Describes how prospective teachers in an education course responded to three cases that challenged their entering beliefs about teaching. Interviews and essays indicated that students' entering beliefs about teaching remained central to their interpretations of the cases, though each learned new ideas about teaching that were compatible with her…

Used a refutational text on motivation to address preservice teachers' conceptions of motivation. Participants completed pretests, posttests, and questionnaires on motivation theories and motivational strategies. Participants who read the refutational text performed significantly better on posttest and demonstrated more change in knowledge.…

Surveys of preservice teachers explored their concepts of caring and order. Results indicated that they thought about achieving order in terms of management rather than pedagogy or interpersonal relationships. They saw caring in terms of interpersonal relationships rather than pedagogy or management. There were significant differences by status…

Assessed preservice teachers' contrasting views between their own use of calculators and appropriate use of calculators in elementary school mathematics classrooms. Survey results indicated that respondents did not use calculators on simple problems, nor did they rely on them as a crutch. They viewed calculators largely as tools to speed up…

An analysis of the form and substance of supervisory discourse between university supervisors and student teachers in two teacher education programs with similar organizational structures but different ideological orientations indicated a need for changes in the organizational context of student teaching if innovations in the curriculum are to be…

Australian researchers surveyed the practical knowledge of student teachers, focusing on the construct of images of teaching to identify ways in which two student teachers thought about themselves as teachers and how that related to their teaching practice. The paper proposes images as a means of understanding student teacher knowledge. (SM)

Interviewed three prospective elementary teachers regarding progress toward an integrated view of learner and learning concerns. Two had similar questions about balancing concerns for individual students' class experiences with concerns about learning content, despite having very different initial conceptions and conceptual paths. The third…

Analysis of student teachers' expressed conceptions of successful teaching (recorded in journals) throughout a year-long field experience suggested that, while the seven stronger and seven weaker teachers recorded similar descriptions of successful lessons, their descriptions of unsuccessful lessons differed. (Author/CB)

Used interview and essay data to investigate history student teachers' development and beliefs about teaching. Most respondents became interested in the subject very early, independently of formal education. Models adopted during early school years influenced their attitudes toward teaching and teachers' role. Their tended to focus on their own…

Researchers surveyed secondary student teachers to identify changes in their thinking about teaching and learning and their postgraduate preservice education course. Knowledge of teaching gained from earlier experience significantly influenced students' thinking. Differences between individuals and curriculum groups suggested that the course of…

This study examined preservice teachers' attitudes and awareness regarding multicultural education. Subjects provided background information and answered questions about multicultural education. Most were aware of issues related to multicultural education and anticipated having diverse student populations. Subjects were undecided about how well…

Portfolio construction is a complex social practice with intentions, rules, and standards. This definition is not typically found in teacher education literature and has implications for evaluating students' portfolios. The paper examines teacher education students' recollections of creating portfolios in one Canadian program and argues that…

This Australian study investigated student teachers' beliefs about teaching before and after their student teaching experiences. Survey results indicated that the orientations to teaching of most student teachers remained unchanged, through there were significant changes in the beliefs of some students. Supervising teachers' beliefs affected…

Examined how situative knowledge, embedded in student teachers' prior experiences and a dilemma-based case, influenced their analyses of the case-as-written. Analysis of students' pre- and post-discussion writings about one case and during-discussion dialogue indicated that homogeneous thinking limited their ability to reflect critically and…

Analyzed prospective teachers' e-mail messages to their instructors as they tutored pupils in reading and mathematics. Results revealed several themes which indicated that students benefitted from the field-based experiences and the support of e-mail communications. Themes focused on instructional growth, emotional attachments, why students…