Despite the importance of learning to teach writing, many preservice teachers do not take a writing course as part of their teacher preparation. For those universities that do offer a writing methods course, teacher educators face challenges in designing responsive and rigorous clinical experiences especially since writing is often under taught in…

Task selection is a critical element of mathematics teaching because mathematical tasks differ in the mathematical opportunities made available to students. Thus, it is important to examine both the tasks that PSTs chose and why they were chosen. This study examines the task selection of 10 pre-service teachers (PSTs) in a middle grades…

This research examined teacher candidate perceptions of a field experience that provided authentic opportunities for the candidates to bridge the theory and content from the methods classroom to their work with 6th grade students in an English language arts classroom. Candidates' perception of their growth and the experience was overwhelmingly…

The purpose of this study was to investigate middle level preservice teacher self-efficacy beliefs in general, as well as in the domain of reading. The participants were 8 middle school preservice teachers enrolled in a state-mandated reading methods course and student teaching over the course of a year. As part of the yearlong internship, the…

Pedagogical competence and teaching efficacy significantly influence the quality of classroom science learning. Without applying pedagogical learning in realistic classroom environments, there is slight possibility that prospective teachers will increase their teaching confidence or develop understanding of how learners acquire and construct…

This qualitative self-study examines the incorporation of service learning in 2 sections of a middle childhood undergraduate methods course. As a beginning teacher educator, I used self-study to explore the following research questions: (a) How does engaging in a service-learning project during a field experience influence middle level preservice…

In this article, the author explores her observations of preservice teachers' technological literacy as it is often enacted across iterations of a writing methods course. Using personal examples and classroom anecdotes, the author argues that the construct of "digital native" is flawed and, instead, the author positions preservice…

Thirty preservice teachers enrolled in a field-based science methods course were placed at a public elementary school for coursework and for teaching practice with elementary students. Candidates focused on building conceptual understanding of science content and pedagogical methods through innovative curriculum development and other course…

Through a mixed-methods study, teacher education faculty members investigated the implementation of a new block of courses and an associated secondary clinical experience designed to prepare preservice secondary special educators. Seventy-three preservice candidates (a) completed then-and-now surveys assessing their confidence implementing 25…

The two research questions that guided this study were: (1) How do preservice teachers develop mathematical knowledge for teaching during a coordinated math methods course and field experience? and (2) What types of portfolio tasks lend themselves to documenting mathematical knowledge in teaching? Six, female, elementary (K-8) teacher candidates…