Beliefs often guide a teacher's decision-making, thinking, and practice in the classroom (Vartuli, 2005). There is limited longitudinal research on how early childhood preservice teachers develop new knowledge about their beliefs as they transition into in-service teaching positions (Joram & Gabriele, 1998). Across 4 years that encompassed a…

Excerpts from case studies of two preservice teaching teams exemplify a new approach for merging research and practice within an introductory early childhood methods course. Through participation in cycles of collaborative action research focused on the joint task of implementing long-term projects, preservice teachers evidenced change in the ways…

The focus of this article is to describe a social organization of instruction and identify the conditions and contexts of critical classroom inquiry that are essential components of contemporary teacher education programs. Novice teachers must develop both the need to know and dispositions for knowing in order to move away from…