This project emerged from the voices of eight female teacher candidates of color, who wanted to address the inequitable representation of historically underrepresented groups within elementary school education. Using the Participatory Action Research (PAR) advanced by Fals-Borda, the teacher candidates designed instructional units that used…

Researchers have reported that preservice teachers are unprepared for teaching in inclusive classrooms (Gilmour & Wehby, 2020; Swindlehurst et al., 2019; Texas Education Agency, 2019). The purpose of this qualitative study was to analyze novice elementary educators' perceptions on their preparedness to teach inclusive classrooms. For this…

The shortage of secondary STEM teachers has led to periodic calls over the past four decades for federal intervention. For more than 15 years, the National Science Foundation Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program has constituted the most important response at the national level to these calls. The main activity is direct support to…

This study examined the impact of microteaching experiences of preservice elementary teachers enrolled in a science teaching methods course. The microteaching lessons targeted the physical science concepts represented in the Texas Educational Agency's exam for early childhood through sixth grade teacher certification. The results of this study…

Many teachers do not feel that their pre-service training adequately prepared them to manage and teach students with learning/behavioral challenges, a situation that often diminishes a teacher's sense of instructional self-efficacy. Researchers observe that many teachers with low self-efficacy skills in the classroom also have issues with their…

This longitudinal study explores how one university's practice-based teacher preparation program prepared literacy teachers to develop practical knowledge for teaching and how that knowledge was tested and adapted in the first years of teaching. To understand change, we identified and analyzed points of tension, challenge, or dissonance in the…

University laboratory science courses are typically designed to prepare science majors or those who are pursuing health related careers. These courses often do not provide the experiences necessary to improve elementary preservice teacher science teaching efficacy or attitudes and beliefs toward science. This research utilized a university science…

The importance of music education in American schools is well established, with 93% of Americans agreeing that music should be a part of a well-rounded education (Harris, 2005). Students preparing to teach in the elementary classroom (elementary education majors) in American colleges and universities typically take a music class (sometimes two) as…

Teaching art well in the Conceptual Age requires more from preservice art teachers than knowledge and skills; candidates will need capacities that inspire joy, empathy, and innovation (Pink, 2006). Dispositions that contextualize these capacities come from the affective aptitudes of teachers' inner lives where feelings, perceptions, and beliefs…

In this article, the authors report on the initial results of a mixed methods study that examined the beliefs that preservice teachers have about teaching real-world contexts, including those related to injustices, controversial issues, and children's home and cultural backgrounds. Data collection included a survey with 92 preservice Pre-K-8…

With increasing awareness of the importance of teacher quality for student learning, education policy leaders have turned their attention to the nation's teacher training programs as a potential target for reform. One proposed strategy is to increase competition for university-based programs by encouraging new program types. This study examines…

In this report, the National Council on Teacher Quality evaluates key features of 67 undergraduate institutions elementary, secondary and special education teacher preparation in the state of Texas. The authors apply 25 standards that bear directly on the capacity of those programs to attract talented individuals and prepare them to teach…

The purpose of this study was to determine how contributing to a class wiki affected the learning of preservice teachers enrolled in a language arts methods class. Participants included 37 preservice teachers enrolled in three sections of a field-based language arts methods class during two semesters. Data collection included online observations…

Kindergarten has undergone dramatic changes since the implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2002. The literature on the challenges facing kindergarten teachers as a result of NCLB focuses primarily on curricular and instructional issues; little attention has been paid to NCLB's impact on the relational aspects of kindergarten teaching,…

For several years physics faculty at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) have taught physics to pre-service elementary and middle school teachers in an unusual location: the local elementary school! The participating pre-service elementary and middle school teachers are typically in their last semester and are fully immersed in their…