This qualitative study examines what early childhood preservice teachers enrolled in a field-based literacy methods course deemed relevant regarding teaching, literacy, and learning. This study is based on postcourse interviews with 7 early childhood preservice teachers. Findings suggest that "contextualized field experiences" facilitate…

Teacher candidates have few opportunities during their teacher preparation coursework to investigate practices associated with eliciting and responding to student writing. This article describes an attempt to address this problem with a searchable online digital archive of student writing, with and without teachers' written feedback, as well…

A structured interview process is proffered as an effective means to advance prospective teachers' understandings of students as learners of mathematics, a key component of pedagogical content knowledge. The interview process is carried out in three phases with the primary objective of developing listening skills for accessing students'…

This case study examined the integration of a media annotation tool ("MAT") into the learning and assessment activities of an undergraduate teaching (physical education) course. The media form or artefact for annotation was video recordings demonstrating individual learners' teaching practice. The learners categorised (marked sections)…

The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in preservice teachers' understanding of the nature of science (NOS) as a result of four activity-based interventions that represent three instructional approaches used in a middle grades science methods course. Ten participants' understanding of NOS and their perceptions about the…

Teacher educators are consistently challenged with the problem of how to construct more meaningful and relevant experiences within their science methods courses. The research presented in this paper addressed this problem on two levels. On a pedagogical level, the aim of the research was to capture the salient details about how one pre-service…

This article presents a study exploring preservice teachers' experiences with multigenre writing in a secondary English methods course. In multigenre writing (Romano, 2000), students write about their research in a variety of genres as an alternative to the traditional research paper, presenting exposition in narrative forms. Preservice teachers…

It is very important to develop student teachers' skills and knowledge during the pre-service teacher education process. In this study, the effectiveness of the approach in which student teachers' gained the skills of developing and using Teacher Guided Materials (TGMs) based on integration of technology on physics education in Special Teaching…

Social studies teacher educators highlight the importance of oral stories and histories in the social studies classroom, leading social studies learners to seek multiple perspectives and encourage historical thinking in the classroom. However, preservice teachers are given few opportunities to internalize this idea. In this article, the author…

This study investigated the relationship between mathematics anxiety and mathematics teacher efficacy among 156 elementary pre-service teachers from a university in the southeastern United States. Data sources included the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (MARS), Mathematics Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Instrument, and pre-service teacher interviews.…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to analyze enabling factors in the technology integration change process in a multi-section science methods course, SCIED 408 (pseudonym), from 1997 to 2003 at a large northeastern university in the United States. We used two major data collection methods, in-depth interviewing and document reviews.…

In preparing teachers of English language learners (ELLs), teacher educators face a formidable challenge in the area of reading. Reading is a complex skill that is critical to ELLs' academic achievement. Given the complexity and importance of reading and reading instruction, what topics should be addressed by teacher educators in methods courses?…

Issues-centered teaching is considered an alternative to the monotonous, fragmented and coverage-oriented approach characteristic of most approaches to social studies instruction. This paper sought to investigate how six second-year middle and high school social studies teachers attempted to implement an issues-centered instructional model taught…

This is the report of a qualitative emergent-design study of 2 different Web-enhanced science methods courses for preservice elementary teachers in which an experiential learning strategy, labeled "using yourself as a learning laboratory," was implemented. Emergent grounded theory indicated this strategy, when embedded in a course organized as an…

In this article the development of two teachers as they make the transition from pre-service teachers to experienced teachers is examined. While these teachers participated in the same mathematics methods course and similar collaborative environments in their practicum experiences, their mathematics classroom instructional practices revealed stark…