Teaching the General Capability of Intercultural Understanding is an Australian government mandate, but an ongoing challenge for teachers, many of whom may have little or no experience dealing with the teaching of intercultural understanding and lack confidence to embed this focus in their classrooms. Hence, teacher preparation is a priority to…

Pre-service teachers often express a strong desire for more practical experience in teacher education, which requires teacher educators to consider new, meaningful opportunities for field experiences. This paper aims to bridge the gap between two 'practice worlds' - university teacher education and school practice - based on the example of the…

Beginning teachers face a wide array of challenges in today's PreK-12 classrooms. These challenges are magnified for beginning special education teachers who must meet the needs of an extremely diverse student population. To prepare beginning special education teachers for classroom realities, teacher educators must recognize and use high-leverage…

This qualitative study examines service-learning reflections of 34 preservice teachers enrolled in a senior-level educator preparation course at a public university in the southern United States. Participants reflected on their experiences with an early literacy service-learning project with children in crisis situations. The service-learning…

Research indicates the need for children performing below grade level in reading to receive additional support in summer months. However, little research has been done related to utilizing preservice teachers during those months in the form of a supplemental field experience. Investigating the experiences of undergraduate students majoring in…

This paper discusses the effects of an experimental fieldwork course. The course incorporated cultural responsiveness and action research to impact the future teacher identity of students in a teacher education program at an urban community college. Elements of future teacher identity were discovered for all students; however, the experimental…

One of the major issues confronting education in Arizona and across the United States has been the consistent low performance of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students in comparison to their peers as evidenced by the disparity of the achievement gap at every level in the educational pipeline. A contributing factor has been the lack…

Our recent research study investigated an international field experience for preservice teachers, labelled as a service-learning internship, a term often used to refer to a student teacher in a Bachelor of Education (BEd) program. Relying on what we know to be advantages and benefits of similar international field experiences for preservice…

In the United States, preservice teachers often graduate and go on to work with students whose backgrounds are different from their own and in communities in which they have limited lived experience (Sleeter 2000). This holds significant implications for teacher education programs given the importance of life and educational experiences in…

The use of service-learning as a teaching methodology is in its infancy within Australian tertiary institutions. Parker et. al., (2009) noted that, until recently, community service-learning has been under-utilised within the Australian higher education system. Within teacher education programs, service-learning has been used primarily as a means…

The goal of this article is to describe the impact of an international service-learning project on a group of preservice teachers. International service-learning can be a valuable educational enterprise with both major-specific and general education benefits as well as contributing to the international community. This project was granted by Pilot…

Though many pre-service music teachers have received exemplary instruction in their high school music programs, these programs may not be representative of the social, cultural, and economic diversity of their broader communities. This insularity may hinder their perceptions of their community as they step into an increasingly diverse school…

International field experiences in Kenya and Nepal supplied data for two collaborative ethnographic research projects that analyze, using the concept of contextually appropriate practice (CAP), how minority-world early childhood preservice teachers define "quality" practices. The term "minority-world" is used for educators who…

Personal and professional experiences influence teachers' perceptions of their ability to implement environmental science curricula and to positively impact students' learning. The purpose of this study was twofold: to determine what influence, if any, an intensive field-based life science course and service learning had on preservice teachers'…

This qualitative self-study examines the incorporation of service learning in 2 sections of a middle childhood undergraduate methods course. As a beginning teacher educator, I used self-study to explore the following research questions: (a) How does engaging in a service-learning project during a field experience influence middle level preservice…