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Dealing with the often-overwhelming nature of the school placement experience, and the associated demands of classroom management, can be a significant challenge for many pre-service teachers. These challenges point to the need for pre-service teachers to experience aspects of challenging pupil behaviour in less pressurised environments, and where they can have the opportunities to make mistakes without fear of negative repercussions on their academic progression. The use of virtual simulations is increasingly seen as an opportunity to provide pre-service teachers with unique opportunities to experience examples of classroom life in a controlled and structured manner. With these benefits in mind, this paper explores the growing use of virtual simulations in pre-service teacher education and, in particular, their use in developing pre-service teachers' behaviour and classroom management skills. It highlights issues that teacher educators need to be cognisant of in using them with student teachers, particularly the extent to which they cement existing stereotypes about pupil behaviour and the extent to which they subsequently limit rather than enhance opportunities for critical reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the factors that contribute to an effective teacher has the potential to influence selection and preparation of preservice teachers and may influence student outcomes. Prior research suggests a relationship between teacher characteristics (academic achievement, verbal ability, gender) and teacher effectiveness, however, these factors explain only a fraction of the overall variance in the effectiveness of teachers. Guided by the What Works Clearinghouse protocol for Teacher Training, Evaluation and Compensation, this study involving pre-service teachers (N = 400) used teacher performance rankings resulting from classroom observations and explored factors that may contribute to varying levels of teacher performance. Pre-service teachers' prior teaching performance, personality characteristics and previous academic achievement were assessed as predictive factors of teacher performance. Results indicate that no significant relationship was identified between personality traits and the outcome variable teaching performance in this study. However, previous teaching performance in addition to academic achievement scores emerged as significant predictors of teaching performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report introduces the experiential learning initiative at a major university in Hong Kong that prepares pre-service teachers with experience of engaging with social and cultural issues in teaching. It calls on teacher educators in different contexts to work together on similar initiatives that help pre-service teachers grow professionally through designing, developing, managing and promoting their experiential learning projects to enhance human development and improve human conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Apprenticeship and professional development schools (PDSs) are two models for teacher education. The mentors that are the focus for this research completed their initial teacher training through one of these models and now mentor in PDSs. The paper reports on how the way in which they were trained as student teachers influenced their role perceptions. The findings suggest that mentor teachers who were trained via the PDSs model have a broader conceptual understanding of their role perception. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the potential of video capture to generate a collaborative space for teacher preparation; a space in which traditional hierarchies and boundaries between actors (student teacher, school mentor and university tutor) and knowledge (academic, professional and practical) are disrupted. The study, based in a teacher education department in an English university, is contextualised in the policy context of school–university partnerships. Video capture is used as a vehicle to promote dialogue and collaborative practice between partners during school-based elements of a teacher preparation course. Analysis highlights the power of this space to promote reciprocal learning across the partnership. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In a country like South Africa, as in many other countries around the world, there is an imperative to prepare student teachers for a wide variety of social contexts, as part of breaking the cycle of disadvantage for poor learners. This article explores the challenge of placing student teachers for their field experience in schools that differ greatly in terms of their social and educational conditions. Drawing on interviews with teacher educators at one university, the article argues that criteria for identifying suitable schools for Teaching Practice do not easily support placements in schools in difficult conditions. Conceptual models of teacher education are explored, with a view to developing a model that supports teacher preparation for diversity. Policy recommendations are offered to support the preparation of excellent teachers for all schooling contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although research reveals that pre-service student teachers often regard their relationships with their significant others as an important element of their initial teaching practice experience, much remains unknown about the influence of significant others on non-native English as a Second Language (ESL) student teachers’ professional learning process during field experiences. This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study of the professional learning experiences of 17 pre-service non-native ESL student teachers during an eight-week-long practicum. Grounded in a sociocultural view of teacher learning, the study explores how the ESL student teachers developed their understanding of professional learning in the light of their experiences of engaging with their supporting teachers, supervisors, other school staff members as well as peer student teachers during the practicum. Analysis of the data reveals that these people assumed the role of coach either directly or indirectly, having a positive influence on the student teachers’ role as a teacher. Analysis of the data also reveals negative interactions between student teachers and their significant others, which sociocultural theories have so far not taken sufficiently into account. While, findings of this study challenge past assumptions about where knowledge for teaching comes from and how it can be learned; this study also suggests an urgent need to consolidate university–school partnership to foster student teachers’ adaptation to the context of teaching practice and maximise their professional learning opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The research reported here investigated pre-service English language teachers’ perceptions of newly arrived immigrant children from Mainland China in Hong Kong. Seventeen participants, who had at least 10 weeks of experience working with these immigrant children during teaching practicum, participated in focus group discussions and shared their perceptions. The data analysis revealed that the participants widely perceived these children as deficit and consider them a serious professional challenge. Further examination of the data helped reveal media, life and teaching practicum experiences with immigrant children as crucial sources that contributed to the formation of these perceptions. The findings call for teacher education programmes to involve pre-service teachers in critical engagement with the mass media and their own experiences so that they can address the deficit model applied by teachers to immigrant children. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study is an analysis of the impact on students of their experience of an alternative placement. The placement was run with Year 2 students on a three-year undergraduate initial teacher education degree programme (primary, 3–11) in England. The placement enabled students to have a practical teaching experience in any setting outside the age phase they were training to teach. The analysis is based on a cohort evaluation of the placement (170 students). Data were collected in two ways: through students’ written reflections and their identification of the standards required for Qualified Teacher Status that they experienced. This approach was selected owing to the strong expectations by the UK Government to meet set criteria to qualify as a teacher. There is one direct reference in the standards to learning outside the classroom, but it was found that the students considered they had benefited from the alternative placement by offering opportunities for their professional and personal development in many more areas. The research study found that these areas included learning from other experts, working with colleagues, gaining confidence to teach, experiencing other cultural settings, working with children in informal settings, the importance of personalising learning and, in some cases, experiencing second language teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the learning opportunities in school subject departments for student teachers when participating in a postgraduate certificate of education (PGCE) course in England. The paper draws upon data gathered from a year-long ethnographic study to explain why learning opportunities were different for student teachers in separate school departments. Discussion focuses on three identified types of learning (learning by imitation, enculturation and innovation) and analyses how initial teacher education (ITE) resources were used within the school departments in order to work on student teacher learning. The paper concludes by highlighting some pertinent issues for ITE, and the implications of these for designing ITE programmes in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study of pre-service elementary teachers' metaphors of 'literacy' and 'teaching literacy' at the commencement and conclusion of a year-long literacy methods course at a Midwestern American university. Over a three-year period, a total of 47 participants enrolled in the two-semester literacy methods course with an embedded practicum. Data were entered in NVivio 7 and analysed for qualitative themes. Results identified six themes of teaching literacy, five of which connect to literacy theories. The majority of the pre-service teachers maintained their metaphorical belief after a year-long methods/practicum course. Four metaphors appeared to be stable across time and population. The article provides implications for linking the research reported with contemporary ideas for teaching in teacher preparation programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is the second from a longitudinal project examining students' motivation for teaching. The first study examined those entering the Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) course at four universities in Norway. The current study examines motivation among the same cohort of students at the end of the course, and reports on their experiences with teacher education in relation to motivation. The results indicate stability in motivation among the prospective teachers. Moreover, the PGCE course fulfils the students' expectations in various degrees. They express satisfaction with the practical teaching experience but are more critical towards the lack of coherence in the course work. Not knowing if they want to become teachers, 24% of the students are ambivalent about teaching. They have taken the PGCE course primarily for the sake of having multiple options in the job market; this motive is an emerging trend that requires further examination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A plethora of research studies has found cooperative learning to be effective in promoting academic achievement with students of all ages. It has been suggested that key elements of cooperative learning are individual accountability and positive interdependence. Forty-four final-year teacher trainees participated in a study which compared the effectiveness of a two-hour workshop on cooperative learning with and without these two key elements. A multi-choice test focusing on what students had learned and a post-workshop questionnaire focusing on the students' experiences of and attitudes towards cooperative learning were used to evaluate the impact of the workshop. Results indicate that academic learning was greater in the experimental group, in which individual accountability and positive interdependence were structured into the activity. They also indicate that the inclusion of these two elements did not significantly affect students' experiences of the workshop or their attitudes towards cooperative learning. These findings support the suggestion that to achieve optimum effectiveness, individual accountability and positive interdependence should be built into cooperative learning activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Explorations of preservice teacher thinking in the West illustrate the considerable influence that personal history can exert on the developing cognition of teachers. This paper extends the discussion by providing a cross-cultural perspective of Asian preservice teacher constructs of the ideal language teacher. Participants in this study were all preservice language teachers training to be specialist Malay, Tamil, Chinese or English language teachers in Singapore. Data was collected through the use of written biography, metaphor and personal construct interviews. Analysis of data reveals that preservice language teachers enter formal teacher education with well developed constructs or views of the ideal language teacher and related approaches to language learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the findings of a study which investigated primary BEd student teachers' scientific backgrounds, attitudes towards science and towards teaching science, their confidence to teach science, and their scientific knowledge and understanding. The findings are discussed in relation to what primary teachers need to know in order to be able to teach science, and to our developing understanding of how science is perceived, experienced and understood by learners. The paper concludes with a discussion of the effectiveness of a pilot course developed to address the issues raised by the study. It is 'learner centred' and focused on the development of knowledge and understanding rather than process, and on factors likely to promote pupil (and student) understanding. The outcomes of the pilot work raise further substantive issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools are becoming culturally and linguistically diverse. This means that pre-service teachers should be exposed to methods that prepare them for diverse classrooms. This article outlines a service-learning checklist that is practical and authentic to use in working with diverse communities. Faculty can adopt the checklist when infusing service-learning into their course. It is hoped that the checklist will guide faculty as they partner with culturally and linguistically diverse communities and engage in service-learning that is authentic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article provides information on a service-learning course that aims to develop teacher educators and preservice teachers' awareness of disability issues, developed at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, U.S. It states that the service-learning course works by pairing university students and high-school students with intellectual disabilities, in which the university students serve as career mentors and job coaches. It also discusses the course's three interconnected components such as experiential learning, structured reflection, and classroom learning. Moreover, it cites the significance of the service-learning course in the development of an understanding of social justice and disability issues and in encouraging preservice teachers.

An introduction is presented for this issue of the "Journal of Education for Teaching" that notes articles about university-school partnerships in teacher education, about identifying schools that provide diverse social contexts for student teachers, and about pupils' motivation to learn.

Offers a look at the `School/College Partnership for Student Teaching' project. Management of the project; Courses of the project; Evaluation.