Section archive - Preservice Teachers

This study examines how preservice teachers perceived homelessness and children experiencing homelessness. It focuses on preservice teachers’ experiences with the dominant discourses about homelessness and addresses how early childhood educators can support preservice teachers in preparing to teach children experiencing homelessness in their future classrooms. The data showed that the images of homelessness held by the preservice teachers closely overlapped with public discourses of homelessness. The image of children as being homeless even did not exist in the conception of homelessness that the preservice teachers initially held. Their knowledge of homelessness was very limited and inaccurate, such that children experiencing homelessness and their families were initially interpreted as being dysfunctional and abnormal.

The purpose of this study is to examine preservice teachers’ beliefs about childhood in an attempt to see how they may support an active, participatory role for children in early childhood education. The authors highlight three important conclusions from this research. First, preservice teachers already have a number of beliefs that explain children’s behavior, haracteristics, potentials, and needs when they enter university education. Second, beliefs about childhood vary among preservice teachers and some of their beliefs are related to known scientific theories about childhood or to existing typologies. Third, despite this variation, there are specific ontological and epistemological presuppositions underlying these beliefs that construct a framework theory for understanding childhood.

This study investigated preservice teachers’ perspectives of the flipped classroom model and examined the impact of the model on student achievement. The authors found no significant differences between the flipped model and the traditional model in terms of academic achievement. However, they found different factors that may influence the effectiveness of this teaching model.

The purpose of this article is to identify, examine and describe the pre-service teachers’ perceived gains of professional development during an international teaching practicum. The data reveal that the international teaching practicum stint has enhanced the pre-service teachers’ awareness of aspects of language and language teaching-learning. Furthermore, this observational learning has assisted the pre-service teachers to internalize new learning and experiences. Finally, teaching in the Maldivian schools was a new learning experience for the pre-service teachers, who have gained understanding of new world views of education and culture from teaching English in Maldives.