While recent research has examined students' and teachers' understanding of models and modeling, few studies have focused on how teacher educators can support preservice elementary science teachers in envisioning enriched learning processes and outcomes for their students while engaging in modeling practices. Informed by reflective practices…

This study investigates how preservice elementary teachers (PSTs) engage and reflect on two science disciplinary practices: engaging with representations and engaging in evidence-based arguments. In the context of elementary science, teachers blend multiple practices across curricular topics and instruction. However, studies of teachers' use of…

Preservice teachers in science education courses do not generally experience informal, authentic science education practices in their fieldwork. This study used the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning to frame a study that integrated informal science teaching experiences with a university teacher education science methods course. The results…

Background: In the context of recent research in science education and continued struggles to understand how best to support science teachers, epistemological frames, made up of sets of epistemological resources teachers activate, have emerged as an important focus of research. However, at the time of this writing no research was available to…

The Next Generation Science Standards articulate a new vision for K-12 science learning that engages students in disciplinary practices to encourage deeper participation in and understandings of science and engineering. Teacher educators have a major responsibility in helping pre-service teachers (PSTs) develop knowledge of these practices and…

The science teacher education community plays a prominent role in teacher preparation programs. Particularly, science methods courses emphasize modeling instructional strategies to promote inquiry-based practices. Integrating appropriate educational technology to enhance and support classroom practices should be embedded in these courses. The…

National science education documents emphasize new learning outcomes of elementary students; therefore, the preparation of elementary teachers should be revised to meet these challenges. This article describes how science educators at a large southeastern university developed specialized science training for elementary preservice teachers (EPSTs)…

Teach For America (TFA), a widespread and well-known route into the teaching profession, frequently partners with university-based education programs to prepare and certify its corps members. However, university-based teacher education programs frequently emphasize very different understandings of socially just education and priorities for…

This article describes how a teacher-education program (TEP), whose mission is to improve schooling for linguistically diverse students, develops its' teacher candidate's critical dispositions and pedagogy related to academic-language (AL) development and how candidate performance on PACT can help TEPs better assess and improve how AL…

Teacher education preparation programs must adapt to changing science education reform movements that identify notebooking as an effective means to increase children's' science process skills and content knowledge. This study addresses the question, "What are the structures and thinking processes that teacher candidates utilize when writing…

In this action research work, I analyze the theory-practice integration in teacher preparation within the context of a science and technology (S&T) education teaching methodology course aimed at future elementary teachers. The course was designed, developed and evaluated taking into account this relationship as one of its axes. The results…

Lack of time for teaching science in traditional classroom placements in the United States has led some science teacher educators to provide practice teaching time for elementary education students in informal science settings. The purposes of this study were to describe the culture of one science methods course taught in conjunction with a K-7…

Nineteen pre-service and in-service teachers taking a chemistry teaching methods course at a university in Hong Kong were asked to take a diagnostic assessment. It consisted of seven multiple-choice questions about the chemistry of the lead-acid battery. Analysis of the teachers' responses to the questions indicated that they had difficulty in…

This qualitative case study aimed to focus on the experiences and subsequent science and science teaching beliefs, attitudes, and self-efficacy of an elementary pre-service teacher, Heather, with extremely positive attitude and high self-efficacy. For this particular population of pre-service teachers, possessing a high science teaching…

Scientific and environmental literacy are cornerstones of science education reform and twenty first century citizenry. The ability to make decisions about socioscientific issues is a characteristic of scientific and environmental literacy. This study uses the Sustainability Triad to explore preservice science teachers' analyses and decision-making…