Nurturing Confidence in Preservice Elementary Science Teachers

The purpose of this study was to examine changes in personal science teaching self-efficacy (PSTE), outcome expectancy (STOE), and science conceptual understanding and relationships among these in preservice teachers. Seventy preservice teachers enrolled in science teaching methods courses participated in this study. PSTE, STOE, and science conceptual understanding increased significantly during participation in the course. The study established that novice learners with minimal prior knowledge couldn't be expected to understand and employ core concepts in their learning schema without extensive guidance. The relationship between science learning confidence and science teaching confidence has not been theoretically delineated in the area of science teacher education. Findings suggest that there may be important connections between the two for preservice teachers that would be fruitful areas for future research.     

Learning to Teach with Mathematics Textbooks: How Preservice Teachers Interpret and Use Curriculum Materials

This study investigates how four prospective teachers interpret and use textbooks while learning to teach mathematics during university coursework and practicum teaching. Results indicate that prospective teachers had varied approaches to using textbooks ranging from adherence, elaboration, and creation. Factors influencing how they engaged with texts include their practicum classroom setting, access to resources, and their understanding of mathematics. Preservice teachers' attempts to modify textbook lessons raised pedagogical, curricular, and mathematical questions for them that were not easily answered by reference to the textbooks or teacher's guides. Findings indicate that the practicum can, however, challenge preservice teachers to be creative and flexible users of curriculum materials.     

The Role of Content Knowledge and Problem Features on Preservice Teachers’ Appraisal of Elementary Mathematics Tasks

The objective of this study was to examine the nature of preservice teachers’ evaluations of elementary mathematics problems using the Mathematical Tasks Framework (MTF), a model designed to discriminate among tasks according to their cognitive complexity. We also tested the relationship between mathematics content knowledge and problem length on the preservice teachers’ evaluations. Twenty-six undergraduate students enrolled in an elementary mathematics methods course at a large urban university were introduced to the MTF and cognitive complexity during a class lecture and were subsequently required to sort 32 mathematics problems according to the framework. Results demonstrated that overall, the preservice teachers had more difficulty accurately classifying problems considered to represent high levels of cognitive complexity compared to problems that were less complex. Those with strong mathematics content knowledge, as measured by a standardized test, were able to sort the problems more accurately than those with weaker content knowledge. Two open-ended items assessing content knowledge were not related to sorting performance. Finally, the preservice teachers were influenced by the surface characteristic of task length; the data indicated that the teachers tended to label short problems as less cognitively demanding and long problems as more so. Implications for preservice professional development include an increased emphasis on mathematics content knowledge as well as expert modeling of the identification of deep conceptual principles at the heart of the mathematics curriculum.     

基于思维导图方法对职前教师极限概念理解的研究

职前教师缺乏对极限内容的深刻理解,可以运用画思维导图、访谈和讨论等方法深化职前教师对概念的理解.高师教育不应该削弱基础数学课程的教学,应在帮助职前教师深入理解数学本质上下工夫.     

中学数学教师的教师知识来源的调查研究

本研究通过问卷调查了不同来源对中学数学教师的教师知识发展的重要程度。研究结果显示:自身教学经验与反思、和同事的日常交流是最为重要的职后的教师知识来源,而入职后的学历教育是最不重要的教师知识来源。在职前的各种教师知识来源中,教育见习实习、微格教学是职前比较重要的教师知识来源,而数学专业课、教育类课程是最不重要和次重要的教师知识来源。根据这些结果,我们提出了在教师教育中促进教师知识发展的建议。     

Understanding the Impact of Accountability on Preservice Teachers’ Decisions About Where to Teach

Research has shown that individuals who become teachers are uniquely oriented to the psychic rewards of teaching such as connecting with students and making a difference. Yet, in the era of “No Child Left Behind”, emphasis upon test scores as indicators of student learning, competition within and between school districts, and threats of external sanctions seem to promote a different orientation to teachers’ work. This is especially the case in schools with limited human, social, physical, and cultural capital serving disproportionate numbers of low-income, racial/ethnic and linguistic minority students typically located in urban areas. Given the existing problem of teacher shortages in urban schools and the current impact of accountability, this study seeks to explore two questions: How do preservice teachers believe their aspirations to teach will be affected by the accountability movement? And how do these views affect their considerations about where to teach?     

The Development of Diploma in Education Student Teachers’ Mathematics Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Mathematics pedagogical content knowledge (MPCK) of teachers cannot be easily defined but is a complex concept integrating generic pedagogical knowledge, mathematics teaching methodology as well as knowledge of the discipline of mathematics. It is the objective of mathematics methodology courses in teacher preparation programmes to begin the development of MPCK in their pre-service teachers. As part of a research study on the development of MPCK in primary school beginning teachers, a 16-item instrument was developed to measure some aspects of the MPCK for teaching mathematics at primary level. The instrument was administered to the 2003 Intake of the Diploma in Education student teachers at the National Institute of Education, Singapore just at the beginning of their programme. As they completed their methodology course in February 2005, the instrument was administered again. This paper will discuss the findings concerning their performance in these two tests, with reference to the overall performance as well as topic-specific and MPCK construct-specific performance. The findings indicate that student teachers at the beginning of their programmes are generally quite weak in their mathematics pedagogical content knowledge, as might be expected. There was significant improvement in some aspects of their MPCK on completion of their mathematics pedagogy course.     

Validity Evidence of an Electronic Portfolio for Preservice Teachers

This study applied Messick's unified, multifaceted concept of construct validity to an electronic portfolio system used in a teacher education program. The subjects included 128 preservice teachers who recently completed their final portfolio reviews and student teaching experiences. Four of Messick's six facets of validity were investigated for the portfolio in this study, along with a discussion of the remaining facets examined in two previous studies. The evidence provided support for the substantive and generalizability aspects of validity, and limited support for the content, structural, external, and consequential aspects of validity. It was suggested that the electronic portfolio may be used as one requirement for certification purposes, but may not be valid for the purpose of assessing teacher competencies .     

Collaborative Effort to Develop Middle School Preservice Teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge

Abstract

This article describes reflections of two mathematicians and a mathematics teacher educator who collaborated on the development and implementation of courses (probability and statistics connections, number concept connections, and middle school mathematics methods) for middle school mathematics preservice teachers. The instructors of the courses, two in mathematics and one in mathematics education, worked together to more explicitly link course materials, assignments, and the pedagogical approaches. Collectively, the courses were designed to address the five components of preservice teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching (PT-MKT), and to model effective teaching practices. Using their collective experiences co-planning and implementing these course adjustments were made in the subsequent year. The instructors were pleased by their implementation and student outcomes in all three courses.

We describe how each component of the PT-MKT framework was approached in these courses and discuss challenges experienced by the instructors, who were part of a larger effort to develop and implement a middle school teacher preparation program. The information shared is based on data collected as part of a program evaluation effort, and is bolstered by the instructors’ recollection of events. Overall, the instructors enhanced the curricula and their instructional practices and found that the attention placed on developing PT-MKT support the mathematical development of middle school mathematics preservice teachers.     

Preservice elementary school teachers’ knowledge of fractions: a mirror of students’ knowledge?

This research analyses preservice teachers’ knowledge of fractions. Fractions are notoriously difficult for students to learn and for teachers to teach. Previous studies suggest that student learning of fractions may be limited by teacher understanding of fractions. If so, teacher education has a key role in solving the problem. We first reviewed literature regarding students’ knowledge of fractions. We did so because assessments of required content knowledge for teaching require review of the students’ understanding to determine the mathematics difficulties encountered by students. The preservice teachers were tested on their conceptual and procedural knowledge of fractions, and on their ability in explaining the rationale for a procedure or the conceptual meaning. The results revealed that preservice teachers’ knowledge of fractions indeed is limited and that last-year preservice teachers did not perform better than first-year preservice teachers. This research is situated within the broader domain of mathematical knowledge for teaching and suggests ways to improve instruction and student learning.     

The Learning and Teaching of Statistical Investigation in Teaching and Teacher Education

Current national standards in mathematicseducation in the United States call forrevision of content and pedagogy, including theaddition of statistics as a new topic in theelementary curriculum. The purpose of thisstudy is to examine the collaborative effortsof a mathematics educator and statistician tohelp prospective elementary teachers developstatistical knowledge and experience throughmerging statistical investigation into existingelementary curricula. Findings from this studyoffer insight into preservice teachers'statistical and pedagogical content knowledgebased on their application of the process ofstatistical investigation themselves and withchildren. Findings also indicate thatintegrating statistics into the elementarycurriculum is a more difficult and complexteaching and learning problem than expected.     

Resolving the amalgam: connecting pedagogical content knowledge,content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge

ABSTRACT

This paper concludes the Special Issue (SI) ‘Probing the Amalgam: the relationship between science teachers’ content, pedagogical and pedagogical content knowledge’. We review the five papers (Sorge et al; Gess-Newsome et al; Kind; Pitjeng-Mosabala and Rollnick; and Liepertz and Bronowski) by discussing evidence these present regarding the relationships between content knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK); the development of CK, PK and PCK in novice and experienced secondary science teachers and how CK, PK and/or PCK impact students’ learning. In conclusion, we draw these findings together in offering proposals for future research via reconsideration of Shulman’s amalgam. This includes post-hoc examination of a PCK model known as ‘the Consensus Model’ (Gess-Newsome, [2015]. A model of teacher professional knowledge and skill including PCK: Results of the thinking from the PCK Summit. In A. Berry, P. J. Friedrichsen, & J. Loughran (Eds.), Re-examining Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Science Education (pp. 28–42). New York, NY: Routledge; Neumann, Kind, & Harms [2018]. Probing the amalgam: The relationship between science teachers’ content, pedagogical and pedagogical content knowledge. International Journal of Science Education, 1–15) and presentation of a novel PCK structure based on evidence from the SI studies.     

Transition to Science Teacher Educator: Tensions Experienced while Learning to Teach Lesson Sequencing

This self-study investigated the tensions that I (Heidi) encountered when teaching elementary preservice teachers how to develop a coherent sequence of five science lessons. Four lesson planning components guided me in developing a series of lessons to support the preservice teachers with this exercise. Employing self-study methodology, data sources included preservice teachers' artifacts, an audio-recording of the preservice teachers discussing the planning of their lesson sequence, and two reflection journals, one kept personally and one kept collaboratively with my co-author and critical friend (Meredith). Findings indicate that a tension of telling and growth developed gradually during the three weeks of teaching. The collaborative journal revealed that this tension was promoted by two other tensions: confidence and uncertainty, and planning and being responsive. Implications regarding the need for explicit teacher educator coursework and reflective practice opportunities are discussed as potential avenues for Ph.D. programs to consider to lessen the tensions that doctoral students may experience during their transition into the role of teacher educator.     

Preparing Preservice Teachers for Life in Schools: The Role of Doctoral Education

ABSTRACT

Physical education teachers face considerable sociopolitical challenges that can impede quality instruction and complicate recruitment into the profession. Physical education teacher education faculty members may not be prepared to address these challenges during their doctoral education. Accordingly, the purpose of the paper was to utilize the lessons learned from occupational socialization research to propose competencies that can be integrated into doctoral education to help future faculty members integrate sociopolitical learning into physical education teacher education. These include: (a) understanding socialization literature and the implications for teacher education, (b) helping doctoral students understand their own prior socialization experiences, (c) recruiting highly qualified preservice teachers, (d) helping preservice teachers question their subjective theories, (e) developing and coordinating field experiences, and (f) preparing preservice teachers for the sociopolitical realities of schools. These competencies align with the proposed addition of a new standard for initial teacher education that addresses sociopolitical learning.     

Preservice teachers’ thinking within a research-based framework: what informs decisions?

A research-based framework for teaching science is a heuristic tool used to help preservice teachers conceptualize many complexities of teaching while making explicit the strategy to use a research-based body of professional knowledge to inform instructional decision-making (Clough, 2003, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Education of Teachers in Science, St. Louis, MO). Elementary preservice teachers frequently struggle to apply this knowledge to classroom decisions (Madsen, 2002, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the North Central Association for the Education of Teachers of Science, Bettendorf, IA). This study examined the effects of using a video case-analysis within an elementary science methods course focused on the development of a research-based framework. Students in two course sections completed a unit plan, and students in one section completed the video analysis. Video analysis students’ performance on an oral defense with the instructor was compared with oral defense performance from students in the unit plan group. Video analysis students outperformed their peers on questions related to how learning theories influence decisions of selecting content, explaining the use of questioning, and the use of self assessment strategies. Despite these differences, students in both groups still perceive teaching as primarily accomplished through activities and have difficulties understanding the critical role of the teacher in promoting student goals. This study raises issues regarding teachers’ knowledge development during preservice experiences.     

关于英语教师教育与发展的认识与思考

教师教育专业化是当代世界教师教育重要的发展趋势之一,反过来说,教师教育的发展也需要专业化的研究。教师教育专业化主要包括教学专业化、教师培养和培训专业化两个方面的内容。在教师教育专业化运动过程中,英语教师教育改革势在必行,英语教师培训也亟待加强。     

Learning from Rookie Mistakes: Critical Incidents in Developing Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Teaching Science to Teachers

While there is a growing literature focused on doctoral preparation for teaching about science teaching, rarely have recommendations extended to preparation for teaching science content to teachers. We three doctoral students employ self-study as a research methodology to investigate our developing pedagogical content knowledge for teaching science to teachers during a mentored internship in an elementary teacher professional development program. With our mentor, we examine critical incidents in the experience that supported new insights about teaching teachers and about ways in which beginning teacher educators need to develop their existing pedagogical content knowledge for teaching science to students in order to teach science effectively to teachers. We emphasize ways in which doctoral internships can support this learning and how our respective cultures shaped our interactions with and perceptions of teachers as learners.     

Learning to Question: Categories of Questioning Used by Preservice Teachers During Diagnostic Mathematics Interviews

Developing appropriate questioning techniquesis an important part of mathematics teachingand assessment. This study examined thequestioning strategies used by 48 preserviceteachers during one-on-one diagnosticmathematics interviews with children. Eachparticipant conducted an audiotaped interviewwith one child, followed by an analysis andreflection of the interview. Data wereanalyzed to develop general categories ofquestions used by the preservice teachers. These categories included: 1) checklisting, 2) instructing rather thanassessing, and 3) probing and follow-upquestions. The analyses and reflectionscompleted by preservice teachers indicated thatusing the diagnostic interview format allowedthem to recognize and reflect on effectivequestioning techniques. Through an examinationof these categories of questions, we offersuggestions for teaching the skill ofmathematics questioning in preservice teachereducation courses.