Abstract
This investigation sought to determine if there was a difference in the development of effective urban teacher characteristics after completing a traditional internship experience or a Professional Development School internship experience. The Urban Teacher Selection Interview was used to assess 10 characteristics including persistence, value of children's learning, putting ideas into practice, approach to at-risk students, professional/personal orientation to students, the bureaucracy, fallibility, teacher success, student success, and planning and organization. Assessments were completed before and after subjects participated in urban internships. Pre- and posttest scores were compared using descriptive statistics and a paired-samples t test. Results communicated no significant difference between pre- and posttest scores when student interns completed a traditional or Professional Development School internship experience. This suggests that although the internship experience is often viewed as the capstone experience of teacher preparation programs, short-term experiences do not adequately prepare teacher candidates for urban school teaching.
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