This is the first article in a two-part series exploring the idea of developing profiles of educators to help identify and train teachers in a holistic way, attending to the technical elements of teaching as well as the personal characteristics of the teacher. Profiles of a Graduate have become popular in districts across the world as tools for guiding student development in both academic skills and “non-academic” characteristics (see the appendix for examples of this). A Profile of a Graduate is a collective promise that school districts make to help students develop the life- skills and attributes that can’t be captured by grades, transcripts, test scores, and other formal evaluation tools

As an elementary science teacher educator, I try to help my students (future teachers) develop science teaching practices that they can incorporate in their future classrooms regardless of the content they are teaching. One of the key practices I work on is how they can support productive discussions about scientific ideas with students of all ages. Carolyn Colley and Mark Windschitl (2016) identified conditions present in classroom discourse that supported rigorous discussions about scientific ideas with elementary students. They define rigorous discussions as those which encourage students to make sense of ideas as a group and use observations and experiences to refine these ideas. This

Upon entering McCoy Elementary, visitors see an intersection of the building’s main hall crossing with a short hall from the front entrance that leads to the school’s cafeteria. A large presentation check, payable to McCoy, for $1,704.58 hangs directly above the cafeteria entrance. The large golden arches of McDonald’s adorn the left corner of the check from the local franchise. “McTeacher’s [sic] Night” is written in the check’s memo. A bulletin board across from the office, which once displayed students’ artwork, now displays photos of the school’s teachers working behind the counter, the drive-thru window, and the dining area of a local McDonald’s fast-food restaurant. Block letters, post

Teachers are being asked to instruct students in ways that they were neither taught during pre-service training nor learned as students themselves. They struggle with pulling away from teaching procedures versus having students independently discover mathematical ideas precipitated by time restraints and the pressures of high-stakes testing. However, teachers need support to be successful in this shift in instructional practices. Even when districts purchase math curriculums that publishers tout as being aligned with the common core and teaching mathematics conceptually, teachers struggle with providing inquiry-based versus exercise-oriented lessons. As a first-year teacher admitted, his

I teach research courses to preservice teachers and practicing teachers in our graduate program. This semester I added a new assignment that requires students to critically reflect on how they view themselves as researchers. Statements like, “I don’t know how to do research,” “I’ve never seen myself as a researcher,” or “Research sounds scary,” were some of the statements I read. I decided to take on the challenge of changing the fixed mindset of many of my students who believe that they cannot do research in their classrooms. The “aha” moments came when I introduced action research. Michael Ryan, Monica Taylor, Amanda Barone, Leslie Della Pesca, Sona Durgana, Kelly Ostrowski, Tonianne Picc