There is wide practice of attributing students' achievement to teacher effectiveness. Some school authorities take this further by querying teachers over poor performances of their students. Although the teacher is just one factor among many that determine students' performances, the teachers' attributes and qualities are very important in the…

Only a small percentage of mathematics teacher professional development activities in South Africa include pedagogy and instruction approaches required to teach the content. In the light of the poor mathematics results, it is of pertinent importance that teachers need to be developed in terms of the mathematics they teach and the pedagogical…

Highly qualified and competent teachers are fundamental for equitable and effective education systems. Teachers today are facing higher and more complex expectations to help students reach their full potential and become valuable members of 21st century society. The nature and variety of these demands imply that teachers, more than ever before,…

This study was conducted to analyze potential item parameter drift (IPD) impact on person ability estimates and classification accuracy when drift affects an examinee sub-group. Using a series of simulations, three factors were manipulated: (a) percentage of IPD items in the CAT exam, (b) percentage of examinees affected by IPD, and (c) item pool…

As a teacher educator, feedback from students is important to ensure there is time for my own reflection to inform and develop my practice and curriculum design within formal expectations of initial teacher education. This paper considers the perceptions and expectations of a sample of student teachers, situated in a Higher Education Institution…

School practitioners are increasingly expected to lead construction projects in their schools to create future learning spaces (FLSs) that support learning in today's networked society. This study examined the process by which practitioners of one school developed their readiness to incorporate an FLS into the school via a long-lasting…

Employing a self-determination theory lens, this qualitative case study analyzed the impact of a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics professional learning program on six elementary schoolteachers' autonomous motivation. The outcomes revealed that the program was successful in accommodating the teachers' needs to feel competent,…

Like many areas of curricula internationally, technology education has encountered difficulties in achieving continuity between the rhetoric of prevailing policy and the reality of enacted practices. In technology education, the conceptually oriented nature of curricular goals is theorised to play a significant part in influencing this…

It is important to enhance pre-service science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) during teacher education programs. As an alternative, this research aims to investigate whether participating in a lesson study enriched with content representation contributes to pre-service science teachers' PCK improvement in the heat and temperature…

The ability to reason inferentially is increasingly important in today's society. It is hypothesized here that engaging primary school students in informal statistical reasoning (ISI), defined as making generalizations without the use of formal statistical tests, will help them acquire the foundations for inferential and statistical thinking.…

Much research in teacher education explores the nature of subject knowledge (what?) and its importance for teachers and teaching. Other research focuses on the people, processes and contextual factors that influence the development of teacher knowledge (how?). Fewer studies focus on the link between the two. This paper explores the interconnection…

In this case study, the authors collaborated with two grade 4 teachers, who participated in a large-scale professional learning program focused on helping K-9 teachers enhance their classroom practice and confidence in teaching science through inquiry-based learning. The specific research questions that guided the study were the following: (a) How…

Background: Teaching reading skills is the cornerstone of all learning; therefore, teachers' adherence to this mandate is important. However, it becomes complicated and challenging if the teacher has to teach pre-reading skills to Grade R learners with visual impairments. In light of this challenge, researchers have endeavoured to determine the…

Teacher preparation programs must be systematic in the way they teach content and pedagogy while providing preservice teachers the tools they need to both be successful and want to stay in the field. Reports such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE, 2010) Blue Ribbon Panel report call for teacher preparation…

Classical background, topics of schooling history in high school and university bring attention to the existence of global challenges of the 21st century common today. These calls necessitate the creation of new historical study from the younger contemporaries allowing to enter consciously the real world of the people living before and near it,…