The Presidential Address to the Association for Career and Technical Education Research: Using Standards to Reform Teacher Preparation in Career and Technical Education--A Successful Reformation

Overview & Synopsis

This article presents the presidential address at the annual conference of the Association for Career and Technical Education Research by M. Susie Whittington, ACTER President 2005. The purpose of the presidential address is to examine a current issue facing the profession, and pose challenges to the membership in the context of that issue. In her address, Whittington shares the standards-driven, real-life, undergraduate teacher education reform effort in the Department of Human and Community Resource Development at The Ohio State University. Sharing this two-year reform experience with her colleagues, Dr. Jamie Cano, Dr. Jim Connors, Dr. Wes Budke, and Dr. Neil Knobloch, she hopes that their successful endeavor serves as an inspiration and motivation to actively review and consequently reform preservice teacher programs in career and technical education. Here, she briefly discusses teacher education, the themes that emerged from the literature regarding successful curriculum reform, and their review of the foundations of teacher education in career and technical education, especially in agricultural education. Finally, she provides an overview of the results of their work--a reformed teacher education curriculum in agricultural education. (Contains 1 figure.)