This article explores situations for improving the collaborative commitments of a group of learner-teachers undertaking action research projects about their own learning processes in a teacher education setting. The encounters are recounted based on the 16-week experience of educators (the first two authors) while facilitating, guiding, and…

This Element explores ways to promote critical literacy in teacher education. First, the authors define critical literacy in the context of teacher education through established theoretical frameworks and models of critical literacy pedagogy and share their collective findings on critical literacy research over the course of a decade. Building…

Cognitively demanding tasks provide important opportunities for students to develop an understanding of mathematics; however, they are challenging to launch and implement. The authors designed a secondary methods unit on launching tasks. Participants in the study were enrolled in five different methods courses. Using a noticing framework, findings…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" explicitly endorse argumentation as essential practices for K-12 science classrooms because it can concurrently engage the learners in the coordination of conceptual, epistemic, and social goals. It is important to develop students' capacities to interpret information and data to reasonable…

Within their teacher preparation courses and field experiences, preservice teachers are introduced to numerous instructional practices, not all of which are considered research-based. For this reason, instruction in how to evaluate the effectiveness of one's practices is essential, but it is often a lacking component of initial certification…

This study describes the presence of professional skills found in poster session proposals in order to consider the use of poster sessions for developing the skills required by the 2012 Ecuadorian Standards for English teachers, specifically related to the fifth domain professionalism. Thirteen poster session proposals for a national English…

In "Teaching Core Practices in Teacher Education," Pam Grossman and her colleagues advocate an approach to practice-based teacher education that identifies "core practices" of teaching and supports novice teachers in learning how to enact them competently. Examples of core practices include facilitating whole-class discussion,…

Expanded with timely new content and consistent with DEC Recommended Practices, the third edition of this bestselling book will fully prepare a new generation of early childhood educators to teach and include every child. Like the groundbreaking previous editions, this updated "Building Blocks" guide gives pre- and inservice teachers…

The journey towards inclusive education and collaborative practices in different countries is complex and interdependent within each unique geopolitical landscape. "Instructional Collaboration in International Inclusive Education Contexts" looks at the instructional collaboration between special education and general education in…

Matrices occupy an awkward spot in a typical algebra 2 textbook: sandwiched between solving linear systems and solving quadratics. Even teachers who do not base their course timeline and pacing on the class textbook may find a disconnect between how matrices are taught (procedurally) and how other topics are taught (conceptually or with real-world…

This strategy is to provide health education teacher candidates with critical and creative thinking tools to explore gardening as a vehicle to integrate health education content with other subjects. According to the Competency-Based Framework for the Health Education Specialist (2010a), entry-level health educators should have skills and…

The primary purpose of this publication is to provide those involved in special education teacher preparation and professional development with a set of high-leverage practices (HLPs) that were identified through consensus among special educators. These HLPs may be used to design a cohesive set of practice based opportunities to support teacher…

In the English-speaking world, university Schools of Education are usually heavily involved in the professional preparation of teachers. Yet, in England and the USA in particular, the role of universities in teacher education has increasingly seemed under threat as alternative providers of training have come on the scene, often with the overt…

Middle school is a crucial transition period for students as they move from concrete to algebraic ways of thinking. This article describes a sequence of instruction geared toward helping prospective middle school instructors teach the topic of percentages.

What does it look like to "understand" operations with fractions? The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) uses the term "understand" when describing expectations for students' knowledge related to each of the fraction operations within grades 4 through 6 (CCSSI 2010). Furthermore, CCSSM elaborates that…