This qualitative study gave insight on the benefits that a university literature course for future Spanish teachers could contribute to preservice teachers as part of their preparation program. Nine university students participated in this study as they were the ones enrolled in this first-time offered university literature course for Spanish teachers. Data were collected from pre- and post-questionnaires, journals, and course observations. The findings suggested that the preservice teachers grew in pedagogical content knowledge, literary content, resources and strategies, and felt an overall sense of preparedness to use literary sources in their future classrooms

This qualitative study gave insight on the benefits that a university literature course for future Spanish teachers could contribute to preservice teachers as part of their preparation program. Nine university students participated in this study as they were the ones enrolled in this first-time offered university literature course for Spanish teachers. Data were collected from pre- and post-questionnaires, journals, and course observations. The findings suggested that the preservice teachers grew in pedagogical content knowledge, literary content, resources and strategies, and felt an overall sense of preparedness to use literary sources in their future classrooms

Research about preservice teachers' beliefs indicates that the educational beliefs they have developed over time will have an impact on not only how they respond to the various experiences they have while enrolled in a teacher education program, but also their receptiveness to future professional development opportunities. I investigated the developing and emerging beliefs regarding reading and its instruction of four preservice elementary teachers during their participation in two university reading methods courses and the accompanying field-based experiences in the elementary teacher education program that was the site of my study. Two purposes framed the qualitative, longitudinal design of my study. One purpose was to examine the participants' prior, university-, and field-based experiences with reading and its instruction and the meaning they attached to these experiences. The second purpose was to learn how the participants incorporated into their developing belief systems as teachers of reading the various conceptions regarding reading development and its instruction they brought to and encountered during their university coursework and field experiences. Data sources included interviews, archival documents from the courses (reading philosophies, belief survey and autobiographical reading histories), reading expert surveys, reflexive philosophies and personal pedagogies. Results, presented in portraits for each participant, indicated that the participants created fictive images of the teachers they wanted to be that served as the lenses through which they interpreted both their university- and field-based experiences that were the focus of my study. When discussing their action agendas for teaching reading in the future, each participant relied on the fictive image she had created of herself as a teacher of reading. Consistent with existing research in this area, prior and field-based experiences with reading and its instruction seemed more influential in the development of these preservice teachers' beliefs than were the reading "methods of teaching" courses or instructors. A key implication, consistent with the National Commission on Excellence in Elementary Teacher Preparation for Reading Instruction (2003, 2007) recommendations, is for teacher educators to operate from and enact a clear vision of what reading instruction consists of across the elementary grade levels and content areas.

Questioning is an instructional strategy that serves many purposes for teachers and students. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the questioning sequence of moving from low- to high-level questions to support students’ reading text-based comprehension.After engaging in didactic instruction and practice in the TeachLivE™ Lab, teacher participants implemented low- and high-level question sequences during reading instruction with elementary students. Teacher performance was measured as a rate of question sequences in a multiple baseline design across two participants. Students’ verbal responses were assessed based on how they related a personal experience back to the text.Based on the findings, teachers effectively improved the use of questioning sequences.This instructional practice made a significant impact on low performing students. Overall students increased the quantity of c-units and accuracy.

Preservice teachers of reading develop their beliefs and understanding of reading pedagogy in diverse ways. While they do gather some knowledge and understanding from their university preparation courses and their practicum experiences in classrooms, a less transparent source of emerging understandings of reading pedagogy is their own experiences with reading instruction as students. Using a qualitative case study methodology, this dissertation study investigated how three preservice teachers interested in early childhood education developed understandings of reading pedagogy. Data collected included three interviews; two prompted reflective writings on their evolving understandings; observation in the participants’ reading processes course; and an interview with the course instructor. Findings indicated that preservice teachers’ biographies influenced both their understanding of how to teach reading and their attitudes toward it. Also, they favoured practicum experience over university coursework as a source of knowledge, and experienced tensions when their own beliefs contradicted the ideas espoused in the university course. In general, preservice teachers’ beliefs and experiences prior to starting their teacher education program caused resistance toward research-based theories and practices related to reading. Findings imply that teacher educators need to be explicit in providing many opportunities for their students to discuss and make sense of their epistemological understandings in relation to areas of tension with reading pedagogy. / Graduate

As teaching is a highly complex activity, so too is learning to teach. One pedagogy which has been shown to promote teacher learning is the use of small group discussion. This thesis examines the experiences of seven preservice secondary teachers at a New Zealand university who met weekly during their second practicum to discuss their experiences at their placement schools. Individual interviews conducted with five of the participants revealed that students felt positively about the weekly meetings. The preservice teachers appreciated 1) being able to hear about the experiences of other preservice teachers 2) tell others about their teaching 3) being able to seek advice and potential solutions to problems 4) the sense of personal connection and emotional support they gained during the weekly sessions. The students reported that the weekly meetings allowed them to think about their teaching from the perspective of others, and gave them time to reflect about their experiences while on practicum. This study situates these findings within the literature on initial teacher education and offers suggestions for future research using this pedagogy.

The Comprehensive Framework for Teacher Knowledge provides a model that describes an approach to the secondary mathematics methods course, as described by Robert Ronau and P. Mark Taylor. The model includes the orientation of preservice teachers toward mathematics and the teaching of mathematics, which includes the beliefs of the preservice teachers. The first questions deal with identifying the methods used in the methods course to address beliefs. The second set of questions deal with the effects of the methods course on the beliefs that preservice teachers hold on the learning and teaching of mathematics. The study included 16 different universities in the United States. The students completed the Mathematics Beliefs Inventory (MBI) before and after the course. The data used for analyses included the MBI, course syllabi and interviews with instructors and course textbooks. Qualitative analysis was conducted on the syllabi and interviews to assist in creating a rubric to score the syllabi, interviews and textbooks. Correlation and linear regression analysis was used along with the Wilcoxon signed-ranks test for the statistical analysis. A significant positive relationship was found between the number of methods used in the methods course to challenge student beliefs and the improvement between pre and post tests. Preservice teachers’ beliefs about the learning and teaching of mathematics were found to become more reform-oriented during the course of the methods course.

We know little about how English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) preservice teachers’ prior experiences and beliefs shape their learning process in teacher preparation programs, particularly in the area of second language (L2) reading instruction although research on preservice teachers’ antecedents has offered insights into our understanding of how they learn to become teachers (Johnson, 1992, 1994; Wilson, Floden, & Ferrini-Mundy, 2001). This inquiry was designed to contribute to such knowledge. The participants were nine ESOL pre-service teachers enrolled in an ESOL program of a large urban university in the southeastern region of the United States. Using modified versions of Language Teaching/Learning Beliefs Questionnaire (Brown & Rogers, 2002), of Multidimensional TESL Theoretical Orientation Profile (Johnson, 1992) and of the Theoretical Orientation of Reading Profile (Deford, 1985), reflective essays submitted during admission, observations, interviews, videotapings, and focus group, the study explored answers to questions regarding the influence of ESOL preservice teachers’ antecedents on their learning in coursework and field experiences over three semesters. The inquiry stemmed from the framework of constructivism (Crotty, 1998), of introspection and retrospection (Scarino, 2005), and of How People Learn (Donovan & Bransford, 2005). Data were analyzed using grounded theory and constant comparative techniques (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Findings indicated that faculty used various strategies to address teacher candidates’ background for conceptual change and development of professional dispositions. Programmatic decisions to select teacher candidates with specific background in learning an L2 were beneficial but teacher preparation programs may need additional instruments to tap candidates’ entering beliefs more effectively. Although some aspects of the participants’ prior experiences were not beneficial, these experiences generally contributed to their understanding of ESOL education, visions of L2 instruction, and the development of professional dispositions as related to culturally responsive and socially just teaching in important ways. Also, participants’ views of reading, visions of reading instruction, reading instruction in field experiences, and their understanding of literacy theory and pedagogy were primarily influenced by their first language reading experiences. Finally, participants were less confident in articulating a vision of L2 reading instruction because of limited L2 reading prior experiences.

This study examines preservice teachers’ knowledge in the case of linear functions. Teachers’ knowledge in general consists of their subject matter knowledge and their pedagogical content knowledge. In this study, teachers’ subject matter knowledge is examined by looking at their ability to adapt to different representation modes. The framework for subject matter content knowledge consists of five components: (1) flexibility across formal mathematical symbolisms; (2) flexibility between visual and algebraic representations; (3) flexibility within visual representations; (4) flexibility with real-life situations, and (5) procedural skills. In terms of pedagogical content knowledge, two aspects were examined across five corresponding components. These two aspects were knowledge of students’ conceptions and misconceptions, and teachers’ teaching strategies. The primary source of data for the study was from two tests and six interviews. The results showed preservice teachers performed poorly in terms of representation flexibility. Furthermore, most of the preservice teachers had limited knowledge of the nature and sources of students’ mistakes as well as effective teaching strategies to help students with their misconceptions. In terms of knowledge structure, representation flexibility was found to be significant in both CK and PCK compared to procedural skills. Moreover, the representational flexibility in terms of CK seemed to strongly predict the overall PCK performance. Representational flexibility seemed to be related to the use of instructional representations. Overall, there was a strong relationship between various components of CK and PCK.

The purpose of this study were (a) to examine the effectiveness of a computer simulation program (Computer Simulation for Teaching Critical Thinking on Gender Equality, CSTCT-GE) on preservice teachers¡¦ improvement in professional knowledge for teaching critical thinking and teaching efficacy for critical thinking; and (b) to examine the effects of gender, educational degree, critical-thinking ability, motivation for professional growth, and level of training involvement on preservice teachers¡¦ increase in professional knowledge and teaching efficacy for critical thinking. A one-group pretest-posttest design was employed in the study. Seventy-two preservice teachers participated in the study. The employed instruments were Computer Simulation for Teaching Critical Thinking on Gender Equality (CSTCT-GE), The Test for Professional Knowledge in Teaching Critical Thinking, The Test for Teaching Efficacy in Critical Thinking, the Test of Critical-thinking Skills for Adults, and The Test of professional growth for Junior High School Teachers. The applied analysis methods were descriptive statistics, Hotelling¡¦s T2, repeated measures of variance, multivariate analysis of covariance, and multiple stepwise regression. The main findings of this study were as follows: 1. CSTCT-GE was effective in improving the preservice teachers¡¦ professional knowledge and teaching efficacy for critical thinking. 2. The preservice teachers¡¦ increase of professional knowledge did not have significant effects on their enhancement of teaching efficacy for critical thinking. 3. There were no significant gender and educational degree effects on the preservice teachers¡¦ improvement of professional knowledge and teaching efficacy for critical thinking. 4. There were no significant critical-thinking ability effects on the preservice teachers¡¦ enhancement of teaching efficacy for critical thinking. 5. There were no significant professional growth motivation on the preservice teachers¡¦ improvement of professional knowledge and teaching efficacy for critical thinking. 6. The preservice teachers¡¦ level of training involvement had positive effects on their increase of professional knowledge for teaching critical-thinking but not on their enhancement of teaching efficacy for critical thinking. 7. The preservice teachers¡¦ level of training involvement could effectively predict their professional knowledge for teaching critical thinking in the posttest. 8. The preservice teachers¡¦ level of professional growth motivation could effectively predict their teaching efficacy for critical thinking in both the pretest and the posttest. Finally, the researcher proposed some suggestions for educational organizations, preservice teachers, inservice teachers, and future studies.