In the fall of 2020, due to COVID, our pre-service teachers did not have access to student work samples early in the semester. In order to learn how to assess student learning I reached out to an Arts and Sciences faculty who teaches a freshman course. The Arts and Sciences faculty was a former middle school teacher who was scheduled to talk about…

The purpose of this case study was to examine pre-service music teachers' perceptions of peer feedback from two different vantage points (giving and receiving). Music education majors (N = 4) enrolled in a choral music teaching methods course were asked to develop a series of lessons over a semester, teach them to their peers, and provide oral and…

The author successfully implemented the "House" system in a university social studies methods class and reports on the positive results that ensued. Students reported a sense of unity, camaraderie, identity, and closeness that was missing in many of their other classes. The House assignments and competitions are described, as well as…

Undergraduates frequently approach research methods classes with trepidation and skepticism, owing in part to math-phobia and confusion over how methodology is relevant to their interests. These self-defeating barriers to learning undermine the efficacy of methods classes. This essay discusses a strategy for overcoming these barriers--use of a…

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…

This design-based study explored what happens when literacy educators from across the country intentionally create learning events that engage preservice teachers in exploring culturally proactive pedagogies (CPP). After each event, researchers met via video conference to discuss preservice teachers' responses, which guided future pedagogical…

This manuscript presents findings and implications from a multiple case study of how teacher candidates in secondary and middle childhood programs learn specialized knowledge, skills, and expertise from disciplinary experts in content courses and enact practices of disciplinary literacy in field placements. An expert-novice framework was employed…

Preparing to become a music teacher educator is a complex process and one component of this process should be learning to model, demonstrate, and teach assessment practices to preservice music educators. The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to discover how, and to what extent, music teacher educators (MTEs) are educated about…

Teaching methods courses are a crucial factor in the preparation of secondary mathematics teachers. Throughout the United States, secondary methods courses have diverse curricula, including variation in the topics covered in these courses. To assess this variation, the authors identified 41 topics potentially valued by secondary methods…

This multi-case study examines how three elementary mathematics methods instructors, in the same teacher education program, provide their prospective teachers with learning opportunities. Qualitative data were collected through interviews, classroom observations, and artifacts. The findings suggest that the instructors' beliefs associated with…

When teaching through problem solving, effective mathematics teachers need to lead discussions that assist students in making connections between different solution strategies. However, while teaching a methods course for preservice teachers (PSTs), we noticed that after solving a problem and presenting various solution strategies, many PSTs…

This article reports an empirical study on embedding digital literacies in the language teacher education curriculum with pre-service and in-service teachers enrolled in a graduate-level language teaching method course. Two different types of technology-mediated collaborative tasks were implemented, one being collaborative reading for writing…

Approximations of practice provide opportunities for teacher candidates (TCs) to engage in the work of teaching in situations of reduced complexity. A problem of practice for teacher educators relates to how to represent student voice in approximations to engage TCs with interactive practices in meaningful ways. In this article, we share an…

Increased accountability demands are being placed on teacher preparation programs across the USA to demonstrate competencies of their teacher candidates. As a means of evaluating teacher candidates' instructional effectiveness and readiness for their own classrooms, some programs are using standardized teacher performance assessments, with faculty…

Background. This article describes the redesign, implementation, and students' experiences with an elementary mathematics teaching methods course in the Pacific Northwest of the United States that was forced online due to COVID-19 restrictions. We share course design principles, changes to reflect online teaching, and students' experiences of…