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The relentless press for steadily improved student learning outcomes requires that prospective teachers enter the classroom knowing how to fine-tune their teaching to meet the learning needs of individual students. Frequently, teacher candidates have difficulty conceptualizing their students as learners, looking more immediately to their own performance as teachers (Fuller, l969; Kagan, l992; Oosterheert & Vermunt, 2001). As Ross and Bruce (2007) argue, self-assessment can be an effective technique for influencing improvements in self-efficacy, goal setting, and effort regulation among teachers. Applied to teacher preparation, we examined the use of two learning self assessment tools in early teacher education coursework to examine the benefits of encouraging candidates to reflect on their own learning in order order to support the learning of their future students. Previous research in teacher education argues that self-assessment plays a critical role in a competencies-based curriculum because it requires candidates to analyze their own performances (Airsian & Gullickson, 1994; Ross & Bruce, 2007; Sluijsmans, Dochy, & Moerkerke, 1999). Conceptually derived from work by Schön (1983, 1987) on the reflective practitioner, by Elliot (1978) on teacher self-monitoring, and by Rogers (1983) on promoting personal responsibility for learning, self-assessment may be a critical feature in developing teachers who practice and promote self-regulated learning. It is crucial, then, for teacher candidates to explore ideas about themselves as learners to help understand ideas about cognition, motivation, and other concepts related to self-regulated learning (Dembo, 2001; Gordon, Dembo, & Hocevar, 2007; Zimmerman, Bonner & Kovach, 1996). To influence conceptual change in candidates, we must help them to articulate their ideas about learners and learning (Dole & Sinatra, 1998).

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert