB, 2002), teacher education programs must thoughtfully integrate opportunities for teacher candidates to demonstrate competencies reflective of highly effective teachers. Critics are increasingly scrutinizing colleges of education contending that traditional teacher preparation programs do not adequately prepare teachers for the realities of teaching in today’s schools. Specifically, critics contend that teacher education programs do not adequately prepare teacher candidates’ subject matter knowledge, as programs emphasize theoretical coursework over the application of knowledge and skills in practice (Greenburg & Walsh, 2008; Hess, 2001; Walsh, Glaser, & Wilcox, 2006). Further, one longstanding critique of teacher preparation programs has been the lack of connectedness between field experiences and coursework resulting in program fragmentation where information is delivered in compartmentalized topical chunks that are often devoid of any close associations to what candidates are experiencing in their field placements (Clift & Brady, 2005; Zeichner, 2010).