Large enrollments in undergraduate courses pose several teaching and learning challenges that impact students' learning experience and performance. Implementing co-learning activities in tutorials of large courses can help mitigate these challenges and improve the learning environment. One type of collaborative learning activity that has become…

Many undergraduates seeking elementary teaching certification are uncomfortable with or uninterested in science; however, these future teachers are charged with the responsibility of teaching science to young students. Hammer and Polnick surveyed science methods students at Sam Houston State University and found that only about half of them rated…

Description of an experience-oriented methods course in the biological sciences for prospective teachers at Syracuse University. Activities include observing and evaluating teaching experiences, designing biology laboratory experiments, developing test items and learning specific biological techniques. Bibliography. (LC)

Preservice teachers' success in a science lesson presentation was not significantly influenced by the number of science courses taken previously, the science topic chosen, or grade level selected for the presentation. (CP)

Describes a course, taught in Jamaica, for prospective high school physics teachers that stresses concepts which are difficult to teach and easily misunderstood by students. Also stresses preparing high school students to take national exams and teaching physics in poorly equipped laboratories. (MLH)

Considers teaching to be the synthesis of a body of knowledge and the art of presentation. Comments on the American science teacher education process, particularly at the graduate level. (CP)

Discusses the offering of a special one-credit course in teacher training for the teaching assistants of the chemistry department of the University of Idaho, involving the films used, micro-teaching assignments, and course evaluation questionnaires. (CC)

Seventy-six undergraduate students in an introductory science methods class for prospective teachers were randomly assigned to either a student directed or an instructor directed section. Using analysis of variance, it appeared that neither approach had an overall advantage in the attainment of course objectives, although interaction patterns…

Ascertained were the effects of an individualized instruction method, audiotutorial (AT), on the cognitive achievement in biology of prospective general primary grade teachers. Used as a control was a conventional lecture-laboratory format of instruction. Results indicate that the prospective teachers appeared to gain more from AT instruction than…

Outlines the formal and informal preservice programs for outdoor education offered at eight South Australian colleges. (SL)

Reports results of a study investigating effects of alternative modes of science methods instruction on 90 preservice elementary teachers': (1) beliefs about science teaching; and (2) general attitudes toward teaching. Student performance on criterion measures was found to differ significantly in three different modes of science instruction. (CS)

Suggests that the following three elements of investigation processes serve as the basis of secondary science methods courses: identification of a problem and subsequent design of an investigation; examination of existing investigations which illustrate good and poor science; and completion of representative activities in curricula which deal with…