From the 1990s until 2017 the High Ability and Inquiry Research Group (HAIR) at McGill University in Montreal, received C$1.3M in research funds from Canadian, Quebec, and US agencies to support its research and graduate training in education and educational psychology. Their research encompassed two principal areas, Inquiry in Education and…

Explores some of the common difficulties experienced by preservice primary teachers with mathematical word problems. Examines weaknesses in students' content and procedural knowledge, with a particular focus on how they apply these aspects of knowledge to solving closed word problems. Contains 34 references. (Author/ASK)

The broad aim of this research is to characterize the views of proof held by college calculus students and their two types of teachers mathematics graduate students and professors. The analysis is based on an examination of the ways in which people in all three groups produce and evaluate different types of solutions to a proof-based problem from…

Argues that there are only a few cases in which solubility and Ksp are related in a simple way. States that illustrations of the solubility product principle for one-to-one salts are adequate for students. Contains 23 references. (DDR)

Argues that consideration should be given to whether teaching solubility product calculations is at all useful. Claims that experienced teachers seriously misunderstand and misuse solubility product calculations. (DDR)

The second volume of this proceedings contains full research articles. Papers include: (1) "Lave and Wenger's social practice theory and teaching and learning school mathematics" (J. Adler); (2) "Being a researcher and being a teacher" (J. Ainley); (3) "Procedural and conceptual aspects of standard algorithms in…

The third volume of this proceedings contains full research articles. Papers include: (1) "A longitudinal study of children's fraction representations and problem-solving behavior" (G.A. Goldin and C.B. Passantino); (2) "Psychology students' conceptions of a statistics course" (S. Gordon, J. Nicholas, and K. Crawford); (3)…

The fourth volume of this proceedings contains full research articles. Papers include: (1) "Conceptual and procedural approaches to problem-solving" (Y. Mohammad-Yusof and D. Tall); (2)"Teaching differential equations to chemistry and biology students: An overview on methodology of qualitative research. A case study" (M. Moreno and C. Azcarate);…

A study investigated the effectiveness of the Case Method of Instruction (CMI) on 67 graduate students taking an interdisciplinary course on families. After instruction, students not only possessed important knowledge related to working with families, but could also apply the problem-solving process used in CMI to a novel case. (Author/CR)

Discusses the results of a four-year study of the conceptions of energy held by science teachers in training. Concludes that the group held a number of different alternative conceptual frameworks. Contains 20 references. (DDR)

Discusses the meaning of a "contextual approach" to teaching physics. Advances a model of contextual physics teaching that can also be applied to other science disciplines. (Contains 54 references.) (Author/WRM)

In this paper, we look backwards to educational development principles and practices as implemented in the 1990s at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and forward to ideal principles and practices for the design of courses for teachers in higher education. The bridge between the two lies partly in an evaluation study, which we will…

Evolution is often equated with natural selection and is taught from a primarily functional perspective while comparative and historical approaches, which are critical for developing an appreciation of the power of evolutionary theory, are often neglected. This report describes a study of expert problem-solving in phylogenetic tree construction.…

This guide for elementary Teacher preparation programs in science education comprises three sections: "Introduction"; "Guidelines"; and "Implementation." The reform efforts, particularly those pertaining to science education, are characterized by a shift towards shared responsibility for the preparation of teachers to…

The purpose of this research study was to examine the level of elementary education majors' science content knowledge; pedagogical knowledge; and pedagogical content knowledge in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a new teacher preparation program for undergraduate students with a science area of concentration, developed as part of the Quality…