Section archive - Instruction in Teacher Training

This article describes a guided reflection rubric that was used as a learning and teaching tool for service-learning experiences in special education courses. A quantitative analysis revealed significant improvement in reflection entries of students' journals. Teacher educators socially validated the rubric as a teaching and assessment tool.

The article described a professional program, aimed at equipping teachers with the skills needed to work with teaching assistants. The research was aimed to explore the opinions of teachers as to the personal skills, attributes and training required to enhance a changing professional relationship. It reports on variable training opportunities; variations in needs, aspirations, roles and responsibilities of teaching assistants; unevenness of resourcing and remuneration; and tensions between leadership and partnership practice.

Based on the notions of social and socio-mathematical norms we investigate how these are established during the interactions of pre-service teachers who solve mathematical problems. Our results show that most of these norms, once established, enhance the problem-solving process. However, exceptions do exist, but they have a local orientation and a relatively small influence.

The article describes the effectiveness of an educational methods course for early childhood education. Based on a constructionist believe teaching principles, 78 of early childhood education preservice teachers who were enrolled in this course filled out the Teacher Belief Survey at the beginning and end of the 15-week course. Results from both quantitative and qualitative data analysis indicated that participation in the teaching methods course had significantly increased constructionist believes.