In this article, the author investigates the experience of six preservice teachers who volunteered to work with English language learners (ELLs). For this project, the preservice teachers would meet with their students to conduct one-on-one interviews about their reading and writing, hold conferences with them, and share their own writing as well.…

Fifty-one sixth graders participated in three rounds of online literature circles and three face-to-face literature circles. The authors describe how the online literature circles were introduced and organized in the classroom and discuss the tensions, struggles, and successes from their implementation. An analysis of qualitative data yielded…

For decades there has been a divide between educational research and practice. Sometimes the blame is placed on teachers for not following research-based strategies or not being trained well enough to read the literature. Just as frequently the blame is placed on researchers for not (a) studying topics important to teachers, (b) writing them so…

This paper explores narrative inquiry practices in pre-service teacher education program. Written dialogue by teacher candidates provided deep and long term reflection during a 5-year initial teacher education program. This 4-year longitudinal study with 30 teacher candidate participants considers participants' knowledge formation in becoming…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to ask how we can think about critical reflection as a pedagogical practice given the "confessional turn." By the "confessional turn," the author refers to the idea that "subjective, autobiographical and confessional modes of expression" have expanded exponentially across a wide range of social spheres,…

Research intensive universities have important roles in society and cannot be valued solely on the basis of their contribution to economic growth. Their activities are only part of the diverse spectrum of the higher education system which advanced societies need. League tables of universities discourage diversity, distort the goals of higher…

Although classroom-oriented instructional development (ID) models have the potential to help teachers think and plan for effective instruction with technology, research studies have shown that they are not widely employed. Many of these models have not factored in the complexities that teachers faced when planning for instruction in…

This study aimed to investigate whether student teachers' achievement goal orientations changed during teacher studies, and how motivational trajectories were related to academically- and teaching-relevant antecedents and outcomes. A total of 170 participants were followed up between two and five time points. Using individual growth models,…

The struggle to equitably serve low-income students of color in U.S. schools is as significant as ever. The nation is also struggling to prepare enough teachers to serve these students. These challenges are exacerbated when these students are more likely to attend substandard schools. Combined, a tension exists between producing enough teachers…

In this critically reflective piece, I describe the design of a foundations of education course and my first year teaching experience. I discuss thematic statements of issues that emerged as I came to construct the meaning of my experience and evolving ideas about teaching for public service professions. These included that: (1) Questioning is not…

The daily reality of working with a group of young children presents many demands for adults in early childhood programs. There are the ongoing chores of caretaking and cleaning up, planning and providing an engaging curriculum, communicating with families and coworkers, and the ever-growing pressures for outcomes, assessment, and documentation to…

Mentor teachers need a versatile supervisory skills repertoire. Besides taking the prevalent role of daily advisor and instructor, mentor teachers should also be able to stimulate reflection in student teachers. Video recordings of 60 mentoring dialogues were analysed, both before and after a mentor teacher training aimed at developing the…

This article is about the moving toward a new instruction style--a transformative model of instruction. One university instructor attempts to change her teaching strategies, and she encounters her own belief as obstacles, self-labeled her pedagogical discrepancies. Through peer feedback, reflective journal writing, and readings she uncovers the…

College instructors use a variety of approaches to teach students to reason more effectively about issues with a moral dimension and achieve mixed results. This pre-post study of 423 undergraduate students examined the effects of morally explicit and implicit curricular content and of selected pedagogical strategies on moral reasoning development.…

Drawing from a three-year qualitative multi-case study that examined three urban elementary schools as these schools instituted grade-level data-based collaboration as a school-wide literacy reform strategy, this article investigates how knowledge of student learning and instructional considerations evolved over time across this collection of…