This article discusses the importance of helping preservice teachers develop a sense of self-awareness. This involves, in part, helping preservice teachers develop an ability to examine and identify the personal characteristics, beliefs and attitudes that make them who they are and influence the way they think about teaching and learning. The…

Teacher educators and researchers have studied the improvement of teacher education programs so that pre-service teachers may be well prepared. Research has shown that not only teachers' knowledge but also their beliefs have major influence on their approach to teaching. This present research examined the mathematics and science pre-service…

This article describes a collaborative and cross-curricula initiative undertaken in the School of Education at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. The project involved developing an integrated approach to providing professional year pre-service secondary teacher education students with experiences that would assist them to develop…

Online education holds great potential for rural states like South Dakota, which has been recognized for advances in distance education. To maximize the potential of online learning, design elements that students believe are needed for successful online learning experiences must be identified. In this study, we present the qualitative and…

The purpose of this study was to determine how elementary pre-service teachers' perceptions of and attitudes toward the teaching portfolio process changed after participating in a university program-wide mentoring process. The research question for this study was: What is the impact of a university's program-wide mentoring process on elementary…

In this paper, we present a theorized case study of one pre-service teacher's understanding and practices of care in teaching. We argue that the notion of care can be used as a lens through which to explore relationships between and among teachers and students, as well as the cultural, institutional, and societal contexts in which these relations…

Short-term international experiences (STIE) are becoming a regular, sometimes required, feature of pre-service language teacher education programmes. Often inappropriately termed "immersion programmes", they aim to give teachers the opportunity to improve their language proficiency in the language they will teach, to develop their…

In this large-scale Australian study, we profile the background characteristics and teaching motivations for individuals entering teacher education across three major established urban teacher provider universities in the Australian States of New South Wales and Victoria. Our recently developed and validated "FIT-Choice" (Factors…

This is an account of a teacher education program's attempt to connect with a neighboring community in order to better prepare faculty to teach about the urban context in which their preservice teacher education students practice. Taking a feminist perspective, the two authors discuss their goals--the processes of using a community organization to…

This paper reports the implementation of a collaborative pre-service science teacher education program between an Australian university and a collegiate of eight schools. The program was designed to facilitate the transition to teaching of pre-service teachers by reducing the gap between theory and practice while promoting the professional…

Becoming a teacher is hard work. A sizable body of research indicates that student teaching internships or other field-based practica are a particularly difficult part of this process. Many preservice teachers have misconceptions about the work of teachers and teaching; when they begin their field placements they often feel disillusioned by the…

There is increasing recognition of the role of self-study in building teachers' knowledge base. As teachers make decisions about what and how to teach, they draw upon a knowledge base that includes numerous types of knowledge. This knowledge base is not static, but rather changes and expands throughout one's teaching career. An important method…

The advent of high stakes state testing in K-12 education and The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, with its focus on "scientifically-based research" (SBR), has opened new challenges for both undergraduate and graduate preparation programs in education. This address will report on how we are currently preparing our undergraduate and…

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) accredits more than half of the colleges of education in the United States. Several of its standards require teacher preparation programs to emphasize diversity in their curricula and to demonstrate that they are developing a professional environment wherein acceptance of varying…

The recruitment and retention of minority students in teacher education programs has received the attention of schools of education. For those minority students who choose to pursue a career in teaching and decide to attend a predominantly white university, their experience must be appreciated for the challenges it presents. This study was…