With this research, it is aimed to evaluate professional teaching knowledge courses considering the opinions of the academic instructors and pre-service teachers. Phenomenology was used in the research designed in accordance with the descriptive research method. The study group of the research was determined by criterion sampling method. The main…

This is the second of two papers on a novel physical science course for student teachers that develops and uses an imaginative approach to Primary Physical Science Education. General philosophical, cognitive, developmental, and scientific issues have been presented in the first paper; here, we briefly recapitulate the most important aspects. In…

As a profession, we must have a shift in both perspective and practice to transform teaching at all levels. Are pre-service education classrooms preparing students to be flexible, adapt to new situations, and rely on their own expertise and understanding while seeking support when needed? Lieberman and Miller (2004) identify the following shifts…

How to improve geography education via teacher preparation programs has been a concern for nearly three decades, but few examples of a single, comprehensive university-level course exist. The purpose of this article is to share the model of a pre-service geography education methods course. Within the course, geography content (physical and social)…

In this study, we investigated how the use of meaningful gamification affects student learning, engagement, and affective outcomes in a short, 3-day blended learning research methods class using a combination of experimental and qualitative research methods. Twenty-two postgraduates were randomly split into two groups taught by the same…

This study examined students' views on a blended learning environment designed for 29 in-service teachers in Singapore enrolled in an educational research method course. Their self-report data highlighted that students' prior knowledge and the amount and difficulty of content covered in the course affected the effectiveness of blended learning…

What is environment? The answer to this question is fundamental to how we teach environmental studies and sciences (ESS). We follow recent scholarly literature in approaching environment as connection, not as some category of reality, and consider pedagogical implications via concept mapping, a new learning technology. Concept maps potentially…

This article examines student teachers' investigations of issues related to writing pedagogy, response, and evaluation in an English methods course, including their use of descriptive review of student writing (Carini, 2001) to analyze adolescents' work collaboratively. Beginning with an examination of prevailing understandings of writing…

Problem-based learning (PBL) has been widely adopted in many university programmes. Evaluations of PBL in medicine, dentistry, nursing and social work reveal positive outcomes from both tutors and learners. However, few evaluations have been published about using PBL in teacher education programmes. This paper reports how the 13 student-teachers…

In this inquiry, I examine the evidence of student learning in an elementary education language arts methods course. Students completed concepts maps that represented their understanding of effective writing instruction at the beginning end of the course. Eighty-one pairs of concepts maps were scored according to established methods. Students…

This inquiry uses teacher-candidate critiques of science lessons as a means of evaluating the effectiveness of an instructor's pedagogical approach to promote teacher candidate understanding of the nature of science (NOS) in a science methods course. Three cohorts of teacher candidates enrolled in a middle-years teacher education program were…

Five strategies for teaching students in educational methods courses about instructional media were developed and field tested between 1967 and 1973. Strategies included mixtures of live demonstrations of media, scheduled laboratory periods, self-instruction programs, televised demonstrations of media, and bulletin boards and handbooks. A strategy…

Assesses the overall impact of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign microteaching model as perceived by secondary teacher candidates. Reports that teacher candidates found the model effective for improving their understanding of the different teacher- and learner-centered teaching techniques. (MM)

In order to improve the reading methods course at The University of Texas, a program was designed based on tutorial instruction. At first children were brought into the university classroom, one child for every two tutors. The university students (tutors) became directly involved in teaching reading and in being responsible for children's…

The development of new courses is strengthened by assessment and a response to the assessment. Two new science methods courses for elementary and secondary preservice teachers were developed, fostered by the Great Salt Lake Project. The preservice teachers designed and performed research projects that they then converted into inquiry-based…