The purpose of this study was to implement a Video Simulation Task in a mathematics methods teacher education course to engage preservice teachers in considering both the teaching and learning aspects of mathematics lesson delivery. Participants anticipated student and teacher thinking and created simulations, in which they acted out scenes on a…

Inquiry-based teaching has become the most recommended approach in science education for a few decades; however, it is not a common practice yet in k-12 school classrooms. In order to prepare future teachers to teach science through inquiry, a Microteaching Lesson Study (MLS) approach was employed in our science methods courses. Instead of asking…

A myriad of personal and contextual factors are important in understanding how preservice teachers learn to teach and why they adopt or reject certain teaching practices. Activity theory was used a framework in understand preservice teachers' experiences teaching writing during a field experience at a juvenile detention facility. The purposes of…

Preservice elementary teachers' lack of confidence in teaching science is an ongoing concern. Only 29% of elementary teachers in the field felt "very well prepared to teach life science," according to the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education. Research has suggested that bridging informal and formal science education can…

This study examined the challenges that pre-service teachers faced when implementing inquiry and their perspective on how to overcome them. The data sample was 55 pre-service teachers (PSTs) enrolled into two sections of a science methods course in a private university in North Texas. The data sources consisted of inquiry-based lesson plans, PST…

Engaging students in valuable undergraduate research can be an arduous task to craft outside of the regular schedule of both staff and students. This paper describes a successful research experience that was part of an ongoing methods class for undergraduate pre-service education students. Participants simultaneously engaged in community service…

The purpose of this case study was to explore the ways in which 3 different informal science experiences in the context of an elementary methods course influenced a group of prospective elementary teachers' ideas about science teaching and learning as well as their understandings about the role of informal science environments to teaching and…

This paper considers the role and development of meaningful dialogue in digitally mediated learning (DML) in UK higher education for teachers. It argues that more research is vital in the field of meaningful dialogue if we are to avoid the risk that pedagogic values in DML become increasingly driven by market forces toward "data vending"…

During my English Language Arts methods class, I noticed that my discussion patterns were teacher-focused and in an Initiation-Response-Evaluation format. Because I wanted to model dialogic methods of whole-class discussions for my preservice teachers, I recoiled from this finding and began a self-study using an action research method to examine…

Research repeatedly documents that teachers are underprepared to teach mathematics effectively in diverse classrooms. A critical aspect of learning to be an effective mathematics teacher for diverse learners is developing knowledge, dispositions, and practices that support building on children's mathematical thinking, as well as their cultural,…

Teacher candidates (TCs) use clinical experiences to enact concepts taught in their university courses; therefore field experiences may be the most important component of teacher preparation (Hammerness et al., 2005). TCs require support and guidance as they learn to adapt curriculum materials for effective use in the classroom (Davis, 2006). They…

The Draw-a-Scientist Test (DAST) is a tool to assess stereotypical imagery of scientists. This paper describes the use of the DAST as both a model for inquiry and as a method of assessing the affective domain. The DAST was administered in a science education methods course for undergraduate students of elementary education, a methods course for…

Popular movies were used in a doctoral-level qualitative research methods course as a way to help students learn about how to collect and analyze qualitative observational data in order to develop a grounded theory. The course was designed in such a way that collaboration was central to the generation of knowledge. Using media depictions had the…

This study explored pre-service teachers' conceptual understanding and performance on science process skills. A sample comprised 91 elementary pre-service teachers at a university in the Midwest of the USA. Participants were enrolled in two science education courses; introductory science teaching methods course and advanced science methods course.…

This action research aims to identify the teacher trainees' attributions for their failure, their locus of control and their achievement goals as a result of high failure rate in "Teaching English to Young Learners" course at a large state university in Turkey. For this purpose, qualitative and quantitative data were gathered via an…