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…

To better prepare physical education (PE) teachers, this study explored a group of pre-service teachers' understanding, application, and development of critical thinking (CT) in a capstone methods course. Participants were 12 pre-service teachers from a PE teacher education (PETE) program at a large university in the southwestern United States.…

In this study, we explored the role of reflection at three stages of preparation across a teacher education program. Reflection has long been considered an essential aspect of professional practice for teaching; however, reflection is often vague and undefined. Through an examination of the opportunities we provided for our students to reflect,…

Physical education teacher education is most successful when it includes several field experiences that are closely supervised and focus on reflective practice. Drawing upon attachment theory, the purpose of this study was to understand a mentoring program in which doctoral students served as mentors for preservice teachers during a methods course…

This article has two aims: (a) to offer a new model for a teacher preparation course that features reflection and teaching as integral, inseparable actions and (b) to provide empirical evidence from an exploratory ethnography to demonstrate teacher development possibilities with this model. The model, termed "Transformative Reflection,"…

The foreign language (FL) teaching "methods" course--which serves an increasingly diverse population of graduate students with varied teaching and learning experiences, professional goals, and developmental trajectories (Allen & Negueruela-Azarola, 2010)--is often the only dedicated space for graduate student instructors (GSIs) to…

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…

This article shares an explanation regarding why disciplined study should be introduced to pre-service teachers early in their coursework, specifically through methods courses. Next, it shares two studies conducted regarding perceptions of curriculum: one with pre-service teachers and one with veteran teachers. Then it provides five suggestions…

Constructivism posits that the teacher's role is to help their students to actively construct new understanding for themselves. Diagnosis of students' prior understanding followed by carefully planned teaching sequences enables learners to grasp hitherto unknown concepts. Assessing whether they can then apply their new knowledge in new contexts…

In contrast to current education policies that conceptualize pupil learning largely in terms of standardized exam scores, we offer an alternative view, one that conceives of pupil learning as a source of insight for pupils and teachers alike. Drawing on survey data and a qualitative study of the teacher candidate experience, we explore the…

Background: Although preservice teachers bring well-established views of teaching to their teacher education programs, Tabachnick and Zeichner (1984) claimed that it is possible to amend preservice teachers' views. They portrayed the learning of teachers as a negotiated and interactive process rather than as one that is predetermined by teachers'…