Section archive - Teacher Education Programs

The present article reports on a project, “Collaboration of Universities Pedagogies of Infants’ and Toddlers’ Development—‘down under’ (CUPID)'. This project evaluated the practicum experiences of 1st-year preservice initial teacher education (ITE) students at five universities across Australia and New Zealand engaging in early childhood education (ECE) teacher programs. The results from year 1 of their qualification experiences highlight the diverse and complex approaches to practicum experiences, ranging from specialized events with birth-to-3-year-olds to generic practicum with a wider age group. The implications of the practicum experience, in its many iterations, are explored in terms of the treatment of infant and toddler pedagogy as a specialization, and as an integrated component of the curriculum.

This study has two purposes regarding programs accredited by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). First, the study examines what extent NCATE-recognized elementary teacher preparation programs, which have been approved by the Association for Child Education International (ACEI), prepares candidates to teach in grades PreK–3. Second, it investigates the grades that the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) considers part of early childhood education. This analysis indicates that ACEI’s standards include far fewer references to terms that capture essential features of early instruction (e.g., family, community, and observation). Further, while the NAEYC’s standards refer to “self-regulation” four times and “play” eight times, the elementary standards mention neither term.

In this study, the authors aimed at exploring the attitudes key stakeholders in a teacher education program hold toward the appropriateness of English Language Teaching (EFL) teacher education programs at an Iranian teacher education university and their relevance to and sustainable impact in the real teaching context. This study found that the three groups of participants were unanimous in their evaluations of the majority of the courses, while their evaluative perceptions significantly varied for a small fraction of the courses in the program. The findings also revealed that the participants had a positive attitude towards the maintenance of most of the courses addressing teaching methodology and practice. Moreover, they believed that there is a need for inclusion of practical courses like practice- and micro-teachings as well as real classroom observations.

The aim of this study is to investigate how the students’ intercultural competence develops during a three-month practicum placement in Namibia. The authors present findings from a study of Norwegian student teachers before, during and after their international practicum.