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The purpose of this study is to provide an analysis of the teacher education program focused on the development of the research competence of the preservice teachers, difficulties they encountered in conducting action research and the need to provide them with realistic research opportunities.

This qualitative study made use of data sources taken from observations, feedback sessions, presentations and follow-up written interview of 133 randomly selected preservice teachers.

Findings reported that the multicultural preservice teachers have novice research skills and that the real-world application of their research skills developed their research competence. However, they encountered difficulties creating their action research, such as in the literature review and the research conceptualization.

Aside from the self-reported experiences of the students, the training on the action research mainly focused on the conceptualization, design formulation of interventions and proposal writing stage but were not implemented due to course constraints.

This study can assist policymakers to integrate a mandatory research course as part of the curricular offerings and for the university to create space for students to practice their research skills based on real-life problems in the basic level institutions.

Understanding the challenges, difficulties, and basic competence in the research development of the preservice teachers would strengthen the research practice of the future teachers for evidence-based teaching in the schools.

The limited literature focus on the development of research competence on teacher education students using action research, including the difficulties that university students experience in doing research based on a societal context.

This paper reports on a three-year study that examined the effect of 9/11 on preservice teachers’ perspectives and dispositions toward global concerns and global perspective pedagogy. Participants responded to a “before” and “after” survey in which they indicated the level of their awareness of global concerns, perceptions of their importance, perceived impact on self, and dispositions toward global-perspective pedagogy. The study utilized both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. The data revealed that 9/11 had a significant effect on preservice teachers that resulted in a shift in perspectives and dispositions toward critical global concerns and teaching about them. The findings highlight the critical importance of preparing preservice teachers to develop global perspectives, cultivate critical knowledge and perceptual understandings of global concerns, and nurture favorable dispositions toward global perspective pedagogy.

Being literate can change the lives of Australian students. Therefore, graduating effective teachers of literacy is an imperative for Australian schools. Professional experience provides an opportunity for preservice teachers to refine their skills for teaching literacy under the guidance of a mentor teacher. This study investigates from the perspective of preservice teachers, the attributes and practices primary mentor teachers demonstrate when mentoring literacy teaching during professional experience.

This investigation utilised survey design to gather data from primary preservice teachers (n = 402) from seven Australian universities. The 34 survey items were underpinned by the Five Factor Model of Mentoring and literacy practices prescribed by the Australian curriculum. Preservice teachers self-reported their responses about their literacy mentoring experiences on a five-point Likert scale. The Five Factor Model of Mentoring provided a framework to analyse and present the data using descriptive statistics.

Findings revealed 70% or more of preservice teachers agreed or strongly agreed mentor teachers had the personal attributes, shared the pedagogical knowledge, modelled best practice and provided feedback for effective literacy teaching. Conversely, only 58.7% of the participants reported their mentor teachers shared the system requirements for effective literacy teaching.

The preservice teachers self-reported their experiences, and although this may be their experience, it does not necessarily mean the mentor teachers did not demonstrate the attributes and practices reported, it may mean they were not identified by the preservice teachers. While there were 402 participants in this study, the viewpoints of these preservice teachers' may or may not be indicative of the entire population of preservice teachers across Australia. This study included primary preservice teachers, so the experiences of secondary and early childhood teachers have not been reported. An extended study would include secondary and early childhood contexts.

This research highlighted that not all mentor teachers shared the system requirements for literacy teaching with their mentee. This finding prompts a need to undertake further research to investigate the confidence of mentor teachers in their own ability to teach literacy in the primary school. Teaching literacy is complex, and the curriculum is continually evolving. Providing professional learning in teaching literacy will position mentor teachers to better support preservice teachers during professional experience. Ultimately, the goal is to sustain high quality literacy teaching in schools to promote positive outcomes for all Australian school students.

While the role of mentor teacher is well recognised, there is a dearth of research that explores the mentoring of literacy during professional experience. The preservice teachers in this study self-reported inconsistencies in mentor teachers' attributes and practices for mentoring literacy prompting a need for further professional learning in this vital learning area.

This study explored preservice and in-service early childhood teachers' online academic learning beliefs and strategies.

Two hundred preservice and in-service teachers respectively from Taiwan participated in this research. A focus group discussion was carried out concerning the development of the questionnaires. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed good construct validity and reliabilities of the survey.

The survey results showed that in-service teachers generally held more sophisticated learning beliefs than the preservice teachers in all scales. Also, in-service teachers responded with a higher level of online academic learning strategies than the preservice teachers did. Regarding their online experiences, preservice teachers who spent an appropriate amount of time online had more positive beliefs than those with excessive online experiences. However, preservice teachers did not reveal employment of their ICT literacy in their online academic learning strategies. It was found that those in-service teachers with more online learning experience also showed higher levels of online academic learning beliefs. They used more deep strategies in their online academic learning.

The findings of this study could provide insights for the development of online academic learning ability in preschool teacher training programs.

(1) In-service teachers generally held more sophisticated learning beliefs than the preservice teachers. (2) Preservice teachers who spent an appropriate amount of time online had more positive beliefs than those with excessive online experiences. (3) Preservice teachers did not reveal employment of their ICT literacy in their online academic learning strategies. (4) In-service teachers with more online learning experience also showed higher levels of online academic learning beliefs. They used more deep strategies in their online academic learning.

This study intended to provide such an opportunity to preservice teachers with a project-based learning (PBL) approach and an inquiry-based pedagogy to engage them in learning science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) knowledge and skills of integration with adding an art component to STEM as science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) for K-8 children, and developing their own STEAM tasks. The purpose of this project was to explore how STEAM integration in mathematics methods courses influenced K-8 preservice teachers' disposition and knowledge of STEAM integration.

This project used a mixed-research design in data collection and analysis to examine the effects of using the STEAM integration on preservice teachers' knowledge and disposition. The preservice teachers in two EDEL 462 classes in Spring 2019 participated in STEAM learning and development in the inquiry process of four steps of STEAM integration. Data collection includes the pre- and postquestionnaires on teachers' knowledge and disposition.

The results in this study show that the STEAM integration in the mathematics methods courses engaged preservice teachers in four steps of the inquiry process of connection, collaboration, communication and evaluation for STEAM integration using PBL approach. The preservice teachers not only enhanced their disposition in attitude and confidence but also enhanced their knowledge of STEAM integration.

The following conclusions can be drawn from the present study that integrating STEAM components in mathematics methods fosters preservice teachers' creativity, connection, communication, application and teamwork skills, and importantly, it enhances K-8 preservice teachers' productive dispositions and knowledge in STEAM integration.

The results of this study indicate that using math methods courses to engage preservice teachers in learning STEAM integration and designing authentic STEAM tasks in four steps enhanced preservice teachers' attitude and confidence that significantly related to their knowledge of STEAM integration.

These findings have significant implications for the understanding of how to prepare future teachers in STEAM integration in higher education.

This teleobservation pilot study focuses on an innovative approach for the preparation of elementary social studies preservice teacher candidates through the use of interactive videoconferencing to provide observations of elementary classrooms. Preservice teacher candidates observed social studies lessons team-taught by regular classroom teachers and university professors in public school classrooms via videoconferencing equipment. Preservice teacher candidates remained on campus while another professor guided them through the social studies observation. Qualitative data were collected from preservice teacher candidates completing their social studies methods course through reflective summaries, KWL charts, and archived threaded discussions. The benefits and challenges of teleobservation are discussed along with implications and possibilities for future work. Specifically, the goals of this project included providing future social studies teachers with the following opportunities: 1) observe an elementary classroom in real-time; 2) discuss teaching as it is happening, and 3) observe university social studies professors modeling theory into practice.

The majority of states and school systems within the USA have implemented the Common Core State Standards, but with this implementation and focus on language arts and mathematics, many believe that social studies education has lagged. The purpose of this paper is to investigate preservice teachers’ social studies self-efficacy, experiences, and beliefs. Participants were preservice teachers in a required education course. During this course, preservice teachers were required to complete a 20-hour practicum within a school. Participants completed a teacher social studies self-efficacy scale, as well as a reflection questionnaire and course discussions. Results showed that preservice teachers reported that they did not have social studies experiences within the practicum. Implications of this study support preservice teachers having additional social studies education and C3 Framework mastery experiences.

With regard to the teacher’s sense of efficacy scale, descriptive statistics (means, standard deviations) were calculated. Following qualitative tradition (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Miles and Huberman, 1994), the author used a constant comparative method to code the reflection questionnaire and group discussions. This included calculating answers and coding themes across the sources. These data gleaned insight into the participants’ experiences within the course and practicum regarding the domain of social studies education.

To answer research question 1, means and standard deviations were calculated. Using the social studies teacher’s sense of efficacy scale, participants reported M=6.4, SD=1.25. Research question 2 concerned whether or not participants were given a mastery experience (practicum/tutoring) in social studies. Moreover, if they were not given such an experience, in what domain did they work? Results indicated that a few participants (19 percent) stated that they had an opportunity to tutor in social studies. Most reported that the majority of their tutoring is in reading (58 percent) or mathematics (24 percent).

The findings from this study inform social studies research as it focuses on teacher social studies self-efficacy and mastery experiences within a practicum. First, preservice teachers in this study had relatively low self-efficacy beliefs in the domain of social studies. Second, the participants had very few mastery experiences in social studies. Finally, preservice teachers seem to feel that they will enjoy teaching social studies, and they did learn social studies within their schools.

Teacher educators are constrained in the time that they have to impart knowledge, pedagogy, and efficacy beliefs on preservice teachers. While evolving legislative mandates are at the forefront of many aspects of teaching, a teacher’s belief in his or her ability to teach may be what leads to perseverance in the classroom. Experiences within social studies classrooms and a use of the C3 Framework will help to highlight teachers’ and students’ growth within the domain of social studies. This study highlights the need for more mastery experiences in social studies as a way of strengthening new teachers’ content knowledge.

The future of social studies education within the classroom seems to be a dire situation. The consequence of the marginalization of social studies within the classroom is twofold. First, students to do have direct social studies instruction. Second, preservice teachers do not have an opportunity to observe or teach within this domain. As stated earlier, legislation is guiding classroom instruction. However, if teachers and schools are informed, social studies education does not have to disappear from student’s classroom time. School systems and teachers who have not yet done so should begin to consider using the C3 Framework.

The need to understand preservice teachers’ social studies self-efficacy beliefs is of importance given the constraints that they will most likely be facing once they enter the classroom. In other words, if preservice teachers are expected to teach children social studies, teacher educators should understand their learning of and beliefs about teaching in this domain. This study focused on preservice teachers’ self-efficacy and social studies beliefs. This study highlights the need for more mastery experiences in social studies as a way of strengthening new teachers’ content knowledge. Today, there are limitations wherein preservice teachers do not have many experiences with social studies. Future approaches should focus on offering more mastery experiences to preservice teachers.

It is suggested that mentor teachers engage in reflective conversations with preservice teachers to develop formative assessment as a teaching skill. However, there is minimal evidence documenting this process. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the process and impact of reflective conversation on preservice teachers’ learning about implementing formative assessment in the classroom.

This study draws on two dyads of mentor and preservice teachers to examine the role of conversation in helping preservice teachers learn to use formative assessment in elementary classrooms in the USA. A comparative case study method is used to analyze and synthesize the similarities, differences and patterns across both cases.

Qualitative data indicate that reflective conversations enable preservice teachers to reflect on their teaching practices and learn how to conduct formative assessment. However, a lack of critical reflection in the conversations results in generic solutions that do not focus on specific aspects of student learning.

This study suggests that mentor teachers using reflective conversation to guide preservice teacher’s critical analysis of their prior assumptions and teaching practices while referencing actual student learning is an essential element in learning to use formative assessment in the classroom.

This study contributes to the line of research that explores conversation between mentor and preservice teachers and provides an empirical analysis of conversations focused on learning to use formative assessment in elementary classrooms.

This chapter illuminates the impact of providing informal learning experiences for students pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) teaching careers at a time when there is a considerable shortage of qualified teachers in America's urban centers. Preservice STEM teachers were provided with the opportunity to participate in a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant funded Noyce Internship Program prior to serving as counselors and teaching assistants in a STEM camp for underrepresented middle school students. Through the Noyce Internship Institute, participants were introduced to interactive sessions that model promising teaching practices including inquiry-based and project-based learning. This narrative inquiry examines the impact of these experiences on preservice STEM teachers' self-efficacy and highlights outcomes in three areas: increase of preservice teachers' confidence, classroom management, and strengthening their desire to teach STEM.

In this chapter, I describe how postmodern perspectives assist me in negotiating my multiple roles and responsibilities as an early childhood teacher educator in an increasingly complex pedagogical and workplace context. In particular, I focus on how postmodern understandings support me in therorizing my practice and envisioning productive possibilities for change. Underpinning the chapter are three interconnecting motifs that imbue my work as teacher educator – reflexivity, hope, and a commitment to transformative change. The chapter concludes with reflections about the potential of postmodern perspectives to enhance the agency of teacher educators and preservice teachers alike.