The aim of this study is to investigate the views of preservice science teachers on nature of science (NOS). A total of 166 preservice science teachers participated in the study. A 21-item &ldquo / Views on Science-Technology-Society (VOSTS)&rdquo / instrument, translated and adapted into Turkish, were utilized to assess participants&rsquo / views on the nature of science. The VOSTS (Aikenhead, Ryan and Fleming, 1989) is a pool of 114 empirically developed multiple-choice items with nine categories. In this study, 21 item selected from the epistemology of science category corresponded to the purposes of the assessment. In order to understand participants&rsquo / views on nature of science in depth, semi-structured interviews were also conducted by 9 volunteer preservice science teachers. The results gave a picture of the preservice science teachers&rsquo / views on nature of science. Results of this study revealed preservice science teachers&rsquo / misconceptions on nature of science. Their views are mostly traditional on the nature of science. Results of the study indicated that preservice science teachers held traditional views (naive) regarding the definition of science / the nature of scientific models / the relationships between hypotheses, theories, and laws / fundamental assumptions for all science / the scientific method / uncertainty in scientific knowledge / epistemological status of scientific knowledge / coherence of concepts across disciplines. On the other hand participants have contemporary views (realistic) on the nature of observation / the nature of classification schemes / the tentativeness of scientific knowledge / cause and effect relationship. Analysis of interviews also supported these findings and gave a deep insight on preservice science teachers&rsquo / views on nature of science.

The purpose of the study is to reveal pre-service teachers&rsquo / technology competencies during their four-year teacher training program at Burdur School of Education, S&uuml / leyman Demirel University in Turkey. The sample size is 1086 students from Primary School Teacher Education department. 262 is 1st year, 269 is 2nd year, 288 is 3rd year, and 265 is 4th year students. 435 are males, and 644 are females. The research design is non-experimental survey. Technology Use Self-Competency scale (TUSS) was used for the study. Reliability of the instrument is .96. The study is indicated that most of the pre-service teachers felt themselves as intermediate technology user. The descriptive, correlation, regression and higher-way ANOVA are applied. Gender, years of computer use and computer ownership and having access to internet variables are associated with significantly to technology use self-competency scores. Also the most useful predictor of technology use self competency is years of computer use. Finally, there is significant difference among categories of computer ownership and internet access, gender, years of computer on technology use self-competency. The recommendations and directions to future researches are presented.

What knowledge do teachers need for integrating appropriate digital technologies in teaching mathematics? An overarching construct called TPACK is proposed as the interconnection and intersection of knowledge among technology, pedagogy, and content and is referred to as the total knowledge package for teaching mathematics with technology. Five stages in the process of developing TPACK - recognizing, accepting, adapting, exploring, and adapting – describe the process of teachers’ learning to integrate technology. Teachers learn to teach mathematics from their own learning – K-12 mathematics - collegiate mathematics coursework, teacher preparation program, field experiences and professional development as they teach mathematics. The challenge is to identify appropriate experiences to guide this integration of technology in teaching mathematics in ways that develop TPACK. A framework for these experiences directs attention to emergent social and psychological perspectives.

The Education Faculties within the universities are looking to meet the needs of their learners more completely. Teaching and learning strategies are being adopted to make educational provision more flexible by using computer supported collaborative learning environments. However, research has shown that in preservice teacher programs, many teachers do not have a complete knowledge of subject-matter or pedagogical content knowledge. This study investigated how a lesson-planning task within the context of a computer supported collaborative learning environment can facilitate the growth of teacher knowledge, specifically subject-matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge about the teaching of ratio and fraction. The findings from this research showed that using a lesson-planning task facilitated the development of teacher knowledge, specifically subject-matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. Within the computer supported collaborative learning community, the preservice teachers were able to articulate their current understandings and re-define their knowledge of fraction and ratio. The thesis concludes with a conceptual framework and some specific guidelines for the design of a scaffolded computer-mediated community and discusses implications for the design of future collaborative learning environments.

Linha de pesquisa: Curr?culos, Avalia??o, Pr?ticas Pedag?gicas e Forma??o de Professores. / Na Capa, Folha de Rosto e Ficha Catalogr?fica do trabalho, constam o t?tulo: "Um estudo da identidade docente de licenciandos em Matem?tica da Unimontes". / Submitted by Jos? Henrique Henrique (jose.neves@ufvjm.edu.br) on 2018-07-23T22:28:07Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) marineide_almeida_rocha.pdf: 1622461 bytes, checksum: 5dafcb0275c404ba24bdcf413885c35f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Rodrigo Martins Cruz (rodrigo.cruz@ufvjm.edu.br) on 2018-10-04T19:19:01Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) marineide_almeida_rocha.pdf: 1622461 bytes, checksum: 5dafcb0275c404ba24bdcf413885c35f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-10-04T19:19:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) marineide_almeida_rocha.pdf: 1622461 bytes, checksum: 5dafcb0275c404ba24bdcf413885c35f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017 / As quest?es que envolvem a profiss?o docente t?m se tornado cada vez mais presentes nos debates e f?runs educacionais, no cen?rio nacional e internacional, dada a necessidade de melhoria na qualidade do ensino, o que requer bons professores. Diante de reflex?es e de questionamentos sobre o tipo de forma??o adequada para o futuro professor, mediante a complexidade do trabalho docente na contemporaneidade, ? que surgiu o interesse pelo presente trabalho. O objetivo geral desta investiga??o foi desvelar ind?cios de constitui??o da identidade docente de licenciandos do Curso de Licenciatura em Matem?tica da Universidade Estadual de Montes Claros (Unimontes/Campus Montes Claros), tendo como objetivos espec?ficos: a) evidenciar as marcas de trajet?rias de forma??o e ind?cios de constitui??o de identidade profissional docente apresentados pelos sujeitos em forma??o em suas hist?rias de vida; e b) identificar os aspectos que os mesmos explicitam serem fundamentais para a forma??o docente, a partir das experi?ncias de forma??o proporcionadas pelo curso de Licenciatura em Matem?tica da Unimontes. O estudo utilizou como instrumento de produ??o e an?lise de dados as hist?rias de vida de oito licenciandos em Matem?tica da Unimontes, as quais foram obtidas por meio de memoriais de forma??o e complementadas por entrevistas semiestruturadas. Os dados analisados foram organizados em duas categorias: a) trajet?ria de forma??o anterior ao ingresso na licenciatura e b) trajet?ria de forma??o na licenciatura. Os dados evidenciam que o processo de constitui??o da identidade docente sofre influ?ncias m?ltiplas, que se inter-relacionam e apresentam-se de diversas formas, como elementos de uma hist?ria de vida, como acontecimentos ao longo de um percurso de vida e que configuram a representa??o que o professor tem de si pr?prio e de sua profiss?o. / Disserta??o (Mestrado Profissional) ? Programa de P?s-Gradua??o em Educa??o, Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, 2017. / Considering the need to improve teaching quality, which requires good teachers, the issues related to teaching profession have become increasingly present at educational debates and forums in the national and international scenarios. In face of the reflections and questions about the appropriate education for the future teacher, through the complexity of the contemporary teaching work, the interest for this research theme has arisen. The aim of the investigation was to analyze the identity evidence of the undergraduate teaching students from the Prospective Mathematics Teacher Education Course offered by the Universidade Federal de Montes Claros (Unimontes) at Montes Claros Campus. The specific aims were: a) to highlight the evidence of the constitution of the teaching professional identity presented by the subjects in their life histories, and b) to identify the aspects that these subjects make explicit as being are fundamental for teacher education, based on the education experiences provided by the curricular proposal of the course Teaching mathematics education of the Unimontes. The study used as an instrumento of production and data analysys of life histories of eight Mathematics graduates, which were obtained through education memorial and complemented by semi structured interviews. Data analyzes were organized into two categories: a) trajectory of prior prospective teacher education and b) trajectory of the prospective teacher education. The data show that the process of constitution of the teacher identity suffers multiple influences, which are interrelated and presented in different ways, such as elements of a life history, as events along a life course and that configure the representation that the teacher has of himself and his profession.

This study investigated the teaching experiences of six elementary preservice teachers (EPTs), three with high mathematics anxiety and three with low mathematics anxiety, during their student teaching semester. The EPTs were selected from an initial pool of 121 EPTs who took the Abbreviated Mathematics Anxiety Scale. The cases were compared in a cross case analysis to highlight mathematics teaching experiences among EPTs. Data sources included EPT and researcher journal entries, interview transcripts, pre-lesson surveys, field notes, lesson plans, and artifacts of observed lessons. Data were coded using Shulman’s content knowledge, Graeber’s mathematics pedagogical content knowledge, and mathematics anxiety characteristics. Findings revealed both similarities and differences across EPTs as related to four major categories: (a) planning and resources used, (b) role of the cooperating teacher, (c) content knowledge, and (d) pedagogical content knowledge. All EPTs used mostly direct instruction and relied on the course textbook and their respective cooperating teacher as their primary resources for planning. Additionally, across participants, the cooperating teacher influenced EPTs’ perceptions of students and teaching. Also, EPTs with high mathematics anxiety were weaker with respect to content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. Findings suggest a need to re-design methods courses to address improving the pedagogical content knowledge of EPTs with mathematics anxiety. Findings also suggest a need to develop content specific mathematics courses for EPTs to improve their content knowledge. Future studies could include a longitudinal study to follow highly anxious EPTs who take content specific elementary mathematics courses to observe their content knowledge and mathematics anxiety.

From a sociocultural perspective, individuals learn best from contextualized experiences. In preservice teacher education, contextualized experiences include authentic literacy experiences, which include a real reader and writer and replicate real life communication. To be prepared to teach well, preservice teachers need to gain literacy content knowledge and possess reading maturity. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of authentic literacy experiences as Book Buddies with Hispanic fourth graders on preservice teachers’ literacy content knowledge and reading maturity. The study was a pretest/posttest design conducted over 12 weeks. Preservice teacher participants, the focus of the study, were elementary education majors taking the third of four required reading courses in non-probabilistic convenience groups, 43 (n = 33 experimental, n = 10 comparison) Elementary Education majors. The Survey of Preservice Teachers’ Knowledge of Teaching and Technology (SPTKTT), specifically designed for preservice teachers majoring in elementary or early childhood education and the Reading Maturity Survey (RMS) were used in this study. Preservice teachers chose either the experimental or comparison group based on the opportunity to earn extra credit points (experimental = 30 points, comparison = 15). After exchanging introductory letters preservice teachers and Hispanic fourth graders each read four books. After reading each book preservice teachers wrote letters to their student asking higher order thinking questions. Preservice teachers received scanned copies of their student’s unedited letters via email which enabled them to see their student’s authentic answers and writing levels. A series of analyses of covariance were used to determine whether there were significant differences in the dependent variables between the experimental and comparison groups. This quasi-experimental study tested two hypotheses. Using the appropriate pretest scores as covariates for adjusting the posttest means of the subcategory Literacy Content Knowledge (LCK), of the SPTKTT and the RMS, the mean adjusted posttest scores from the experimental group and comparison group were compared. No significant differences were found on the LCK dependent variable using the .05 level of significance, which may be due to Type II error caused by the small sample size. Significant differences were found on RMS using the .05 level of significance.

In recent years there has been growing enthusiasm among researchers for the promotion of online learning communities designed to support professional learning in preservice teacher education. The primary purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the role of such an online community in supporting student teacher learning during the school placement in a Chinese Normal University, and hence to enrich the understanding of student teachers’ learning experiences in an online ecology. The study’s subjects included a cohort of 42 student teachers enrolled on a four-year preservice teacher education programme, along with two university supervisors at one of China’s teacher-training universities. Primary data were collected from six weeks of online threaded discussions and from semi-structured group interviews. Supplementary data were taken from an end-of-school-placement evaluation and web-tracking logs. Data analysis has been informed and illuminated by the theoretical proposition of communities of practice. The findings of the study indicate that the online learning community is a valuable resource for supporting student teachers both personally and professionally. Findings suggest that online communication not only helps student teachers tackle immediate teaching concerns and technical problems, but, more importantly, provides them with opportunities to reflect collectively, to co-construct new teaching ideas, and to gain professional discourse competence through articulating and negotiating their evolving thoughts on teaching as a profession. In this regard, student teachers are found to be more comfortable with online self-disclosure of their personal and professional encounters and critiquing each other than they are with face-to-face communication. The research also shows that university supervisors experience mixed feelings about the fact that student teachers are more able to take ownership of their learning and therefore become less dependent on supervisor guidance as time wears on. Furthermore, these findings provide evidence suggestive of a possibly reciprocal relationship between Chinese view of learning and the building of online learning communities. Based on the results of the study, I provide recommendations as to how the significance of the school placement can be reinforced in fostering distributed student teachers’ professional growth. The results also contribute to a better understanding of the key factors in the design and implementation of effective online learning communities within preservice teacher education in China. Finally, the analytical approach used in this study provides fresh methodological insight into an alternative means of analysing online postings. It thus contributes both to the theorisation of learning communities in the context of computer-mediated communication, and to the further development of concepts drawn from the communities of practice literature.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the effect of computer technology integration techniques on preservice teachers' feelings of computer self-efficacy and feelings of confidence in software integration. It was also the purpose of this study to interpret these preservice teachers' confidence in using computer technology integration techniques in their own planning and instruction during student teaching. The participants in this study were from two intact, non-randomly-formed classrooms. They were 27 preservice teachers enrolled in the College of Education at a university in north central Texas in two sections of a course entitled EDEE 4350, Mathematics in the Elementary School. This study was quasi-experimental, with a nonequivalent pretest-posttest control group design. The independent variable was the type of instruction experienced in an elementary mathematics methods course: novel instruction with specialized computer technology integration techniques versus traditional instruction with no specialized technology integration techniques. The dependant variables were measured using the following instruments: the Demographic Data and Previous Context Use of the Computer Survey which described participants' demographics and their previous usage of the computer; the Self-Efficacy With Computer Technologies Scale; the Preservice Teacher Software Integration Confidence Scale; and the Lesson Plan Infusion/Integration Scale. The results of the data analysis revealed, through the inferential statistics run on the Self-Efficacy with Computer Technology Scale pretest and posttest, that there was no statistically significant difference between treatment groups (p < .05). The posttest-only Preservice Teachers Software Integration Confidence Scale revealed a statistically significant difference between treatment groups (p < .05). The posttest-only Lesson Plan Technology Infusion/Integration Scale revealed no statistical significance between treatment groups (p < .05). The study provides insight into the benefits of instruction in specific software integration techniques instruction. It suggests that when preservice teachers are given instruction in specific computer software integration techniques, they are more confident in the use of those techniques.