This study examined the experience of three secondary science student teachers from Western Oregon State College in Monmouth, Oregon during the Spring quarter of 1990. The question was: What is student teaching like from the point of view of the student teacher? The research methodology was qualitative, more specifically participant observation, prolonged engagement, and using the Constant Comparative Model. Data sources included audio taped journals from the student teachers, transcribed audio tapes from seminars, video tapes of teaching, rich descriptions from field notes made by the researcher, a journal from one cooperating teacher, and a journal kept by the researcher. Analysis of the data set produced 81 coding categories. A data set was marked, cut and filed under these coding categories. Patterns and generalizations were drawn from the categorized data set. The three student teachers had widely varied experiences. The analysis of data resulted in the generation of seven hypotheses concerning student teaching. They were as follows: 1. Student teachers react to the student teaching experience differently. 2. The student teaching experience may be so complex that a total, Gestalt, understanding of it is not possible. 3. For some student teachers, there is a critical point, called The Wall. 4. The nature of the critical point and the outcomes of the experience vary greatly among the student teachers. 5. Student teachers need a support group or support individual available during the student teaching experience. 6. The cooperating teacher(s) is/are a stronger influence on the student teacher than is the college supervisor. 7. The predictors for success in student teaching that were used in this study are likely unreliable. / Graduation date: 1991

This study examined instructional strategies and their impacts on preservice teachers' attitude toward multicultural issues and learners. A qualitative phenomenological approach is used for this study because of my philosophical belief in multiple realities. / The research site was a classroom of the Multi-Cultured/Multi-Racial course offered by the Faculty of Education in an English University located in the Montreal area. The studied course was a compulsory preservice teacher training course implemented for the first time in response to the requirement of the Ministry of Education in Quebec. / The data were gathered through classroom observation, questionnaires distributed to preservice teachers in the classroom, interviews with five preservice teachers enrolled in the studied course, and an interview with the course director. / Sessions of cooperative learning and discussions following videos seemed to be effective to deepen preservice teachers' understandings of multicultural issues and teaching. The effects that the studied course had on preservice teachers differed among respondents depending on their previous experience. Preservice teachers with minimal multicultural experience felt that they learned a lot from the course, whereas preservice teachers with more multicultural experience felt that the course fell short of their expectations.

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Prospective teachers enter teacher education programs with previously formed conceptions of geometry and its teaching. These conceptions help them make sense of new information about teaching, their roles as teachers, and their translation of mathematics into learning activities. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among preservice teachers' conceptions of geometry, conceptions of teaching geometry and classroom practices. Ten preservice mathematics teachers completed a card sort task with an interview. They also participated in a videotape task which consisted of viewing three experienced geometry teachers on videotape. Four of these preservice teachers were observed eight times each during their professional internship experience. All interviews and observations were videotaped and transcribed for data analysis. Results of this study indicated a complex relationship between the preservice teachers' conceptions of geometry and conceptions of teaching geometry. The preservice teachers could not discuss their conceptions of geometry without discussing the teaching of geometry. Their conceptions about geometry and their belief that geometry was linear, in nature were so strong that these views became connected with their views of teaching geometry. Clearly, the preservice teachers' conceptions of geometry influenced their conceptions of teaching geometry and the teaching of subject matter influenced the preservice teachers' conceptions of geometry as well. The relationship between the preservice teachers' conceptions of geometry and their classroom practices was directly influenced by the textbooks used. They believed geometry was ordered according to the textbook and their classroom practices also followed the textbook. The relationship of the preservice teachers' conceptions of geometry teaching to classroom practices indicated that what the preservice teachers said they believed and what they did in the classroom were not always consistent. Their beliefs about teaching geometry rarely emerged in their classroom practices. Finally, these preservice teachers had an overwhelming concern with classroom management. This concern governed their thinking about teaching. / Graduation date: 1996

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The purpose of this study was to see if student teachers could bridge the gap between what is taught in higher education courses and what they observe practiced in primary school classrooms by implementing developmentally appropriate practices through the use of the Project Approach promoted by Lilian Katz and Sylvia Chard. Issues and attitudes that developed were also reviewed.Two student teachers provided the data for this qualitative study. The case studies consisted of interviews, observations, and documentation examination. Positive attitudes toward research and theory emerged. Issues that were identified included time, writing lesson plans, lack of a model, and the student teaching triad. Despite the issues it was determined that providing a framework to implement theory assists student teachers when they attempt to implement theory. In this particular study, providing the framework of the Project Approach aided the student teachers in implementing developmentally appropriate practices. / Department of Elementary Education

The case study examined how three preservice teachers within a Master of Arts in Teaching program at a small, private university negotiated meaning around an educational practice--collaborative action research. Preservice teachers must negotiate multiple, and often competing, internal and external discourses as they sort out what educational practices, policies, organizational structures to accept or reject as presented in the teacher education program. This negotiation is a dynamic, contextual, unique meaning-making process that extends, redirects, dismisses, reinterprets, modifies, or confirms prior beliefs (Wenger, 1998). Korthagen's (2004) model for facilitating understanding and reflection was used to explore the process of negotiating meaning. Known as the Onion Model, it includes six levels: the environment, behavior, competencies, beliefs, identity, and mission. When alignment occurs between all levels, Korthagen explained that individuals experience wholeness, energy, and presence. In contrast, tensions can occur within a level or between levels of the Onion Model and limit the effectiveness of the preservice teacher regarding the area in question. Reflecting on the collaborative action research experience through the layers of the Korthagen's model may allow preservice teachers (and professors) to identify degrees of alignment and areas of tension as preservice teachers negotiate meaning. Once identified, areas of tension can be deconstructed and better understood; self-understanding can empower individuals to assume an active and powerful role in their professional developmental. To explore how preservice teachers negotiated their identity regarding collaborative action research, the following research questions guided the study: (1) How do preservice teachers' trajectories align with the practice of collaborative action research? (2) How do individuals negotiate meaning regarding the practice of collaborative action research? (3) How do preservice teachers frame collaborative action research in relation to their future practice? Triangulated data from interviews, observations, and document analysis was collected, analyzed, and interpreted to provide insight into preservice teachers' process of negotiating meaning around a nontraditional educational practice. Each participant traveled a unique and emotional journey through the process of collaborative action research and their personal trajectory did influence the way they negotiated the practice of collaborative action research. Findings included: (a) each participant had a dominant trait that influenced areas of alignment and misalignment between their trajectory and the practice of collaborative action research; (b) some participants exhibited visible misalignments while the misalignments of others were hidden; (c) participants relied on personal strengths to reestablish the perception of alignment as they negotiated meaning through the practice of collaborative action research; (d) the way misalignments were negotiated limited the transformational potential of the learning experience of collaborative action research; and (e) participants' expectations for their future use of the practice of collaborative action research aligned with their dominant traits.

Novice science teachers struggle to incorporate reform-based perspectives of teaching and learning into their planning and instruction. Some argue that this is due to a mismatch between teachers’ beliefs and the goals of reform. However, it is widely recognized that the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and science teaching is tenuous at best. Previous attempts to understand the mismatch between preservice teachers’ espoused beliefs and their classroom practices draw upon models of teacher cognition that consider beliefs and knowledge as the main drivers of their actions. In this study I use a goal-driven model of science teacher cognition as my theoretical framework. This model posits that classroom practices are an attempt to achieve particular goals. Based on this model, I conducted a cross-case analysis using qualitative methods to examine the relationship between teachers’ beliefs, knowledge, and goals and the types of learning opportunities they design. Data were collected through participant interviews and document analysis. Findings are consistent with the theoretical premises of this model, suggesting that the goals teachers pursue are influenced by their beliefs about teaching and learning science, together with the contextual characteristics of their placement. Findings suggest that the design and enactment of high cognitive demand learning tasks is facilitated by several factors. First, preservice teachers need to operationalize their beliefs into learning goals for their students, including explicit epistemic goals that seek to engage students in the use of science practices to make sense of disciplinary ideas. Second, in order to achieve their goals, preservice science teachers need to learn how to design scaffolds that bridge students’ classroom practices with the practices of the discipline to make sense of scientific ideas. Finally, the goals of the teacher education program, the school, and the personal goals that preservice teachers aim to pursue may conflict; whether and how they solve these conflicts influence the cognitive demand of the tasks they design. This study suggests that helping student teachers develop and pursuing goals that characterize high cognitive demand tasks have the potential to improve their teaching practices.

The purpose of this study was to determine the degree of sensitivity of preservice elementary teachers to the language differences of Mexican American children in an oral reading task. The review of related research dealing with language attitudes toward nonstandard speech revealed that te

The purpose of this study was to investigate the dilemmas pre-service science teachers encounter in relation to their participation in a project which sought to establish a constructivist and collaborative model of teaching and learning. I also explored the strategies the pre-service teachers implemented to manage the dilemmas they encountered, as well as how they perceived those dilemmas to have influenced their teaching practice and their personal philosophies of teaching and learning (PPoTaL). Since the construct of voice was an important factor in this study, I used a research method that I refer to as intercontext. This method has three major components: stimulated linkage, reflexivity and the dialectical conversation. To enact this research method, I conducted five interviews with each of the six pre-service teachers over the 12-month period of their professional preparation. In addition, I had many informal conversations with them and observed them several times during their university and school practicum experiences. I argued that social constructivism provides a fruitful theoretical framework to interpret the results of this study, because this orientation to teaching and learning is based on the notion that knowledge is socially constructed and mediated by.cultural, historical and institutional codes. In this light, three broad dilemmas were identified in relation to the students' experiences with the teacher education program's course content and design and six dilemmas were identified in relation to the roles the participants felt they needed to perform during their school practicum. The variety of dilemmas the pre-service teachers encountered and the direct and indirect strategies they implemented to manage those dilemmas could be explained in terms of two overarching issues. The first had to do with the difficulties associated with bridging the theory and practice of learning to teach in two distinct communities of practice (i.e., in the university and the school communities). The second general factor had to do with the type of relationship the pre-service teachers established with their school advisor(s) or/and faculty advisor; that is, from the the students' point of view they wondered to what extent they could trust their advisors to allow them to take the risks associated with asking questions, trying innovative approaches in the classroom, and exploring their own teaching identity without any of these reflecting negatively in their final evaluation reports. Finally, a number of suggestions for practice and further research are provided.