In this article, the authors present a case study of a preservice teacher who participated in a two-semester course sequence of elementary science and mathematics methods spanning one academic year. These two courses were taught by the first author and embedded a pedagogical approach grounded in inquiry methods. The purpose of this study was to…

With the goal of producing scientifically literate citizens who are able to make informed decisions and reason critically when science intersects with their everyday lives, the National Research Council (NRC) has produced two recent documents that call for a new approach to K-12 science education that is based on scientific practices, crosscutting…

In order to determine the ways in which teacher preparation programs will need to change to meet the needs of preparing STEM teachers in the near future, it is necessary to ascertain what STEM teacher preparation programs are actually doing in the present. This chapter presents a comparative analysis of six different science teacher education…

In this action research work, I analyze the theory-practice integration in teacher preparation within the context of a science and technology (S&T) education teaching methodology course aimed at future elementary teachers. The course was designed, developed and evaluated taking into account this relationship as one of its axes. The results…

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of early childhood preservice teachers in a southeastern university as they worked for mastery of phonemic awareness, phonics, and morphemic awareness. Mastery was set at 90% accuracy in a series of tests, which required them to perform different tasks related to the said…

Teachers who are efficacious persevere through challenges in the learning environment and put forth more effort in designing learning activities. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of mathematics teaching and integration strategies (MTIS) on preservice agricultural teachers' personal mathematics efficacy, mathematics teaching…

This study explores the science teaching efficacy beliefs of preservice elementary teachers and the relationship between efficacy beliefs and multiple factors such as antecedent factors (participation in extracurricular activities and number of science and science teaching methods courses taken), conceptual understanding, classroom management…

This article explores how preservice elementary teachers change their negative beliefs toward mathematics into positive ones after taking a mathematics methods course that follows the Concrete-Pictorial-Abstract (CPA) instructional method. Also explored is the relationship between those beliefs and sociomathematical authority. By administering…

This mixed methods study examined the mathematical preparation of elementary teachers in a Teach for America (TFA) program, focal participants for whom there is scant extant research. Data collection occurred before and after a university mathematics methods course, with a particular focus on the participants' (n = 22) mathematical beliefs,…

Lack of time for teaching science in traditional classroom placements in the United States has led some science teacher educators to provide practice teaching time for elementary education students in informal science settings. The purposes of this study were to describe the culture of one science methods course taught in conjunction with a K-7…

This study reexamined PowerPoint's potential to enhance traditional pedagogical practices in higher education. The study addressed (1) the conditions under which PowerPoint meets students' needs in typical lecture-based classrooms, (2) whether professors consider PowerPoint-based lectures more effective than lectures supported by material on…

The purpose of this case study was to investigate how pre-service chemistry teachers' science teaching orientations change during a two-semester intervention designed to enhance their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching the nature of science (NOS). Moreover, the way that pre-service chemistry teachers translated their change in…

This study investigated newly qualified K-8 teachers' visions of science learning and teaching after they had completed preparation in a science teaching methods course I taught. What visions of science learning and teaching were these newly qualified teachers taking away from my course? How did these visions compare with those advocated by reform…

A study to compare the effectiveness of an in-person library orientation with an online asynchronous orientation was conducted with three sections of Social Work Research Methods, a required course in the University of Iowa's Master of Social Work program. Two sections of the course received an online orientation involving short videos, text and…

Prospective elementary teachers must understand fraction division deeply in order to meaningfully teach this topic to their future students. This paper explores the nature of the subject content knowledge of fraction division possessed by a group of Taiwanese prospective elementary teachers at the beginning of their mathematics methods course. The…