Chapter 18: Listening to the Voices of Pre-Service Teachers to Guide Program Improvement

Preparing teachers for today’s classroom is an increasingly demanding challenge for educator preparation programs. Improving the quality of these programs is paramount to improving teacher performance and student achievement. Preparing effective teachers and ensuring that quality teachers are graduating from preparation programs is a local, state, and national imperative (Darling-Hammond, 2006). Increased accountability has resulted in the need for substantial changes in preparation, and increasing the rigor of programs (Allen, 2003; Goldhaber, 2006).

Programmatic reform requires a multifaceted approach. Responding to both internal and external entities requires that preparation providers maintain a continuous cycle of program improvement. New state standards, changing state licensure requirements, and additional teacher accountability measures require that we listen to the voices of our pre-service teachers. Reflective practices woven throughout the preparation program result in informative feedback from our teacher candidates leading to programmatic reforms and improvements.