Preservice elementary teachers face challenges in learning to teach science. Educative curriculum materials, designed to promote teacher learning, can provide support for overcoming these challenges. The educative curriculum materials used in this study provide narrative vignettes describing a teacher's decision making with regard to lesson plans.…

We use a 10-year program of research centered on iterations of one elementary science methods course as a vehicle for exploring three important and interrelated goals for the learning of beginning elementary teachers. These include learning about inquiry-oriented science teaching, using science curriculum materials effectively, and anticipating…

This study examined how the use of book clubs in a literacy methods class informed preservice, elementary teachers' visions of self as literacy teachers. Teachers began the study with the vision of teaching students the reading and writing skills they were weakest in. Teachers though transformed their visions to include culturally responsive…

School science systems tend to emphasize teaching and learning about achievements of science (such as laws and theories) at the expense of providing students with opportunities to develop realistic conceptions about science and science inquiry and expertise they could use to conduct their own science inquiry projects. Among reasons for such an…

Individual recommendation plans (IRP) for student teaching practice were co-constructed with two methods students based on the select application of National Science Teachers Association's National Standards for Science Teacher Preparation. Methods students completed a resume, an interview on pedagogical preferences, and a learning styles survey…

This column highlights websites that the author thinks are interesting, well designed, and useful to classroom teachers, college-level methods instructors, and other social studies professionals. When reviewing these websites mostly the author tries to look at them through the eyes of a classroom teacher. Does it have relevant, accurate…

Parker Palmer is correct in his claims that good teaching depends more on the capacity for connectedness than on technique and that helping teacher candidates cultivate a strong sense of personal identity is crucial. However, to what extent are Palmer's claims compatible with the various constructivist models of learning that are now prevalent in…

This limited study provided the first step in exploring existing information mined from a statewide community college Student Information System (SIS) regarding blended, online, and face-to-face instructional methods courses. The purpose was to explore the retention claims of blended instructional method courses, retention of face-to-face and…

This study examined pre-service teachers' responses to implementing technology into elementary mathematics lessons. Instructional Architect (IA) was the web-base technology used by the pre-service teachers. Four themes emerged from the data: (a) insights into technology, (b) struggles with technology, (c) access to the mathematics and (d) learning…

Few studies have examined the value orientations of physical education preservice teachers (PTs). The purposes of this study were to: (1) describe the extent to which one cohort of PTs' value orientations changed and developed during a secondary methods course and early field experience (EFE); and (2) determine why PTs' value orientations changed…

This article uses the framework of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK; Mishra & Koehler, 2006) to analyze findings across projects from the U.S. Department of Education's Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) initiative. Approaches such as mentoring methods course faculty, teachers, and creating technology-rich…

Teacher candidates in secondary social studies education come to their methods course eager to share their passion for the subject. Enthusiasm often turns to confusion and frustration when they are confronted with unforeseen decisions about the content they will teach before they determine the instructional strategies for teaching that material.…

A teacher educator and student of Duckworth's critical exploration approach to teaching shares three episodes taken from science methods courses she teaches for preservice teachers in graduate and undergraduate programs in elementary education. The episodes reveal the pedagogy of critical exploration to be particularly well suited to the…

In this study, a group of teacher educators converse about their teaching practice in light of a new provincial K-12 program of social studies. The most noteworthy feature of this new program is its explicit call for teachers to include Aboriginal and Francophone perspectives as they teach to the program's two central themes of…

This paper discusses research on a Partner Classroom pilot program that was implemented over a two-year period to provide "high quality," "targeted" field experiences in a senior-level elementary literacy methods course. The aim was to shift the focus from passive watching and engagement in routine classroom tasks to emphasize guided observations,…