Methods Course Research Articles

Creating engineering design integrated science units and lessons

AbstractThe Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) require science teachers to integrate engineering design into science lessons. However, many science teachers need support to create such lessons because they lack preparation in engineering. Similarly, most pre‐service teachers enter teacher preparation programs without preparation in engineering. Furthermore, the NGSS do not provide templates for creating engineering design integrated science (EDIS) lessons and activities. To address this problem in our science teacher education program, we have created templates for creating EDIS units and lessons. In this paper, we describe the EDIS templates, outcomes, and suggestions for using the templates in science teacher education. The templates were first introduced into our science methods course in 2015. Our research shows that pre‐service teachers developed skills for creating EDIS units using these templates. Some EDIS units created by our pre‐service teachers using these templates have been published for other teachers to use. Students who received EDIS instruction from our pre‐service teachers in schools improved their understanding of science concepts and engineering design process. Therefore, these templates can be used in other teacher education programs to prepare teachers in creating EDIS units, lessons and activities.

Elementary Science Teacher Candidates’ Equitable Noticing and Curriculum Design

ABSTRACT In science education, there is broad agreement that equity is essential in teaching and learning; yet multiple conceptions of equity exist. Some conceptions focus on helping teacher candidates (TCs) engage with dominant perspectives of disciplinary practices, while others focus on transforming disciplinary practices to foster liberatory learning. However, few undergraduate TCs have been exposed to an image of science that centers equity in any form. When equity is not a central focus in science methods courses, TCs have few opportunities to surface and challenge deficit and assimilationist ideologies that constrain science learning. Thus, there is a need to support researchers and educators in navigating the complex goals and outcomes of equity-oriented science teaching. We contribute to this body of the literature by analyzing data collected from an elementary science methods course. Using qualitative coding to analyze multiple assignments from across three sections of the course, we illustrate how TCs envisioned and enacted equity. We focus on mapping a range of outcomes, from dominant to transformative perspectives of equity, in terms of two teaching practices: noticing and curriculum design. These findings can help science teacher educators work toward establishing frameworks for mapping and tracing TCs’ learning about equitable science teaching.

Bridging the Gap: Teaching Physical Education Majors How to Teach Outdoor Adventure Education

Outdoor adventure education (OAE) is a branch of physical education grounded in outdoor physical experiences involving perceived risk and reflection. At many universities, physical education teacher education (PETE) majors must take at least one course in OAE methods. Previous research has suggested that PETE majors need more confidence to teach units or classes focused on OAE. This article presents information that was garnered from over 40 years of experience in the field and from PETE students’ feedback. It aims to help PETE faculty design OAE courses so that PETE majors can more successfully deliver OAE in their future teaching placements. The article details how to build structured OAE methods courses that use experientially grounded active-learning methods to immerse students in an OAE program while teaching them how to teach OAE.

Pre-service teachers demonstrating compassion through expressions of care

ABSTRACT This qualitative research study examines the perspectives of pre-service teachers (PSTs) in the US and South Africa as they learned about the pedagogy of compassion as a generative approach for supporting students in navigating issues of social justice in the context of English teaching and learning. We examine PSTs’ work generated in a secondary English methods course in the US and interviews with 14 PSTs: 10 in the US and 4 in South Africa. Findings highlight PSTs’ considerations of the opportunities and challenges involved in enacting the pedagogy of compassion in their future work with students. For example, PSTs sought to demonstrate compassion through expressions of care as they envisioned teaching and learning in their future classrooms. Implications of this work are provided for English teachers, English teacher educators, and educational researchers.

The effect of employing project-web learning approach in teaching mathematics instruction methods course on developing the mind habits among Dhofar University students

The effect of employing project-web learning approach in teaching mathematics instruction methods course on developing the mind habits among Dhofar University students

Hadith Educational Media: Learning During the Time of the Prophet and Its Relevance in the Contemporary Era

Education is a basic need of society. So that learning methods of course follow developments over time, including the education system, implementation and media used, this research focuses on hadith educational media and their relavance in the contemporary era. With the aim of making it easier for people to understand hadith contextually and correlatively in the contemporary era, hadith is increasingly developing rapidly. This research uses qualitative methods, namely focusing on the process of drawing comparative conclusions and examining the dynamics and relationships between events through the application of scientific reasoning. Then this research focuses on learning media in the time of the Prophet and reviews the correlation in the contemporary era. The research results show that the correlation of the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, which was narrated by several Imams, interprets several types of hadith educational media and confirms the relevance of educational media in the dimensions of the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad. The various media in question consist of the Prophet's way of conveying hadiths, the practices that the Prophet carried out include signals that the Prophet gave when someone asked about slaughtering during the Hajj, so if it is correlated with today's era, namely the use of emoticons that make things easier for society.

Use of the deep learning and decision tree techniques to analyze the incorporation of technology in the educational field

The aim of this mixed research is to analyze the perception of the students about the use of Zoom and the Learning Management Systems such as Moodle and Google Classroom in the educational field during the COVID-19 pandemic considered data science. In particular, Zoom facilitates the communication, presentation of contents and resolution of doubts. On the other hand, Moodle and Google Classroom allow the delivery of tasks, consultation of information and realization of discussion forums from anywhere. The participants are 128 students of Psychology (n = 70, 54.69%), Social Work (n = 33, 25.78%) and Geophysics (n = 25, 19.53%) who took the Clinical Method, Urban Problems and Electromagnetic Prospecting courses at the National Autonomous University of Mexico during the 2020 school year. The results of the deep learning technique indicate that the use of Zoom and Learning Management Systems (Moodle and Google Classroom) during the COVID-19 pandemic positively influences the assimilation of knowledge and participation of the students. The decision tree technique identifies 4 predictive models about the use of these technological tools. Finally, Zoom, Moodle and Google Classroom allow transforming the teaching-learning process and updating the school activities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Elementary preservice teachers' use of the crosscutting concepts to plan NGSS‐aligned science lessons in explicit versus non‐explicit contexts

AbstractAs one of the three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), the crosscutting concepts (CCCs) have a presumably equal role in science teaching and learning as the science and engineering practices (SEPs) and disciplinary core ideas (DCIs). While much research has focused on teachers' understanding and use of the DCIs and SEPs, less research has characterized how teachers use the CCCs in combination with the SEPs and DCIs to plan lessons aligned with the three‐dimensional vision of the NGSS. This study examined the lesson plans of elementary preservice teachers (n = 53) in two science methods courses; one course which asked the PSTs to explicitly use CCCs in their lesson plans and one course that did not. We analyzed how the teachers' use of CCCs in their lesson plans influenced alignment to the three‐dimensional vision of the NGSS. While we found higher CCC use in the course that explicitly asked the preservice teachers to use them, the difference between courses was not significant. More importantly, regardless of context, when the CCCs were used often, across the entire lesson, and were a good “fit” with a lesson's DCI, and anchoring phenomenon those lessons were more aligned with the NGSS.

Investigation of prospective mathematics teachers’ noticing of student thinking related to probability

The aim of this study is to reveal and evaluate the attending and interpreting skills of student thinking of prospective teachers, as well as their instructional suggestions as responding skills. The current study was conducted with 29 prospective mathematics teachers (PMTs) within a qualitative design in the context of probability. First, three probability problems were asked to sixty-two 8th graders (13-14 years old) in a middle school, and their solutions were used to create tasks for PMTs. PMTs answered the tasks in a written report. Then, a class discussion was held, and PMTs were given the opportunity to revise the initial reports. Content analysis was used for data analysis. PMTs demonstrated partial or robust evidence for attending to and interpreting students' thinking. However, they struggled to respond to students' reasoning. In the revised reports, the PMTs' evidence for noticing skills was better with the support of the class discussion. This study provides an example of an approach that can be used for teaching in method courses, allowing PMTs' noticing skills for student thinking to be revealed and improved.

Learning About Classroom Accessibility From a Student-Instructor Partnership.

In this commentary, we, a recent Master of Public Health (MPH) graduate with hearing loss and a course instructor, share what we learned about classroom accessibility while participating in a semester-long qualitative research methods course offered during the COVID-19 pandemic. We complement our reflections on working together with findings from a student field project focused on the lived classroom experiences of graduate students with hearing loss. The field project revealed that students adapted to increased communication challenges in their learning environments without requesting official accommodations due to stigma and a desire to limit their burden on others. We then conclude with implications for partnerships and collective action to address abelism and inequitable learning environments, specifically the value of student-instructor partnerships, the incorporation of universal design for learning principles, the importance of collaboration across different campus departments, and the need for higher education institutions to adopt a cultural model of disability that will create meaningful access in learning environments.

Engaging in transnational ways of teaching and building a community of practice: Preservice teachers’ experiences in an online after‐school program

AbstractEmploying the concepts of transnational funds of knowledge and community practice, this ethnographic case study examines the experiences of preservice world language teachers in a year‐long teaching methods course. It focuses on an online after‐school program where preservice teachers taught languages and cultures to children from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds. The findings illustrate how a teacher candidate from a multilingual and immigrant background drew on her transnational lived experiences and encouraged students to think beyond the boundaries of languages, cultures, and countries. Findings also show how preservice teachers in the program learned from fellow teachers’ practices and built a shared repertoire of resources to engage in transnational ways of teaching language and culture. This study underscores the importance of providing clinical opportunities where preservice teachers can put theory into practice, incorporate transnational funds of knowledge that learners possess, and challenge linguistic, cultural, and geographic boundaries.

STEM‐themed pathways within elementary preservice methods coursework: Benefits and challenges associated with designing and implementing integrated STEM projects

AbstractWith the rapid advancements in science and technology, there is a growing emphasis on preparing high‐quality elementary science teachers with a deeper understanding of integrating Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines into their classrooms. Despite ongoing reform efforts of rethinking ways in which preservice elementary teachers (PSTs) are currently prepared, STEM is not always the central focus of their training programs. This article highlights the STEM pathways threaded throughout the concurrent elementary science, mathematics, and technology methods courses within a dedicated STEM semester. This approach allows PSTs to experience integrated STEM directly. Specifically, we discuss PSTs' planning and implementation of integrated STEM projects that explicitly blend multiple STEM disciplines to design solutions to problems situated within a local context under the theme of sustainability. The practicum experience played a pivotal role in helping PSTs realize the benefits and challenges associated with teaching STEM. Drawing from PSTs' written reflections, we provide evidence of how varied STEM engagements enhance their knowledge of STEM integration and shape their perceptions of successes and challenges associated with STEM teaching. Finally, we offer implications for practice and recommendations for future teacher educators to reshape elementary education programs to better integrate STEM.

Don't Pop It! Modifying the Balloon Analogue Risk Task for a Course-Based Research Experience

Background Relatively few studies focus on Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) to improve retention of knowledge and enhance student research experience in the social sciences. Objective We introduced a modified, manual version of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), in which students engaged in all phases of a research project, including the development of a risk-taking assessment, participant recruitment, scale administration, presentation of the modified BART, data collection, and data entry and analysis. Method To determine the effectiveness of the CUREs, students self-reported their research knowledge and skills using pre–post measures. Additionally, we measured attitudes and perceptions of the student's experience with the research project. Results Results from the learning outcomes demonstrated increased research knowledge and skills and a positive overall experience with the project. Conclusion The modified BART is an effective CURE for engaging undergraduate psychology students enrolled in research methods courses. Teaching Implications Engagement through hands-on research project design and data collection, as demonstrated with the modified BART, may serve to increase the overall retention of information and enhance class experience, potentially creating a pipeline for further engagement in high-impact practices for undergraduate psychology students.

Building Public Health Quantitative Methods Capacity and Networks in sub-Saharan Africa: An Evaluation of a Faculty Training Program.

There is a shortage of individuals trained in using quantitative methods in biomedical research in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Improving public health in SSA requires new ways to promote quantitative knowledge and skills among faculty in biomedical research and better-integrated network systems of support. We describe the development, implementation, and evaluation of an innovative faculty training and support program in SSA from December 2017-June 2020, using courses in monitoring and evaluation, data management, and complex surveys as prototypical examples. Indicators were selected to follow the 4 levels outlined in the Kirkpatrick evaluation model: reaction, learning, behavior, and results. We used survey data from faculty fellows and students and reported median change and interquartile ranges (IQR). The training program created an international community of 26 faculty members working collaboratively to lead the training of 3 quantitative methods courses. The program increased faculty members' knowledge of the course content (median increase 17 percentage points [IQR: 0, 20]). Faculty members, in turn, trained 380 students at institutions of higher education in 8 SSA countries (Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda). The program relied on collaborative funding from participating institutions and focused on individual capacity-strengthening. In the future, the program will be scaled to include other emerging areas, such as data science, will integrate institutional support and feedback, and will move some of the training and mentoring activities to an online platform. Finally, to ensure that faculty have both improved confidence and improvement in competence, in future iterations, the program will include competency evaluation at the start and end and pair fellows who need additional training with those who excelled to co-teach.

Teaching About and For Social Justice

Teaching for social justice is an explicit goal of most teacher education programs. However, this mandate has been criticized by scholars who claim that social justice is an undertheorized and vague concept that is often disconnected from methods courses that focus on content-specific pedagogies. This study seeks to address this disconnect by exploring how an Equity Literature Circles (ELC) framework within a literacy methods course can enhance teacher candidates’ (TCs’) understanding of the relationship between literacy instruction, diversity, and social justice. Drawing on the perceptions of ten TCs enrolled in a teacher education program in western Canada, data for the study was generated from classroom artifacts, an individual survey, and a focus group interview. Upon analysis of the data, the findings suggest that an ELC framework is an effective instructional strategy for enhancing TCs’ understanding of intersecting aspects of diversity, equity-focused literacy instruction, and teaching about and for social justice. Teaching for social justice is an explicit goal of most teacher education programs. However, this mandate has been criticized by scholars who claim that social justice is an undertheorized and vague concept that is often disconnected from methods courses that focus on content-specific pedagogies. This study seeks to address this disconnect by exploring how an Equity Literature Circles (ELC) framework within a literacy methods course can enhance teacher candidates’ (TCs’) understanding of the relationship between literacy instruction, diversity, and social justice. Drawing on the perceptions of ten TCs enrolled in a teacher education program in western Canada, data for the study was generated from classroom artifacts, an individual survey, and a focus group interview. Upon analysis of the data, the findings suggest that an ELC framework is an effective instructional strategy for enhancing TCs’ understanding of intersecting aspects of diversity, equity-focused literacy instruction, and teaching about and for social justice.

Using video case studies to provide prospective secondary teachers in Kenya opportunities to notice and reflect on pedagogical practices

ABSTRACT A primary goal of teacher educators is to support prospective teachers (PTs) in gaining insight into the teaching and learning process and what their role will be as teachers in supporting student learning. In our work, we have prioritized examining how to support PTs in bridging the theory-practice gap and develop skills in noticing. One of the vehicles we have used for engaging PTs are video case studies of experienced teachers teaching in Kenyan secondary schools. In this paper, we discuss a quasi-experimental research study using video case studies with PTs in two subject instructional methods courses in a Kenyan public university. In analyzing the teacher educator memos, research group meeting notes, the PT questionnaire responses, and the PT interviews, we found that the video cases supported the PTs’ learning in the experimental group by (a) increasing their enthusiasm and engagement with pedagogical practices; and (b) shifting their perspective from student to teacher. The video cases impacted their practice during their teaching practice by supporting (a) their integration of ICT into their teaching; (b) how they engage students in learning, including using small groups; and (c) how they structure their lessons.

Artificial Intelligence Policies in Higher Education: A Randomized Field Experiment

Generative artificial intelligence (genAI) tools like ChatGPT are becoming increasingly embedded in daily life. In the field of education in particular, concerns have emerged about how these tools might positively or negatively impact student learning. In the current study, I conduct a randomized field experiment exploring how policies on genAI impact undergraduate students’ beliefs, behaviors, and grades. Students enrolled in two sections of the same upper-level undergraduate research methods course were randomly assigned to a section that either permitted or prohibited genAI tools. At the end of the semester, students enrolled in the section permitting genAI tools had a more positive view of genAI in higher education. However, students enrolled in the section prohibiting these tools had a higher final grade. These results highlight the need for evidence-based guidelines on how to minimize the risks and maximize the benefits of genAI in higher education.

Manajemen Pelatihan Pendidikan Bahasa di Pondok Pesantren Yanmu NW Praya Lombok Tengah

Yanmu NW Praya Islamic Boarding School is the first Islamic boarding school in West Nusa Tenggara that uses foreign languages ​​(English and Arabic) as the language of instruction/daily communication in the boarding school. The courage of the Islamic boarding school is certainly inseparable from the purpose of the Islamic boarding school itself in preparing their students to face an era that demands mastery of foreign languages. This study uses a qualitative research type with data collection carried out through several stages, such as observation, interviews and documentation. While the data analysis technique uses several stages, namely data reduction, presenting data and verification. The results of this study indicate that: (1) The language training design used by Yanmu NW Praya Islamic Boarding School is a modification of Dick & Carey. The training program includes English programs; a) 24hours-English, b) word deposit, c) story telling, d) virtual session. Arabic Language Program; a) muhadatsah b) Drill/ilqo’ mufrodat, c) Course, d) Masrohiyyah, e) art creation, d) ability, e) El-Syarif method course, f) Ayyami writing. (2) implementation of the language training program includes several stages such as the planning stage, organizing stage, actuating stage, controlling stage and evaluating stage.

Study Quality in Applied Linguistics: Highlights from Dr. Luke Plonsky’s Public Talk

On October 15, 2024, the Center for International Foreign Language Teacher Education (CIFLTE) hosted a public talk by Dr. Luke Plonsky on study quality, research methods, and ethics in applied linguistics. Faculty and students from universities around the world attended the talk via Zoom. Dr. Luke Plonsky is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at Northern Arizona University. In addition to teaching courses in second language (L2) acquisition and research methods, Professor Plonsky is a prolific researcher. With a primary focus on L2 research methodology, he has published over 100 articles, book chapters, and books. In 2024, Professor Plonsky edited the book Open Science in Applied Linguistics and co-authored the guidebook Addressing Questionable Research Practices in Applied Linguistics: A Practical Guide. Professor Plonsky currently serves as the Editor of Studies in Second Language Acquisition, as well as Managing Editor of Foreign Language Annals, and General Editor of Applied Linguistics Press. ​​CIFLTE extends its deepest gratitude to Professor Plonsky for his stimulating talk.

EFFECTIVENESS OF BLENDED LEARNING WITH SOFT SKILLS IN NUMERICAL METHOD LEARNING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BALIKPAPAN

This study aims to determine the effectiveness of blended learning containing soft skills in Numerical Methods in Balikpapan University. This type of research is quantitative research with a pre-experimental experimental design, namely one group pretest-posttest design. The subject of this study was a student of Mathematics Education at Balikpapan University in the Numerical Methods course. Research instruments in the form of tests. Data analysis techniques using inferential statistical tests with the help of the JASP program. The results showed that blended learning with soft skills was effectively applied in numerical methods course in Balikpapan University with student learning outcomes with an N-Gain value of 0.64 in the medium category, classical completeness of 87.5% and an average value of student learning outcomes of 80.38 above the KKM value of 70.