Course literature in mathematics teacher education provides prospective teachers with conceptualizations of formative assessment practices, described both in terms of how to assess and the theoretical foundations behind assessment practices. If the practical and theoretical aspects are not clearly connected, prospective mathematics teachers may find formative assessment methods difficult to use and combine. Studying how formative assessment practices are justified in course literature is consequently a way of studying how such practices are justified within the teacher education in which they are used. We collected all compulsory readings from a Swedish teacher education program, downloading or scanning them. Through a thematic analysis, partly deductive and based on the theoretical concept of didactic praxeology, we identified four main theoretical ideas underpinning formative assessment methods: equality, student agency, relation to mathematics, and efficiency. We discuss how focusing on justifications of formative assessment practices can provide a more precise grammar for related practices.

The growing linguistic diversity of European classrooms, intensified by geopolitical disruptions such as the war in Ukraine, has created pressing challenges for teachers. Yet little is known about how educators sustain their professional identity and agency in these rapidly shifting contexts. This longitudinal qualitative study follows three in-service compulsory school teachers of Czech as a second language through interviews conducted in 2021, 2022, and 2024. Drawing on an ecological framework and the theory of possible teacher selves, the analysis traces how teachers negotiated contextual constraints, mobilized personal resources, and responded to fluctuating institutional supports. Findings show that while teachers took on extensive pedagogical and affective labor to compensate for systemic gaps, such reliance on personal commitment was unsustainable. The study advances understanding of teacher agency in multilingual education and demonstrates that the sustainability of teacher professionalism depends on the development of collective and systemic support structures.

Family engagement is both a well-documented contributor to student success and a federal policy mandate, making it critical for educator preparation programs (EPPs) to equip novice teachers with the skills, dispositions, and experiences needed for meaningful school–family partnerships. Grounded in situated learning theory, this qualitative case study examines how eight novice teachers developed their beliefs and practices related to family engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on interviews and focus groups, the study explores how participants engaged families in Title I schools amid significant instructional disruption. Findings reveal that participants valued family involvement but relied on transactional communication and often described families through a deficit lens. Preparation was inconsistent and shaped more by mentor initiative than by program structure. The study calls for EPPs to adopt systematic, equity-focused approaches that center critical reflection, elevate family voices, and support novice teachers’ movement from peripheral observation to active participation during clinical experiences.

This paper examines the essential role of teachers as civic agents in promoting civic literacy and teaching controversial topics. Amid restrictive policies, curriculum limits, and societal norms that often exclude marginalized perspectives from the classroom, the study asks: How can teachers promote civic literacy when crucial perspectives are excluded from school curricula? Combining Dewey’s theory of democratic education with recent studies on civic literacy, this study situates classrooms as a foundational environment necessary for cultivating critical thinking, civic identity, and a commitment to equity, justice, and the common good. An autoethnographic methodology, which blends personal anecdotes with literature, helps demonstrate practical strategies such as dialogic teaching, storytelling, and experiential learning, which enable students to navigate sensitive topics and develop as active, involved citizens. The findings demonstrate that intentionally engaging with, rather than avoiding, so-called controversial topics fosters inclusive democratic participation and challenges the notion that education is inherently neutral. This contributes an original argument: civic literacy is inseparable from openly discussing real-world inequities and supporting teacher agency. Recommendations for curriculum reform and professional development to support teacher agency in navigating these issues suggest that schools are essential to the renewal of democracy.

This qualitative study investigated the ways in which nine K-12 urban school teachers from diverse teaching contexts made meaning of their work. In line with Bandura’s (1986) theory of triadic reciprocal causation, semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted over three consecutive school years revealed a dynamic interplay of teacher self-efficacy (internal factor), teacher and student relationship building (behavioral factor), and teaching context (environmental factor). Using the Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) framework to analyze the findings, with a primary focus on the third year of interviews, we found that the nature of any one of these factors influenced the others to inform teachers’ perceptions of their work. TSE tended to both inform and be informed by teachers’ relationships with their students, a dynamic that was at times strengthened or challenged by the teaching context and one’s perceived fit within it. These findings have potential benefit for pre-service and in-service educator preparation programs by emphasizing the relational and contextual aspects of teaching. Implications include an increased focus on enhancing teacher and student relationships in teacher development and greater alignment of school environments with teachers’ values.

Key Practices in P‑6 Integrated STEM Education: Delphi Panel Insights Over the past two decades, educators and policymakers have worked to improve STEM education for P‑12 students, yet patterns of engagement remain persistently unchanged, potentially hindering interest in STEM careers. This paper focuses on findings from a modified Delphi panel study involving expert teacher educators across the US. We identify crucial practices teacher educators use to prepare candidates for integrated STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) teaching in P‑6 classrooms. Additionally, the research highlights key attributes of integrated P‑6 STEM education compared to single‑discipline curricula. The study reveals 16 interconnected essential practices and nine differentiating attributes that define integrated P‑6 STEM education, offering insights for researchers, teacher practitioners, and policymakers.

We sought to understand how both scholars and practitioners conceptualized formative assessment. First, we conducted an umbrella review of scholar’s definitions of formative assessment, as a proxy to understand how formative assessment is presented to preservice teachers in coursework. Then we engaged in an inquiry community with three university-based student teaching supervisors (supervisors) to understand how they conceptualized formative assessment, and the extent to which their conceptualizations mirrored the scholarly definitions. We organized our findings across five parameters (i.e., who, why, what, when, how) of formative assessment. While supervisors defined formative assessment along some of these parameters, their conceptualizations of formative assessment differed in two ways. There was variability in the supervisors understanding of what should be assessed with formative assessment and they emphasized the importance of accountability and validity in formative assessment. When synthesized, these findings provide a comprehensive framework for teacher educators.

This manuscript combines two pilot studies to understand teachers’ and immigrant parents’ perspectives on K-12 students’ schooling experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interviews were collected as the data sources in both studies. The socio-ecological theory is utilized to analyze the data. Participants included two teachers and two Chinese immigrant parents. The findings show that (1) both parents and teachers described concerns and challenges linked to social isolation at the microsystem level, (2) the participants felt connected or disconnected when reflecting on teacher-parent communication at the mesosystem level, and (3) the participants shared their expectations on the resources that could be offered by school districts and teacher education preparation programs at the exosystem level. The findings informed recommendations for supporting teachers, immigrant students, and parents in the post-pandemic world.

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has framed teacher education for decades, despite the difficulty of demonstrating that teacher preparation effectively develops PCK. Social studies educators have been especially wary of PCK, but their critiques have primarily challenged what knowledge is valued rather than its model of how teachers learn. This comparative case study reexamines PCK’s cognitivist assumptions by analyzing three preservice social studies teachers’ teaching and reflections from a situated perspective on role identity development. Despite unusual amounts of pedagogical experience and content knowledge, each novice had trouble facilitating whole class discussions. Their struggles did not emerge at the intersection of pedagogy and content, but within their role identity negotiations. These results suggest that a situated framework for identity development is a useful alternative to PCK in social studies teacher preparation and recommend deeper engagement with identity development through teacher education practice.

This collective self-study chronicles the experiences and reflections of four women teacher educators living and working during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data collected between March 2020 and December 2021 centered on the following question: what were we, as teacher educators, experiencing professionally and personally as a result of the pandemic? The COVID-19 context presented a unique set of challenges and an additional layer of complexity highlighting intersections of policy, teacher education, and societal expectations. Findings connected to our professional identities as teacher educators included the need to reframe professional expectations and the impacts to historical narratives in teacher education. Personally, the complexity of mixing the personal and professional spheres and increased personal responsibilities emerged. Findings from this study reaffirm that when we have opportunities to access and learn from the lived experiences of others, we are better positioned to understand ourselves and the personal and professional roles we take on.