A future instructor's teaching beliefs contribute to whether they will use research-validated teaching strategies. We surveyed and interviewed potential future geoscience faculty as represented by graduate students and post-doctoral scholars to characterize their teaching beliefs, evaluate changes in those beliefs over time, and identify…

Research over the last decade has indicated that active learning and student-centered instruction lead to better learning outcomes in undergraduate biology courses than traditional methods such as lecturing. This shift in pedagogical approach has been applied to both high-enrollment lecture-based courses as well as smaller laboratory courses. In…

Formal professional development programs for biology graduate students interested in becoming faculty members have come far; however, programs that provide advanced teaching experience for seasoned graduate teaching assistants are scarce. We outline an advanced program that focuses on further training of graduate teaching assistants in pedagogy…

Pedagogical competence and teaching efficacy significantly influence the quality of classroom science learning. Without applying pedagogical learning in realistic classroom environments, there is slight possibility that prospective teachers will increase their teaching confidence or develop understanding of how learners acquire and construct…

Reform-oriented science teaching with a specific focus on evidence and explanation provides a student-centered learning environment which encourages children to question, seek answers to those questions, experience phenomena, share ideas, and develop explanations of science concepts based on evidence. One of the ways schools have risen to meet the…

There has been a call for effective professional learning to improve the quality of the science teaching of primary teachers in Australia. It seems from the literature that teaching science effectively is a challenging endeavour for primary teachers. Professional learning based on the instructional core framework is an emerging approach that has…

Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs have been shown to be effective mechanisms to recruit undergraduate students into the sciences and also to retain them, especially as related to underrepresented students. Academic-year REU programs have numerous benefits, including participation in longer-term research projects that allow…

This study examines the mentoring relationships of student instructors who provide supplemental instruction for undergraduate science courses. Specifically, we examined the relationships negotiated between mentor and protege student instructors during the first year of the mentoring program. The undergraduate student instructors in this study are…

Chronically high rates of new and experienced science teacher attrition and the findings of new large-scale mentoring programs indicate that administrators should adopt new approaches. A science teacher's role encompasses demanding responsibilities, such as observing laboratory safety and OSHA mandates, as well as management of a business-like,…

It all began with casual conversation between a university supervisor and classroom teachers and approval to use an unused classroom at a local elementary school. The space became the hub of an exciting professional development (PD) opportunity for classroom teachers. This article describes how hosting an on-site university science methods course…

Implementing an Australian National Curriculum will require targeting both teachers and preservice teachers. Classroom teachers in their roles as mentors are well situated for developing preservice teachers. This mixed-method study presents mentors' reports on their mentoring of primary preservice teachers (mentees) in mathematics (n=43) and…

This paper focuses on what and how primary science student teachers and their mentors learn from planning and reflecting together on each other's science lessons for pupils aged 7-9. The student teachers had had training in scientific knowledge, but only brief experience of teaching. The mentors were well experienced in the pedagogy of teaching…

Elementary teachers are typically hesitant to teach science. While a limited knowledge of science content is a reason for this, limited science pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has emerged as another reason in recent research. This study constitutes two case studies of a professional development program for elementary teachers involving…

Reflection is frequently cited in the literature as integral to the type of learning in which professionals engage. However, throughout the literature the concept of reflection has been ill-defined and shown to be difficult to operationalize in studies. Beginning with a comprehensive review of the literature, this study sought to develop a…

A midwestern urban school district received a Teacher Quality Enhancement (TQE) grant from the U.S. Office of Education to deliver specialized middle-level urban teacher preparation. Five colleges and universities and the school district participated in the 5-year project. This article describes the first course in the TQE "urban strand." The…