Where do we start?: Initiating a practice-based teacher education program

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in practice-based teacher education around the enactment of high leverage practices. However, there is little research detailing the perceptions of faculty members who must implement such programmatic shifts. Furthermore, researchers and educators alike continually call for a consistent language in teacher education. This qualitative study analyzed surveys from 13 faculty and staff members, and included interview data from seven of these participants to understand better teacher educators' beliefs and prior work related to this line of inquiry. Initial results suggest that despite practical concerns, participants were optimistic about high leverage practices. Furthermore, in contrast to deficiency narratives about teacher education, participants articulated sophisticated teacher preparation methods along these lines. Participants also desired programmatic coherence. Implications for this study are that program revisions to acquire programmatic change should emanate from a bottom-up process that honors the work faculty members are already doing.