Preservice teacher candidates hold disparate repertoires of beliefs and values about teaching. Many construct primitive, underdeveloped knowledge bases that influence their teaching styles and affect their responses to teacher education programs. If teacher education programs do not recognize and addres their prior knowledge, preservice teachers experience little or no change in their values and beliefs about education. In an effort to address this pre-existing knowledge, a course that identifies and builds on teacher candidates' preconceptions about teaching was developed at a midsize public southwestern university. Grounded in constructivist learning principles, this approach uses teacher candidates' pre-existing knowledge bases as frameworks on which to build.