Navigating Teacher Licensure Exams

Navigating Teacher Licensure Exams offers practical, empirically sourced insights into the high-stakes licensure exams required in most states for teacher certification. This unique resource foregrounds the experiences of diverse preservice teachers, including teachers of color, to understand how they organize their preparation efforts, overcome self-doubt and anxiety, and navigate the high-pressure space of this important testing event. By situating these exams within their social and psychological contexts, presenting real-life cases of success and failure, and confronting innate perceptions of standardized tests, this book provides essential and highly practical support for preservice teachers, teacher educators, and departmental resource libraries.

Emery Petchauer is Associate Professor in the Departments of English and Teacher Education and Coordinator of the English Education Program at Michigan State University, USA.

List of Figures and Tables. Preface. Acknowledgements I. Thinking Differently About Struggle and Support 1. Introduction: What We Need More Than Test Prep 2. An Inch Wide and a Mile Deep: How Students Pass after Failing the First Time 3. Spiders and Their Webs: Advice Networks for Licensure Exams II. Addressing What's Felt but Not Seen 4. "Say You're White and You'll Definitely Pass": Working Through Ideas About Cultural Bias and Tests 5. The Story of How We Feel: Understanding the Emotional Side of Licensure Exams III. How Faculty Members Can Support Preservice Teachers 6. From Screening Out to Building Up: Frameworks for Teacher Educators 7. People Pass All the Time: Promising Practices for Teacher Educators. Appendix A: Interview Protocols. Appendix B: Advice Network Survey. Index