Increasing awareness about screening and instructional interventions for students with dyslexia is a necessary component of P-12 teacher preparation. Disparities in reading achievement for students with disabilities, including those with dyslexia, is evidenced in lower literacy testing scores as well as lower high school graduation rates for those…

The purpose of this study was to determine K-8 preservice teacher (PST) candidates' statistical thinking when selecting the best center representation for the given data. Forty-four PSTs enrolled in a Statistics and Probability for K-8 Teachers course in a university located in the southeastern region of the United States were asked to complete a…

The literacy faculty at a regional, comprehensive university in the southeastern U.S. explored the perceptions of students in their undergraduate and graduate literacy programs--as well as students in contiguous, supported programs--regarding the achievement gaps between Latinx and bi/multilingual students and their White, English-dominant peers.…

When judging subject-specific aspects of students' texts, teachers should assess various characteristics, e.g., spelling and content, independently of one another since these characteristics are indicators of different skills. Independent judgments enable teachers to adapt their classroom instruction according to students' skills. It is still…

Determining what elementary teacher candidates need to know to effectively teach reading will aid in how preparation programs prepare future teachers. To understand state legislation targeting early reading instruction, this study compared the tenets of structured literacy, the reading method used in dyslexia programs, to scientific reading…

The debate on the stringency of licensure exams for prospective public school teachers is on-going, including the recent controversial roll-out of the educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA). We leverage the quasi-experimental setting of different adoption timing by states and analyze multiple data sources containing a national sample of…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that many US students are deficient in core knowledge in geography, civics and current events. In this paper, a professor of social studies methods describes an action research project developed to assess and improve teacher candidates' knowledge in these areas. The article explains how data…

Math achievement is critically important to the changing global economy. In order to be successful, students must develop a strong foundation in mathematics early in their school careers. But the training elementary teachers receive doesn't always prepare them to teach math well, and math anxiety can keep both students and teachers from reaching…

This article discusses the opportunity that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) present for enhancing formative assessment (FA) in history and social studies classrooms. There is evidence that FA can enhance learning for students if implemented well. Unfortunately, teachers continue to be challenged in implementing FA in their classrooms. We…

This study developed twelve instructional modules based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress for mathematics content and methods courses for preservice elementary and middle school teachers and examined their impact on PSTs' mathematical content knowledge and self-efficacy beliefs about teaching mathematics. The modules help…

A test project at the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez used GeoGebra applets to promote the concept of multirepresentational fluency among high school mathematics preservice teachers. For this study, this fluency was defined as simultaneous awareness of all representations associated with a mathematical concept, as measured by the ability to…

Prospective teachers can typically obtain a license to teach elementary school without taking a rigorous college-level STEM class such as calculus, statistics, or chemistry, and without demonstrating a solid grasp of mathematics knowledge, scientific knowledge, or the nature of scientific inquiry. This is not a recipe for ensuring students have…

In this analysis of promising practice, we demonstrate how social studies methods instructors can incorporate data analysis of the 2010 United States History National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP-USH) to facilitate pedagogical aims, engage teacher candidates in critical discourse, and investigate the contexts of teaching and learning.…

This study seeks to determine whether national trends in subject matter knowledge and in curricular experiences hold true for prospective teachers who attended K-12 schooling during the reform period. It further seeks to determine other influences on teachers' visions of mathematics and goals for themselves as mathematics teachers. Teachers' past…

Training preservice teachers to develop a predisposition toward constructivist instruction is a major goal for many faculty in teacher education. One critical attribute of a constructivist teacher is a strong hold on pedagogical content knowledge. This study examined the prior knowledge of preservice science teachers and how that knowledge aligned…