This sequential explanatory mixed methods study (quant + QUAL) examined elementary preservice teachers' conceptions of teaching engineering. Participants (n = 104) from two large western universities completed the Draw-An-Engineering-Teacher-Test (DAETT) as part of their elementary science methods course. Additionally, a subgroup of participants…

In this pedagogical reflection, a White mathematics teacher educator describes what she learned from three Latina pre-service teachers who were recent immigrants from Mexico while they completed an elementary mathematics methods course. Using Rochelle Gutierrez's (2012) metaphor of a window and mirror, the author interrogates her own identity and…

Using the structure of a metacognitive journal, this article describes the author's discovery of an unusual method for adding fractions after carefully considering a student's response. (Contains 3 figures.)

A higher education development team consisting of four professors of reading at two universities designed a set of lessons for possible use in helping teachers or preservice teachers develop strategies to produce effective comprehension skills of elementary students. These techniques were first used with undergraduate candidates and then revised…

With universities, teacher education institutions, and high schools gearing up heavily in online course delivery in every discipline, science educators specifically are asking themselves "How do we provide this access to our students and still maintain our pedagogical integrity in science instruction?" This question seems to be at the heart of a…

In this article, the author presents and discusses activities that use a phenomena-first, guided inquiry approach to teach important concepts related to plant function, as well as the history and nature of scientific inquiry. These activities are intended for use with students in grades 3-8, as well as in elementary science methods courses. The…

The author asserts that it is time for social studies teachers to engage students in a review of the rift between historical reality and mythology about Viet Nam, especially in light of recent comparisons that many have made between the Viet Nam War and the current situation in Iraq. Few teachers dealt with Viet Nam at the time of the war, and…

In this article, the authors describe their efforts to assess prospective K-8 teachers' knowledge of proportional reasoning. Based upon their analysis of prospective K-8 teachers' work on a mathematics performance task, they discuss the implications for preparing prospective teachers to teach proportional reasoning to their students. In general,…

We present a design for a junior level numerical methods course that focuses on a series of five open-ended projects in applied mathematics. These projects were deliberately designed to present many of the ambiguities and complexities that appear any time we use mathematics in the real world, and so they offered the students a variety of possible…