This study utilized a semi-structured interview approach to identify how college methods professors in Nebraska are engaging pre-service K-12 teachers with the Next Generation Science Standards and to determine if this information is being carried over to Nebraska K-12 classrooms. The study attempted to address these items by answering the…

Mathematics teacher education is faced with the challenge of preparing new teachers for ambitious instruction, but we have limited understandings of what happens within the courses where this preparation occurs. This paper draws on interview data from of a larger investigation of novices' enactment of ambitious instruction in elementary…

The aim of this study is to investigate how and why elementary mathematics preservice teachers' (PSTs) beliefs about TPACK changed during a method course and field experience. Six PSTs were selected purposefully with reference to their different technological and mathematical backgrounds. Participants were interviewed five times (beginning of the…

The Distance Clinical Connecting Candidates and Children (DC4) is an innovative new model for providing a clinical experience in a reading methods course. Pre-service teachers used this model to implement assessments and lessons via SKYPE with local elementary students. I designed this model to provide a clinical experience when faced with…

Physical education teacher education is most successful when it includes several field experiences that are closely supervised and focus on reflective practice. Drawing upon attachment theory, the purpose of this study was to understand a mentoring program in which doctoral students served as mentors for preservice teachers during a methods course…

Through a lens focused on imagining the future, and with a pedagogical goal to help novice teachers embody effective teaching practices in a writing methods course, the authors (two teacher educators) conducted a design-based experiment to determine if we could access teacher candidates' pedagogical decisions and their future intentions through…

The purpose of the study was to describe music teachers' perceptions of the benefits and challenges they experienced as virtual mentors of preservice music teachers. Each mentor was assigned a cohort of preservice teachers who were enrolled in an elementary general music methods course. Cohorts observed their mentor's teaching via Skype. Mentors…

This study describes two years of findings with a unique field experience (teaching science inquiry activities to African-American girls in a summer STEM camp) for preservice elementary education majors. It reports on the effects of the field experience, in conjunction with blocked science and mathematics methods courses, on preservice teachers'…

The traditional structure of field experiences poses a dilemma for urban teacher preparation. Research shows that teachers of low-income, urban students often have negative beliefs about, and attitudes towards, their students. Yet, large numbers of cooperating teachers are routinely utilized as mentors in urban classrooms. This practice…

A common critique of teacher education centres on the gap between coursework and schools, with ample evidence that novice teachers seldom bring ambitious forms of instruction into classroom placements. We describe a 6-year design experiment conducted in a university teacher education program secondary mathematics methods course focused squarely on…

The purpose of this study was to examine pre-service teachers' (PTs) ability to deliver feedback, which has been used as a process variable in identifying teacher-effectiveness and an established NASPE standard for beginning teachers. These questions guided the study: 1. Will overall feedback interactions delivered by PTs reach 45 per video? 2.…

For the past two decades, scholars have advocated for reforms in teacher education that emphasize relevant connections between theory and practice in university coursework and focus on clinical experiences. This paper is based on our experiences in designing and implementing an integrated literacy methods course in a field-based teacher education…

We conducted a self-study to learn more about how to support the first author's pre-service teachers (PSTs) during their field experiences in an introductory secondary mathematics methods course. The findings highlight how the PSTs' perceptions of the secondary students' mathematics ability was closely related to how they viewed the students'…

The purpose of this study was to investigate middle level preservice teacher self-efficacy beliefs in general, as well as in the domain of reading. The participants were 8 middle school preservice teachers enrolled in a state-mandated reading methods course and student teaching over the course of a year. As part of the yearlong internship, the…

Pedagogical competence and teaching efficacy significantly influence the quality of classroom science learning. Without applying pedagogical learning in realistic classroom environments, there is slight possibility that prospective teachers will increase their teaching confidence or develop understanding of how learners acquire and construct…