ABSTRACT
By almost any standard, many, if not most, of the nation's 1,450 schools, colleges, and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers. America has a broken teacher preparation system. One of the central issues underlying current debates about teacher education and teacher quality is concerned with the knowledge and skills that teachers need to be successful in teaching all students to high academic standards. The traditional model of college-recommending teacher education emphasizes the translation of academic knowledge into practice. The rapidly expanding "early-entry" programs place teacher candidates in schools with very little pre-service preparation, and emphasize, even sometimes uncritically glorify, practice and practitioner knowledge while minimizing the importance of professional education coursework that is not seen as directly connected to daily teaching practice. The concept of "knotworking" offers a way to understand the learning of teacher candidates that occurs when there is collaboration across activity systems.
