Even though the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS) were released over a decade ago, science is still infrequently taught in early childhood and elementary classrooms. A lack of teacher confidence due to inadequate content knowledge may be a contributing factor, making access to high-quality elementary science methods courses even…

Accompanying a senior methods course, 19 teacher candidates at Southeastern Louisiana University participated in a semester-long social studies fifth grade mentorship at an International Baccalaureate World School. Teacher candidates identified factors they perceived to affect the success of the experiential learning experience through…

This book shows literacy professionals how to develop the dispositions and actions associated with advocacy-focused teaching. While portraits of culturally conscious literacy teachers are now readily available, becoming such a teacher continues to be a challenge. Drawing from 60+ years of experience working with teacher candidates and teachers in…

The sense of efficaciousness for engaging diverse learners was examined with twenty-four pre-service teachers concurrently enrolled in a junior-level Creative Arts methods course and a field experience course with placements in K-2 general education classrooms. The pre-service teachers participated in music and literacy activities in their…

With the eruption of political, racial, and pandemic-related conflicts and unprecedented threats to U.S. democracy, educators have raised their voices about the need to teach controversial issues in social studies classrooms. However many teachers feel unprepared to take up this challenging practice. They may also avoid it because they fear loss…

Cognitively demanding tasks provide important opportunities for students to develop an understanding of mathematics; however, they are challenging to launch and implement. The authors designed a secondary methods unit on launching tasks. Participants in the study were enrolled in five different methods courses. Using a noticing framework, findings…

This edited volume extends our field of studies by highlighting novel 21st century curricular designs and pedagogical practices in the preparation of future bilingual teachers and their relevance for advancing curriculum, instruction, and educational achievement across bilingual school contexts. In particular, the volume provides a much-needed…

In this article, we share design guidelines for the development and use of online, video-based "teaching playgrounds," which provide opportunities for prospective teachers to engage in professional noticing of teaching practices. Through teaching playgrounds, we provide an instantiation of the Presence+Experience framework, which…

Many teachers are using the Five Practices model to guide them in orchestrating whole-class mathematics discussions that focus on understanding: (1) anticipate an array of possible student-generated solution strategies to a mathematical task before implementing the lesson; (2) monitor students' work as they grapple with the task; (3) select a…

The typical elementary classroom hosts a range of diverse students. Not only do students bring varying academic readiness levels, background experiences, interests, personalities, and learning preferences to the classroom, but some students also have physical disabilities that must be considered when designing science instruction. The formerly…

This article introduces the social studies field to Dorothy Heatchote's Mantle of Expert (MOE). MOE is a dramatic inquiry approach used in several subject areas and can work at all levels in the social studies curriculum. The authors go into the development of using this approach in an elementary and middle teacher education program. After sharing…

This book provides an overview of systematic instructional strategies and is written in a format so that teachers and other service providers can immediately put the information to use. It specifically focuses upon systematic instruction for individuals with disabilities (school age and adults) and is generic across age groups as well as…

The implementation of the Common Core's Standards for Mathematical Practice can pose a challenge to all teachers of mathematics but especially to preservice teachers. These standards require teaching in a way that often differs from what preservice teachers have experienced as learners. Standard 1--"Make sense of problems and persevere in…

In this article, we describe a fourth-grade inquiry unit on soil. The unit was designed and taught by preservice elementary teachers as part of a university science methods course. Using a student-driven inquiry approach to designing curriculum, the unit engaged fourth graders in learning about the physical properties soil, erosion, worms, and…

Our Introduction to Research Methods course is a first-year majors course built around the idea of helping students learn to work like chemists, write like chemists, and think like chemists. We have developed this course as a hybrid hands-on/ lecture experience built around instrumentation use and report preparation. We take the product from one…