Researching can be viewed as a way of analysing issues of schooling by linking theoretical knowledge with perceptions of educational reality already during teacher education. Not only does practicing teaching provide a context for analysing instruction, learning, school culture, diversity, or any other issue related to schooling, also researching…

At the end of a biology course entitled Ecology, Evolution, and Genetics, students were asked to consider how their learning experience had changed their perception of either ecology or genetics. Students were asked to express their thoughts in the form of a "digital story" using readily available software to create movies for the purpose of…

Teacher educators must examine how technology selection facilitates and constrains the learning outcomes of the courses they teach. This article introduces a process for selecting and evaluating technologies that meet the important principles of each learning task. As an example from his own practice, the author details how he used the process to…

The notion of the essential balance needed between the art and science of teaching is explored through the introspection of a developmental mathematics instructor at a community college. A dialogue was held over a three year period between the authors and the instructor. Through the dialogue and discussion of college teaching research-based…

Preservice teachers (PTs) tend to enter teacher education programs with naive understandings of the nature of teaching. In order to enhance their development of the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to be an effective educator, I designed an innovative Educational Psychology assignment in the practice of teaching. PTs (N=48) formed…

In this article, the authors explore how the pervasive availability of technology allows for new social arrangements in teacher education by connecting preservice teachers, school- based personnel, university faculty, and others in deep and engaging ways. The authors illustrate this perspective and then propose four implications for teacher…

Social work literature provides analysis and strategies about teaching social work practice and its interrelationship with a diverse society. In this paper, we present a framework to aid instructors' understanding of and response to conflict in the classroom, which is unavoidable. We propose the "reflective practitioner paradigm" along with the…

Cultural activities such as teaching and learning are highly complex systems that are deeply embedded in a wider culture and these factors impede change. Despite feeling directly the effect of the recent drive towards mass participation in higher education, most lecturers have not accounted for these changes in their teaching methods. Unless…

This article presents one educator's philosophic answer to the question "Why am I teaching?" During the course of this article, principles of servant teachership are presented. In addition, some teaching approaches used by the author are presented.

Mentoring has become an important part of teacher education, as an element in both the enhancement of reflective practice and the professional development of schools. Yet the concept remains confused. Problematic issues such as the elements of power and control, and the danger of dependence and intimacy are seldom heard when mentoring is…

Job embedded professional development in the K-12 education setting has long been discussed and debated. This study builds on standards of critical reflection and thinking using the National Institute for Excellence in Education's Teacher Advancement Program's master teacher model as a conduit between theory and practice. A study of professional…

Teachers often rely on student questions, their observations of students at work, and their own intuition to monitor how well students are learning. However, the authors found that teachers learn more about their students when they use the four-step Reflective Assessment Technique that draws on guided teacher reflections to inform classroom…

The use of blogging (online diaries), to support student learning and reflection has increasingly been adopted for assessment purposes in higher education. The relative ease of use and accessibility of the tools indicate that these social networking applications are, potentially, a convenient means of documenting and sharing individual student…

The purpose of this case study was to explore the experiences of participants (practicing teachers) involved in an online course entitled: "Reflective Practice for Teachers." Using a provocative pedagogy in the course, the teachers were challenged to confront beliefs and assumptions about teaching and learning and become active participants in the…

Analysis of our own experiences teaching in preservice teacher education programs leads us to a range of insights, issues, and questions associated with the potential of seeing teaching as a discipline. We begin with the reality that teaching and teacher education appear to students as easy activities, while those who actually do them see them as…