Undergraduate Research for Preservice Teachers: Navigating Its Rich Complexity and Novel Possibilities

Abstract

Learners grapple with ways of responding to the uncertainties that currently permeate their academic experiences. In that environment, preservice teachers (PSTs) strive to cultivate complex thinking to master their learning; simultaneously, teacher educators (TEs) wrestle to create instructional designs that facilitate meaningful outcomes. Both groups’ success occurs when they adopt frameworks and strategies that enhance the teaching/learning experiences. This chapter reports the results of a qualitative study, which aimed first, to uncover the features of one TE’s approach to the design undergirding a research-integrated preclinical secondary education course; and second, to analyze the implementation progression to illuminate those features that facilitated PSTs’ engaged learning. The findings uncovered the TE’s capacity to anchor the course redesign on elements of the RSD Framework, and PSTs’ capacity to persist across learning environments that integrated research thinking into habits of mind routines. These have implications for the responsive and thoughtful adoption of curriculum-based undergraduate research experiences, TEs’ role extension into curriculum design, and faculty-student partnership for academic success.

1 Background

Learners grapple with novel ways of thinking, learning, and responding to the rapid change and uncertainty that now frame their lives. In higher education institutions, undergraduate students-learners in initial teacher education programs are expected to cultivate the mindsets associated with novel, complex, and sophisticated thinking and to exercise them to master their own learning and engage K-12 learners. Simultaneously, teacher educators (TEs) are expected to design and execute learning experiences that facilitate such outcomes. Gardner (2006) defined the cognitive and dispositional capacities or minds of the future, needed to navigate these changes. Indeed, when faculty and undergraduate preservice teachers (PSTs) are engaged in research, their shared understanding of Education as a field of great complexity makes clearer their need to navigate pathways that prioritize imagination, risk-taking, complex thinking, innovative ideas, and building arguments related to evidence-based information (Brew & Saunders, 2019), including confidence in their own discovery (Willison, 2020).

1.1 Research Thinking and Responsive Teaching

Willison (2018, 2020) advanced a distinctive association between sophisticated thinking—a balanced combination of well-developed lower-order- and higher-order thinking skills—and research thinking. He proposes that research thinking (RT) illustrates how learners find and synthesize information, generate data following ethical guidelines, and provide solutions to address issues, problems, or challenges that perplex and challenge the mind. This brings together dimensions of thinking/doing reflected in other work e.g., strategic planning and its subset, futures thinking (Smart et al., 2021), and Gardner’s (2006, 2020) minds of the future (disciplinary, synthesizing, creating, respectful, and ethical). Willison submits further that research thinking involves and embraces the cognitive, affective, and relational aspects of thinking associated with a range of students’ learning experiences (Chap. 1). This construct extends the faculty’s definition and practice of the scholarship of teaching and learning: first, faculty are expected to respond to and invent ways of teaching to capture learners’ imagination and second to model that thinking/learning by engaging in research with their students to generate contextually situated information/data and make decisions based on that. In addition, it telegraphs the notion that students working within those parameters can become consumers and producers of research that enables them to make decisions about how to engage in and adapt to challenging issues. In sum, research thinking and responsive teaching advance participation and do not retreat from complexity.

Willison and O’Regan (2007) provided the Researcher Skill Development (RSD) Framework to guide engagement in research thinking. The RSD systematically maps the development of both students’ research actions or facets of research thinking and their increasing levels of autonomy. This framework serves as an essential platform on which to build ways of thinking for initial teacher education programs: (a) autonomy, where: students can track their learning by building the capacities for research thinking; and (b) novel instructional design where faculty design robust pedagogical approaches that help PSTs be responsive to their emerging learning needs (Baker, 2022). In fact, instructional design and responsive teaching have recently moved to the fore in Higher Education institutions’ focus on teaching and learning with technology (Jaramillo Cherrez, 2021).

1.2 Instructional Design, Research Thinking, and Responsive Teaching

Teachers and TEs have been grappling with instructional design and design thinking (DT), especially when no agreed-upon guiding definitions exist. For education research and practice, Razzouk and Shute characterize DT as an “analytic and creative process that engages a person in opportunities to experiment, create and prototype models, gather feedback, and redesign” (p. 330). Instructional designers operationalize design thinking as intentionally planning and organizing learning strategies, processes, materials, and experiences toward defined learning and/or performance outcomes (Svihla, 2018). Further, the American Educational Research Association’s Special Interest Group (SIG) in its advocacy for this work has indicated that design thinking is concerned with creating a holistic plan for environments where learning happens, i.e., considering the physical, digital, social, and psychological factors that define the spaces and places where people learn (https://www.aera.net/SIG031/SIG-Design-and-Technology-31). This SIG promotes this field at the organization’s annual conferences.

Today, teachers and TEs are reclaiming design and design thinking as part of their practice especially when it facilitates the adoption of innovative approaches like course-integrated research experiences for PSTs. It affords faculty the opportunity to creatively merge design approaches for effective and responsive teaching and strategic thinking and learning, such that together they ensure complex and sophisticated thinking associated with research thinking. Further, when that work is aligned with the dimensions of the RSD Framework, it is anticipated that both TEs and their students can benefit significantly in terms of what Godwin (2020) calls “thriving [together] in an equilibrium of disorder” and complexity. This conceptualization undergirds this chapter.

2 Methodology

Thus, this qualitative case study reports on an orientation to initial teacher education grounded in principles of complexity, instructional design, and sustainable pedagogies that inform responsive teaching aligned and incorporated into the construct, research thinking. First, the report describes and analyzes the TE’s strategic research thinking design that enabled the integration and delivery of a field-based practicum into the content of a second-year pre-clinical adolescent psychology course. Then, it provides a qualitative content analysis of the redesigned course-integrated research experience, which identified PSTs’ capacity to nurture and rehearse the research thinking processes effectively alongside the TE’s responsive teaching. The report also provides a descriptive analysis of PSTs products generated during the course as further evidence of their practice of research thinking.

The qualitative case study design with a narrative inquiry approach enables a clearer description of individuals, events, and group settings. It provides evidence of TEs’ capacity to adopt research thinking and adaptive roles relative to the complexity of course transformation and varying teaching/learning environments. This approach also offers the advantage of realizing deeper insights into PSTs’ complex learning through research thinking and the narratives/stories they tell about their experiences within a changing constellation of peers, faculty, college/school district personnel, and early adolescents in an after-school learning laboratory.

2.1 Results: A Focus on Design and Research Thinking for Course Transformation

2.1.1 Research Thinking in a Nested System

In course-integrated research experiences, instructional design for teaching and learning, content, context, and research intersect. Faculty adheres to the principles and practice of design (problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, leadership, collaboration, and communication), while pushing beyond accustomed approaches and pedagogical strategies, to ensure student development of capacities for deep thinking including research thinking (informed, astute, harmonizing, insightful, and externalized). The TE as designer and instructor works at the point of intersecting goals. This section sheds light on faculty/TE’s efforts toward ensuring research thinking in a dynamic nested system.

Figure 8.1 presents the faculty-designer’s working canvas: a sophomore-level adolescent learning course for preservice secondary teachers representing four major disciplines (English, Mathematics, Sciences, and Social Sciences). This 15-week traditional course required the PSTs as prospective secondary teachers to (1) know, and understand the many facets of adolescent/emerging adult development; (2) become more aware of their professional roles as learners, teachers, scientists, and student advocates; (3) apply this professional self-awareness, to all relationship with adolescents in the teaching/learning environments; and (4) engage in selected signature learning experiences identified by the college, and supported by the School of Education and its departments. In addition, secondary education PSTs are also required to complete fifty (50) hours of field experience, prior to enrolment in the Clinical Practice phases (Years 3 and 4). This practicum was a stand-alone and well-supported experience focusing on Grades 6–12 classroom teaching and learning (Cohen et al., 2013).

Fig. 8.1

Nested contexts of course integrated research experiences

The teaching–learning–design challenge was to combine these two experiences into one, integrated learning opportunity that also satisfied at least one of the institution’s five signature learning experiences: (1) Personalized Collaborative Rigorous Education, (2) Undergraduate Research, Mentored Internships, and Field Experiences, (3) Community-engaged learning, (4) Global Engagement, and (5) Leadership Development. Item 2 was selected. So, to accomplish this integration, the TE collaborated with the faculty librarian, personnel from the Center for Teaching and Learning, the Office of Instructional Technology Services, and K-12 teachers in the school district where PSTs did their field experience. The resulting product included prompts, strategies, and various instructional delivery approaches in which the TE once again became a student of teaching.

All documentation and materials from this course integration, constituted the educator’s self-evaluation conducted under the supervision of a HE Instructional teaching coach, appointed by the School of Education leadership. These sources produced a rich seam for mining data on interconnected design, integrated course content, instructional prompts/strategies for TE, layered context, complex research thinking, and PSTs mentored learning.

2.1.2 Course-Integrated Research Experiences and Research Thinking

A qualitative content analysis of multiple data sets related to the TE’s design of the course-integrated research experiences revealed three elements that ensured the location of research thinking at the center of the teaching experience: facilitative structures, novel integrated instructional approaches including in-class workshops, rehearsal, help-seeking behavior practices, and interactions in small learning communities (by- and across-disciplines). These findings made transparent the threads of research thinking that were incorporated into the TE’s instructional design and adoption, and practice of multiple and varying instructional approaches; they provided new possibilities for elevating the practice of undergraduate research instruction and research thinking (Healey & Jenkins, 2018).

Table 8.1 details the elements that served as the foundation of the course transformation: facilitative structures, strategies for engagement including reflection, and rehearsal/iteration within emergent learning communities. While the cross table represents each element as a separate unit, the contents of each section were intertwined to create a fluid yet cohesive learning experience. In addition, it allowed the TE to maintain a creative tension across all activities and helped students to manage both their learning and academic emotions including self-directedness and autonomy.

Table 8.1 Cross table: design elements by instruction, course content & embedded research experience

Facilitative Structure

With the required departmental approvals, revised scheduling accommodated the novel course format: class meetings were scheduled once a week on campus (two sequenced 90-min sessions), and once a week (90 min) practicum, in the after-school learning laboratory in the area middle school: tutoring with students at risk for school failure. This time/activity arrangement distributed class time differently and reoriented PSTs to learning in multiple locations—in campus classrooms, mentored by faculty librarians, individual study, and providing tutoring guidance in the area middle school.

The Board of Education, the school leadership, and classroom teachers approved the tutoring activities. In addition, the syllabus reflected a structured, yet flexible format for in-class and in-lab activities. For in-class learning, each 90-min section contained three movements with a range of active learning approaches/units (whole group small group, individual work e.g., lecturette, workshops, questioning for teaching and learning, conversation, reflection on tutoring activities) with laddered contents. For the Lab, there were also three movements: tutors (a) reviewed together the tutoring goals, including the specifics for that session; (b) engaged with the tutees, and (c) debriefed with the faculty instructor/school counselor prior to departure, and complete the reflective journaling. These routines were maintained strictly for the first five weeks of class and relaxed when PSTs indicated that they understood the new class goals and expectations and established learning relationships with their peers from different disciplines.

Another structural element included the many partnerships established by faculty to support the teaching–learning enterprise: (a) the faculty librarian conducted workshops for the student group/s and individual consultations; (c) faculty relied on the resources of the Center for Teaching and Learning and the School District personnel to provide volunteer training and in-session supervision/advisement for PSTs; and (c) access to tech LMS for students to ensure their individual and collaborative work. Faculty also reminded students of additional campus services e.g., the Writing Laboratory, additional Library services, and contributions from the Student Union. In sum, the TE creatively draws on all campus resources to support PSTs’ learning; PSTs grow in awareness of the supportive scaffolding available to help them consolidate their learning experiences individually and collectively.

Teaching/Learning Strategies for Engagement

Reflected in the cross table also is evidence of the extended role of the faculty: to maintain the internal tension to help students return to learning equilibrium-responsive teaching in action:

• the literacies—class readings, writing (class assignments and reflective journaling), and discussions/oral reflection.

• formal/informal assessment.

• Orchestrating student learning (academic) and their capacity to manage academic emotions, whether positive or negative.

• a focus on multiple perspectives.

• TE’s extended office hours for informal teaching and mentoring

These connections were deliberate; they facilitated deep/complex and surface thinking that undergirds student academic and affective learning and set the foundation for building the habits of mind related to research thinking. These consistent and interdependent connections when aligned with the facets of the RSD, expanded the parameters of the faculty’s own scholarly engagement, into the realm of complex instructional design, responsive teaching, collaboration, and persistent mentoring. Further, mapping, translating, and incorporating the facets of the RSD into the instructional design, nurtured research thinking while setting a path for PSTs to do the same.

Building Learning Communities

Faculty introduced subtly surprising complexity into the learning environment, e.g., by building learning communities, reflecting the social personal dimension of learning. Here, the focus was on manageable, relevant, and purposeful peer engagement, through help-seeking behavior, in-class learning peer groups, and online collaboration, while providing co-curricular support. This approach also impacted PSTs’ capacities for alternative perspectives and generative thinking plus a classroom/tutoring culture of collaboration and friendship.

In sum, facilitative structures, and instructional approaches including novel learning strategies and efforts towards building learning communities, served to ensure the incorporation of complex research thinking into the TE’s course design. These data also suggest that the intentional incorporation of these elements in support of students’ learning also forecasts the TE’s responsive teaching, thus providing new possibilities for elevating the practice of course-integrated research.

2.1.3 Research Thinking in Action: Building Habits of Mind

This section provides a descriptive analysis of the integration of content, and management of the research experience, with PSTs building habits of mind through the introduction of research thinking using the Researcher Skill Development Framework. Here the focus is on the structure and guidance provided by the teacher-educator for students in their multiple learning environments.

Organization and Management of the Research Experience

As a sophomore-level class and the first education course in the Secondary Education Sequence, the PSTs’ research was situated at RSD Framework Level 1—Closed Inquiry (See Chap. 1 of this book); this requires a high level of structure and guidance and initial lower levels of student autonomy to ensure understanding and the incorporation of new thinking patterns and sequences. All assignments were then clearly articulated, and prompts were provided for each activity of the research process. Insert 1 provides a portion of the guidance for all students related to the research questions. Given that PSTs represented major disciplines (English, Mathematics, Social Sciences (History), Technology Education, and the Sciences) faculty carefully managed both within-group and across-groups discussion; the goal was to prompt and nurture both disciplinary and interdisciplinary understanding and communications.

Insert 1. The Signature Learning Experience: Guiding Questions

The following questions guide the inquiry: 1. What issues (positive/negative, academic/learning, social/relational, and/or emotional/affective), emerge from an analysis of the weekly journal data set related to tutoring early adolescent students at risk for school failure? 2. What approaches/strategies did you use to address these issues? [What theories of teaching and learning of adolescents, or recommendations from the tutoring literature did you use to guide your actions/decision making?] What were the general outcomes of your decisions?

Insert 2 presents the prompts for the journal writing associated with the tutoring sessions; the weekly documentation of the tutoring experience constituted PSTs’ data for their narrative inquiry design. Narrative Research/Inquiry helped PTs create meaning from new or different complex experiences that initially triggered disequilibrium, which then change with the practice of the thinking sequence: purposive at first (observing, questioning/searching) then to pattern identification, and making connections guided by astute harmonizing and insightful thinking (Caine & Clandinin, 2022; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Mathieson, 2019). This served to introduce PSTs to narrative research thinking, plus finding meaning in, and having reverence for the stories of teaching and learning, early in their program.

Insert 2. The Weekly Reflective journal: A focus on learner self-awareness and tutor/mentor leadership

The Assignment At the end of each session of the practicum, compose and submit a reflective journal entry to your Canvas Dropbox. This 250–300-word, single-spaced entry should include the following: • Describe using facts from the practicum event (who, what, when where, and why) focusing on the needs/successes of the tutee/mentee and on your needs, approaches, and/or successes • Indicate how you as a tutor/mentor are puzzling through your experiences including your decision-making and resolutions of challenges or dilemmas that present themselves • Identify the personal and professional tools, skills, and attributes that you used or may need to meet this or other challenges in tutoring/mentoring • Support your conclusions and strategies with evidence from the text and selected articles on tutoring and mentoring in Canvas Files. Each week read and apply one of the articles Assessment Rubric: (a) Quality of journal submissions

Prompts were provided for all other assignments accompanied by preparation and assessment rubrics: a limited review of the literature, descriptive data analysis, well-defined report writing, discussion of the findings, and dissemination approaches. In-class workshops aligned with the literacies of focus and research thinking served to introduce and support the assignments.

Table 8.2 places in juxtapositions the learning activities in the practicum, the research thinking associated with those activities, and the corresponding facets of the RSD framework. The internal cohesion of the course, with goals made transparent in the syllabus, the assignments, and the tutoring activities, and the TE’s adoption of the closed inquiry approach, PSTs remained connected throughout the re-designed course implementation.

Table 8.2 Research action, research thinking & RSD framework

2.1.4 Navigating Course-Integrated Research Experiences: A Review of PSTs’ Inquiry Products

Engaging Activities, Rehearsals, and Teaching Stories

Twenty-two of the twenty-three PSTs completed the course successfully; that means that they completed each course assignment successfully and were able to consolidate those assignments into a final coherent research project associated with the course content—Adolescent Learning.

When the descriptive analysis of the quality and characteristics of PSTs’ final research product was conducted, common themes emerged. First, it became evident from the data that for all students, the first assignments were the most challenging, e.g., reading academic literature—purposive, informed, harmonizing thinking, and reflective writing/journaling. TEs’ prompt response to PTS’ need including re-reading and re-writing, new behaviors for most, eventually became the norm; additional supports introduced into the class sessions including graphic organizers, individual/small group meetings about the content or integrated work, and especially the use of rubrics, provided options and alternatives. In addition, PSTs reported that their enthusiasm for the tutoring practicum in the after-school lab facilitated a positive shift in their work ethic. In sum, the revised course enabled them to embrace repetition/rehearsals, peer exchanges, and rubrics as essential parts of awareness of learning means to develop sophisticated/research thinking, high-performance quality, and habits of mind.

Some PSTs reported that academic writing was their greatest challenge. They also reported that they actively sought out the one-on-one tutoring available at the campus Writing Center and the Library. In addition, with the course’s focus on their engagement, and learning outcomes, PSTs became more extensive in their preparation for class, e.g., relying on the research literature, locating, and organizing supplemental materials to support their in-class arguments, and engaging their tutees. This meant that their reflective journals (data sets) became richer in detail born of their improved observation and thinking skills. These indicate that research thinking, when activated, also prompts motivation, mental clarity, and academic emotions e.g., pride and sustained effort.

Related to this was the activation of PSTs’ help-seeking behaviors in both the on-campus class and the practicum event. In their conversation with their peers, PST reported that they discovered common issues underlying adolescents’ problems e.g., reading for comprehension mattered across all disciplines, that capacities for problem identification and problem-solving are assets for successful learners. This awareness was reflected in their own journal entries and their analysis of qualitative data. Altogether, the introduction of more active learning strategies changed how PSTs functioned: they became more collaborative, prompting increased class participation and volunteer actions. In sum, PSTs recognized each other as resourceful and shared their work including their writing with others for feedback—for many, a new behavior change.

Work Samples

Consequently, the final research projects reflected PSTs’ increasing levels of complex skills, a reflective disposition, capacity to synthesize information and seek out meaning, plus strong academic emotions (pride, sense of accomplishment, positive identity, and commitment to the teaching profession and their discipline). It is important to note that this transformed course introduced students to Level 1 of the RSD: faculty-guided, with limited student autonomy. This means that this experience serves as foundational, a platform on which they can build improved learning and more effective research thinking.

Here are some titles of PSTs’ research products that suggest PSTs’ understanding of themselves, their agency as prospective teachers, the research experience, recognition of research methodology, and a focus on adolescence.

• Student 1 (M) A Qualitative Analysis of A Prospective Teacher’s Tutoring Experience: A Focus on Early Adolescents

• Student 2 (F) A Qualitative Analysis of a Tutoring Experience: Benefits and Challenges for Prospective Teachers and Their Tutees

• Student 3 (F) Analysis of A Prospective Teacher’s Tutoring Experience: A Narrative Inquiry Project

These titles suggest that PSTs have the capacity to build sophistication and refinement into their work with further practice.

This 15-week course started PSTs on their way to developing habits of mind related to research thinking. Some indicated that although their new role as student researcher/presenter was initially fraught with disequilibrium, they recognized it now as a phase of their learning development, and an opportunity to explore their knowledge of early adolescents. One PST indicated:

Being allowed the privilege to tutor early adolescents added to my understanding of that developmental group and of the teaching/learning techniques which work best to aid in their learning experience. I was able to see the varying ways in which individual adolescents differ pertaining to how they learn, and I was able to observe and evaluate different methods of tutoring which worked best for my student. The one-on-one relationship I have with [another student] underscored the importance of a social relationship with students, and how I can establish these relationships in the classroom with multiple students. With this experience, I am laying the foundation to become a successful middle/high school teacher (Student 10).

Dissemination of PSTs Products: Pushing Beyond the Classroom

Since dissemination is a critical part of the research process (Eberly & Joshi, 2022), three levels of dissemination were introduced to students:

• 1. A timed in-class presentation with an Abstract handout: Required for all PSTs.

• 2. Participation in the college-wide Celebration of Student Achievement: Standard Poster presentation; and,

• 3. Co-presentation at an area conference with Faculty Instructor/teacher educator: limited to 2–3 PSTs, based on the quality of the work, conference acceptance of student performance, funding, and PSTs’ availability.

This task introduced PSTs to another dimension of research thinking-externalized thinking and research practice, specifically communications. At every level of dissemination, PSTs demonstrated high academic proficiency, interest in the innovative course design, and pride in their achievements; many indicated that they would join other school/campus learning experiences that help them further that engagement in complex learning through research.

3 Discussion

The course transformation of a standard sophomore-level course into a course-integrated undergraduate research experience for PSTs represented a response to the institution’s recommended signature experiences for all students, plus the efforts to make undergraduate research available for all students in initial teacher education programs. This qualitative case study of the transformation showed that Design Thinking (for teaching and learning) when aligned with research-based instruction and framed with the RSD framework, enriches faculty efforts to respond and put in place transformative and sustainable pedagogies. These pedagogies align content, context, characteristics of the learner population, institutional policies, and the demands of professional education. Frerejean et al. (2021) and Jaramillo Cherrez (2021) underscore the importance of designing instruction for complex learning in higher education; their work gives credence to the possibility of building course-integrated research experiences with rigor like stand-alone courses. The results of this study now indicate similar success when this approach is applied to pre-clinical courses in professional schools. Baker (2022) offers ready remedies to address challenges in the transformation process including active learning strategies and other emotional and social supports. These extend Johnson’s (2018) work that provides active learning activities for students and faculty in undergraduate neuroscience education. Both works suggest that solidifying active learning classroom structures and establishing learning communities for faculty and students (including faculty librarians, instructional designers, advisors, disciplinary others, personnel from K-12 school districts, and campus centers for tutoring writing) help to facilitate PSTs’ learning through research.

Further, the results indicate that comprehensive instructional design for course-integrated research helps PSTs to manage not only the disequilibrium related to navigating the academic environment but also their own personal and professional identity as persistent and capable learners, emerging adults, and confident professionals (Kelly et al., 2019) who are responsive to the shifting demands placed on their teaching. In turn, they can bring the same goals to their students by emphasizing the interrelationship across research thinking, employability skills, and leadership potential, especially in the service of adolescents at risk for school failure.

However, benefits also accrue to faculty: integrating research experience in their scholarly teaching extends their own scholarship broadly, but more specifically it extends and gives credence to the thoughtfulness, spontaneity, and creativity of their practice (Mataniari et al., 2020; Svihla, 2018). TEs can expand their mentoring approaches within the context of an interdisciplinary classroom while attending to rigor and multidimensional thinking in well-choreographed activities (Palmer & Thompson, 2022). The classroom now becomes the laboratory where TEs alongside their PSTs can investigate and learn about complex learning, learners’ socioemotional dispositions, and development in periods of disruption (Gao, 2018).

The findings also raised other questions: what structures are needed to sustain PSTs in the practice and enhancements of research thinking? One response would be for groups of departmental faculty to design and implement a laddered sequence of course-integrated research experiences using other already established field experiences. These include (a) Clinical 1 field experience that includes PSTs embedded in school district classrooms with practicing teachers first to observe, design lesson plans and eventually teach their classes and undertake all teaching activities; and (b) Clinical 2, where faculty extend their role and practice as instructional designers, curriculum developers, etc. Jaramillo Cherrez (2021) illustrates how [faculty] instructional designers can build a research network with professionals with diverse research skills, to create partnerships to advance research and evaluation agendas connected to professional development goals.

The results serve as a model for teacher instructional design of effective course-integrated research experiences that can amplify PSTs’ opportunities to become aware of and engage in the complexity of new learning environments. Further, this work has the potential to identify evidence-based information regarding PSTs’ learning journeys related to new and complex thinking and challenging/learning possibilities. This information can inform the changing work of not only the scholarship of teaching and learning for faculty but also provide PSTs with the capacities to engage cognitively, affectively, and socially, in the rapidly changing learning environment. In sum, this work represents another step in the direction of futures thinking and strategic planning where faculty and students can walk confidently through complexity and dare to create their learning future. The field of instructional design is multifaceted and can well serve the advancement of research thinking for PSTs in initial teacher education programs.

4 Conclusion

This chapter offered an orientation to research thinking within the context of course-integrated research experience in a pre-clinical adolescent psychology course in a secondary education initial teacher education program. It aimed to make visible the complexity of that task given the intersection of multiple requirements related to course design, interdisciplinarity, transformative and sustainable pedagogies, institutional policies, and engaged learning. Threading successfully through this complexity is critical in professional schools like Schools of Education, where success is defined in terms of outstanding future teachers who can function efficiently in shifting teaching/learning environments, an uncertain knowledge economy, and a diverse student population.

Building a laddered program sequence of course-integrated research experiences has the potential to generate a universe of novel curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular enhancements for classroom learning in initial teacher education programs: brown-bag lunch meetings to learn to read journal articles, and to construct a well-synthesized review of the research literature; invited speakers on special topics, workshops on research methodology, developing alternative works to demonstrate research thinking, e.g. comic strips, picture books, webpages, etc. These have the potential when paired with current and emerging technologies to change how PSTs navigate through the program—as individuals, as teams, or as cohorts. Their creative research thinking facilitates navigation across the continuum from student learners to practitioners to practitioner-scholars with research thinking as their facilitating competency. Overall, one can anticipate a radical research student culture for PSTs in Schools of Education.