This article describes how to build a classroom community of learners, pre-service teachers, during the first days of the semester. This process not only creates a supportive learning environment, but it provides pre-service teachers with a model of how they can build a community of learners in their own classrooms.

Teacher education has evolved into a cooperative responsibility shared by universities and schools. Given the recent emphasis on educational reform, the impetus has been to dismantle conventional and insular approaches to teacher preparation and so establish school-university partnerships. This article explores the relationship development,…

Using an activity theory framework, we investigate how preservice teachers and middle school students utilized instant messaging in educational contexts and the impact of instant messaging on the development of community among preservice teachers. Qualitative results from six focus groups and two personal interviews indicate that instant messaging…

"Blogging for the sake of blogging is fine, but what is the value added?" That's a question educational blogging advocates are now coming around to answer, and the value they're finding may seem preposterous to those who associate blogging with barely literate loudmouths and cyber predators. Can this often belligerent wasteland of poor…

Teacher education programs continue to be challenged to prepare prospective teachers to integrate technology into the day-to-day instruction and to strive to instil dispositions of openness to experimentation with ever-evolving technological tools and their pervasive impact on mathematics education. In this paper several activities are used to…

This article provides an integrative review of the developing body of literature investigating academics' ways of understanding research. The resulting review highlights implicit variation between different studies in the focus they have taken to addressing this research question, varyingly emphasising academics' research intentions, questions,…

As a major consumer of public funds education has become one of the most highly surveilled and accountable professions in the United Kingdom. In this article the authors chart the changes and reforms to teacher training and in particular the impact of the "standards" agenda on the teaching profession. They analyse the impact that the…

In the framework of a subject-centred socio-cultural approach, this study investigates creative collaboration and the resources for and obstacles to it in a long-term learning community of ten teacher students. The study focuses on five different learning situations over a 2-year period. The data were taken from teacher students' evaluations and…

This article considers the benefits and challenges of using English teacher candidates' videotaped discussions of literature as tools to facilitate authentic and engaging discussions of literature. More specifically, this article examines the use of teacher candidates' videotaped discussions in a secondary English methods course to expand…

In this paper, I offer my own counterstory of matriculating through a teacher education program as an African American student on a predominately White campus as a reference point for thinking through how racism operates through teacher education's dominant discourse and practice of teacher reflection. It is an important story to tell primarily…

Critical thinking receives increasing emphasis from educators looking to infuse analytical thinking skills into the curriculum. Many research projects have been conducted on the transferability of critical thinking skills to other disciplines and how critical thinking may be taught. There are numerous studies on teaching critical thinking, yet…

The past two decades have been times of heightened emphasis on changing structures between universities and public schools toward collaboration as a means of improving the education and preparation of pre-service and in-service teachers. Numerous studies have found that students in teacher education courses often have difficulty utilizing the…

At the University of Ballarat, pre-service teachers (PSTs) in their second year of the Bachelor of Education (P-10) are required to plan community-based teaching and learning in conjunction with school students, their teachers and schools along with community organizations. These requirements are in synergy with curriculum developments in schools…

The National Education (NE) programme was set up in Singapore schools in 1997 to inculcate a national identity and values in the younger generation. Teachers in schools are given the important role of developing a shared sense of nationhood among their students. However, no study has yet examined the motivations for teaching NE in schools. The…

In June 2003 one hundred and eighty-six graduates from the United Kingdom (UK) Russell Group universities joined the Teach First (TF) programme which was to have a significant impact on Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in England, Europe and across the globe. This article describes the origins of the programme, provides a summary of evaluations and…