This article reports a collaborative, participatory self-study designed to examine the practices and experiences of a teacher educator (Janice) and her students with the support of critical dialogue partners (Cynthia and Feda). We explore the tensions and possibilities that arise as a teacher educator attempts to foster both a pedagogy of care and…

This paper describes a self-study in which I, as a teacher educator, seek to understand how to respond effectively to my pre-service students' fears about learning and teaching primary mathematics. I studied my students' response to a new mathematics methods course that is tied to practicum. Results include the importance of listening closely to…

To disclose the inner process of teacher educators' dealing with their different roles and their coping with conflicting demands, the study of dilemmas encountered in practice may offer a promising perspective. Building on previous research on teaching dilemmas, this study uses a comparative approach to disclose teacher educators' views on…

Green chemistry is the design, development and implementation of chemical products and processes to reduce or eliminate the use of sub-stances hazardous to human health and the environment. This article reports on the integration of green chemistry and sustainable development concepts (SDCs) into an existing teaching methods course for chemistry…

In this paper I discuss a study that involved incorporating instructional pragmatics into an ESL Methodology course. Graduate students who were taking an ESL Methodology course were required to read the literature on interlanguage and instructional pragmatics and teach requestive speech act strategies to Taiwanese EFL students through…

This paper theorizes issues involved with conflicts between participation in on-line settings and real-world social commitments, such as has recently happened in schools with students using public discussion forums for classes. We problematize how real-world social commitments negatively affect participation in online learning environments…

The purpose of this study was to examine how a science methods course in primary education might influence the curriculum decisions of preservice teachers in The Bahamas related to unit plan development on environmental science topics. Grounded in a social constructivist theoretical framework for teaching and learning science, this study explored…

The purpose of this study was to (a) examine the effects of a music methods course on the singing skills of preservice kindergarten teachers, (b) document the nature and development of their skills during the course, and (c) trace any changes in their confidence levels toward singing as a result of the course. As an applied study which was carried…

The United States is home to more than two million refugees since 1975, with over half arriving as children. Refugees are semi-voluntary immigrants fleeing persecution in their home countries and seeking a country willing to resettle them. They may have experienced war, separation from or loss of family, and loss of home and basic needs. One…

This dissertation includes three essays: one essay focuses on the effect of teacher preparation programs on teacher knowledge while the other two focus on test-takers' response times on test items. Essay One addresses the problem of how opportunities to learn in teacher preparation programs influence future elementary mathematics teachers'…

Developing online learning communities is a promising pedagogical approach in online learning contexts for adult tertiary learners, but it is no easy task. Understanding how learning communities are formed and evaluating their efficacy in supporting learning involves a complex set of issues that have a bearing on the design and facilitation of…

This study investigated the effect of problem posing on the pre-service primary teachers' understanding of fraction concepts enrolled in two different versions of a methods course at a university in Turkey. In the experimental version, problem posing was used as a teaching strategy. At the beginning of the study, the pre-service teachers'…

This paper provides an example of an innovative science activity used in a science methods course for future elementary teachers at a small university in northeastern Turkey. The activity aims to help prospective elementary teachers understand kinetic-molecular theory in a simple way and to expose these preservice teachers to an innovative…

This research explores the experiences of a group of academics learning to teach with problem-based learning (PBL) and how a community of practice (COP) supported this transition. An action-research project evaluated both PBL experiences and group processes. Teachers were enthusiastic about PBL but experienced a variety of problems during the…

This article describes a 3-week intensive molecular biology methods course based upon fluorescent proteins, which is successfully taught at the McGill University to advanced undergraduates and graduates in physics, chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, and medicine. No previous knowledge of biological terminology or methods is expected, so…