This article explores how dialogue journals and response journals can be used to encourage reflection among pre-service teachers. Thirty-one pre-service English teachers from two Hong Kong universities participated in the study. One group wrote dialogue journals and the other group wrote response journals throughout two semesters on two separate…

The author questions the relevance of pedagogy as practiced in teacher education and argues that teacher preparation should be centered in the academic departments of colleges and universities. (MT)

As a teacher educator in a large public university, the author's methods courses are frequently comprised of both pre- and in-service teachers who are, or will be, working with culturally, linguistically, and cognitively diverse (CLCD) early language learners. It is incumbent upon the author to equip them with skills, strategies, and a sound…

In preparing teachers of English language learners (ELLs), teacher educators face a formidable challenge in the area of reading. Reading is a complex skill that is critical to ELLs' academic achievement. Given the complexity and importance of reading and reading instruction, what topics should be addressed by teacher educators in methods courses?…

This paper describes how interpretations of inquiry have changed during the 20th Century. These multiple meanings have resulted in (a) confusion among K-12 teachers of science and (b) various interpretations by science teacher educators. Suggestions are provided for preservice programs (both science and methods courses), professional development…

Suggestions for improving the method of group work in classroom situations are helpful in introducing teacher education students to committee research techniques. (Author/KM)

Standards this! Standards that! What are standards? Why do we need them? Those are some of the comments the author frequently hears from preservice teachers as they confront the concept of standards in their teacher-education courses. Indeed, why incorporate standards in teacher education? Federal mandates now in place leave little doubt that…

The context for this investigation was an undergraduate literacy methods course taught by Cindy, the first author of this manuscript. A central course goal was to prepare pre-service teachers to provide effective literacy instruction for children from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The focus of this study was an examination of the…

The goal of this dissertation is to clarify the perceptions and concerns that methods faculty at a university located in the Midwest have about integrating instructional technology into their courses along with their current use of technology. Ultimately, this study aims to generate strategies to support methods instructors in their efforts to…

Research on teacher learning consistently documents the disjuncture between the practices beginning teachers encounter in university teacher preparation courses and those they reencounter in the K-12 classrooms in which they learn to teach. As preservice teachers enter teaching, they gravitate toward conventional K-12 practices, dismissing those…

This paper reports on a case study of the daily life of an art teacher educator. It examines the intellectual, moral, emotional, and physical undercurrents of this work and how these qualities are reflected within the daily context of the pre-service university or college-level classroom environment. To date, few research studies have examined the…

In K-6 teacher education programs, a host of content methods classes make up a large portion of the preservice teacher's course load. One of those is the social studies methods course. The course helps students develop pedagogical understanding in the social studies. However, as most engaged in methods course instruction can attest, preservice…

In this paper, I examine some issues within the new frontier of integrating technology into teacher education and professional development. I present an approach to teach a secondary mathematics methods course integrating technology. Specifically, this study focuses on how the integration of multimedia and online discussion into a mathematics…

This paper reports the results of a study conducted by the instructor of a pre-service mathematics methods course for the purpose of improving her teaching practice and course design. Novice teachers who graduated from the course were questioned about their math anxiety levels and use of approaches and strategies in their own math programs. They…

Lack of confidence towards science is a major factor in the avoidance of teaching science at elementary school. This paper reports the results of a survey that asked 28 pre-service elementary teachers what they believed contributed to their confidence towards science and the teaching of science during a second year science unit where an holistic…