Practice what you teach: How experiencing elementary school science teaching practices helps prepare teacher candidates

The development of scientifically literate citizens begins in the elementary school. Yet the research base on the preparation of teachers finds university programs designed to prepare elementary teachers as generalists to be overall inadequate in providing both the content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge necessary to teach science effectively. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine which aspects of the curriculum and instruction teacher candidates (TCs) said helped them in developing their understanding of science content and pedagogies for teaching science in the elementary school. The analysis of TCs' evaluations of the course, curriculum, and instruction found that they learned best when they engaged in the practices they were being taught to use when teaching elementary school science. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.