The objective of this work was to promote a closer relationship between students who never had contact with a scientist. Two simple questions were selected to be answered experimentally in the school laboratories: How important are the pigments in plants? Which molecules make up the food? Two Scientists from UFRJ, who research in these areas,…

Students training to become primary school teachers appear to have little awareness of the core concepts of geography (teaching). To ensure that future primary school teachers are able to develop their pupils' geographical awareness, a six weeks programme was developed. The characteristics of this programme -- named Consciously Teaching Geography…

Adapting support contingently to student needs by first diagnosing their current understanding, that is, scaffolding, is considered a key aspect of excellent teaching. The use of classroom scaffolding is rare, however. We therefore investigated the benefits to teachers of a professional development program that was based upon a model of contingent…

This paper argues that Educational Effectiveness Research (EER) should establish closer links with research on teacher professional development. A dynamic integrated approach (DIA) to teacher professional development is proposed. The methods and results of a study comparing the impact of the DIA and the Holistic Approach (HA) to teacher…