Science teachers inspire in part by their constant adaptation to the learning needs of their students and to evolving content, curriculum, technology, and student populations. Innovation--bringing novel things to a situation to confer a benefit--is an integral part of teaching overall, and in especially inspired science teaching. While innovation…

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has called for changes in mathematics teaching from a procedural to conceptual focus since 1980, yet the way mathematics is taught in many classrooms continues to contradict the recommended practices. The pervasiveness of this challenge has led some educators to suggest changes in university…

This article describes the first phase of a longitudinal study that examines the impact of teacher preparation programs on the literacy instructional practices of teacher candidates. Case summaries and cross-case analysis by 12 researchers of 10 teacher preparation universities across the United States determined (1) the signature aspects of…

Increased use of field-based teacher preparation offers important opportunities to develop skills with diverse learners. However, limited focus on theoretical content restricts understanding and generalization of well-proven theoretical approaches, resulting in fragmented field applications unlikely to result in broad application. Inspired by Kurt…

The purpose of this project was to investigate stakeholders' perspectives on coursework and the role of mentors within a unique teacher education program for prospective teachers of mathematics in an alternative-route-to-licensure program. The alternative route reflects a partnership between an institution of higher education, a state office…

Facilitating the transition of STEM teachers into the teaching profession represents an important challenge in teacher education. We argue that it is those aspects of excellent teaching that beginning teachers believe to be important that may be the central foci for teacher preparation. In the context of the nationally replicated UTeach program,…

The adoption of team teaching (Buckley 2000) is being increasingly explored by many Victorian government secondary colleges as a beneficial approach for use with "middle years" students. Many of these programs are designed to encourage greater student engagement and opportunities for collaborative learning in purposefully designed open…

This article uses a narrative approach to start a dialogue about the challenges of teaching blended methods classes that contain traditional and alternative licensure students. Many alternative licensure students enter their methods classes as lateral-entry teachers who must balance their licensure requirements with the demands associated with…

This study sought to discover the crucial elements that make beginning teachers effective and lead to their retention in the field. While previous studies have approached these questions by gathering statistics, we pursued a case study approach based on open-ended, in-depth interviews of new teachers (1-5 years of experience) identified as…

Research has shown that the underlying teaching beliefs or theories of any particular teacher have generally been considered relatively stable and static throughout his or her career. However, this study investigates how one teacher's beliefs regarding both teaching and learning were changed during a short-term study and immersion program abroad.…

This study explored the U.S. prospective teachers' motivations for teaching, teaching goal development, and views of their commitment to teaching. A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was employed. Participants (N = 61) completed a survey in which they rated the importance of various factors in their teaching career choice. Furthermore,…

Teachers' professional learning can occur in many spaces and assume a multitude of forms. Professional learning communities (PLCs) are anticipated to be effective structures to support teachers' professional learning, and there is increasing pressure to utilize online configurations for structuring PLCs. However, teachers' practices and…

In this study, we examined six preservice teachers' learning of knowledge for secondary English-language learners (ELLs). The results indicated that the Student Teacher Enrichment Program helped preservice teachers become aware of the strategies for teaching ELLs and realize the discrepancies and differences between ELL code and linguistic…

Although there is a vast research base on the literacy practices of adolescents and the issues surrounding the integration of technology despite current widespread access to tools and the Internet (Cuban, 2003), very little has been completed on the attempts of teacher educators to integrate technology within a specific content area to prepare…

This case study examines the effect of coteaching on the development of a student's professional knowledge. The study analyzes the student's perceptions of her experiences in a yearlong seminar course of math teaching in elementary school, conducted at a teachers college in Israel. The course was interdisciplinary and taught jointly by two…