The study is practical in nature and addresses the call for investigating effective aspects of field experiences in teacher preparation. The authors designed a framework of assignments requiring the pre-service teachers to collect data about two diverse elementary students in their assigned elementary classroom during the twelve weeks of their placement. The pre-service teachers experienced cognitive dissonance as some of their preconceived notions about students and teaching conflicted with their field study experiences. The findings indicate that the pre-service teachers experienced cognitive dissonance between their beliefs and field experiences resulting in justified true beliefs about the relationship between knowledge of students and effective instruction, assumptions about students who were unlike them, and implications for future teaching.