Section archive - Preservice Teachers

This study compared two literacy courses for elementary teacher candidates taught by the same professor at the same university with variables held constant with one exception.It was hypothesized that teacher candidates who practiced new pedagogies with children at a designated low performing, highly diverse elementary school (Course One—Service-learning) during a highly structured service-learning experience would develop more self-efficacy and, therefore, demonstrate greater implementation of the course content than those who role played their practice (Course Two—Practice with Peers).

Research on preservice teachers’ beliefs about professional teaching capabilities indicates strong attention to the relational dimension. In this article, the author positions preservice teachers’ attention to teacher–student relationships as a form of professional knowledge.

This paper describes how a blogging exchange between pre-service teachers and elementary school children was used as part of a social studies pedagogy course. The objective of this exchange was to develop the pre-service teachers’ understanding of children’s differing learning needs, interests and learning styles while the children were immersed in developing subject-specific content knowledge. The experience was mutually beneficial for both the children and the pre-service teachers. Recommendations include increased emphasis on training both pre-service teachers and children on how to use blogs and how to frame questions and responses prior to incorporating a blogging experience.

Six preservice social studies teachers examined techniques believed to promote active student engagement during a 12-week field experience. They used electronic portfolio development supported by evidential reasoning methods and reflective question prompts. These methods helped preservice teachers to re-examine and modify teaching conclusions based on classroom evidence, and formulate improvement plans for future implementations.