Much has been written about the importance of reflective practice. What is missing is reflective work on the part of teacher educators to address the mismatch between university-based methods courses and the realities of classroom life. With examples from a third grade mathematics classroom as well as a university-based mathematics methods course,…

The construct of "situational interest" involves the identification of classroom factors that arouse student interest, but previous research has focussed on non-science domains such as reading or mathematics. The first aim of this study was to identify the sources of situational interest in a science content/methods course for primary teacher…