Narrative inquiry was utilized to allow undergraduate students involved in an undergraduate research course to narrate their experiences in their research undertakings under the guidance of their respective mentors. A total of four focus groups representing the Bachelor of Arts and Letters, Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Secondary Education,…

Learner-centered leadership promotes the facilitation of action research in the classroom as a method of improving teaching and learning. Action research is a classroom research process in which educators study their students' learning related to their own teaching. This process allows teachers to reflect on their own instructional practices and…

This paper describes methods for teaching content analysis as part of the Research sequence in social work education. Teaching content analysis is used to develop research skills as well as to promote students' knowledge and critical thinking and about new information technology resources that are being increasingly used by the general public. The…

This study investigated how early childhood education (ECE) (PreK-3) preservice teachers' ideas about science education change as a result of implementing an inquiry-based curriculum within an ECE science methods course (ten-week quarter). Fifty-two preservice teachers, including 50 females and 2 males, with 2 members of an ethnic minority group…

Field experiences are critical to teacher learning and enhance the effectiveness of methods courses; however, when methods courses are offered in the summer, traditional school-based field experiences are not possible. This article describes an alternative campus-based experience created as part of an elementary science methods course. The Summer…

This case study of three teacher education programs in California colleges aimed to answer two questions through informal interviews of methods course instructors and analysis of the associated course syllabi: First, what assumptions or theories of professional development appear to inform the various methods courses for preservice secondary…

This article describes the findings of a five-year longitudinal study examining 23 elementary teachers' use of technology in the classroom. Specifically, it describes how these teachers' experiences in a technology-enriched elementary social studies methods course, taken in the fall of 2000, have affected their attitudes towards and use of…

This article reports the influence of school-integrated teacher education (SITE) courses on student teachers' initial experiences of learning how to teach. We analyse data from five student teachers who reflect back on their experiences of learning to teach through the integrated teaching and learning experiences of SITE courses. The article…

Improving teacher effectiveness is high on the list of most education reformers in Colorado, as it is nationally. Effective teaching in the elementary years is of vital importance to ensure not only that children master fundamental skills, but that performance gaps narrow rather than widen beyond repair. Disadvantaged students can catch up…

Team teaching provided a model for real-world collaborative research efforts in a doctoral level course in research methodology. The instructors--one bringing extensive experience in teaching statistical methods and program evaluation; the other specializing in conducting qualitative research--used a constructivist framework for the course,…

The purposes of this research were to: (1) gather information about attributes of methods course teaching that make it more or less effective, (2) compare the perspectives of instructors and students on attributes of effectiveness, and (3) understand more about how university teachers develop an understanding of the thinking of prospective…

Preservice teachers enrolled in a reading methods course at a large university in the southwestern United States engage in a multicultural project which requires collaborative research. Groups are formed at the beginning of the semester, and either choose or are assigned a specific culture to research. Students then investigate the history and…

Argues that how teachers feel about themselves professionally stems from the education profession itself--from the way it recognizes high achievement, the way it prepares teachers for their profession, what it expects from teachers in schools, and the role of teachers in educational research and development. (Author)

Describes a project in the United Kingdom designed to produce materials for methods courses. (BR)

Comparison of teaching methods and instructional approaches is a basic component of beginning methods courses in teacher education. While many textbooks include overviews of some methods, they rarely cover a wide range of methods and they rarely provide pro/con agruments for the proper selection of a method in a given context. This bibliography…