This article presents the transcript of Peter Webster's 2014 Senior Researcher Award Acceptance Address. Webster comments on several big ideas in music education: (1) The consideration of teaching as a blend of constructivist approaches and direct instruction that values student-centered work primarily as evidence of learning; (2) The…

This paper reports on a study of pre-service elementary teachers' metaphors of "literacy" and "teaching literacy" at the commencement and conclusion of a year-long literacy methods course at a Midwestern American university. Over a three-year period, a total of 47 participants enrolled in the two-semester literacy methods…

As a social studies program coordinator at a regional-sized institution, the author typically has between 20-25 preservice candidates enrolled in his annual undergraduate methods course. However, he usually has only one to two in-service candidates each year who require an advance methods course focused on such items as the historical influences,…

Teaching mixed methods research is difficult. This longitudinal explanatory study examined how two classes were designed, taught, and evaluated. Curriculum, Research, and Teaching (EDCS-606) and Mixed Methods Research (EDCS-780) used a research proposal generation process to highlight the importance of the purpose, research question and…

Designed to provide teacher-trainees with practice before entering a real classroom, a microcomputer-based simulation of classroom interaction became a key component in the curriculum of two introductory methods courses offered at the University of Virginia. Twenty-two participants used IBM-PC equipment to complete two skill modules. Each module…

An instructional program was constructed that explored the responses and perceptions of preservice elementary school teachers while finding and using characteristics to construct categories or concepts. The program integrated ideas about teaching thinking skills using computers. HyperCard and videodisk images were used to develop a program so that…

This article describes the outcomes of a project sponsored by the Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) initiative from the U.S. Department of Education. The Integrating New Technologies Into the Methods of Education (InTime) project was designed to provide the necessary resources for methods faculty to revise their courses and to…