Collaboration among teacher educators and practicing teachers is currently a popular education reform strategy. Two matched undergraduate cohorts, one prepared in a Professional Development School (PDS) collaborative, were followed over a 5-year period to determine the benefits of one collaborative model. Qualitative data were collected across the 2 undergraduate groups (n = 8, n = 6), two cooperating teacher groups (n = 16, n = 12), two public school administrative groups (n = 4, n = 3), and one faculty group (graduate student n = 3, faculty n = 3). Observational data were also collected for each undergraduate cohort, representing practicum, student teaching, and inservice teaching. Qualitative data over the 5-year study period showed trends from apprehension to receptivity and recommitment to the teacher education process for all collaborative participants. While not directly attributable to the collaboration model alone, exposed undergraduates and their students also demonstrated marked changes in select daily practices correlated with effective instruction. Challenges and implications for research on collaborative activities are last discussed.

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This study, conducted within an undergraduate Methods of Teaching Physical Education and School-Based Practice Teaching course, used an AB maintenance-across-participants design to (a) sequentially describe preservice teachers’ (N = 4) instructional interactions with students, (b) examine the effects of sequential feedback on the sequential nature of preservice teachers’ instructional interactions with students, and (c) assess the influence of differential sequential preservice teacher instructional interactions on student skill practice. Instructional interaction sequential data indicated that explicit teacher instruction and refinement were sequentially connected to student-appropriate skill practice, while general teacher instruction was sequentially connected to student-inappropriate skill practice. The data indicated that the sequential feedback protocol (a) consistently increased the incidence of refinement and explicit instruction within preservice teacher sequential instructional interactions for all participants, and (b) preservice teacher sequential pattern changes positively influenced the incidence of student-appropriate skill practice. This study also supports a strong relationship between explicit instruction and refinement and student-appropriate skill practice. Implications for further research into the sequential behavior determinants of the teaching and learning process in situational context are discussed last.

This article studied the effects which a sequential behavior feedback procedure had on the practice teaching experiences of undergraduate teacher trainees. Teaching performances of each participant were analyzed using Alternative Appropriate Instructional (AIA) and Organizational (AOA) Action measures within the ecological context of Instructional (10) and Organizational (00) challenges in the practice teaching setting. Data support the added utility of sequential (Sharpe, 1996(Sharpe, , 1997a information when using behavior analysis approaches to teacher training. One field-based undergraduate teaching practicum was monitored. The key elements summarized are: (a) classroom instruction tied to the practicum experience; (b) practice teaching experience; and (c) sequential observation system used for evaluation and feedback-including multiple-baseline data (N=4) to support this approach to teacher training. Results point to the strong relationship between sequential behavior feedback and (a) teacher-trainee improvement in meeting instructional and organizational challenges in the classroom; (b) teacher-trainee movement from an organizational to an instructional focus over the course of the experiment; and (c) positive changes in pupil practices as a function of changes in teacher-trainee instruction. Sequential feedback was also socially validated by practicing teachers naive to the study.Behavioral evaluation of teachers-in-training has experienced a long and productive history. When used as an evaluation tool, systematic observation of teacher and pupil behavior has endeavored to answer the questions of how to have teacher-trainees acquire a functional repertoire of teaching skills, and how to ensure their competent and reliable use of those teaching skills once on the job (Sharpe, Hawkins, & Ray,

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