The purpose of this document is to serve as a resource for states, districts, professional organizations, teacher education programs, teachers, and others as they develop policies and programs to prepare, license, support, evaluate, and reward today's teachers. A systemic approach and supportive infrastructure are essential to successful…

Constructivism theory (Crotty, 1998) served as the framework to investigate the reciprocal nature of a service-learning project that involved physical education pre-service teachers and urban underserved youth. Participants included three physical education teacher education (PETE) candidates and 15 youth between the ages of 6 and 13 who were…

The twofold purpose of this study was to trace prospective and practicing mathematics teachers' understandings of content area reading instruction in relation to domain knowledge in mathematics, and to examine the extent to which online pedagogical mentoring supported the integration of such instruction and knowledge. The design called for two…

Teacher preparation for the 21st century deserves a front-end approach to addressing the use of technology in the learning environment. To study the effect of instructing with technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK), teachers were asked to apply pedagogical, mathematical, and cognitive fidelity to technology used in an instructional…

This study traced changes of epistemology over six weeks as seven undergraduate university students tutored young readers in a university-based reading clinic. Three research questions provided guidance for this study--(a) What dimensions are predominant in undergraduate preservice teachers' initial ideas about literacy instruction, (b) what…

An important goal of pre-service teacher education is to prepare future mathematics teachers to design and enact instruction to develop students' procedural fluency, conceptual understanding, and mathematical reasoning. However, future teachers lack deep and flexible knowledge, as well as beliefs, skills, and practices to teach in these ways (NRC,…

This study investigated mathematics teachers' professional knowledge among elementary school teachers exposed to a professional training program that either supported self-regulated learning (SRL) or offered no SRL support (no-SRL). The SRL support was based on the IMPROVE metacognitive self-questioning method that directs students' attention to…

Secondary school chemistry teachers' understanding of chemical equilibrium was investigated through interviews using the think-aloud technique. The interviews were conducted with twelve volunteer chemistry teachers in Hong Kong. Their teaching experience ranged from 3 to 18 years. They were asked to predict what would happen to the equilibrium…

Increasing attention is being paid to professional development as a way to improve outcomes for students but its promise has not always been realised. Broadly speaking, approaches to professional development have either focused on developing better prescriptions for teaching practice or on collaborative reflective inquiry into practice. Neither…

School administrators have some tough hiring decisions to make, and an interview to select the most highly qualified applicants is critically important. Even before the mandates of No Child Left Behind, school administrators strove to hire the best new teachers. Competent, caring, qualified teachers are the keys to enhanced student achievement.…

Constructivism has emerged as a very powerful model for explaining how knowledge is produced in the world as well as how students learn. Moreover, constructivist teaching practices are becoming more prevalent in teacher education programs and public schools across the nation, while demonstrating significant success in promoting student learning.…

Calls for reform in mathematics education around the world state that proofs should be part of school mathematics at all levels. Turning these calls into a reality falls on teachers' shoulders. This paper focuses on one secondary school teacher's reactions to students' suggested proofs and justifications in elementary number theory. To determine…

Given concerns with the low levels of explanation in science education classrooms, it has been suggested that text may supply a higher percentage of explanatory discourse than do classroom teachers. However, given that textbooks have been shown to differ little from teacher discourse in percentages of explanation, the present study sought to…

The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs') niche in the current UK higher education system by means of reflecting on the results of a survey undertaken at a department of the University of Sheffield. The survey highlights that GTAs occupy an ambiguous niche; they are simultaneously…

This study examined how content area teachers' literacy knowledge developed during a yearlong professional development initiative focused on using the framework of Question-Answer Relationships (QAR) within explicit instruction. The initiative focused on the metacognitive thinking in which teachers engage during QAR instruction. The participating…