Chapter 1: Becoming Effective Teacher Educators through Sustained Mentoring and Scaffolded Teaching Internships

Doctoral program graduates (Ph.D and/or Ed.D candidates) from Colleges of Education may decide to pursue positions within higher education as teacher educators. However, few receive formalized preparation in methodologies in teacher education research, and rarely have they received scaffolded and intentional opportunities to learn how to teach and supervise new P–12 teachers (Lin, 2013; University of California, 2023). The California Teacher Education Research and Improvement Network states, “The field is now calling for more purposeful preparation of teacher educators to understand and implement strong programs that will enable teachers to work in classrooms and communities with a wide range of ethnic, racial, linguistic and socioeconomic diversity” (University of California, 2023, n.p.). As program faculty (Rock, Heafner, Polly) in a Curriculum and Instruction doctoral program who work with emerging teacher educators (ETEs), we began asking questions, such as: What experiences are needed to prepare ETEs for working in initial licensure and educator development programs? How do we structure and support learning experiences that best equip ETEs to do this work? How do we embed this learning within an existing Curriculum and Instruction Ph.D. program in meaningful and powerful ways that promotes deeper learning and skill development? These questions drove change to our Ph.D. program with a focus on preparing ETEs more intentionally and systematically in teaching and supervision.