Recent trends in immigration in Manitoba and across Canada mean increasing classroom cultural diversity in all levels of the education system. In response to these trends, faculties of Education have tried a variety of ways to better prepare preservice teachers for this increasing classroom cultural diversity. An opportunity provided for preservice teachers in many teacher preparation programs is the chance to participate in international student-teaching practicums. This qualitative case study research explored the potential influence of the Elmwood international student-teaching practicum located in South-east Asia. The results shed light on the influence that personal dispositions have in the overall experiences and perceptions of the practicum participants. The study showed that international student-teaching practicums provide a variety of potentially challenging and valuable experiences. The study concludes with the claim that critically oriented parallel programming and supervision is necessary in the attempt to ensure that these experiences result in the positive personal and professional identity development in those involved.

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It has been widely discussed that current practices of preservice teacher education are still far away from utilizing contemporary methods and strategies in its curriculum practices in Turkey. Preservice teachers are not provided enough classroom experiences connecting theory to teaching practice. As a result of this, many senior teachers need further guidance and supervision to transfer their knowledge into school environments. In order to address this failure in bridging what is learned and practiced in preservice teacher education to that of real class happenings, an experimental study was conducted with the application of an alternative method namely video-case based instruction. This research study aimed to examine the differences between traditional lecture based instruction and video-case based instruction in terms of their effectiveness of presenting the content at &ldquo / Introduction to Teaching Profession Course&rdquo / delivered to the preservice teachers. Additionally, the study also aimed to evaluate the attitudes of students toward video-case based instruction to which they were exposed. In this study, video-case based instruction and lecture based instruction were applied in three sessions of application and they were compared in terms of delivering the course content. Data were collected from two sections of EDS 119 Course during 2005-2006 fall semester by administrating pretests, posttests, questionnaires and interviews. Data analysis was carried out through both quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques. Results demonstrated that video-case based instruction demonstrated achievement of course content and support significant difference overall between video-case based instruction and lecture based instruction in content achievement. The participants of the study reported positive attitudes towards video-case based instruction both for its current application and future uses. The results revealed that using video-case based methods in preservice teacher education programs may be a viable alternative for allowing students connect real teaching practices with what they learn in their pedagogy courses.

The aim of the study was to investigate the dynamics of two online communities of practice (oCoP) for preservice teachers. The research process encompassed three main phases. Phase 1 was related to the design and development of online environment. By the help of existing literature and a pilot study, a portal which is called as &ldquo / Professional Development Circle (PDC)&rdquo / was developed. In Phase-2, 28 preservice teachers from three different universities participated to an online course as a part of an undergraduate course. During the term, they discussed on different video cases which were recorded in real classroom environments and produced new lesson plans for these lessons in the light of given suggestions. In the third phase, the same preservice teachers got involved in a different online environment without any grading motivation in the Phase 2. They discussed on some hot topics in mathematics teaching with other preservice teachers, academicians and experienced teachers. This research study was mainly a qualitative study. Two cases of the study were two oCoP which included mandatory or voluntary participation of preservice teachers to discussions. The data were collected through written reflection reports, observations and interviews. In addition, private e-mail exchange with participants and discussion list message history were rich data sources. The data were analyzed according to qualitative data analysis techniques. The design principles and findings of this research study were discussed in the frame of Activity Theory. This study revealed outcomes of two online communities of practice environments in preservice teacher education. In addition, motivators and barriers to be active in oCoP environments were discussed. Some of the motivators were getting more responsibility, self confidance, sociable personality, altruism, sincerity in the environment, and quality of materials while some of the barriers were not wanting to enter a fight, lack of time, the idea &ldquo / max benefit minimum effort&rdquo / , feeling availability of others, and Internet access and computer availability.

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.

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.

Across the period in which this research was conducted, there has been an increasing emphasis in government and university policies on the promotion of technology integration in higher education. This emphasis has also become evident in Commonwealth and State government policies relating to preservice teacher education because of the need to ensure that teachers enter the profession with the types of technological skills and competencies that can enhance teaching and learning. The research reported in this thesis describes the experiences and perceptions of computer-based technologies from the perspective of academic staff and graduates from two preservice teacher education courses in a Queensland university. The research was conducted in two phases using a repeated cross-sectional longitudinal design. In Phase 1 of the research conducted in 1997, and in Phase 2 in 2002, questionnaires were used to gather data. In Phase 1 of the research, participants comprised 43 academic staff members involved in two preservice teacher education courses and 72 first or second year graduate teachers from these courses. Items in the academic staff and graduate teacher questionnaires elicited information on a range of issues related to the technologies including knowledge and confidence levels, acquisition of knowledge, current and future usage in teaching, advantages and disadvantages of teaching with the technologies, the importance of the technologies to higher and preservice education and the adequacy of preservice teacher education to prepare new teachers to use technologies. Graduate teachers were also questioned about barriers to their classroom use of technologies. Further questions for academic staff investigated the existence of factors that facilitate usage of technologies and the degree to which the presence or absence of these factors constituted barriers or incentives to technology use. A number of questions also explored attitudes surrounding the valuing of teaching, research and publishing. Results from the first phase of research revealed that both academic staff and new teachers made little use of technologies in their teaching. The most salient barriers to academic staff technology use included lack of technical advice and support, time, and lack of evidence of improved student learning and interest. There was also a widely held perception among academic staff that teaching was not valued by their university and that, in particular, innovation in teaching deserved greater recognition. For graduate teachers, barriers to technology use included lack of computers and resources, lack of school funding, and lack of knowledge and training. In Phase 2 of the research, participants comprised 40 academic staff members and 123 graduate teachers from the same two preservice teacher education courses. Participants were again questioned about knowledge and confidence levels, acquisition of knowledge, current and future usage in teaching, and the adequacy of preservice teacher education to prepare new teachers to use technologies. In light of new research and building on findings from the first phase of data collection, several new questions were added. These questions related primarily to the nature and availability of training and how preservice teacher preparation in technology use could be improved. Results from the second phase of research indicated that, among academic staff and graduate teachers, there had been considerable increases in knowledge and confidence levels in relation to the technologies, along with increased levels of usage. Both groups were also significantly more likely than their earlier counterparts to report that preservice teachers were adequately or well prepared in the use of technologies. For graduate teachers, lack of equipment and resources were ongoing barriers to technology use. Training in technology use appeared to be less of an issue for graduate teachers than academic staff with most reporting access to, and satisfaction with, inservice training opportunities. Encouraging too, was the finding that these graduate teachers were significantly more likely than their 1997 counterparts to attribute their knowledge of the technologies to preservice teacher education. While positive change in technology use was evident across this period, continued efforts to support and integrate technology in preservice teacher education remains important, as does support for the innovative use of technology to promote learning in schools.

Bei der Ausbildung von Lehramtsstudenten stellt sich die Frage, ob die Vermittlung formal-theoretischer Kenntnisse in der Quantentheorie ausreicht, damit zukünftige Lehrer diese modern, interessant und praxisnah ihren Schülern vermitteln können. Es ist zu vermuten, dass fachdidaktische Kompetenzen, wie das Erkennen von Schülervorstellungen, Vermittlung fachspezifischer methodisch-didaktischer Kenntnisse und die Darstellung eines schüleradäquaten Zugangs ebenfalls zu einer soliden Ausbildung dazugehören. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht, wie die Lehramtsausbildung in moderner Physik - spezi- ell am Beispiel der Quantentheorie - durch eine adäquate Gestaltung der fachdidaktischen Anteile verbesserbar ist. Dabei werden sowohl theoretische Überlegungen im Modell der Hochschuldidaktische Rekonstruktion und die Befragung von Lehramtsstudenten und Dozenten einbezogen und aufbauend ein fachdidaktisches Zusatzseminar geplant und evaluiert. Im ersten Teil der vorliegenden Arbeit wird dazu der lerntheoretische Rahmen der Hoch- schuldidaktischen Rekonstruktion innerhalb des pädagogischen Konstruktivismus und der Conceptual Change-Theorie abgesteckt. Die Komponenten der Hochschuldidaktischen Rekonstruktion werden dann für die Quantentheorie analysiert und in Verbindung mit den Untersuchungen der im nächsten Teil folgenden Anforderungsanalyse gebracht. Die große Stärke der Rekonstruktion ist die Möglichkeit, nicht nur Lernprozesse von der Schul- bis zur Hochschulebene zu analysieren, sondern diese auch strukturiert aufeinander auf- bauend planen zu können. Es folgt abschließend die Darstellung des Forschungsstandes zum Professionswissen. Der zweite Teil, die Anforderungsanalyse, beleuchtet die Einschätzung der Inhalte von Quantentheorievorlesungen, deren Ziele und erworbener Kompetenzen sowohl durch Lehr- amtsstudenten wie Dozenten. Hinzu kommen die Einschätzung geeigneter Schulinhalte und wichtiger quantenphysikalischer Konzepte als Bestandteile der didaktischen Rekonstruktion. Als entscheidender Punkt werden schließlich die Anforderungen an die fachdidaktische Ausbildung zu diesem Themengebiet analysiert. Aus den beiden vorangegangenen Teilen kann im dritten Abschnitt ein Seminar zur Didak- tik der Quantentheorie kompetenzorientiert geplant und im vierten Teil die Umsetzung hinsichtlich fachlicher und fachdidaktischer Kompetenzen, insbesondere die Änderung der kognitiven Struktur mit Hilfe von Concept Maps, sowohl quantitativ als auch qualitativ evaluiert werden. Es zeigt sich, dass die Kombination von zunächst fachlicher Ausbildung mit einer fachdi- daktischen Vertiefung des Themengebietes Quantentheorie Verbesserungspotential nicht nur für die fachdidaktische, sondern bemerkenswerterweise ebenfalls stark für die fachliche Kompetenz der Lehramtsstudenten bietet. Dabei zeigt sich außerdem die hohe Praktikabi- lität des Modells der Hochschuldidaktischen Rekonstruktion nach Lohmann (2006) und van Dijk und Kattmann (2007) für die umfassende Planung universitärer Lehrangebote.

<p>  </p> <p>Mathematics teacher educators have suggested that approximations of practice provide preservice mathematics teachers (PMTs) with opportunities to engage with, develop, and demonstrate subdomains of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching ([MKT], Ball et al., 2008) because MKT provides a way for PMTs to understand how to contextualize their discipline-specific content knowledge for effective mathematics teaching and learning. However, the affordances and limitations of commonly used forms of approximations of practice (i.e., lesson planning and peer teaching) coupled with reflective practices to engage PMTs in subdomains of MKT are still being explored. In this study, I investigated how lesson planning, peer teaching, and associated reflections individually and collectively afforded opportunities for PMTs to demonstrate and develop the MKT subdomains. Eleven PMTs enrolled in a secondary mathematics methods course at a large Midwestern University participated in the study. My dissertation comprises three sub-studies (Sub-study “1”, “2”, and “3”), and I produced three manuscripts to individually report findings from those sub-studies. I investigated how lesson planning, peer teaching, and reflections afforded opportunities for PMTs to demonstrate and describe MKT subdomains in Sub-studies 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The findings across the sub-studies suggested that several MKT subdomains (e.g., Knowledge of Content and Teaching, Knowledge of Content and Students) were evidenced in the PMTs’ planned teacher and student actions (e.g., selecting mathematical tasks, formulating and sequencing questions), and in-the-moment actions and decisions (e.g., mathematically representing students’ responses, implementing mathematical tasks). Several aspects of MKT subdomains (e.g., evaluate the diagnostic potential of tasks) were strongly evidenced only in the PMTs’ lesson plans whereas other aspects (e.g., modifying tasks based on students’ responses) were evidenced only in peer teaching. These findings suggested that various forms of approximations of practice (planned and enacted actions) created unique opportunities for the PMTs to engage with and demonstrate MKT. I also found that the PMTs reflected on some subdomains of MKT that were not evidenced in their approximated practices, indicating that how PMTs describe the MKT subdomains is not entirely a result of what subdomains they engage in during approximations of practice. My findings also revealed limitations of using approximations of practice to engage PMTs with MKT subdomains. The MKT subdomains that required the PMTs to think about students’ alternative mathematical concepts, big mathematical ideas, and non-standard mathematics problem-solving strategies were least evidenced across the approximations of practice and reflections. These findings have two primary implications for mathematics teacher educators. First, I invite mathematics teacher educators to engage PMTs in multiple forms of approximations of practice to optimize their opportunities to engage with, demonstrate, and develop the MKT subdomains. Second, I suggest potential instructional activities (e.g., inviting PMTs to reflect on their roles as students and teachers during peer teaching) that could be incorporated into approximations of practice to address the existing limitations. Broadly, I invite mathematics teacher educators to design instructional activities at the intersection of mathematics content and pedagogy, collaborating with colleagues to enhance these opportunities across programs.</p> <p>  </p>