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1. Improving EE in teacher education: A statewide effort in Wisconsin

   Franzen, R. L.; Ashmann, S.; Beeth, M. E (October 2018, 47th Annual Conference of the North American Association for Environmental Education)

   In Wisconsin, Ashmann and Franzen (2015) surveyed public and private teacher preparation programs. In some teacher education programs, a separate environmental education course is required for certification, or environmental education is included in a science teaching methods course while other programs integrate elements of environmental education across courses. Irrespective of the approach, the resources of time and space within the teacher preparation curriculum become a challenge (Mastrilli 2005; McDonald & Dominguez, 2010), just as it does for environmental education within the primary and secondary curriculum. Based on these findings, every teacher education program, even those that go beyond “typical,” could be doing more with respect to including environmental education in teacher preparation, and that the likely candidate(s) for why more is not being accomplished is the absence of a resource – material, human, or social. With funding from the National Science Foundation (DRL 1638420) we offered a 4-day, Environmental Education Workshop for faculty from public and private teacher preparation programs throughout Wisconsin. Our goal was to provide the time and space for faculty to come together around improving environmental education at each institution and to facilitate meaningful on-going interactions among institutions related to improving EE in our teacher preparation programs. Thereby, increasing available resources, such as improved curricula, networking for new ideas, and developing a common vision and set of norms. Outcomes from this workshop included changes to EE in individual courses, changes in emphasis on EE at the institutional level and on-going initiatives to network the efforts of those delivering environmental education through teacher preparation programs in Wisconsin. The 44 participating teacher educators created a total of 33 activities that will be shared broadly. Additionally, we were able to pull the group together in January and June 2018. We have also been gathering data from course syllabi and interviews about the impact of this process on the teacher educators. We will share insights from planning, conducting and follow-up activities related to our EE Workshop, as well as preliminary research findings. Our approach for addressing improvements in EE statewide can serve as a model for others considering similar efforts. 

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2. Learning in Context and Practicing in Place: Engaging Preservice Teachers in Urban-Focused Context Specific Teacher Education

   https://doi.org/10.1177/00420859211065188  

   Matsko, Kavita Kapadia; Hammerness, Karen; Lee, Robert E. (January 2022, Urban Education)

   Teacher education programs are increasingly taking up commitments to prepare new teachers for equitable teaching. Despite best intentions, programs feel challenged to help candidates translate these commitments into classroom practice. Using a context-specific teacher education framework, we conducted a mixed-methods study of seven urban-focused programs to understand how they targeted preparation for urban contexts. We found that while programs offer multiple opportunities to learn about content embedded in context, fewer opportunities exist for candidates to practice in context, and that faculty play a critical bridging role in designing practice opportunities that are informed by program vision. 

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3. Using technology in representing practice to support preservice teachers’ quality questioning: The roles of noticing in improving practice

   Walkoe, J. and (January 2018, Journal of technology and teacher education)

   Calls for a “practice-based” approach to teacher education have become common in scholarship on teacher education, and preservice-teaching (PST) mathematics programs are increasingly heeding this call. Practice-based teacher education (PBTE) moves beyond standard approaches to teacher education in which PSTs learn about teaching in ways they are then expected to apply in practice and toward an approach that provides PSTs opportunities to gain experience in particular core practices in ways that approximate enactment in the classroom. A growing body of research suggests that teachers’ responses, including the questions they ask, can help students’ develop content knowledge and proficiency in mathematics and science practices in the classroom. However, despite evidence that PSTs can notice students’ thinking in various activities in their preparation programs, it is not clear that they are sufficiently well-prepared to propose quality responses before entering the classroom. In this paper, we describe two different approaches that we have taken to provide support for quality teacher questioning in the LessonSketch environment. From our results, we develop a hypothesis that a pedagogical approach that primes novices to notice model questioning can support a stance of focusing on the substance of students’ thinking and probing rather than guiding students’ thinking in their proposed questions. 

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4. Innovative Pathways in STEM Teacher Preparation: Bridging the Gap between University Expectations & Secondary School Needs

   Zonnefeld, Ryan G; Zonnefeld, Valorie L. (July 2019, The Mathematics Education for the Future Project, Proceedings of the 15th International Conference, Theory and Practice: An Interface or A Great Divide?)

   Innovative teacher preparation programs for STEM education are essential for meeting the goal of ensuring that secondary school students receive instruction from a certified teacher. This exploratory workshop examines the role that interdisciplinary STEM and mathematics programs can have to increase the number of certified teachers prepared to teach STEM classes from an interdisciplinary approach. 

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5. Science and Engineering Teaching Self-Efficacy: A Systematic Literature Review

   Menon, D. (April 2023, Annual meeting program American Educational Research Association)

   Self-efficacy is a topic of great interest in elementary preservice and inservice teacher education, considering that elementary teachers often have low science and engineering teaching self-efficacy. In this systematic review, we synthesize existing research to reveal trends and uncover existing gaps, including recommendations for future research. Out of 117, we found 84 articles studied preservice, 31 inservice and two articles studied both preservice/inservice teachers’ self-efficacy. Findings from thematic analysis indicate that the diversity of teacher education programs, both across the United States and globally, offers a rich context for considering a range of programmatic features that impact elementary teachers’ science and engineering teaching self-efficacy. Implications for future research and practice in multiple contexts across teacher preparation programs are discussed. 

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