Informed by a conceptual framework on boundary crossing, this qualitative case study explored how a student teacher engaged in professional learning through recursive boundary crossing between her field school and the university programme in a U.S. context. The findings revealed the power of boundary crossing as a cyclical, intense, and…

Teachers who mentor student teachers have a range of mentoring, coaching and teaching experience. Appropriate professional development for mentors takes consideration of this experience as well as the age phase, context (for example, main-stream or special education setting) and route that the student teacher is taking into teaching (school-based…

Associate teachers (ATs) play a crucial role in supporting beginning teachers but there is little research that identifies the practicum as an opportunity for advancing ATs' leadership capability. While research identifies mentoring as central to the way ATs support beginning teachers entering the profession, there is little explicit discussion of…

This study investigated the effects of a co-teaching training program on female pre-service teachers of special education at the Faculty of Education, King Saud University. It also examined whether the participants' academic majors affected their total knowledge gains obtained from the administered training program. A co-teaching training program…

Successful teaching requires that student teachers acquire a conceptual understanding of teaching practices. A promising way to promote such a conceptual understanding is to provide student teachers with examples. We conducted a 3 (between-subjects factor "example format": reading, generation, classification) x 4 (within-subjects factor…

Elementary social studies is often viewed as less important than mathematics and reading. Although part of the curriculum, social studies is often overlooked by teachers due to testing demands. Therefore, it was important to investigate preservice teachers' perceptions and attitudes about social studies upon entering their methods courses to…

Digital competence has become increasingly important in modern societies and is today central to the possibility of participating on equal terms as a citizen in a contemporary democracy. Thus, it is now stressed as a crucial learning objective, nationally as well as internationally. One pervasive consequence of the digitalization of society is the…

While the capstone experience of student teaching is sometimes perceived as a time where everything from one's teacher preparation neatly comes together, that is often not the case. Student teachers frequently find themselves positioned at the intersection of competing discourses as they consider: who am I, and what does that mean for how I teach?…

Most studies on pupils' appraisal of teaching quality focus on appraisal by experienced or in-service teachers. The study reported here investigated the teaching effectiveness of teacher trainees from the school pupils' point of view. Drawing on research carried out in Tanzania, this study argues that pupil ratings offer some important points that…

This study examines the history of craft education, especially in the context of social and temporal changes, and envisions its future based on narratives collected by student teachers at two Finnish universities. The research material covers essay responses that discussed the future of craft education in the light of forecasted megatrends. The…

According to TALIS 2018 results, pre-service teachers spend a growing amount of time in classrooms, increasing the time and importance of training by their mentor partners. However, mentors are not always well equipped to mentor novices: the new theoretical knowledge taught at the university is not necessarily familiar to the teachers appointed as…

This study explores professional social support models in schools in Finland and Estonia. The study sheds light on how Finnish and Estonian minority language schools have organised social support in the frame of their professional development for beginning teachers. Using a structural framework for understanding social support at all systemic…

The "mentor teacher" within the Professional Development School (PDS) model is in a unique role of providing leadership during the student teacher internship and supporting the development of student interns' efficacious beliefs. Data collected from student intern surveys were used to answer the following research questions. Are student…

During field experiences in teacher education, student teachers are generally placed individually with a mentor. Teacher education institutes search for alternative field experience models, inspired by collaborative learning such as team teaching. This study explores two team teaching models, parallel and sequential teaching, by investigating the…

Accreditation agencies and organizations calling for higher academic standards in the teaching profession have called for increasing minimum grade point averages and scores on standardized tests. However, it's not clear that these requirements actually improve teaching. Lisa Borden-King, Warren Gamas, Kathy Hintz, and Chelsie Hultz researched…