Acknowledging that our professional development (or methods course) was not going as well as we had hoped was difficult. However, knowing what to do and correcting the problem was even more challenging. This article explains how we engaged teachers in helping us rethink our video club by listening to and acting on their ideas. Through "coffee…

The typical elementary classroom hosts a range of diverse students. Not only do students bring varying academic readiness levels, background experiences, interests, personalities, and learning preferences to the classroom, but some students also have physical disabilities that must be considered when designing science instruction. The formerly…

This study sought to examine the development of prospective secondary mathematics teachers' Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge as they worked individually and in small groups to develop and present lessons with dynamic mathematics software. In a three-semester long study, data were collected from 68 prospective secondary mathematics…

This case study of a fifth-year elementary intern's pathway in learning to teach science focused on her science methods course, placement science teaching, and reflections as a first-year teacher. We studied the sociocultural contexts within which the intern learned, their affordances and constraints, and participants' perspectives on their roles…

The specific objectives of this study were to identify the attitudes of U.S. agricultural education teacher educators toward using scientific inquiry as an instructional method and to determine their level of comfort and awareness with new information and teaching methodologies in science. A mailed survey was sent to all agricultural education…

In this study, a group of teacher educators converse about their teaching practice in light of a new provincial K-12 program of social studies. The most noteworthy feature of this new program is its explicit call for teachers to include Aboriginal and Francophone perspectives as they teach to the program's two central themes of…

Purpose: Although teacher educators have worked on improving pre-service teachers' diversity awareness, researchers still face the challenge of pursuing a better approach to achieve the goal. In an era when educators are calling for evidence-based practice, the purpose of this paper is to explore various ways in which both teacher-education…

This study describes the influence of a secondary science methods program on secondary science preservice teachers' views and enactment of nature of science and inquiry-based instructional practices. Built into the structure of this program were three cycles of practice teaching and reflection in which the preservice teachers focused on key…

Background: In exploring the complexity of teaching, scholars have suggested that greater attention needs to be paid to the teachers' thoughts and actions and to how these affect quality teaching. Up to today, very few studies have investigated the relationship between teachers' beliefs and practices even though it has an important role to play in…

The purpose of this study was to understand what personal epistemologies and science teaching goals preservice secondary science teachers of a teacher education program in the USA bring with them to their learning to teach and how they translate such beliefs into actions. A set of essay questions, developed through a pilot study, was used to…

This case study of three teacher education programs in California colleges aimed to answer two questions through informal interviews of methods course instructors and analysis of the associated course syllabi: First, what assumptions or theories of professional development appear to inform the various methods courses for preservice secondary…

The majority of middle school teachers are prepared in either generalist elementary programs or subject-specific secondary programs, yet researchers and teacher educators have little understanding of the ways in which these divergent pathways prepare teachers for working at the middle school level. In this study, preservice teachers from an…

Reports results of survey of teacher training institutions in the United States and Canada to determine training that prospective English teachers receive in the educational uses of computers. Highlights include the use of computers in English methods courses, attitudes of faculty toward computers, and use of computers in schools where student…

This study investigated prospective secondary science teachers' understandings of and intentions to teach about scientific modelling in the context of a model-based instructional module. Qualitative methods were used to explore the influence of instruction using dynamic computer modelling. Participants included 14 secondary science prospective…

Reports on a study of 11 preservice teachers' beliefs and practices about secondary social studies education. Finds that the preservice teachers held positive conceptions about social studies, stressing active learning techniques and knowledge construction. (ACM)