We investigated curricular and pedagogical innovations in an undergraduate science methods course for elementary education majors at the University of Maryland. The goals of the innovative elementary science methods course included: improving students' attitudes toward and views of science and science teaching, to model innovative science teaching…

Pre-service teachers spend an inordinate amount of time observing teaching and learning in classrooms with the goals of understanding the complexities of that space and impacting their teaching. Consequently, teacher educators are responsible for scaffolding pre-service teachers in the use of appropriate and effective observational skills and…

In this article, we report on a study of beliefs about mathematics, teaching, and proof conducted with six prospective secondary mathematics teachers as they completed a two-semester sequence of a content course and a methods course. The initial beliefs of the participants were identified using interview and survey data, and potential shifts in…

This article investigates the impact of scaffolded feedback instruction provided through an undergraduate methods course. Because of a desire for preservice teachers to have online teaching experience and due to low performance scores in assessment on the edTPA, a project was created which partnered preservice teachers with middle-grades students.…

This quantitative research study identifies the problem solving strategies pre-service teachers use in learning specific technology skills within an educational technology methods class which is offered both online and face to face. It also examines how such strategies differ by the format of this course, and to what extent these strategies and/or…

This project investigated the effects of a standards-based mathematics methods course on the mathematics anxiety levels of preservice teachers. The qualitative portion of the study examined aspects of a math methods course that affected mathematics anxiety levels and the antecedents of mathematics anxiety. Findings revealed a significant…

This article analyzes the experiences of prospective secondary mathematics teachers during a teaching methods course, offered prior to their student teaching, but involving actual teaching and reflexive analysis of this teaching. The study focuses on the pedagogical difficulties that arose during their teaching, in which prospective teachers…

This dissertation describes a formative experiment that investigated how strategy instruction paired with collaborative blogging could promote disciplinary literacy among eighth-grade students in a social studies classroom and among pre-service teachers in a social studies methods course. Qualitative methods were utilized to collect and analyze…

This qualitative case study explored the collaboration between students in two social studies methods courses at different universities. The authors used technology to connect preservice teachers from teacher education programs that differ in terms of geography, size, and type of university. Using archived data from the courses, the authors found…

This study examined educational factors that positively influenced the confidence of students training to be elementary science educators (self efficacy). Specifically, it compared the impacts of a science method course and a practicum teaching course on Kuwait University students. Using a pre/post design, The Science Teaching Efficacy Belief…

This study explored how mathematics content and methods courses for preservice elementary and middle school teachers could be improved through the integration of a set of instructional materials based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). A set of eight instructional modules was developed and tested. The study involved 7…

This school-university partnership research explored how multicultural literature read-alouds impacted the pedagogical understandings of elementary pre-service teachers. The study explores the intersection of multicultural education, Professional Development School standards, and the achievement gaps of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD)…

One of the growing interests in teacher education lies in how and what teachers learn across time and space in the complex ecologies and technologies of today's society. Teacher research has been implemented in teacher education programs as a powerful, exploratory tool for teacher candidates to inquire about educational problems and to improve…

The purpose of this attitudinal study is to investigate the role that social studies methods courses in Florida play in examining controversial issues with their pre-service teachers. Five research questions established the parameters for the investigation of pre-service teachers' attitudes toward the use of controversial issues through the…

The purpose of this study was to enhance pre-service secondary mathematics teachers' skills of using the Geometer's Sketchpad (GSP) through Lesson Study. Twenty-four Lesson Study groups each comprising four or five pre-service secondary mathematics teachers who attended a mathematics teaching methods course in a local public university were set up…