Due to the teacher shortage, school divisions and educator preparation programs are working collaboratively to provide alternative routes for student teaching to meet licensure requirements (Donitsa-Schmidt & Zuzovsky, 2014; Flynt & Morton, 2009; National Research Council, 2010). This qualitative case study explored the strengths and…

This article discusses four exemplary activities to highlight imaginative approaches that encourage critical literacy: building a jackdaw, responding to text through multimodal journaling, engaging in dramatic roleplay, and practicing multi-genre writing. Each activity connects imaginative approaches to critical literacy as learners view the world…

Preservice teacher education programs worldwide are increasingly becoming field based with student teaching as the capstone experience for preservice teacher learning in the program. Consequently, mentor teachers at field-placement program schools are bestowed with new and unique functions to support preservice teachers' learning to teach, which…

Preparing student teachers for the world of work is seen globally as a challenge. This research aims to explore mentors and mentees experiences in teaching practice during the COVID-19 period. In order to explore the challenge in this study, the following research question guided the paper: What are the teaching practice experiences of mentors and…

When Mikayla Helton, Stephanie Baer's preservice art education student, first asked what she thought about her creating and teaching a summer art class at a youth residential treatment center, Baer was intrigued and fearful. Nichols and Sullivan (2016) described the importance of experiencing dissonance as a young teacher, encountering contexts…

Agency has been used as a lens to focus on how educators learn through pedagogical risk-taking, advocacy for curricular reform, and resisting policies that are not focused on the needs of students. We explored the role of agency as 65 preservice science teachers created learning opportunities for themselves during their clinical placements.…

In this qualitative case study, the authors examine teacher students' experiences from teaching creative dance in their practicum in physical education (PE) in Norwegian schools. From a phenomenological perspective, and taking concepts such as "participatory sense-making," "embodied affectivity" and "embodied…

This study is situated in a mathematics teaching practice setting where reflective practice by pre-service teachers was investigated. Instead of having a one-on-one lesson observation, followed by reflection thereafter, this study looked at the joint lesson observation and reflection amongst three student teachers and a supervisor/researcher. The…

We designed and implemented an innovative teacher learning activity within the context of a graduate course. Course-takers created and completed a teaching demonstration and their "students" (i.e., fellow course-takers) were each assigned a specific role to play (e.g., disengaged) in order to provide the "teachers" with…

This study examines the validity of a student teaching evaluation instrument used in a teacher preparation program. Grounded in research-based conceptualizations of teaching and aligned to standards from relevant professional associations, the instrument is used to evaluate teacher candidates during their student teaching experience. To determine…

Teacher preparation programs include a variety of field experiences designed to support preservice teacher growth including early field experiences, student teaching, and clinical internships. Limited research was available regarding how hosting a preservice teacher may result in long-term learning and professional growth (Bruemmer, 2018;…

Research has found that the use of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) can improve academic outcomes for students in urban environments. As teacher educators, we are driven by such findings to understand how to best prepare teacher education students to enact CRP. The Elementary Education department in our university offers an urban immersive…

This article reports on how the policy context shaped the development of two elementary preservice teachers' (PSTs) literacy instructional practice. While student teaching emergent bilingual students in urban, high-poverty classrooms that utilized mandated scripted literacy curriculum, PSTs completed edTPA, a Teacher Performance Assessment, for…

Placement, the part of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) involving Pre-Service Teachers (PSTs) working in school, is a marked feature of ITE programmes that involve Higher Education Institution (HEI) input. In Scotland, placement is a feature of ITE, forms a major plank of the assessment of teaching quality and occurs in partnership arrangements…

A collaborative program between a state university and local school districts addresses teacher shortages by providing three levels of support for student teachers.