There is consensus in the literature that teacher education programs exhibit the characteristics of complex systems. These characteristics of teacher education programs as complex systems challenges the conventional, teacher-directed/ textbook-based positivist approaches in teacher education literature which has tried to reduce the complexities…

This paper reports on one aspect of a large-scale nationwide study that surveyed English teacher educators about English teacher preparation programs throughout the United States. One aspect of the study focused on how technology is integrated within the context of English teacher education programs, asking the question, "As an area of…

Graduate students in political science come to the discipline interested in exploring important political questions, such as "What causes war?" or "What policies promote economic growth?" However, they typically do not arrive prepared to address those questions using quantitative methods. Graduate methods instructors must…

Without the science content knowledge required to effectively teach this discipline, many elementary teachers struggle without the support of curriculum materials. Curriculum materials are often the main means by which these science practices and canonical knowledge are incorporated into lessons. As part of a 5-year longitudinal research and…

This research explores the question of how students in a social studies methods course improve skills in analyzing and critiquing pre-existing lesson plans. It utilizes a pre-post authentic assessment tool to measure student growth in key skills of lesson plan critique over the course of one semester's methods instruction. The results support the…

In this semester-long, phenomenological case study the author investigated graduate education majors' development of relational care (i.e., dispositions of concern, sensitivity, attention, and commitment to students and their needs) as they engaged in service-learning tutoring connected to a required writing methods course. The author wanted to…

An elementary mathematics teacher once argued that she and her students held four Rights of the Learner in the classroom: (1) the right to be confused; (2) the right to claim a mistake; (3) the right to speak, listen and be heard; and (4) the right to write, do, and represent only what makes sense. Written as an emerging framework to promote…

The PETE program at Arizona State University (ASU) has taken several steps to diversify its focus in recent years and include the development of the needed knowledge and skills among its majors in not only developing focused physical education programs but also in providing expanded physical activity opportunities for all students. This article…

Research indicates that preservice teacher (PT) education programs can positively impact perceptions of scientific probeware use in K-8 environments. Despite the potential of probeware to improve science instruction and student engagement, its use in elementary education has been limited. Sixty-seven PT enrolled across three sections of an…

This collective case study examines how two teacher candidates' digital story projects created in literacy methods courses made visible their negotiated and evolving visions of teaching and learning. The digital stories were created to show and describe their future literacy classrooms. Using metaphoric analysis, the researchers uncovered the…

We present our approach to a qualitative research methods course to prepare practitioner-scholars for their dissertation and independent research. We explain how an instructor's guide provides consistency and rigor, and in-class activities to scaffold learning, and helps faculty connect the content to students' out-of-school lives. We explain how…

The international trend towards a practice-based approach in teacher education has permeated foreign language teacher education and English language teaching. A practice-based approach is based on the understanding that teachers learn to teach a language by engaging in "actual" teaching rather than "talking" about teaching. We…

Inservice teachers, participants in a prior study on mathematics anxiety, were revisited to determine whether their levels of mathematics anxiety still existed and/or continued to change after 5 years teaching experience. A 98-item Likert-type survey, informal discussions, informal interviews, and questionnaire-guided narrative interviews were…

Amid the implementation of new curriculum standard regarding statistics and new recommendations for preservice secondary mathematics teachers (PSMTs) to teach statistics, there is a need to examine the current state of PSMTs' knowledge of the statistical content they will be expected to teach. This study reports on the statistical knowledge of 217…

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…