Course For Prospective Teachers Research Articles

The Correlation Between Project Learning Models and Student Activities in Online Learning for Innovative Learning Model Courses

Based-project learning system provides many opportunities to access material as much as possible, so the learning can be optimum. The innovative learning model course is a compulsory basic course for prospective teachers, that requires students to be active in learning the material. This study aims to determine the effectiveness of project learning on student activity in innovative learning models course. The research conducted was used the experimental method. The results showed that the activeness of students in the activity was included in the successful category, the result is 72.7% and student activity in understanding the innovative learning model was included in the successful category, it is 63.6%. Student responses to project learning are included in the very successful category 81.8%. Mastery of student concepts has increased from 45.8 to 85.8. The results of statistical research using partial regression correlation analysis techniques and multiple correlations show a significant positive relationship between project learning and learning effectiveness with a correlation coefficient (ry1) = 0.201 and there is a significant positive relationship between student activities in innovative learning models and learning effectiveness with correlation coefficient (ry2) = 0.759, and there is a significant positive relationship between project learning and student activities together with learning effectiveness with correlation coefficient (ry12) = 0.769. Based on the results of these studies, it can be concluded that the effectiveness of learning can be increased through project learning and student activities.

Using Technology With Future Teachers Of Primary School Mathematics: A Glimpse Into An American Experience

The paper describes the author’s experience in using technology within mathematics content and methods (undergraduate and graduate) courses for prospective teachers of primary grades (age 5–10). The main pedagogical idea behind the courses is to change pre-teachers’ perception of mathematics as a subject matter most people predictably dislike. It is suggested that technology can assist instructors in making mathematics an enjoyable subject matter without sacrificing content. The paper provides examples of using Excel, Wolfram Alpha, dynamic geometry software, computer graphing program, and the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. In conclusion, solicited comments by teacher candidates about their experience of learning computer assisted mathematics are shared.

PROSPECTIVE ELEMENTARY TEACHERS' AWARENESS ABOUT BIODIVERSITY: FOCUSING ON THEIR ABILITY TO IDENTIFY LOCAL FLORA

Purpose of the study: This research aimed to investigate the awareness level of Prospective elementary teachers about the Local Flora.
 Methodology: Seventy prospective elementary school teachers from the Education faculty of two universities were targeted to collect data. An ad hoc questionnaire was developed to systematically assess the ability of ECT to identify name, type, and annual/biannual/all seasons and their reasons behind climate change. Gender-based analysis was carried out.
 Main Findings: The results indicate that they have little ability to identify the native flora from the habitat in which they are living. Lawrence Garden, Racecourse Park, Shalimar Garden, and the University itself were considered native flora as this is the location of the research. Little awareness of the native flora was found to be an obstacle to its teaching and therefore to its conservation.
 Recommendations based on the study: It is suggested that workshops and training courses for prospective teachers should be planned to enhance their ability to identify flora which would lead to its conservation later on.

“Science Writing in Higher Education: Effects of Teaching Self-Assessment of Scientific Poster Construction on Writing Quality and Academic Achievement”

Science writing is a complex rhetorical activity that enhances disciplinary participation in university education and requires learner-centered, inquiry-based explicit instruction. This study aimed to determine the effects of teaching writing self-assessment of scientific posters on writing quality and academic achievement in a higher education science class. An interdisciplinary team of science and writing scholars designed an action-research intervention based on two 90-min workshops focused on students’ self-assessment of writing scientific posters for a first-semester Cell Biology course for prospective teachers of biology and chemistry in secondary schools. Students co-created and applied a checklist to assess writing traits central to scientific communication (e.g. use of reliable references and original figures, inclusion of limitations and projections) in their posters. Promoted writing traits were qualitatively coded in double-blind fashion in posters from 19 teams with similar intakes: 9 teams (45 students, 100% population) in the treatment group and 10 teams (50 randomly selected students, 50% population) from two previous years. Principal component analysis (PCA) and permutation ANOVA were used to quantitatively determine divergence between groups. Results indicated that posters constructed by intervention-treated teams were significantly better in terms of the reliability and retrievability of sources; they also showed a higher number of student-made figures, projections and conclusions. In addition, evaluators’ scores for posters increased in the treatment groups, although this did not have a significant impact on overall grades. These results offer empirical support of self-assessment for learning and the use of poster construction as effective pedagogical strategies in science teacher education.

Teaching the mathematics that teachers need to know: Classroom ideas for supporting prospective elementary teachers’ development of mathematical knowledge for teaching

The goal of this article is to articulate aspects of mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) that should be addressed in college mathematics content courses for prospective teachers (PTs), and to make research- and practice-based recommendations of class activities, materials, and strategies in support of developing this knowledge. We describe class activities that engage PTs in problem solving as a means of making sense of the content that they will later teach and that immerse them in the mathematics practices that they will later need to foster with their own students. We also provide examples of how mathematics manipulatives, school curriculum materials, and samples of children’s thinking can be integrated as instructional tools in content courses. In developing these activities, we were guided by the research regarding the depth and breadth of knowledge required for the effective teaching of mathematics at the early childhood and upper elementary levels, and by the recommendations of professional organizations for math teacher education.

Calculus for Teachers: Perspectives and Considerations of Mathematicians

Acknowledging the contribution of mathematicians to the mathematical education of teachers, we explore mathematicians’ perspective on an envisioned Calculus course for prospective teachers. We analyzed semi-structured interviews with 24 mathematicians using the EDW (Essence-Doing-Worth) framework (Hoffmann & Even, 2018, 2019); and subsequently, we adapted the framework by extending and refining the existing themes. The findings of our study indicate that the mathematicians believe the primary purpose of a Calculus course for teachers is to communicate the nature of mathematics as a discipline. By providing a variety of examples that could shape and expand the teachers’ understanding of mathematics, the majority of the mathematicians participating in the study emphasized the value of mathematical investigation in an envisioned Calculus course for teachers, as well as connections within and beyond the subject.

Comparison Research on Mathematical Knowledge for Prospective Teachers: Focus on Secondary Mathematics Teacher Selection Tests in Korea and China

Mathematical knowledge is one of the essential components for the degree of mathematics teachers’ professional development. The national employment test for teachers plays a crucial role to insure teachers’ quality. This paper compared the structure and items of secondary mathematics teacher selection tests in Korea and China in 2009-2019. An analysis of specific items was made to find the features and differences of mathematical knowledge standards for secondary teachers in two countries. According to the results, Korea paid more attention to teachers’ advanced knowledge while hardly concerning the secondary mathematical part nor the connection of two levels. In contrast, China used a large proportion to examine teachers’ capacity to deal with secondary mathematical problems of the student level and slightly involved the advanced mathematics in university level. From this comparison, this paper suggests evaluating in form of the connections between secondary and advanced mathematics for the teacher employment test, emphasizes the training courses for prospective teachers with a connective view on secondary and advanced mathematics.

Family Math Night: increasing engagement in university mathematics courses for prospective teachers

ABSTRACT Prospective elementary school teachers (PSTs) often do not perceive mathematics activities as fun or engaging and perceive the mathematics tasks in their university content courses as inauthentic and irrelevant. Both these points were addressed by connecting the university classroom tasks to the K–5 environment via a Family Math Night (FMN). Survey results from 23 PSTs showed that PSTs were excited about the authenticity of the tasks, learned about children’s mathematical thinking, and reconceptualized mathematics learning as potentially enjoyable. In combination, these results may lead to PSTs’ increased engagement in the mathematics content course and, thus, result in their increased mathematics learning.

Can Do and Cannot Do

The focus in this paper is on the introduction and implementation of learning outcomes based on the descriptors in the Common European Framework of References for Languages (CEFR). It discusses reaction to the introduction by teacher educators as well as the influence on teacher assessment practice in courses for prospective teachers of English as a foreign language. The paper presents some of the results from a case study concerning changes made in connection with the Bologna process in a department of education within a university college in Sweden. The results show that the adoption of the CEFR descriptors was contested and had a minimal influence on assessment practice. The aim of the paper is to explore possible reasons for the lack of influence, something that was not developed fully in the original case study.

Ways to Include Global Climate Change in Courses for Prospective Teachers

What responsibility do we as science teacher educators have for engaging students in learning about global climate change in our courses? What stance should we take in introducing this topic? How can we add the topic of global climate change within an already packed course curriculum? These are the issues with which we have been grappling. We have begun assembling instructional resources and informing ourselves about ways others have incorporated global climate change in their courses. For now, we are choosing an incremental approach, thinking about ways to extend what we are already doing to help our students to understand at least some of the scientific concepts and reasoning underlying the claims being made, potential social impacts, and relevant educational policies. Here we reflect on ways we are modifying our curriculum as instructors in an introductory physics course and an elementary science teaching methods course for prospective teachers. Ways to Include Global Climate Change in Courses for Prospective Teachers

“Math Is All Around Us and … We Can Use It to Help Us”: Teacher Agency in Mathematics Education Through Critical Reflection

As social-justice mathematics teacher educators, we have always engaged and supported the prospective and practicing teachers in our classes in critical reflection about mathematics and the teaching and learning of mathematics (Felton, 2010, 2012; Felton & Koestler, 2012; Koestler, 2012). Although there are different notions, purposes, and traditions of reflection (Zeichner & Liston, 1996), critical reflection goes beyond teachers simply recounting their experiences and instead engages them in attempting to unpack and make sense of their experiences in terms of the social, political, and cultural contexts in which their work takes place. We believe this can support them in taking up more progressive pedagogies that can lead to more equitable and just mathematics education for all students.While we did not originally think about our work in terms of teacher agency, writing about this here and elsewhere (Felton & Koestler, 2012) has provided an opportunity to consider what role agency plays in our work, what agency in mathematics teacher education means to us, and how we may better support developing this form of agency in our future work as mathematics teacher educators. We have been collaborating as “critical friends” (Anderson, Herr, & Nihlen, 2007) for the past eight years by discussing the content and pedagogy of our courses, our theoretical frames, and our research methods. While, in this article we discuss data that were generated in one semester of a mathematics content course for prospective teachers taught by Felton, analyzing and theorizing about the data was a collaborative effort.

Using Work Samples from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to Design Tasks that Assess Statistical Knowledge for Teaching

Statistics courses for prospective teachers are being developed in response to recent K-12 curriculum recommendations. As these courses are developed, it is important to design accompanying assessments. This manuscript describes a strategy for assessing aspects of statistical knowledge for teaching. The strategy involves analyzing and responding to children's work samples from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. An example is provided to illustrate how such an assessment task can serve to reveal different aspects of respondents' subject matter knowledge as well as their pedagogical content knowledge. Thoughts are provided on how to use the assessment tasks to identify levels of statistical knowledge for teaching.

Mathematical Content Knowledge for Teaching Elementary Mathematics: A Focus on Fractions

IntroductionElementary teachers need a solid understanding of so that they can teach it as a coherent, reasoned activity and communicate its elegance and power (Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences [CBMS], 2001, p. xi}. However, research studies on prospective teachers' knowledge have shown that many possess a limited knowledge of in key content areas as number (e.g.. Ball, 1990a; Thanheiser, 2009; Tobias, 2013}. This is particularly true in case of which, along with ratio and proportion, Lamon (2007} calls, the most protracted in terms of development, most difficult to teach, most mathematically complex, most cognitively challenging, most essential to success in higher and science, and one of most compelling research sites (p. 629}.The National Mathematics Advisory Panel (2008} affirmed that with fractions is a major goal for K-8 education because such proficiency is foundational for algebra and, at present time, seems to be severely underdeveloped (p. xvii}. Therefore, developing proficiency in prospective elementary teachers (PTs} is a critical task for educators. As authors of Mathematical Education of Teachers, Part 1 suggest, The key to turning even poorly prepared prospective elementary teachers into mathematical thinkers is to work from what they do know (CBMS, 2001, p. 17}. Thus, in order to design courses for prospective teachers that will help them to develop solid understanding of mathematics called for by Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences (2001}, including a deep understanding of and with fractions, we must begin by determining what it is that PTs know. In this paper, we discuss main findings from a research summary of existing studies on prospective elementary teachers' fraction knowledge to identify directions for future research.Theoretical FrameworkIn looking at teacher knowledge, we begin by examining work of Shulman (1986], who proposed three categories of content knowledge for teachers: (a] subject matter content knowledge, (b] pedagogical content knowledge, and (c] curricular knowledge. For Shulman, subject matter content knowledge includes knowing a variety of ways in which the basic concepts and principles of discipline are organized to incorporate its facts and truth or falsehood, validity or invalidity, are established (p. 9]. Pedagogical content knowledge refers to knowledge of useful forms of representations (e.g., analogies, illustrations, explanations] of subject-matter ideas that make it understandable to others, as well as an understanding of conceptions and preconceptions students bring to learning processes. third type of knowledge, curricular knowledge, includes knowledge of a full range of programs designed for teaching of particular subjects and topics at a given level, variety of instructional materials available in relation to those programs, and set of characteristics that serve as both indications and contraindications for use of particular curriculum or program materials in particular circumstances (p. 10].Shulman's ideas on pedagogical content knowledge sparked a huge interest in knowledge for teaching, eliciting over a thousand studies (Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008] throughout a number of content areas, with a large number of these studies focusing on teachers' knowledge of (e.g., Ball et al., 2008; Davis & Simmt, 2006; Hiebert, 1986; Ma, 1999]. Deborah Ball and her colleagues introduced term mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) (e.g., Ball & Bass, 2002), which focused on work that teachers do when teaching mathematics.Building on Shulman's (1986) categories of knowledge, Ball, Thames, and Phelps (2008) introduced a framework for mathematical knowledge for teaching. …

From Whole Numbers to Invert and Multiply

An instructional sequence used in a course for prospective teachers directly relates to Common Core State Standards for grades 3–6.

Script writing in the mathematics classroom: imaginary conversations on the structure of numbers

Script writing by learners has been used as a valuable pedagogical strategy and a research tool in several contexts. We adopted this strategy in the context of a mathematics course for prospective teachers. Participants were presented with opposing viewpoints with respect to a mathematical claim, and were asked to write a dialogue in which the characters attempted to convince each other of their point of view. They had to imagine and articulate fictional characters' reasoning, as well as design a potential pedagogical intervention. We outline what script writing revealed about the participants' understanding of the structure of natural and rational numbers and of mathematical argumentation, and discuss the affordances of this methodological tool in teacher education.

Characterizing Key Developmental Understandings and Pedagogically Powerful Ideas Within a Statistical Knowledge for Teaching Framework

A hypothetical framework to characterize statistical knowledge for teaching (SKT) is described. Empirical grounding for the framework is provided by artifacts from an undergraduate course for prospective teachers that concentrated on the development of SKT. The theoretical notion of “key developmental understanding” (KDU) is used to identify landmarks in the development of SKT subject matter knowledge. Sample KDUs are given for the subject matter knowledge categories of common content knowledge, specialized content knowledge, and horizon knowledge. The theoretical notion of “pedagogically powerful idea” is used to describe how KDUs must be transformed to become useful in teaching. Examples of pedagogically powerful ideas for the pedagogical content knowledge categories of knowledge of content and teaching and curriculum knowledge are provided. Knowledge of content and students is hypothesized as a basis for the development of pedagogically powerful ideas.

Encouraging Prospective Teachers to Engage Friends and Family in Exploring Physical Phenomena

Involving people outside of a science course can foster learning for students enrolled in the course. Assignments involving friends and family provided such opportunities in an undergraduate physics course for prospective teachers. These assignments included reflecting upon prior experiences, interviewing friends and family members, engaging them in exploring physical phenomena, and teaching them with relevant websites. The six strands of science learning articulated in Learning Science in Informal Environments (National Research Council in Learning science in informal environments: People, places, and pursuits. National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2009) provided a framework for analyzing the prospective teachers’ responses. Through such assignments, the instructor created opportunities for the prospective teachers to use and build upon knowledge learned in class as well as to gain confidence and experience in facilitating the learning of others.

Prospective elementary teachers’ knowledge of fraction division

Prospective elementary teachers must understand fraction division deeply in order to meaningfully teach this topic to their future students. This paper explores the nature of the subject content knowledge of fraction division possessed by a group of Taiwanese prospective elementary teachers at the beginning of their mathematics methods course. The findings provide preliminary evidence that many prospective Taiwanese elementary teachers have developed the knowledge package of fraction division as described by Ma (Knowing and teaching elementary mathematics: Teachers’ understanding of fundamental mathematics in China and the United States. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, 1999). The nature of various strategies used by these teachers provides further illustration of a secure common content knowledge that can serve as a benchmark for the development of mathematics courses for prospective teachers. However, the findings also show that the tasks of representing fraction division, through either word problems or pictorial diagrams, are challenging even for those highly proficient in elementary and middle school mathematics. The broader implications of this research for the international community are discussed, and recommendations for elementary teacher education programs are presented.

Using technology to explore mathematical relationships: a framework for orienting mathematics courses for prospective teachers

The technological revolution that has finally permeated K-12 education has direct implications for modern teacher educators whose “Hippocratic oath” is to best prepare future teachers for twenty-first-century classrooms. The goal of this article is to suggest that the heart of sound technological implementation is to encourage students to use whatever tools are available to explain the mathematical relations that underlie what they observe on the screen. We suggest ways in which Mishra and Koehler’s construct of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge may be customized to provide a framework for guiding prospective teachers’ efforts to develop and assess lesson plans that use technology in novel and effective ways. Data are presented in the form of two contrasting case studies to illustrate the differing degrees to which prospective mathematics teachers leveraged technology to teach themselves and their future students to explain the mathematics behind various topics.

Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy as a Form of Liberatory Praxis

This article uses Paulo Freire's problem-posing method, youth participatory action research, and case study methodology to introduce an alternative instructional strategy called Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy (CHHP). This approach attempts to address deep-rooted ideologies to social inequities by creating a space in teacher education courses for prospective teachers to re-examine their knowledge of hip hop as it intersects with race, class, gender, and sexual orientation; while analyzing and theorizing to what extent hip hop can be used as a tool for social justice in teacher education and beyond. Borrowing and extending the work of critical race theorists, particularly, Solórzano & Delgado Bernal, CHHP utilizes the following five elements to form its basic core: “1) The centrality of race and racism and their intersectionality with other forms of oppression; 2) Challenging traditional paradigms, texts, and theories used to explain the experiences of students of color; 3) The centrality of experiential knowledge of students of color; 4) The commitment to social justice; and finally 5) A transdisciplinary approach” (Solórzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001, p. 312–315).