Parent Teacher Education Connection: Preparing Preservice Teachers for Family Engagement

This article describes the Parent Teacher Education Curriculum, a Web-based curriculum focused on instructing teachers about best practices in family involvement and assesses its impact on the knowledge and attitudes of preservice teachers related to family involvement. Pre- and post-measures of preservice teacher candidate knowledge of and attitude toward parent involvement were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and paired-samples t-tests. Findings revealed a significant multivariate main effect for the time of knowledge assessment administration (pre vs. post): Wilks' λ = .613, F(6, 449) = 47.308, p < .001, partial eta squared = .387. This suggested that overall Knowledge increased significantly from pre- to post-administration. In addition, multivariate analysis for the time of attitude assessment administration (pre vs. post) was Wilks' λ = .982, F(3, 1548) = 9.65, p <. 001, partial eta squared = .018. This suggested that overall Attitude increased significantly from pre- to post-administration.     

Preservice Teachers' Use of the Technology Integration Planning Cycle to Integrate iPads Into Literacy Instruction

The purpose of this case study was to examine preservice teachers' use of the Technology Integration Planning Cycle (TIPC; Hutchison & Woodward, 2014 Hutchison, A., & Woodward, L. (2014). A planning cycle for integrating technology into literacy instruction. Reading Teacher, 67(6), 455–464. doi:10.1002/trtr.1225.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]) to integrate iPads into literacy instruction. Analysis revealed two findings related to using the TIPC to plan instruction: (a) Though the TIPC provides a structured approach to planning that guides teachers in using their Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge (TPACK), the preservice teachers still used a technocentric approach to planning instruction and did not fully engage in all elements of the planning cycle; (2) even with the structured planning approach, preservice teachers had difficulty aligning their lesson content with the instructional goals of the lesson; and (3) preservice teachers rely on recommendations from their university classes when selecting apps to use in instruction, rather than independently seeking out resources. The implications of this research suggest the need to support preservice teachers in developing a professional learning network; the importance of a structured approach to planning technology integration to support preservice teachers; and considerations for helping preservice teachers develop their TPACK. (Keywords: Common Core State Standards, digital technology, instructional planning, TPACK, technology integration)     

Crossing the Border from Science Student to Science Teacher: Preservice Teachers’ Views and Experiences Learning to Teach Inquiry

Preservice science teachers face numerous challenges in understanding and teaching science as inquiry. Over the course of their teacher education program, they are expected to move from veteran science students with little experience learning their discipline through inquiry instruction to beginning science teachers adept at implementing inquiry in their own classrooms. In this study, we used Aikenhead’s (Sci Educ 81: 217–238, 1997, Science Educ 85:180–188, 2001) notion of border crossing to describe this transition preservice teachers must make from science student to science teacher. We examined what one cohort of eight preservice secondary science teachers said, did, and wrote as they both conducted a two-part inquiry investigation and designed an inquiry lesson plan. We conducted two types of qualitative analyses. One, we drew from Costa (Sci Educ 79: 313–333, 1995) to group our preservice teacher participants into one of four types of potential science teachers. Two, we identified successes and struggles in preservice teachers’ attempts to negotiate the cultural border between veteran student and beginning teacher. In our implications, we argue that preservice teachers could benefit from explicit opportunities to navigate the border between learning and teaching science; such opportunities could deepen their conceptions of inquiry beyond those exclusively fashioned as either student or teacher.     

The Importance of Multiple Representations of Mathematical Problems: Evidence from Chinese Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Analysis of a Learning Goal

This article describes a study of how Chinese preservice teachers unpacked a learning goal pertaining to adding fractions and understanding the concepts underlying the operation. Based on work in the USA by Morris, Hiebert, and Spizter (Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 40(5), 491–529, 2009), 50 Chinese preservice teachers completed a task, anticipating an ideal student response, in the context of four representations: (1) fraction pieces, (2) graph paper, (3) common denominator algorithm, and (4) pennies. Like the US-based study, this study shows that Chinese preservice teachers’ ability to unpack a learning goal was highly influenced by how the problem was represented. The pennies and graph paper problems provided more supportive contexts for unpacking the learning goal; the algorithm problem provided the least supportive context. The main difference between the preservice teachers from these two countries was the US preservice teachers chose the pennies and graph paper problems as having the most potential for revealing students’ understanding of the learning goal; while the Chinese preservice teachers chose the algorithm problem despite the problem’s unsupportive context. Chinese preservice teachers’ preference suggests that they privileged algorithmic/symbolic representations over pictorial/concrete representations. Based on our results, we argue that it is time for cross-cultural comparative research to refocus on the common barriers, challenges, and benefits as related to mathematics teacher preparation and professional development. A cooperative instead of competitive orientation will lead to richer and deeper dialogues among mathematics educators.     

Examining mentors' practices for enhancing preservice teachers' pedagogical development in mathematics and science

Mentoring is too important to be left to chance (Ganser, 1996 Ganser, T. 1996. What do mentors say about mentoring?. Journal of Staff Development, 17(3): 36–39.  [Google Scholar]), yet mentoring expertise of teachers varies widely, which may present inequities for developing preservice teachers' practices. Five factors for mentoring have been identified herein: personal attributes, system requirements, pedagogical knowledge, modelling, and feedback, and items associated with each factor have also been justified in context of the literature. An original, literature‐based survey instrument gathered 446 preservice teachers' perceptions of their mentoring for primary teaching. Data were analysed within the above‐mentioned five factors with 331 final‐year preservice teachers from nine Australian universities responding to their mentoring for science teaching and 115 final‐year preservice teachers from an urban university responding to their mentoring for mathematics teaching. Results indicated similar Cronbach alpha scores on each of the five factors for primary science and mathematics teaching; however percentages and mean scores on attributes and practices aligned with each factor were considerably higher for mentoring mathematics teaching compared with science teaching.     

Becoming a Reflective Practitioner in the Age of Accountability

Drawing on Zeichner's levels of reflection (Liston and Zeichner 1996 Liston, D. and Zeichner, K. 1996. Reflective teaching: An introduction, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc..  [Google Scholar]), this study uses a fine-grain analysis of portfolio entries to describe the reflective practice of a cohort of preservice secondary education teachers as they student teach, participate in a student teaching seminar, and prepare the Vermont Licensure Portfolio. The paper raises questions about the tension between satisfying state mandates while facilitating critical reflection among preservice teachers and recommends a broader curriculum for teacher education programs to further develop preservice teachers' critical reflection.     

Pre‐service teachers’ intention to adopt mobile learning: A motivational model

This study proposes a model for determining preservice teachers’ intentions to adopt mobile learning from a motivational perspective. Data were collected from 276 preservice teachers and analyzed by structural equation modeling. A model capable of explaining 87% of the variance in preservice teachers’ intention to adopt mobile learning was developed. According to this model, preservice teachers’ attitudes and cognitive needs have an influence on their behavioral intention while their affective and social needs do not. 1 1 The fourth sentence of the Abstract has been edited to align it to the Discussion section following the re‐analysis.
Their social needs are influenced by their affective and cognitive needs. In addition, affective needs have an influence on their cognitive needs. Therefore, focusing on mobile learning's practices and their roles in preservice teacher training are important to develop effective ICT course contents.     

THE CHESTER CASE

Broad (1999) Broad, B. 1999. “Facing our professional others: Border crossing in teacher education”. In Preparing a nation's teachers: Models for English and foreign language programs, Edited by: Franklin, P., Laurence, D. E. and Welles, E. B. 373–379. New York: The Modern Language Association of America.  [Google Scholar] observed that “troubled borders crisscross the geography of teacher preparation in English” (p. 373), calling for collaboration where preparation is a university responsibility (Gregorian, 2001 Gregorian, V. 2001. Teacher education must become colleges' central preoccupation. August172001. The Chronicle of Higher Education, pp.B7–B8.  [Google Scholar]). This research documents a three-year complex case study that addressed the question: What happens when English, education, and high school faculty cross borders to prepare secondary English teachers to teach in urban schools? This study looked at faculty mentors and preservice teacher mentees as they collaborated on multi-leveled projects to improve teacher preparation of secondary English teachers. Interventions included collaborative seminars, collaborative mentoring, and individual mentoring of preservice English teachers by English, education, and high school faculty. Results indicate that interventions challenged biases of stakeholders, enhanced the quality of teacher preparation, and revised instructional practices of university English and education faculty and preservice teachers. Results indicate that mentees incorporated suggestions made by mentors that reinforced pedagogical content knowledge. Most mentees regarded content mentors favorably, noting that their focus of observation was different from those of clinical supervisors and cooperating teachers. English and education mentors assimilated changes in personal pedagogy based on observations and discussions with urban high school teachers. Such discussions also challenged personal beliefs about urban students and schools. Content mentors also adjusted syllabi to include materials used in high school curricula. The implication of this study is that “crossing borders” improves and alters how university faculty can better prepare preservice teachers.     

Toward Identifying Pedagogical Knowledge for Mentoring in Primary Science Teaching

Final year preservice teachers' perceptions of their mentoring in primary science teaching were gathered through surveys from three separate studies. The three studies (n = 59, n = 331, n = 60) provided an indication of the degree of mentoring preservice teachers perceived they received with mentoring practices linked to Pedagogical Knowledge. This research argues that mentors require pedagogical knowledge of primary science for guiding mentees with planning, timetabling, preparation, implementation, classroom management strategies, teaching strategies, science teaching knowledge, questioning skills, problem-solving strategies, assessment techniques, and developing viewpoints on science pedagogy. The key study findings (n = 331, from nine Australian universities involved in primary teacher education) indicated that 55% or more mentees had not received Pedagogical Knowledge for primary science teaching in each of the associated mentoring practices (mean score range: 2.60–2.91, standard deviation range: 1.10–1.32). The study concludes that mentors require further professional development to ensure that preservice teachers (mentees) receive adequate pedagogical knowledge for teaching primary science, which will involve significant collaboration between universities and schools.     

Preparing Elementary Preservice Teachers for Urban Elementary Science Classrooms: Challenging Cultural Biases Toward Diverse Students

This study reports the learning of elementary preservice teachers regarding diversity and teaching science in diverse urban elementary classrooms. From participating in a semester-long book club, the preservice teachers reveal their cultural biases, connect and apply their knowledge of diversity, and understand that getting to know their students are important elements for teaching science in diverse classrooms. These 3 things connect in ways that allow the preservice teachers to understand how their cultural biases impede student learning and gain new knowledge of diversity as they change their cultural biases. Implications of this study reveal that preservice teachers need opportunities to reveal, confront, challenge, and change their cultural models and to develop new models for teaching science in urban elementary classrooms.

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Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Ideas About Scientific Practices

With the goal of producing scientifically literate citizens who are able to make informed decisions and reason critically when science intersects with their everyday lives, the National Research Council (NRC) has produced two recent documents that call for a new approach to K-12 science education that is based on scientific practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas. These documents will potentially influence future state standards and K-12 curricula. Teachers will need support in order to teach science using a practices based approach, particularly if they do not have strong science backgrounds, which is often the case with elementary teachers. This study investigates one cohort (n = 19) of preservice elementary teachers’ ideas about scientific practices, as developed in a one-semester elementary science teaching methods course. The course focused on eight particular scientific practices, as defined by the National Research Council’s A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (2012). Participants’ written reflections, lesson plans and annotated teaching videos were analyzed in fine detail to better understand their ideas about what it means to engage in each of the practices. The findings suggest that preservice elementary teachers hold promising ideas about scientific practices (such as an emphasis on argumentation and communication between scientists, critical thinking, and answering and asking questions as the goal of science) as well as problematic ideas (including confusion over the purpose of modeling and the process of analysis, and conflating argumentation and explanation building). These results highlight the strengths and limitations of using the Framework (NRC 2012) as an instructional text and the difficulties of differentiating between preservice teachers’ content knowledge about doing the practices and their pedagogical knowledge about teaching the practices.     

Beliefs and Practices of In-Service Preschool Teachers in Inclusive Settings: Implications for Personnel Preparation

This study examined the beliefs of in-service teachers working in inclusive classrooms regarding developmentally appropriate practices and how those beliefs affected their attitudes toward, knowledge of, and comfort levels regarding working with children with disabilities. A mixed-method approach was utilized and data were collected through the use of three survey instruments: Teacher Belief Scale and Instructional Activities Scale (Hart et al., 1990 Hart, C., Burts, D., Charlesworth, P., Fleege, P., Ickes, M. and Durland, M. 1990. The teachers Questionnaire: Preschool version, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University, School of Human Ecology.  [Google Scholar]) and the In-service Teacher Self-Report Survey (Mitchell, 2002 Mitchell, L. C. 2002. Blending practices in regular education: A mixed method design study on course practicum and training experiences in relation to preservice teacher attitudes and knowledge about inclusion. Dissertation Abstracts International, 5: A63 (UMI No. 726467131). [Google Scholar]). Data were also collected through open-ended questions to assess Teachers' perceived level of preparation for the inclusive classroom. This study also examined whether education or experience levels had an influence on Teachers' perceptions regarding inclusive practices. Results of the study indicate that there is not a significant relationship between in-service Teachers' beliefs regarding developmentally appropriate practices and their attitudes toward, knowledge of, and comfort levels regarding inclusion. Additionally, results indicate that the Teachers' levels of education or experience do not necessarily indicate that they are prepared to meet the needs of the inclusive classroom environment. Implications regarding the preparation of and ongoing training needs of teachers are discussed.     

Examining the Factor Structure of the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale

The authors examined the factor structure of the long and short forms of the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES; M. Tschannen-Moran &; A. Woolfolk-Hoy, 2001 Tschannen-Moran, M. and Woolfolk-Hoy, A. 2001. Teacher-efficacy: Capturing an elusive construct. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17: 783–805. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) for practicing (n = 102) and preservice teachers (n = 270), comparing the responses to both forms of the TSES, and looked for differences in teachers’ efficacy with respect to experience and grade level taught. They found the 3-factor structure—efficacy for classroom management, instructional practices, and student engagement—to be appropriate for practicing teachers, but they found a single efficacy factor to be appropriate for preservice teachers. The long and short forms of the TSES produced similar means and reliability information, suggesting that either form is appropriate for use with preservice or practicing teachers. Last, they found that teachers with 10 or more years of teaching experience and those teaching at the elementary level reported significantly higher levels of efficacy than did preservice teachers or those teaching at the middle or high school levels, respectively.     

Comparing the Effects of Classroom Audio-Recording and Video-Recording on Preservice Teachers' Reflection of Practice

This study examined the effects of audio and video self-recording on preservice teachers' written reflections. Participants (n = 201) came from a secondary teaching methods course and its school-based (clinical) fieldwork. The audio group (n_A = 106) used audio recorders to monitor their teaching in fieldwork placements; the video group (n_V = 95) used video recorders. Qualitative methods (content analysis) of the reflections found that preservice teachers gave varied attention to curricular decisions, question/response patterns, wait time, mannerisms, nervousness, and use of praise. Quantitative analyses (chi-square tests for independence) indicate the recording format did not lead to significant differences in participants' reflection on their various instructional behaviors except for two aspects: the video group gave more attention to non-verbal behaviors and movement around the classroom (α = .05). Implications are discussed, including methods for enhancing the habit of teachers recording and reflecting in teacher education.     

Teaching Reflective Practice: Implementation in the Teacher-Education Setting

Over the past several decades a growing amount of research has considered the role, challenges, and complexities of teaching reflective inquiry to preservice teachers. Generally accepted as a valuable component of a teacher education program, there are persistent levels of ambiguity regarding how reflective inquiry can be intentionally fostered during initial stages of teacher preparation. This qualitative research study seeks to provide one exemplar of this promising practice by exploring the instructional approaches used to promote reflective inquiry in preservice teachers by a veteran teacher educator from Niagara University, NY. Using participant observer research protocols, data were collected and analyzed according to qualitative research methodologies (Spradley, 1980 Spradley, J. A. 1980. Participant observation New York, NY: Holt Rinehart and Winston..  [Google Scholar]). Grounded in the theories of Dewey (1935) and Schön (1983) Schön, D. 1983. The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action New York, NY: Basic Books..  [Google Scholar], this study examines how the teacher educator studied created opportunities for preservice teachers to develop their reflective inquiry skills in a Methods of Secondary Education course. Advice for other teacher educators and implications for the greater teacher education community will be discussed.     

Secondary Preservice Teachers’ Development of Teaching Scientific Writing

Educators have argued the need for greater attention on how teachers learn to teach writing in science (Kelly and Bazerman in Appl Linguist 24(1):28–55, 2003; Martin in Writing science: literacy and discursive power. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, pp 166–202, 1993). This article summarizes the findings of a qualitative study of five science preservice teachers as they experienced a unit of study, an inquiry-based instructional framework for the teaching of writing. Results found initially the science preservice teachers did not have knowledge of specific instructional approaches to teach writing. The science preservice teachers engaged in critical and analytical reading and writing, which enhanced their knowledge of writing and how to teach writing. The unit of study approach to writing may offer teacher educators a way to engage science preservice teachers in a method to teach scientific writing.     

Early childhood and elementary preservice teachers’ beliefs

Abstract

In this study we examined 382 preservice teachers’ perceived efficacy, their beliefs regarding teaching and learning, and the relationship between these two variables by analyzing quantitative and qualitative data using a modified version of the Gibson and Dembo Teacher Efficacy Scale and six open‐ended questions. A general linear model analysis revealed that several factors differ across certain preparation programs. Preservice teachers’ efficacy beliefs increased at the end of these two different teacher education programs. Qualitative analyzes revealed variance in preservice teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning between the two majors and in the two locations which they were studying. Most ending‐level preservice teachers had adopted the views of the way teachers are supposed to teach promoted by the particular teacher education program. The internal program coherence, program structural contexts, program's goals, and learning experiences in the program may act as important factors on preservice teachers’ beliefs. © 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.     

SELECTED ASPECTS OF PUBLIC SCHOOL PROGRAMS FOR THREE AND FOUR YEAR‐OLDS IN ALABAMA,GEORGIA, MISSISSIPPI,AND TENNESSEE

Abstract

The perceptions of 28 preservice early childhood teachers about the social and cognitive competence of 68 preschool children were examined. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed gender, age, and family socioeconomic sta?us biases in preservice teachers’ perceptions of children's social and cognitive competence. Qualitative data from focus group discussions with preservice teachers also supported these findings. In addition, children's actual social and cognitive competence, while not the most significant, also uniquely and significantly contributed to preservice teachers’ perceptions of children's social and cognitive competence. This may indicate that preservice teachers are likely struggling with their biases as they involve themselves in their teacher preparation experiences, focused on developing more accurate views of children's social and cognitive competence. Both race/ethnicity and temperament contributions were not found, possibility due to the limited sample used.