Examining the unexpected sophistication of preservice teachers’ beliefs about the relational dimensions of teaching

Research on preservice teachers’ beliefs about professional teaching capabilities indicates strong attention to the relational dimension; these studies have contributed to a portrayal of preservice teachers as simplistic and overly optimistic about the teaching profession. In this article, I position preservice teachers’ attention to teacher–student relationships as a form of professional knowledge. Drawing from findings of a qualitative study of U.S. elementary (prekindergarten-Grade 4) preservice teachers who were asked to describe professional characteristics of effective teachers, I suggest their beliefs reveal surprisingly nuanced understandings about the complex nature of teaching.     

Creating and facilitating a teacher education curriculum using preservice teachers’ autobiographical stories

Preservice teachers’ autobiographical stories can serve as a personal, powerful, and poignant curriculum for teacher education. This research examines what and how preservice teachers learned through sharing their own and witnessing others’ autobiographical narratives in a literacy methods course. The teacher educator’s key role is examined in facilitating a public context of vulnerability in which preservice teachers shared painful stories revealing their sociocultural inequalities and personal struggles as literacy learners. Roles of the teacher educator are discussed in the transformation of autobiographies into deep understandings, universal connections and substantive strategies for preservice teachers to teach literacy effectively with diverse students.     

Learning environment,self-efficacy for teaching mathematics,and beliefs about mathematics

Learning environment research has a long history of significant relationships between the learning environment and student outcomes. This study investigated relationships between the learning environments of mathematics courses in a teacher education program and two outcomes, mathematics teaching self-efficacy and beliefs about mathematics. These two outcomes have been repeatedly shown to influence the future teaching practices of preservice teachers but, to date, their relationships with learning environment have been investigated neither with preservice teachers nor at all in the United Arab Emirates or wider Gulf region. The learning environment was found to be significantly related to preservice teachers’ mathematics teaching self-efficacy and beliefs about mathematics. Learning environments perceived more favourably by preservice teachers were associated with higher self-efficacy for teaching mathematics, but also with more-traditional beliefs, making these findings important for higher education institutes and teacher educators.

     

Building caring relationships between a teacher and students in a teacher preparation program word-by-word, moment-by-moment

Our purpose was to illustrate the process by which caring relationships between students and their teacher educator developed in the context of preservice reading preparation that made use of online communication as one class activity. Describing the development of caring relationships between three students and their teacher, we showed that caring could not be considered a one-way characteristic of what teachers do and are, but rather that it depended on students’ reciprocal responses. Findings indicated that the trajectories of caring relationships developed differently, each influenced by differences in entering expectations, critical events, and a negotiation of what the relationship meant.     

Tools that come from within: Learning to teach in a cross-cultural adult literacy practicum

We report on a study of preservice teachers who tutored adults learning English in a free evening class while simultaneously taking a course titled Community Literacy. Exploring their participation, we wondered in what ways pedagogy developed within this context. Drawing on a close discourse analysis of preservice teachers’ written work, we found that each preservice teacher constructed pedagogy differently but in ways that drew on students’ funds of knowledge, interests, ways of learning, and political interests. Moreover, through reflections on practice, preservice teachers sedimented their identities as teachers who see diversity as a resource in teaching.     

Preservice teachers’ sense of preparedness and self-efficacy to teach in America’s urban and suburban schools: Does context matter?

The researcher examined the influence that school contextual factors have on American preservice teachers’ sense of preparedness to teach and culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy appraisals. The findings suggest that preservice teachers in this study felt more prepared and confident to teach in a suburban school compared to an urban school. Additionally, preservice teachers felt less prepared and confident to teach English Language Learners regardless of their enrolment in an urban or suburban school. This study has implications for the preparation of teachers who are self-efficacious in their ability to teach in both urban and suburban educational settings.     

Learning to teach science: Personal epistemologies,teaching goals,and practices of teaching

The purpose of this study was to understand what personal epistemologies and science teaching goals preservice secondary science teachers of a teacher education program in the USA bring with them to their learning to teach and how they translate such beliefs into actions. A set of essay questions, developed through a pilot study, was used to identify preservice teachers’ personal epistemologies and teaching goals at the beginning of science methods instruction. Classroom observation reports, video recorded teaching episodes, lesson plans and self-video reflections were collected to identify connections between their epistemologies, teaching goals, and practice of teaching. Relational and ontological dimensions of epistemological beliefs were found to be useful for understanding preservice teachers’ personal epistemologies and teaching practices. The data suggests that the participants’ espoused teaching goals were relevant to their personal epistemologies when differentiating naïve personal epistemologies from the sophisticated, and their emerging teaching practices demonstrated shifts in personal epistemologies and potential for further development in teaching practices. Findings indicate sources of how teaching practices are shaped. Implications for teacher education include needs for addressing ways to deal with teaching constraints for constructivist teaching approaches, collaboration with content course instructors, critical reflection on field experience, and developing induction programs that support continuing development of emerging teaching practices.     

Facilitating preservice teachers’ development of mathematics knowledge for teaching arithmetic operations

Mathematical tasks, centered on arithmetic word problems, are discussed as the basis of an approach to facilitate preservice elementary teachers’ development of mathematical knowledge for teaching arithmetic operations. The approach consists of three groups of tasks that allow students to reflect on their initial knowledge, explore arithmetic word problem situations from multiple perspectives, and apply their resulting knowledge, respectively. Findings from the investigation of the approach indicate that the tasks can provide an effective and meaningful basis to help preservice teachers to develop deeper understandings of the arithmetic operations and their relationships and pedagogical-mathematical knowledge for teaching the arithmetic operations conceptually.     

Preservice teachers’ implicit attitudes toward students with and without immigration background: A pilot study

Minority students are often disadvantaged in school. One factor contributing to this disadvantage may be teachers’ judgments; these may, in turn, be influenced by implicit attitudes. Implicit attitudes often guide automatic behavior, which comes into play when cognitive resources are restrained. This is particularly important for preservice teachers, who lack experience in the classroom. In an affective priming task, results showed ambivalent implicit attitudes toward students with immigration background and positive implicit attitudes toward native students. Such asymmetrical implicit evaluations could bias preservice teachers’ interactions with students in the classroom. Acquiring an understanding of the influence of implicit attitudes during their academic studies might help preservice teachers counter implicit and automatic influences.     

Reading Rocks: Creating a Space for Preservice Teachers to Become Responsive Teachers

Set in a yearlong, school-based tutoring program, designed as a community of practice, we use qualitative methodology to examine how 14 preservice teachers learned to become responsive teachers. We focus on one question: In what ways does participating in a yearlong, supervised tutoring program mediate preservice teachers' learning about responsive teaching? The preservice teachers described the ways they came to learn about their buddies and build caring relationships with them. They reported the importance of collaboration with their tutoring buddies, peers, families, and classroom teachers, and that through the yearlong tutoring experience, the preservice teachers gained confidence as teachers and a sense of efficacy as caring educators. This study is important because it uncovers how school-based tutoring programs, modeled as a community of practice, can provide opportunities for preservice teachers to grow professionally to become responsive educators.     

(Re)thinking preservice teachers’ field experiences through a spatial lens

ABSTRACT

Space is not separable from the learning and teaching that take place in and through teacher education programs. In this paper, we attempt to illustrate how the use of a spatial lens in preservice teachers field placement can provide them with opportunities to raise questions and understand more about the relationships between self, the discursive construction of others, and taken-for-granted notions of learning and teaching. In helping preservice teachers’ critical reflections upon their spatial experience at their field sites, we specifically focus on “mapping” space as our approach to developing a critical embodied pedagogy. In particular, we highlight one White female preservice teacher’s spatial experience in a homeless shelter. We discuss the implications of developing pedagogical tools from the spatial perspective for early childhood teacher education programs.     

Use of Computer-Mediated Communication in a Teaching Practicum Course

This study investigates how Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) can be effectively used in a teaching practicum course to enhance preservice teachers learning. We constructed a web-based CMC system and used it in a Teaching Practicum course. Computer science preservice teachers and experienced secondary school computer teachers, who served as mentors, participated in the study. The research findings indicate that the preservice teachers considered the CMC system helpful for supporting their learning. The findings also indicate that some initiating/follow-up discussion styles of the mentors were more effective than others in promoting interactions in the discussion forum. It was also found that a teaching-video-enhanced CMC environment is valuable in improving quality of mentoring and in increasing preservice teachers reflection on teaching.     

Effects of Self-Efficacy,Emotional Intelligence,and Perceptions of Future Work Environment on Preservice Teacher Commitment

This study was designed to examine the effects of self-efficacy, expectations of future work environment, and emotional intelligence on preservice teacher commitment to the teaching profession on a sample of 209 preservice teachers. The purpose of the study was to add to the existing knowledge surrounding preservice teacher commitment and promote new ways to approach teacher education. Using correlation and regression analyses, we found that preservice teacher self-efficacy expectations surrounding classroom management, instructional strategies, and student engagement were positively correlated with commitment. Preservice teacher expectations of future work environment influenced their satisfaction with the profession, which was also positively correlated with their commitment to enter the profession. Preservice teachers with greater emotional awareness and pro-motivational thinking also demonstrated higher levels of commitment.     

Moving between literacy theory and practice with preservice teachers: Listening to their voices

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate two research questions: What literacy learning did preservice teachers experience through a Penpal Project embedded in an early literacy course? What sense did preservice teachers make of the Penpal Project?—with an overarching focus on bridging literacy theory with practice.

Data were gathered in a university classroom setting, situated in a small Western town, over a period of one school semester. Data methods and sources included videotaped participant observation during weekly penpal letter‐sharing, preservice teachers’ reflection journals, focus group interviews, and preservice teachers’ Penpal Project Summaries.

Patterns emerged from the data and were conceptualized under three broad categories: discourse, discovery and dilemmas. In the discourse category, cultivating relationships and learning through collaboration emerged as themes. Discoveries included meaning‐ and skill‐centered interpretations and professional learning. With regard to dilemmas, preservice teachers reported feelings of inadequacy in decoding their penpals’ letters, in finding topics to pique their penpals’ interests, and in making logical speculations.

Conclusions highlighted the importance of including field experiences in teacher education courses in order for preservice teachers to integrate early literacy theory and practice. A focus on forming relationships, working in collaboration with others, and acknowledging and solving challenges revealed added benefits for the preservice teachers, including a deeper understanding of young students’ early literacy development.     

From rigid dichotomy to measured contingency. Hong Kong preservice teachers' discursive construction of identity

This article reports on a qualitative study into the discursive construction of teacher identities amongst six preservice English language teachers in Hong Kong. While teacher identity construction has been conceptualized as an evolving process of becoming a teacher, some preservice teachers regard their professional identities as rigid, resulting in criticism of teacher education programs that promote a unitary image of ‘good’ teachers and teaching. The results of this study suggest that the participants did hold rigid conceptions about mutually exclusive types of teachers and teaching approaches. These conceptions were challenged as participants reflected on their own enactment of teacher identities.     

Inservice Teachers Mentoring Aspiring Teachers

This qualitative study examined the impact of mentoring relationships upon preservice and inservice teachers' literacy instruction. Twenty-two undergraduate students seeking teacher certification were assigned in pairs to tutor primary school students in a university reading clinic. Eleven classroom teachers seeking reading specialist certification conducted ten mentoring sessions with each pair of preservice teachers. Purposeful sampling was used to select three of the mentoring teams for data analysis. In two out of three teams, results indicated that preservice teachers expanded their instructional strategies as a result of three components of the mentoring relationship: selection of strategies, organization, and non-judgmental support. All inservice teachers reported increased reflection on and adaptation to their instructional strategies. Findings support the conclusion that early mentoring experiences foster growth for both preservice and inservice teachers.     

The Influence of Teacher Development on Secondary Content Area Supervision Among Preservice Teachers

This study addresses the issues and challenges faced by university supervisors when providing content-specific and general pedagogical feedback to preservice teachers. Study data highlight the perspectives of six preservice teachers as they reflect on their supervisory experiences over the course of a licensure year. Survey, interview, and written observation data from preservice teachers and university supervisors reveal the influence of teacher development and content area conventions on how preservice teachers view their teaching abilities and their expectations of university supervisors. Findings will inform how others may approach mentoring, support, and the evaluation of beginning teachers.     

Conveying Respect and Empathy: Becoming a relational teacher educator

This is the second of two self-studies of my efforts to prepare preservice teachers for the practical realities of the classroom while being respectful of their personal practical knowledge. I coined the term “relational teacher education” to convey my approach, which is informed by Rogers' “helping relationships” and Hollingsworth, Dybdahl, and Minarik's “relational knowing.” In this paper, I share “A Letter to Preservice Teachers” before exploring the final four characteristics of relational teacher education: respect and empathy, conveying respect and empathy, helping preservice teachers face problems, and receptivity to growing in relationship.     

Female Preservice Teachers and Mathematics: Anxiety,Beliefs, and Stereotypes

The purpose of the current study was to examine if preservice teachers’ (PSTs) mathematics anxiety decreased and if their beliefs and stereotypes changed after they completed their early childhood mathematics methods course. It was hypothesized that by using and modeling concrete materials or manipulatives (Thompson, 1992; Vinson, 2001) and placing a greater emphasis on conceptual understanding (Bursal & Paznokas, 2006), two strategies identified as reducing PSTs’ mathematics anxiety, negative beliefs, and stereotypes that are associated with math anxiety, would diminish. Thirty preservice teachers, all female, participated in this study. Using a qualitative research approach, measures included midcourse evaluations, a draw-a-mathematician task (Mewborn & Cross 2007), the Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (Hopko, Mahadevan, Bare, & Hunt, 2003), and anecdotal notes. Although we were encouraged that the math anxiety experienced by our preservice teachers slightly decreased by the end of the semester, it was discouraging to find minimal change of beliefs and stereotypes of mathematicians. This confirms that many preservice teachers enter teacher education programs with well-established images of how to do school, along with entrenched beliefs about mathematics and their ability to do math (Vacc & Bright 1999) and these beliefs are very difficult to change.