The literature on teaching research methods to social work students identifies many challenges, such as dealing with the tensions related to producing research relevant to practice, access to data to teach practice-based research, and limited student interest in learning research methods. This is an exploratory study of the learning experiences of…

This study aimed to document pre-service elementary teachers' (PSTs'), who are going to teach K-5, ability to construct as well as evaluate justifications varied in terms of levels of sophistication. Additionally, this study aimed to investigate how PSTs' knowledge of content in which they were being asked to prove influenced their ability to…

This study examined the impact of explicit instruction on metacognitive reading strategies among 18 K-8 teacher candidates in a literacy methods course. They received weekly explicit intervention about these strategies over one semester. Collected data included pre- and post-scores of the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory…

This study examines how pre-service elementary teachers (PSETs) view inquiry-based science learning and teaching, and how the science methods course builds their confidence to teach inquiry science. Most PSETs think that inquiry is asking students questions rather than a formal set of pedagogical tools. In the present study, three groups of PSETs…

This pilot study examined the use of a simulation classroom in helping teacher candidates enrolled in a general methods class adjust their communication for English learners (ELs). Surveys were administered to teacher candidates asking them to report their sense of efficacy in meeting the needs of English learners. According to survey data, the…

The need to prepare students with twenty-first-century skills through STEM-related teaching is strong, especially at the elementary level. However, most teacher education preparation programs do not focus on STEM education. In an attempt to provide an exemplary model of a STEM unit, we used a rapid prototyping approach to transform an…

This design was intended to act as a template for technology integration for preservice teachers in an English language arts class. However, the unintended result was a celebration of cultural heritage and increased classroom community. Through the project, 23 preservice teachers used online tools to design digital scrapbook pages that reflected…

This study investigated how a group of 10 prospective secondary mathematics teachers (PST) read, evaluated, and adapted a textbook lesson involving the symbolic manipulation capabilities of computer algebra systems (CASS). PST read the entire lesson and tended to focus on the organizing question at the beginning of the student lesson and the CAS-S…

This article looks closely at the talk of two pre-service teachers over time to examine how they used language as a way of rehearsing their evolving agency as literacy educators. Drawing on critical sociocultural theory, I use Agency Tracing to highlight how pre-service teachers' agentic actions are not isolated phenomena but ones developed and…

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…

This study describes teacher learning in a teaching experiment consisting of a content-focused methods course involving the mathematical knowledge for teaching function. Prospective and practicing teachers in the course showed growth in their ability to define function, to provide examples of functions and link them to the definition, in the…

As much as the history and study of Africa have been incorporated into social studies curricula, Africa is still a region that is prone to misperceptions and misconceptions. Social studies teachers could provide students with an alternative image, but what if they only perpetuate misperceptions of Africa? This case study examines preservice…

This paper describes the research conducted in the Republic of Croatia during the 2012/13 academic year. We have gathered opinions from experts, i.e. teaching methods teachers from seven faculties of teacher education, regarding the music teaching competencies necessary for primary education teachers teaching music in the first several grades of…

Research indicates that preservice teachers' understandings of how to integrate technology into their classrooms are dependent upon experience in their university methods courses and in their field placements. These findings place a new responsibility on teacher educators for modeling effective integration of technology into methods courses. This…

The development of scientifically literate citizens begins in the elementary school. Yet elementary school teachers are ill prepared to teach science (Trygstad, Smith, Banilower, Nelson, & Horizon Research, Inc., 2013). The research base on teacher preparation finds that programs designed to prepare elementary teachers are inadequate in…