This article describes a 3-year qualitative study on a English language arts teacher preparation approach that places middle school students at the center and interweaves various technologies into the study of The Outsiders. Using the ever-popular young adult novel, The Outsiders, as a nexus of literature study and an integration of technology and music, the authors created The Outsiders Project. For three years the authors produced, directed, studied, and analyzed The Outsiders Project (TOP) to determine the impact of these experiences on their preservice teachers and to examine what they learned from the middle school students. The findings reveal that the preservice teachers were very surprised to discover that the middle school students really did want to learn. Another lesson the preservice teachers reported they learned about middle school students was that all students can contribute.

The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of using online social networks with preservice history teachers. The findings revealed that the Ning was an environment that allowed for real-time discussions of praxis that engaged not only their students, but other preservice and in-service teachers from around the world. The students had meaningful conversations concerning praxis online during the semester they were required to do so. These conversations reinforced the learning occurring in this seminar and at students’ practicum sites.

In this study, the authors explore educators’ experiences in a research design that adheres to collaboration with educators; in this case in a year-long formative intervention in the context of teacher education. This analysis revealed three main contrasts, all of which the teacher educators experience as being consequential for their participation in the research. The first reflection related to how the teacher educators perceived their own position. The educators describe this position as one of agency and ownership, coupled with recognition of their expertise. Secondly, the position of the researcher was experienced as one that explicitly involves learning. Lastly, the research was experienced as being integrated.

The current paper illustrates and theorises change in two Australian teachers’ dispositions towards social justice over time from a Bourdieuian perspective. The interviews with the two participants over a two-year period provide evidence of change in their dispositions towards social justice. By the end of their first year of teaching, there is evidence that both experienced change in their dispositions towards social justice. There is clear movement towards social democratic or difference models of redistributive justice. Within this movement is a growing recognition of the appropriateness of the )re)distribution of different social goods for different people rather than a quest for sameness. This dispositional change took place at the same time as the two participants were developing competence as beginning teachers.

In this study, the authors examined their efforts to teach beginning teachers’ formative assessment practices, specifically to elicit and interpret students’ mathematical thinking. This study surfaced a number of important ideas about scaffolding students’ learning of practice in the context of a commonly used teacher education assignment. The findings reveal that each scaffold examined in this paper appeared to support and shape student performance. Furthermore, fixed scaffolds designed in advance and scaffolds crafted in the moment based on the unfolding circumstances were both useful in supporting and shaping student practice.

This study examines student teacher’s perceptions of the causes and levels of stress during the student teaching practicum for students in the Concurrent Bachelor of Education Program at Laurentian University. The findings reveal that the students indicated a moderate to low level of stress during their practicums. Lesson planning was identified as the greatest cause of stress for student teachers because of its time-consuming nature. The author argues that the prepracticum experiences of these student teachers may have lessened the stress levels reported during the practicum.