This article explores the experiences of pre-service teachers who are involved in a program promoting leadership, community engagement and retreat training. It initially presents a review of the literature on the significant links between teacher commitment and quality teaching. It then describes how four significant dispositions: care,…

This case study mapped candidates' responses to a pre-service literacy course designed to relocate teacher candidates' literacy histories and beliefs from a personal to political frame with the intent of promoting critical reflection and complex understandings of literacy, teaching, and learning. As part of a broader qualitative case study…

An undergraduate seminar was designed to help preservice teachers focus on students' learning. Preservice teachers planned and conducted weekly tutoring sessions with fourth graders and discussed their experiences in weekly discussions. The author investigated what preservice teachers learned about teaching mathematics from their focus on…

This study explored preservice teachers' perceptions of an electronic portfolio intended to develop their reflective skills and to serve as a basis for initial teacher certification. Eight preservice teachers in a teacher education program participated in a semi-structured interview. Most participants thought that the portfolio served as a record…

While video is commonly used to record "expert" teachers, video editing and analysis tools have made it possible for preservice teachers to systematically document, assess, analyze and adapt their own teaching practices. This case study documents the experience of three preservice teachers as they used a Web-based video analysis tool to analyze…

Only about half of new teachers report that they feel prepared to teach reading when they enter the profession. This research study focused on six elementary teacher candidates enrolled in a reading methods course combined with a reading practicum. The teacher candidates participated in an ongoing collaborative community discussion group…

Although attention has been focused on transforming preservice teachers' beliefs and developing practice with antiracist pedagogy, this study suggests that similar attention should be paid to teacher educators' beliefs and practice. This article combines self-study of teacher education practices and focus group research to examine three…

Each preservice or inservice teacher who faces the prospect of student diversity in clinical experiences or practice settings does so with an individual set of assumptions about cultures and languages that differ from his or her own. Mezirow (1991) maintained that reflections on such assumptions and presuppositions about oneself and others can…

The purpose of this action research study was to investigate undergraduate preservice student-teachers' interpretations of written reflections and how these written reflections impacted their thoughts about teaching practices. A second question was to investigate how preservice teachers talked about their processes of reflection beyond the…

Advocating dialogue between language teachers and learners has been an area of growing exploration, particularly in the area of reflective practice in second language teacher education. In this brief report, the authors detail the conceptualization and procedures of two online exchange projects conducted in 2008 and 2009, in which they tried to…

This paper reports the impact of a collaborative professional experience model on pre-service secondary mathematics teachers' perspectives and practices within a learning community. Nine pre-service teachers made 12 school visits over one year to observe and co-teach problem-solving lessons in two Year 8 classes. They discussed the lesson with the…

Teachers often engage in curricular planning by critiquing and adapting existing curriculum materials to contextualize lessons and compensate for their deficiencies. Designing instruction for students is shaped by teachers' ability to apply a variety of personal resources, including their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). This study…

This article examines the role of technology in preservice teacher reflection. Situated in informal reflection (Shoffner, 2008), preservice English teachers' choice of a specific technology medium for reflective practice is examined for satisfaction with their choice and understanding of that medium's influence on their reflection. The…

The construction of a pedagogy of teacher education requires a sustained, systematic, and careful inquiry into one's own practice, predicated on the understanding that teaching is a discipline. This article begins by arguing that it is more appropriate to speak of a basis for knowing, rather than a knowledge base, for thinking about teaching and…

The purpose of this study was to examine phenomenologically a special needs fieldwork experience through the perceptions of seven participants. All of the participants were a part of a long-term field experience. The research question was: How was this experience, assisting and teaching students with special needs in an elementary general music…