An essential component of teacher preparation is clinical practice that allows teacher candidates (TCs) to observe, reflect upon, test their ideas, and adjust and improve their methods in classrooms. Weaknesses in the structure and organization between coursework and clinical practice in teacher preparation programs often present barriers from…

Classroom teachers need a well-developed deep understanding of fractions and pedagogic practices so they can provide meaningful experiences for students to explore and construct ideas about fractions. This study sought to examine prospective elementary teachers' understandings of fraction by focusing specifically on their use of fractions meanings…

Background/purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify strengths and deficits of alternative teacher certification programs, with particular emphasis on approaches to strengthening mathematical content knowledge and pedagogy. Materials/methods: Six participants included both teacher candidates enrolled in internship in the…

Curriculum materials are integral to the mathematics classroom, yet little is known about how teachers read curriculum in order to envision enactment. Through an assignment involving an approximation of actual teaching practice, we investigated prospective teachers' documentational genesis (Pepin et al. in ZDM 45:929-943, 2013) from curriculum…

Understanding, crafting, and asking questions is a critical skill for all teachers, maybe even more so for social studies content, an area where educators may lack broad, in depth knowledge of the content. Having the ability to ask high level, critical thinking questions of students takes time and practice and a skill not often mastered or present…

This study investigated preservice teachers' levels of mathematics anxiety before and after a mathematics methods course. Changes were measured using manipulatives and other activities to make mathematics concepts more concrete and meaningful. Both quantitative and qualitative measures were utilized. Informal discussions, informal interviews, and…

Even as momentum builds for critical, culturally sustaining, and decolonial approaches to pedagogy, curriculum, and teacher education, efforts in practice-based teacher education remain epistemically linked to Eurocentric, colonial objects of schooling, and shallow notions of justice. Yet attention to the what the day-to-day work of teaching is…

In the fall of 2020, due to COVID, our pre-service teachers did not have access to student work samples early in the semester. In order to learn how to assess student learning I reached out to an Arts and Sciences faculty who teaches a freshman course. The Arts and Sciences faculty was a former middle school teacher who was scheduled to talk about…

This article explores technology's integration, assessment, and reflection within a single secondary education program at a Mountain West university. In light of the publication of the Teacher Education Technology Competencies (TETCs), faculty members of a secondary education program focused on existing practices and pathways for expansion to…

We report the design of an analog technology, what we refer to as a SunRule, that uses sunlight to model multiplication. Physical models that explore multiplication are fixtures in elementary mathematics classrooms. Our interest in physical models of multiplication was driven by an overarching design problem: How could a physical tool realize a…

This mini-ethnographic study explored virtual elementary student teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on mathematics instruction. It was framed using Ecological Systems Theory and Critical Pedagogy. Data were collected from interviews, focus groups, observations, and site documents. Thematic analysis methods were used to analyze the…

This paper presents research that exists at the crossroad of scholarly practice and scholarly inquiry. We outline the process in the design, enactment, and empirical examination of an elementary methods course activity, Exploring and Supporting Student Thinking (ESST), which engaged 18 elementary prospective teachers (PTs) in two sessions of…

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the effect of using Web 2.0 tools in the teaching of socioscientific issues on pre-service science teachers. A total of 24 senior pre-service science teachers attending a state university in the spring term of the 2021-2022 academic year participated in the study. The study was conducted with the…

Scientific modeling is a scientific practice that uses models to prepare elementary and middle school science teachers to engage students using scientific inquiry. Model-based inquiry (MBI) is a pedagogical teaching approach that engages students using scientific inquiry during scientific modeling. However, preservice teachers lack understanding…

The purpose of this study was to explore four elementary preservice teachers' (PSTs) learning outcomes based on "affective characteristics," "science knowledge," and "pedagogical content knowledge" during a science methods course that incorporated "explicit instruction on drawing-to-reason" about…