Early childhood education provides an important arena for fostering valuable habits and practices for sustainability. This paper contributes to understanding the educator's role within early childhood environmental education in foraging and gardening practices. What pedagogical approaches does the teacher provide to foster the children's…

Policymakers and researchers have dedicated increasing attention to the state of the kindergarten-through-grade 12 (K-12) teacher preparation programs (TPPs) amid concerns over potential teacher and staff shortages in many school districts and states. With many districts and states facing staffing challenges and declining levels of both interest…

Singing together fosters connections across social contexts. While this activity is expected to flourish in kindergartens and nurseries, studies from multiple countries have highlighted a growing decline in confidence in singing among both kindergarten teachers and students. To address this, Kulset and Halle [(2020). Togetherness!: adult…

In the United States, there were 7,999 bachelor's degree programs in education in 2014 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2014). A minority of these programs were early childhood education (ECE) degree programs, of which there were approximately 1,200 as of 2009 (Hyson et al., 2009). Hyson et al. questioned the quality of ECE degree…

The rapid growth of culturally and linguistically diverse populations in K-12 schools has increased the need for preparing culturally responsive teachers. Yet, many pre-service teachers feel unprepared to work with diverse students. With the urgent need to connect educational theory to classroom practice, teacher preparation programs have turned…

The scholarly conversation on preparing teachers to organize safer, more humanizing learning environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ+) youth generally does not intersect with conversations unfolding in the broader teacher education literature, specifically around what "practice" means in…

The purpose of this paper is to describe a state-wide process used to determine which Teaching Works High Leverage Practices (Ball, 2016) pre-service teachers could be expected to implement at a proficient level by the completion of their preparation program (Initial HLPs), followed by two sets of high leverage practices novice teachers could…

We discuss the importance of bringing teaching to the forefront of instructional design. We do so by describing the process of developing an instructional sequence for early number, using design research. The instructional sequence was developed with the specific aim of supporting teaching, conceived as a complex and demanding job, not reducible…

This paper explores how digital competence and digital technology are addressed in Norwegian early childhood teacher education (ECTE). The aim is to provide a national overview of the ECTE institutions' programme and relevant course plans to identify how the preservice teachers are being prepared for their future professional life as digitally…

Teachers are essential in ensuring children and society are aware of neurodiversity by actively incorporating inclusive children's literature into their classroom activities to promote understanding and acceptance of neurodiverse individuals. Integrating such literature may enhance children's awareness and acceptance of neurodiverse individuals.…

During the global pandemic, teachers and students were forced to quickly adjust teaching and learning to fit in the new socially distanced world. Along with the challenge of establishing effective online teaching tools came the need to create social spaces for connecting with students through teacher-student interactions. This study followed the…

This interactive guide is designed to help preservice early childhood educators use self-compassion to mitigate the stress of teaching. Barry argues that learning healthy stress-management strategies while enrolled in teacher education programs will equip students with the resilience needed to manage stress when they enter their own classrooms.…

Computational thinking (CT) has great potential for enhancing mathematics and science lessons in K-12 education. Numerous studies demonstrate that under the right circumstances, CT integration in math and science can improve student learning and promote deeper understanding. However, teacher education currently does not include preparation for…

This article presents a study of an educational experiment conducted at the early childhood education programme at UiT, the Arctic University of Norway. As COVID-19 made social distancing an issue, the traditional practicum in kindergartens was moved to online platforms. Constructive alignment was used as an analytical framework to investigate the…

Many teacher educators (TEs) see their role as influencing radical change in K-12 classroom teaching. And yet, many TEs might characterize their own growth as steady and measured experimentation. In this paper, we explore sudden and drastic changes to praxis that TEs experienced when reorganizing their courses and programs around Mediated Field…