University Pre-service Teachers Research Articles

Using Digital History for Positive Change in Social Studies Education

This paper reports on the Digital Historical Inquiry Project, an initiative for developing activities and programs that enable preservice and inservice social studies teachers to learn the methods of digital historical inquiry and implement those methods in their teaching experiences. At one of the project sites, San Diego State University social studies teacher education students are creating pedagogical historical resources called Web Inquiry Projects for using digital primary historical source materials. At another site, Georgia State University preservice and inservice teachers are developing original local digital historical resources for teachers and students to use in their classrooms. Both of these projects are presented as examples of how technology can be lever-aged to enhance social studies instruction.

Multigenre Research: The Power of Choice and Interpretation

In the article Multigenre Research: The Power of Choice and Interpretation, the authors give an overview of multigenre research and then describe how Camille’s university preservice teachers collaborate with Laurie’s fifth graders to write multigenre papers. They explain a systematic process that helps students select meaningful topics. Then they guide readers through a precedure called the FQI. This helps students to organize facts from multiple sources, to generate questions that that they would like to answer, and to brainstorm genres they might choose to write in their multigenre papers. The article concludes with a summary of the ways that this collaborative multigenre project helps both the university preservice teachers and the fifth graders.

The Impact of Shifting From “How Teachers Teach” to “How Children Learn”

The authors report the results of a 5-year study in which a university worked collaboratively with a public school district to redesign teacher education and professional development, and to raise student achievement. The university sought to field base their teacher education program; the public school district attempted to improve faculty development. The collaborative goal of the university and school district was to improve education in the public school and thereby raise student achievement. In a collaborative effort, university faculty, public school teachers, and university pre-service teachers used shared decision making to enhance the learning of public school students. Thus, the focus of planning for university seminars and public school staff development shifted to fit the needs of public school students. The collaborative's vision was based on education practices that (a) were developmentally appropriate, (b) valued cultural and linguistic diversity, and (c) recognized the social nature of learning. Results suggest that the efforts of the collaboration produced heightened awareness/sensitivity for teachers, improved teacher performance, and substantially increased levels of student achievement in reading, writing, and mathematics.

Attempting to break the code in student comprehension of genetic concepts

Conducted in Israel, this research probes students' understanding of the relationships between genetic concepts. Four populations were examined: 9th graders (14–15 year olds), who were exposed to genetics for the first time (n = 184); 12th graders (17–18 year olds), who were studying biology as their main subject (n = 121); college pre-service teachers, who had not yet earned a degree (n = 29); and university pre-service teachers, who had earned biology degrees and were seeking teacher certification (n = 22). Three research instruments were used: a written questionnaire, interviews, and concept maps. The questions were open-ended to enable the identification of students' patterns of comprehensive thinking and understanding, not identifiable in multiple choice testing. Alternative conceptions and compartmentalisation between related concepts were identified. Based on these findings, genetic instruction in 9th and 12th grade and in college needs improvement.

Creating synergy: Collaborative research within a professional development school partnership

Professional Development Schools involve developing a partnership that creates a community of learners. One outcome of this community is collaborative research in which both public school teachers and university faculty participate equally. When both groups are cooperatively involved in research, they realize significant gains. A collaborative research effort between a public school and a university that resulted in synergy is described. This article discusses the process of the collaboration from its incubation through the development of the study, and provides perspectives on the learning from the university faculty, the classroom teachers, and the preservice teacher. This collaboration between university faculty, classroom teachers, and preservice teachers resulted in translating research into practice to promote learning for all—students, teachers, and university faculty.

Rethinking the Teacher Education Curriculum in Special Education: Dilemmas in Connecting with the Field

Teacher educators understand the importance of building strong connections between university coursework and preservice teachers' experiences in the field. However, often the two settings differ in terms of philosophical and methodological perspectives and practice, presenting teacher education programs with a number of dilemmas. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, we describe our curriculum inquiry process in which we examined and reflected on data collected from cooperating teachers, student teachers, and university student teaching supervisors in the special education teacher certification program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM). We were guided by a question that had plagued us for several years: How does our teacher education curriculum connect with preservice teachers' experiences in the field? Second, we summarize and discuss the outcomes of our inquiry as dilemmas, which emerged as we considered the experiences and expectations of each of the stakeholders in the student teaching process.

On the Carpet: Emergent Writer/Readers’ Letter Sharing in a Penpal Program

Analyzes the value of “time on the carpet” by examining how a class of first and second graders negotiate and construct meanings of letters from penpals (university preservice teacher candidates) during whole-class sharing time. Describes two functions of these meetings: sociocognitive re/construction and enculturation of textural norms of letter writing; and the celebration and valuing of human relationships.

Forming a critical community through telematics

Telematics in the form of text based, computer mediated communications can be used as a support for teaching and learning and can help the formation and cohesion of communities of learners. The author draws on her experience over 4 years with students studying the Open University pre-service teacher education course. Students use text based conferencing with other students, part-time tutors and the academics from the course team. The paper examines the development of a “critical community” through this medium. It defines the notion of what a critical community might mean and how telematics can support its development.

University supervisors and preservice teachers: Clarifying roles and negotiating relationships

Abstract We focus on the preservice teacher‐university supervisor relationship within the context of field experiences to explore the general question, “How can we, as university teacher educators, better assist preservice teachers in their development through field experiences?” Our discussion is based on: reflective accounts of preservice teachers written before, during, and following periods of field experience; our experiences as teachers and teacher educators, which include being faculty supervisors; and on research on the role of the university supervisor in field experiences. We first describe some typical perceptions associated with the preservice teacher‐university supervisor relationship, and then go on to suggest some specific ways to enhance the understanding that preservice teachers have of the roles of university supervisors and, hence, to facilitate the negotiation and development of productive preservice teacher‐university supervisor relationships.