This study investigates the learning reported by a set of volunteer participants from three university teacher education programs: from one Southwestern U.S. University, the program in secondary English/Language Arts Education and the program in Elementary Education; and from one Southeastern U.S. University, the program in secondary…

In this article, the authors discuss how they redesigned an educational psychology course for preservice teachers using insights from the burgeoning, interdisciplinary field of the Learning Sciences. Research on the situated nature of learning and the value of out-of-school contexts for supporting children s development informed their decisions to…

A core question of teacher education--"What can I do?"--plagues courses on race in particular ways. Teachers struggle for "concrete" applications of "theoretical" ideas about race, question the potential for "everyday" activity to dismantle inequality "structures," and wrestle with the need for both professional and personal development on racial…

In this article, the authors focus on the concept of coherence, a relatively underexplored concept in teacher education. They investigate the relationship between students' perceptions of coherence and a number of structural features of teacher education programs to help develop a stronger definition of one important dimension of coherence--the…

Results of a survey of 129 doctoral-granting institutions indicate that only 26 offer teacher education as a separate academic program on the doctoral level. Some agreement exists among these institutions about the topics that should be studied. These topics are indicated in the article. (IAH)

Discusses a survey of Nebraska Teachers (n=397) concerning their measurement training, beliefs about the adequacy of training, influences on measurement knowledge, and perceived measurement abilities. Forty-seven percent reported their measurement training inadequate; most reported learning measurement by trial and error; most considered their…

A teacher education program, designed to facilitate teachers' skills in working with culturally diverse students with special needs is discussed. Program content is outlined; a course description provides an example of implementation of the teacher training model and findings are discussed from an assessment of teachers' progress in the program.…

The efforts of a teacher educator to introduce teacher effectiveness research to preservice teachers in ways that support development of critical reflection are described and evaluated. Results of an analysis of 242 theory-to-practice papers done by the preservice teachers, designed to indicate the level of student reflection, are presented. (IAH)

Describes the use of metaphor analysis to engage preservice students in an examination of their conceptions of teaching. The evolution of three students' metaphors as they proceeded through student teaching illustrates the value of metaphor analysis in helping student teachers maintain their idealism when confronting the realities of classroom…

An experiment explored the amount of time required to add computer literacy to preservice teachers' skills and whether skills could be taught without a computer literacy course. Students in an industrial education methods course acquired many needed skills when a computer became an adjunct to the course. (PP)

This study investigated the effectiveness of a training sequence, based on Tough's categories of language use, to reduce the percent of reporting questions in relation to total questions; while increasing the percent of logical reasoning, predicting, and projecting questions used by student teachers (N=89) in leading discussions. (IAH)

An education course for prospective teachers was designed to include a field experience that challenged students' underlying beliefs about teaching and learning. This article describes and discusses prospective teachers' reactions to encounters with an unconventional third grade teacher's approach to teaching negative numbers. (IAH)

Twenty annotated references, selected from the ERIC databases on the topic of teacher education foundations of education, include surveys, research reports, curriculum guidelines and models, and general essays. (CJ)

This article suggests additional possibilities for reconceptualist thought, which is characterized by an experimental bent and a disdain for orthodoxy, as well as new venues for action. Possible contributions by reconceptualists to issues of curricular reform, experimental schools, education courses and preservice teacher education are discussed.…

A metatheory for teacher development was used as part of a college course on teacher evaluation for supervisors. The metatheory provides a way of examining both independent and interactive effects of teacher characteristics, environmental variables (such as supervisory strategies), and task variables to link teacher development with the complexity…