This study is a qualitative meta-evaluation of the early field experience (EFE) program at a small, private, undergraduate teacher preparation program in Virginia focusing on the perceptions of preservice teachers, cooperating teachers and course instructors about the EFE evaluation objectives, evaluation experience, and resulting data usage. The EFE evaluation protocol at the study site is explored using a participatory-oriented evaluation model that solicited the perceptions of stakeholders. Analysis of EFE evaluation documents and semi-structured interviews with the stakeholders were conducted to explore the extent to which (1) official EFE objectives are congruent with the EFE evaluation, (2) the intended evaluation experience is congruent with stakeholders’ perceptions of the evaluation experience, and (3) intended data usage is congruent with reported data usage. The findings indicate that the EFE evaluation process is logistically sound, but does not assess and facilitate preservice teacher learning. Recommendations to improve the merit and worth of the evaluation process are presented.

Currently in the United States there are more than 4 million lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students in K-12 public schools (Bochenek, Brown, & Human Rights Watch, 2001). Despite the prevalence of LGBT youth and the diversification of family populations, teacher preparation programs rarely acknowledge "queer" aspects of multiculturalism (Letts, 2002). As a result, a majority of K-12 educators enter the field of teaching unwilling and/or unprepared to engage with queer issues as they relate to students and families, curriculum, and instruction. The culture of silence around homosexuality can put queer youth at risk and deter school stakeholders from addressing queer issues, the discussion of which can lead to deepened understanding, increased empathy, and social action. Employing critical social theory as a theoretical framework, this paper examines the promise of increased awareness about and use of queer-inclusive pedagogy and curriculum in pre-service teacher education. It is argued that such inclusion is necessary to counteract heterosexism in schools that reinforce gender norms and impart heteronormative values. Guided by interpretivist inquiry, the current multiple-case study describes how eight pre-service teachers encountered, made sense of, and responded to sexual and gender diversity in their K-8 field placements. Findings are presented in individual case descriptions followed by a cross-case synthesis and suggest that pre-service teachers came into direct and constant contact with queer issues. Participants' overwhelming desire to process and make sense of their encounters as a means of supporting students as well as negotiating their own personal sense of identity also emerged from the data. The implications of these findings for pre-service teacher education are discussed as is a proposed framework for queer inclusion and next steps for future research.

Esta pesquisa está inserida no campo das investigações sobre a formação inicial de professores e assume que a docência é uma profissão. Como tal, envolve um corpo de saberes específicos. Além disso, fundamenta-se na necessidade de se superar o modelo da racionalidade técnica na formação docente, em direção ao modelo da prática reflexiva, centrado na investigação do próprio trabalho em sala de aula. Com base nesses pressupostos, seu foco de estudo é o estágio supervisionado caracterizado, neste trabalho, por um desenvolvimento coletivo, tutorado por uma professora da escola básica e centrado numa pesquisa-ação. Considerando-se essas características, a investigação visava analisar as possíveis contribuições dessa modalidade de estágio para a elaboração dos saberes profissionais dos licenciandos de um curso de Ciências Biológicas. A pesquisa foi desenvolvida na Escola de Aplicação da Faculdade de Educação da Universidade de São Paulo, sendo que a pesquisadora era simultaneamente professora dessa escola e tutora do estágio. O grupo de estagiários era formado por seis licenciandos, que trabalharam com alunos do primeiro ano do Ensino Médio. Além da atuação nas aulas, os estagiários se reuniam semanalmente com a tutora, por um período de duas horas, no qual planejavam, analisavam e replanejavam coletivamente as ações pedagógicas que eram implementadas junto aos alunos. Dentre as metodologias possíveis, optou-se pelo estudo de caso. Os dados foram obtidos através de: observações da pesquisadora, registradas em seu caderno de campo; correspondência eletrônica trocada entre a tutora e os estagiários; diversos documentos escritos, tais como relatórios de estágio, questionários de avaliação, textos de auto-avaliação; gravações em vídeo das reuniões e entrevistas semi-estruturadas gravadas em áudio. A análise dos dados foi feita em duas etapas. Na primeira, analisou-se um módulo de aulas a fim de se descrever um conjunto de ciclos reflexivos da pesquisa-ação e de se evidenciar os contextos nos quais os saberes dos estagiários eram manifestados e transformados. A segunda visava à identificação de elaborações de saberes ao longo de todo o processo.Os resultados obtidos revelaram transformações nos saberes mais atrelados ao contexto da sala de aula, isto é, nos saberes: pedagógicos do conteúdo, práticos e pedagógicos gerais (sobre aprendizagem, ensino, ações pedagógicas, avaliação, gestão de classe, alunos e conceitos biológicos). Saberes curriculares e saberes sobre os fins educacionais, que englobam reflexões sobre o papel social da escola e do professor de Biologia, não foram muito favorecidos por essa proposta. A análise desses resultados mostrou como o principal limite do estágio a predominância dos enfoques técnico e prático na pesquisa-ação realizada. O enfoque emancipatório esteve pouco presente no processo. A despeito desse limite, foi possível identificar importantes contribuições do processo vivenciado para a formação dos futuros professores, como a elaboração de saberes essenciais à docência e melhorias no desenvolvimento pessoal. Assim sendo, conclui-se que os estágios tutorados e centrados na pesquisa-ação se constituem num caminho promissor a ser considerado e explorado na busca da tão necessária melhoria da formação docente. / This study belongs to the field of investigating the preservice teacher education. It assumes that teaching is a profession, and, as such, it involves a body of specific knowledge. It also includes the idea of the need to overcome the model of technical reasoning in teacher training in order to assume the model of reflective practice, centered on investigating the own work which is occurring in the classroom. Based on these presuppositions, the study focuses on the supervised training period, which has the features of being collective, tutored by a teacher of basic education and centered on action research. Taking into account these features, it aimed to investigate how it can contribute to forming the professional knowledge of the preservice teachers for a degree in a course of Biological Science. The study was developed in the Escola de Aplicação da Faculdade de Educação da Universidade de São Paulo, and the researcher was simultaneously a teacher of this school and a tutor of the training period. The group of student teachers was formed of six teacher candidates, who worked with pupils of the first year of High School. As well as giving lessons, they met the tutor weekly, for a period of two hours, during which they planned, analyzed and replanned together the pedagogical actions which were implemented with the pupils. Among possible methodologies, we opted for the case study. The data were obtained by means of: observations of the researcher, recorded in her field notebook; electronic mail exchanged between the tutor and the student teachers; different written documents, such as reports of a training period, questionnaires of evaluation, texts of self-evaluation; video recordings of the meetings and semi-structured interviews recorded on a tape recorder. The data was analyzed in two stages. In the first one, a module of lessons was analyzed in order to describe a set of reflective cycles of the action research and so as to show clearly the contexts in which the knowledge of the student teachers was displayed and transformed. The second one aimed at identifying how the knowledge was composed throughout all the process. The results obtained revealed transformations in the knowledge more linked to the context of the classroom, i.e. the pedagogical content knowledge, the practical knowledge and the general pedagogical knowledge (about learning, teaching, pedagogical actions, evaluation, class management, pupils and biological concepts). Knowledge of the curriculum and about educational objectives, which encompass reflections about the social role of the school and the teacher of Biology, were not looked at very much in this study. The analysis of these results showed that the main limit of the training period was the predominance of technical and practical focus points in the action research executed. The emancipatory focus was hardly present in the process. In spite of this limit, it was possible to identify improvements, in both the personal and the professional development of the students teachers, associated with the tutoring and the action research. Based on these results, the conclusion is that training periods which are tutored and centered on action research is a promising line to be considered and explored in the search for the much-needed improvement in training teachers.

Esta pesquisa está inserida no campo das investigações sobre a formação inicial de professores e assume que a docência é uma profissão. Como tal, envolve um corpo de saberes específicos. Além disso, fundamenta-se na necessidade de se superar o modelo da racionalidade técnica na formação docente, em direção ao modelo da prática reflexiva, centrado na investigação do próprio trabalho em sala de aula. Com base nesses pressupostos, seu foco de estudo é o estágio supervisionado caracterizado, neste trabalho, por um desenvolvimento coletivo, tutorado por uma professora da escola básica e centrado numa pesquisa-ação. Considerando-se essas características, a investigação visava analisar as possíveis contribuições dessa modalidade de estágio para a elaboração dos saberes profissionais dos licenciandos de um curso de Ciências Biológicas. A pesquisa foi desenvolvida na Escola de Aplicação da Faculdade de Educação da Universidade de São Paulo, sendo que a pesquisadora era simultaneamente professora dessa escola e tutora do estágio. O grupo de estagiários era formado por seis licenciandos, que trabalharam com alunos do primeiro ano do Ensino Médio. Além da atuação nas aulas, os estagiários se reuniam semanalmente com a tutora, por um período de duas horas, no qual planejavam, analisavam e replanejavam coletivamente as ações pedagógicas que eram implementadas junto aos alunos. Dentre as metodologias possíveis, optou-se pelo estudo de caso. Os dados foram obtidos através de: observações da pesquisadora, registradas em seu caderno de campo; correspondência eletrônica trocada entre a tutora e os estagiários; diversos documentos escritos, tais como relatórios de estágio, questionários de avaliação, textos de auto-avaliação; gravações em vídeo das reuniões e entrevistas semi-estruturadas gravadas em áudio. A análise dos dados foi feita em duas etapas. Na primeira, analisou-se um módulo de aulas a fim de se descrever um conjunto de ciclos reflexivos da pesquisa-ação e de se evidenciar os contextos nos quais os saberes dos estagiários eram manifestados e transformados. A segunda visava à identificação de elaborações de saberes ao longo de todo o processo.Os resultados obtidos revelaram transformações nos saberes mais atrelados ao contexto da sala de aula, isto é, nos saberes: pedagógicos do conteúdo, práticos e pedagógicos gerais (sobre aprendizagem, ensino, ações pedagógicas, avaliação, gestão de classe, alunos e conceitos biológicos). Saberes curriculares e saberes sobre os fins educacionais, que englobam reflexões sobre o papel social da escola e do professor de Biologia, não foram muito favorecidos por essa proposta. A análise desses resultados mostrou como o principal limite do estágio a predominância dos enfoques técnico e prático na pesquisa-ação realizada. O enfoque emancipatório esteve pouco presente no processo. A despeito desse limite, foi possível identificar importantes contribuições do processo vivenciado para a formação dos futuros professores, como a elaboração de saberes essenciais à docência e melhorias no desenvolvimento pessoal. Assim sendo, conclui-se que os estágios tutorados e centrados na pesquisa-ação se constituem num caminho promissor a ser considerado e explorado na busca da tão necessária melhoria da formação docente. / This study belongs to the field of investigating the preservice teacher education. It assumes that teaching is a profession, and, as such, it involves a body of specific knowledge. It also includes the idea of the need to overcome the model of technical reasoning in teacher training in order to assume the model of reflective practice, centered on investigating the own work which is occurring in the classroom. Based on these presuppositions, the study focuses on the supervised training period, which has the features of being collective, tutored by a teacher of basic education and centered on action research. Taking into account these features, it aimed to investigate how it can contribute to forming the professional knowledge of the preservice teachers for a degree in a course of Biological Science. The study was developed in the Escola de Aplicação da Faculdade de Educação da Universidade de São Paulo, and the researcher was simultaneously a teacher of this school and a tutor of the training period. The group of student teachers was formed of six teacher candidates, who worked with pupils of the first year of High School. As well as giving lessons, they met the tutor weekly, for a period of two hours, during which they planned, analyzed and replanned together the pedagogical actions which were implemented with the pupils. Among possible methodologies, we opted for the case study. The data were obtained by means of: observations of the researcher, recorded in her field notebook; electronic mail exchanged between the tutor and the student teachers; different written documents, such as reports of a training period, questionnaires of evaluation, texts of self-evaluation; video recordings of the meetings and semi-structured interviews recorded on a tape recorder. The data was analyzed in two stages. In the first one, a module of lessons was analyzed in order to describe a set of reflective cycles of the action research and so as to show clearly the contexts in which the knowledge of the student teachers was displayed and transformed. The second one aimed at identifying how the knowledge was composed throughout all the process. The results obtained revealed transformations in the knowledge more linked to the context of the classroom, i.e. the pedagogical content knowledge, the practical knowledge and the general pedagogical knowledge (about learning, teaching, pedagogical actions, evaluation, class management, pupils and biological concepts). Knowledge of the curriculum and about educational objectives, which encompass reflections about the social role of the school and the teacher of Biology, were not looked at very much in this study. The analysis of these results showed that the main limit of the training period was the predominance of technical and practical focus points in the action research executed. The emancipatory focus was hardly present in the process. In spite of this limit, it was possible to identify improvements, in both the personal and the professional development of the students teachers, associated with the tutoring and the action research. Based on these results, the conclusion is that training periods which are tutored and centered on action research is a promising line to be considered and explored in the search for the much-needed improvement in training teachers.

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of early childhood preservice teachers in a southeastern university as they worked for mastery of phonemic awareness, phonics, and morphemic awareness. Mastery was set at 90% accuracy in a series of tests, which required them to perform different tasks related to the said concepts. One aim of the study was to investigate the preservice teachers’ description of their experiences as they worked for mastery of phonemic awareness, phonics, and morphemic awareness. Another aim was to examine how working for mastery of said concepts influenced their perceptions of preparedness to carry out literacy instruction. This research used a multiple case study method involving 8 preservice teachers who were taking their first literacy methods course. Data were gathered through an online survey, analysis of answered test papers, written responses, individual interviews, and a focus group interview. Qualitative analysis of data revealed the experience brought about awareness of insufficient knowledge, apprehension to teach, and perplexities related to phonemic awareness, phonics, and morphemic awareness among the participants. The most salient perplexities were found to be related to phonemic awareness tasks, application of phonics key terms to real words, and splitting words into morphemes. Findings also revealed that improved understanding of phonemic awareness, phonics, and morphemic awareness enhanced the participants’ perception of preparedness to teach these concepts. Engaging in reflective thinking while working for mastery of these concepts deepened their awareness of unpreparedness, reconnected them to their goal to be effective teachers, and caused them to deliberately act on their challenges in obtaining content knowledge required for quality literacy instruction. The results of this study will have relevance for teacher educators, policy makers, school administrators, and researchers as they address issues related to literacy instruction during teacher preparation, especially in terms of acquisition of strong content knowledge.

Analysis is typically listed in taxonomies of higher order thinking. Academics consider these taxonomies worthwhile, but they are hard to teach and we are apt to ignore them. Today higher education is criticized for “dumbing down” curriculum or lowering standards. To rectify this, many policies at the state or national level are requiring higher education institutions to change. In K-12 education, Race to the Top and Common Core requirements are placing new demands on K-12 teacher preparation, which include evaluation of the analysis skills of pre-service teachers. But professors do not always view their disciplines as the proper place for teaching analytical skills. Others become frustrated when trying to teach analysis. But if we do not teach these skills, our teacher candidates will be poorly prepared for success, a problem which will cascade throughout our society, rendering our citizens less educated. In this paper, we describe our efforts to teach analysis in two courses from widely differing subject areas, literacy and mathematics education. We are now requiring teacher candidates to analyze simulated or actual samples of student work. We have developed a sequenced process of analysis education that we believe can be generalized to many other courses

In 2010, the state of Tennessee embraced the call to overhaul teacher education and required programs to adopt a residency model within K-12 schools. How exactly this would affect the various methods courses in a teacher education program? This paper provides a description of how two elementary education methods courses have shifted from simulation-style projects to projects that involve working with actual elementary students throughout the semester. This article presents an overview of the new residency style methods courses, along with how major assignments shifted to utilize the extensive time pre-service teachers would spend in the elementary school classroom.

Researchers have determined that field experience is crucial in education preparation programs, yet little information is available about field experience within online early childhood education (ECE) programs. Educators who work in online ECE programs need to understand how to facilitate field experience effectively. The purpose of this qualitative interview study was to understand the processes, procedures, and experiences of instructors who facilitate preservice teachers' field experience in online ECE programs. A constructivist framework was used to examine facilitation practices. Nine instructors from online ECE programs in the United States participated in 2 semistructured interviews that lasted approximately 1 hour each. A combination of a priori and open coding was used to support inductive analysis. Themes included communication, mentoring, collaboration, parity between online and live facilitation of field experiences, roadblocks, innovations, assessment, and reflection. Participants reported that a constructivist approach was crucial for online facilitation. Four key findings included an intentionality of design for parity between online and live facilitation, active engagement in responding to facilitation challenges, embedded constructivism in curriculum design, and a necessity for online options despite preference for live field supervision. Social change implications for ECE instructors include sharing of best practices to improve facilitation of field experience in online ECE programs and acknowledgement of need for research focused on quality of field experience. Enhancing the quality of field experiences could better prepare teachers, which would benefit young children in ECE classrooms.

Instructional time for social studies in elementary classrooms has decreased since the passage of Goals 2000 and No Child Left Behind, with content contracted to align with reading goals. Consequently, opportunities for preservice teachers to observe and teach social studies lessons have diminished. This qualitative multiple case study examines the practices that preservice teachers develop and apply in making decisions concerning social studies curriculum. Three elementary level preservice teachers who had, or were earning, another degree in addition to their degree in education were participants in the study. The study offers insights into three research questions: 1) How do preservice elementary teachers construct an understanding of the teachings of social studies? 2) What knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes do preservice teachers draw upon as they make decisions about social studies teaching? and 3) How do preservice teachers reflect upon and revise their own teaching of social studies? Data from student-produced texts, interviews, classroom observations, a focus group, and researcher memos were analyzed using an inductive approach drawing on Charmaz's Constructing Grounded Theory (2010) and situational analysis (Clarke,2005). Five factors intersected for each participant in constructing their understandings of social studies instruction: academic background, learning preferences, beliefs and attitudes regarding education, a conception of the teacher's role, and aspects of college coursework in education. The participants' academic background, knowledge of students' prior learning, content standards, curriculum emphasis at school sites, and beliefs about purposes for social studies shaped their decisions about social studies instruction. Each participant reflected on technical aspects of lessons primarily using descriptive language. Reflection considering multiple perspectives and the social and historical contexts for lessons occurred when the participants had academic backgrounds related to social studies fields, or when there were multiple lessons related around a topic. In these cases, reflections demonstrated greater depth and complexity. Participants' opportunities to revise lessons varied. In general, the findings suggest that when background knowledge was related to social studies fields, preservice teachers found alternative ways to approach subject matter and multiple occasions to integrate social studies. This study has implications for the coursework and practicum components of preservice teacher education. / Graduation date: 2012

The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) Examine successful choral director beliefs about warm-ups and their successful practices in conducting warm-ups, and (b) examine the relationship of musical background, choral training and music teaching style of high school choral directors upon these beliefs and practices. Subjects were 365 high school choral directors from 28 states. Data were analyzed using descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, multivariate analysis of variance and multiple regression. Results indicated choral director's beliefs and practices differ as a function of musical back-ground, demographic characteristics, choral conducting training, and music teaching styles. Specifically, warm-up beliefs were predicted by knowledge of vocal health and variety of warm-ups. Conversely, those who relied on the warm-up time for discipline and focusing attention showed a significant negative relationship with their philosophy. From multiple regression analysis, doing choral warm-ups accounted for one-third of a director's overall success, predicted by 10 variables: (a) experience, (b) education, (c) teaching style teacher-directed performance, (d) teaching style deep-student learning, (e) warm-up literature and procedure, (f) planning warm-ups (g) warm-up content, (h) prior choral experience and piano background, (i) a foundation in music, and (j) a developed philosophy of choral warm-ups. However, having a philosophy about warm-ups did not predict successful teaching practices.