Teaching and Learning
Addressing Teacher Quality in the Age of
Accountability
The dual challenges of teacher quality and school accountability have never been so evident in the United States. If the projected need for two million new teachers by 2009 holds true, the impending shortfall could be catastrophic for American education. Regulations and accountability governing teacher education increase continually with limited resources provided to meet the many new requirements. The need for teacher education programs to meet increased standards and coursework competes with the need to maintain graduation schedules. Schools and educators must balance good teaching practices against the time and effort required for schools to change, while facing the immediate challenges of federal and state accountability measures for increased student achievement.
Based on her experience as co-principal investigator on a five-year Federal Teacher Quality Enhancement grant, Dr. Dawn Shinew seeks to move to the next phase of teacher quality issues that relate to the “whole” school. She believes a comprehensive program of school improvement grounded in the model of professional learning communities can be used to align teacher and principal leadership programs to simultaneously improve content/pedagogical knowledge and leadership. With her colleagues at Washington State University, Dr. Shinew will implement and study approaches that connect teacher/principal preparation with support through the induction period and continuous-growth professional development models to increase educator effectiveness and longevity in the field. Because many previous studies have focused on programs and schools in the East, it is imperative to learn how and why certain schools across Washington and the Northwest have succeeded in meeting achievement goals, closing the achievement gap, providing positive and supportive learning environments for students and educators, and developing teacher and principal leadership. With funding, Dr. Shinew intends to expand the national discourse on the role of teacher education in school improvement and to further define feasible models for school improvement nationwide.
Society, Communication, and Learning
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Dr. Dawn Shinew is an associate professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Washington State University. She was co-principal investigator on a five-year, $9.67 million Teacher Quality Enhancement grant from the U.S. Department of Education. As a result of the TQE grant, Dr. Shinew led a major restructuring of WSU’s elementary certification program. In addition, she is an active researcher in the area of teacher and social education. She has co-edited two books: Comparative Lessons for Democracy, focused on civic education curriculum and published by the Center for Civic Education, and Information Literacy Instruction for Educators, published by Haworth Press. Another co-authored book, Redefining Normalcy: A Queer Reconstruction of the Family, is currently in press. Dr. Shinew has written several articles related to teacher and social studies education for journals such as Action in Teacher Education and Theory and Research in Social Education. |
