The purpose of this study was to develop pre-service chemistry teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) regarding atoms and the periodic table via mentoring. Two pre-service chemistry teachers with different levels of academic achievement participated in the study. The development of the participants' PCK was investigated in terms of the…

Science teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning are a vital component of teachers' professional competence and are often assumed to impact classroom practice. To date, these beliefs have been predominantly investigated regarding teaching and learning in general or for a particular science subject (e.g., physics). It remains to be determined…

This paper analyzed elementary teacher education (hereafter 'TED') programs in the top performing European (TIMSS) countries to help inform future elementary TED policy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Methodological emphasis revolved around how much emphasis should be placed on general content knowledge (GCK), as opposed to general pedagogical…

Intense focus on student achievement results in mathematics and science has brought about claims that K-12 teachers should be better prepared to teach basic concepts in these disciplines. The focus on teachers' mathematics and science content knowledge has been met by efforts to increase teacher knowledge through funded national initiatives…

One chronic challenge facing professional development providers is the need to convene and support groups of role-alike K-12 teachers who require similar kinds of discipline-and grade-level-specific training. Online courses have become an increasingly common way to meet this challenge. This article reports on a randomized control trial that tested…

Few elementary school teachers command a science background sufficient to offer children early and sustained opportunities to develop an understanding of science concepts, and facility with scientific modes of reasoning. This four-year, NSF-funded study was designed to investigate how and to what extent particular combinations of science content…

Earlier reports have shown that prospective teachers' conceptions about teaching science to a high degree are resistant and do not change substantially during the teacher-training programme. In our investigation we elucidate the prospective teachers' initial conceptions about pupils' understanding of science and mathematics. We applied "The…

A teacher's sense of self-efficacy has been consistently recognized as an important attribute of effective teaching and has been positively correlated to teacher and student outcomes. A number of studies show the impact of teachers with high levels of efficacy. Students of these teachers have outperformed students who had teachers with lower…

Our 5-year professional development intervention is designed to promote elementary teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and practices in teaching science, along with English language and mathematics for English Language Learning (ELL) students in urban schools. In this study, we used an end-of-year questionnaire as a primary data source to seek teachers'…

This study has two parallel research agenda: (1) the development of social skills and pedagogical content knowledge in teacher candidates as they work collaboratively in pairs, and (2) the development of conceptual understanding and social skills in elementary school students who are taught by teacher candidates with cooperative learning…