ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book contributes to the knowledge base that colleges of education—in particular, educator preparation programs—can use to support their efforts to incorporate the use of data to inform their practice, stimulating the development of data cultures where evidence is used for programmatic continuous improvement, a topic that many institutions already acknowledge as a growing emphasis in the field. The book addresses the issue of how educator preparation programs must and should use data to inform their practice and for the purpose of programmatic continuous improvement. The trend in education has become very clear of late. Bringing the metaphor full circle, colleges of education are also service providers. They serve their students by providing them with the knowledge, tools, and dispositions they need to be educators.
