This study describes the learning of researchers who engage in mathematics teacher education as an integral part of their practice. As teacher educators working with teachers on the subject of proportional reasoning, the authors reflected on teachers solutions to a standard problem and analyzed answers that would conventionally be considered…

Describes a cognitive intervention that offered novice student teachers access to the thinking underlying an expert teacher's practice, examining the implementation and impact of the cognitive intervention, which involved two 2-hour workshops held between participants' first and second practicum experiences. Workshop transcripts indicated that…

Explored the characteristics of successful mentoring. Student teachers and their mentors attended monthly workshops during which they identified effective mentoring characteristics. Data from dialogue journals, interviews, videotapes of conferences, and workshop artifacts highlighted three categories: (1) helping student teachers survive their…

Presents student teachers' reactions to a mathematics and science methods class redesigned to challenge their beliefs regarding the nature of mathematics, themselves as learners, and teaching-learning processes. Student interviews, journal writings, mathematics autobiographies, exams, and class writings indicated that many students increased their…

Reports a 2-year study of a preservice program that uses both emergency permit teaching and traditional student teaching as the culminating field experience, investigating traditional and emergency students' perceptions of their methods of professional preparation. Data from student teacher surveys indicated that respondents were largely satisfied…

Investigated preservice teachers' understandings of their own and their students' cultural backgrounds, examining how they integrated those understandings into literacy instruction. The ABC model (autobiographies, biographies of students, cross-cultural analysis, analysis of cultural differences, and classroom practices) helped stimulate students…

Demonstrates that the ways people reflect individually are shared across cultures, but the ways they reflect collaboratively are structured differently among cultures, examining cultural differences in communication and discussion methods and concluding that these differences have implications for teacher education. Teacher educators must be…

Investigated preservice teachers' expectations for racially and linguistically diverse students in different school settings. Most respondents were white, with low comfort and safety levels for schools and communities with children of color. Most wanted to teach in white, suburban schools; had little experience teaching minority children; and held…

Offers a framework for identifying areas of agreement and disagreement across recent teacher education reform proposals. Reform documents were analyzed in relation to National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF) recommendations. Researchers developed a rubric to assess whether and how proposals expressed agreement or disagreement…

This case study examined how elementary teachers reacted to uncertainties inherent in a language arts reform effort. Results found that teachers fell along a continuum in their willingness to tolerate and use uncertainty within language arts reform as a springboard for thoughtful, probing inquiry. Overall, teachers demonstrated a growing…

Investigated the impact of Professional Development School (PDS) activities on elementary student writing and mathematics achievement (using collaborative teacher research) after 2 years of school and university researcher participation, describing processes and outcomes of two PDS writing and mathematics skills programs. Focus group interviews…

Provides a rationale and framework for promoting critical reflection in teacher preparation, focusing on what critical reflection is, whether and how reflective practice can be taught, constructivist methods, dialogue as a form of teaching, action research to nurture reflective practice, and writing as a tool to encourage connections between…

Describes an Australian teacher education program in educational psychology that promoted preservice teachers' intellectual functioning in terms of developing critical and reflective judgment; tolerance of doubt, ambiguity, and complexity; and awareness of self-agency. Data from questionnaires, interviews, and measures of intellectual development…

Discusses how to prepare teachers to educate diverse learners engaged in multiple and new literacies, describing a graduate course that introduced language, literacy, and culture. Data from students' writings, reading logs, reading responses, and final papers on literacy and pedagogy indicated that reading and writing literacy narratives was a…

The cultures of accountability and validity are at odds in high-stakes testing. When the polis demands that tests serve high-stakes accountability functioning, professional testing standards are often compromised. Using flawed indicators can produce unreliable, unrepresentative inferences and decisions. High-stakes testing produces teaching and…