The goal of this study is to better understand preservice elementary teachers' changes in attitudes towards mathematics in connection with their participation in a module aimed at developing professional noticing capacities. This module, typically implemented in the mathematics methods course, involves practice with the three interrelated…

This paper presents the results of a study designed to facilitate teacher candidates' shift from students of mathematics to teachers of mathematics. We develop a series of tasks each of which encourages candidates to reconsider rich tasks from increasingly teacher-centric points of view. The results show that using authentic high school student…

The purpose of this study was to develop and try out an activity in a group of 10 inservice teachers enrolled in a professional development program. A science methods instructor designed an activity based on a learning cycle teaching approach. In the activity, the teachers experienced the social constructing of knowledge and were promoted to a…

This paper aims to show how its author/researchers were brought to reconsider some of the assumptions behind a small arc project that was being conducted on the professional development of student teachers in Australia. A small group of English Method students were invited to participate in three focus group interviews: before their first teaching…

This paper establishes a use for digital video in developing preservice teacher metacognition about the teaching process using a lesson plan-rating sheet as a guide. A lesson plan was developed to meet the specific needs of the methods instructors in a professional development program at a large public institution. The categories listed on the…

A study hypothesized that pedagogical beliefs, as well as method course experience, would be important and related influences on how preservice teachers used portfolios. During a year-long study, 20 elementary education majors were followed as they moved through methods courses into student teaching and their first year as classroom teachers.…

The desire to integrate technology within the PreK-12 educational environment is a noble endeavor and may lead to the enhancement of student achievement. Teacher candidates are constantly striving to understand the learning environment and to meet these expectations, but do not have models from which they may glean appropriate knowledge,…

This paper describes a tool called the Professional Development Project (PDP) that helps preservice teachers become reflective teachers. Action research in a course for preservice teachers, "Reading and Literature in the Schools," from 1993 through 1996 led to the development of the PDP. Action research helps students become reflective…

This paper reports the results of a deliberate effort to help preservice science teachers improve their ability to learn from experience and take charge of their own professional development as teachers. The study was conducted by a teacher educator who simultaneously taught a physics methods course and a 12th-grade physics class and thereby…

A preservice teacher was interviewed 10 times during his last year of teacher education, when he participated in several mathematics teacher education courses and field experiences, and his first year of high school teaching. The case study was designed to develop an understanding of the teacher development process by considering how one teacher…

The purpose of this longitudinal qualitative inquiry was to describe the socially constructed, negotiated, and contextual nature of an early field placement in an urban elementary school. The objectives were to document subtle changes over time in preservice teachers' reading/language arts subject matter knowledge and teaching beliefs and…