The California Teacher Education Research and Improvement Network (CTERIN) has recruited a cohort of doctoral students from across the University of California system to join the Educating Teacher Educators (ETE) Fellows Program. Four of those 24 fellows are graduate students at UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School—Matthew Bennett, Christine Bernhardt, Dexter Cameron Torti , and Valerie Valdez. All four are doctoral students in the Department of Education and have had experience in K-12 classrooms before their doctoral work.
CTERIN’s ETE Program offers induction support where ETE fellows will work in a community of fellow doctoral students interested in teacher education and the preparation of teachers, as well as engage in mentorship with senate faculty, staff and other members in the field of teacher education.
CTERIN is the comprehensive response of nine University of California campuses to improve the equity, quality, and efficiency of California’s educator preparation system. Originally funded in 2016 by a UC Office of the President Catalyst Award, CTERIN was created, as then UC President Janet Napolitano said, to “create a statewide network that aims to put highly qualified teachers in every California classroom, for every subject.” The program’s Director and Lead PI is Dr. Tine Sloan of UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz Graduate School of Education.
The doctoral students were selected based on a composite of information including relevant professional activities and experience, proposed research statements, and experience in K-12 classrooms. These fellows were selected for their interests in teacher preparation, willingness to help design the doctoral program, and excitement to engage in research and learning among a network of peers from across the UC system, as part of CTERIN’s larger mission to expand preparation of doctoral students in teacher education.