Drawing on critical literacy as a theoretical framework, this paper explores how a children's book writing assignment designed to center the experiences of underrepresented communities in children's literature contributed to shifts in awareness among predominantly White teacher candidates. The study occurred at a large urban university in…

A critical mass of literacy scholars have re-defined what it means to prepare reading teachers toward approaches that foreground culture, critical inquiry, and multilingualism. An upsurge in research on critical approaches to prepare caring and conscious reading teachers has resulted, though fewer studies have examined the ways novice teachers…

Methods for teaching early childhood mathematics and science are often addressed in a single, dual-content course. Approaches to teaching this type of course include integrating the content and the pedagogy of both subjects, or keeping the subject areas distinct. In this article, the authors discuss and illustrate their approach to such a combined…

Preservice teachers (PSTs) must be able to link content, effective teaching practices, and student learning; thus, it is critical for teacher educators to emphasize connections between research and practice in methods courses. Reflection plays an important role in this process. In this article, the authors discuss and illustrate a vignette…

Through a lens focused on imagining the future, and with a pedagogical goal to help novice teachers embody effective teaching practices in a writing methods course, the authors (two teacher educators) conducted a design-based experiment to determine if we could access teacher candidates' pedagogical decisions and their future intentions through…

Some mathematics educators assert that P-12 students respond better to mathematics when it is taught for cultural relevance and social justice. Providing teachers with examples of how to use culturally relevant pedagogy and social justice pedagogy (SJP) is critical to enacting these strategies in mathematics classrooms. The results of this…

As U.S. schools continue to grow more culturally and linguistically diverse, it is important for teacher-educator programs to include pedagogy that promotes engaging learning opportunities for all children. One way these learning opportunities can occur is through interactive read-alouds. Interactive read-alouds provide the teacher and child an…

This qualitative case study explored preservice teachers' (PSTs) beliefs about disciplinary literacy as they engaged in a blog project with middle-school students to discuss historical texts. Twenty-eight PSTs, enrolled in a semester-long social studies methods course and participating in the blog project as a course assignment, constituted the…

This article introduces the Instructional Field Observation Rounds Model (INFORM), drawn from the medical profession where resident interns make rounds with experienced physicians, as an alternative approach for conducting classroom observations in pre-service teacher education methods courses. INFORM centers on structured group observations in…

Understanding effective and appropriate techniques for assessing student learning has never been as critical and political as is it is today. Accurate assessment methodologies employed in public schools are vital to the interpretation of student achievement data through which school effectiveness is being measured. Although there is a need,…

In this article, the author explores her observations of preservice teachers' technological literacy as it is often enacted across iterations of a writing methods course. Using personal examples and classroom anecdotes, the author argues that the construct of "digital native" is flawed and, instead, the author positions preservice…

Although the importance of field experience is supported and attended to by teacher education programs across the United States, there have been numerous national reports and research findings stressing the need for major improvements in the preparation of teachers with an emphasis on more authentic experiences. Quality field experiences have the…

This research examines perceptions of special education teachers toward mathematics as related to self as student and teacher throughout a semester-long mathematics methods course. Eighteen alternate-entrant special education teachers provided data in the form of mathematics autobiographical essays and classroom drawings. Autobiographical essays…

Within the past few years, there have been numerous studies that suggest that preservice teachers need and want opportunities to observe, visit, interact, and collaboratively reflect with teachers who are attempting to implement reform-based teaching strategies. Unfortunately, for many schools of education, it is logistically difficult to locate a…

Although much has been written about the use of video cases--particularly, video cases in teacher preparation programs in the United States--little is known about what the consumers of video cases (i.e., preservice teachers) think about such cases and how they are implemented in teacher education courses. This research investigated preservice…