There is widespread agreement that effective teachers have unique knowledge of students' mathematical ideas and thinking. However, few scholars have focused on conceptualizing this domain, and even fewer have focused on measuring this knowledge. In this article, we describe an effort to conceptualize and develop measures of teachers' combined…

This article describes qualitative case studies of two teachers who integrated student-created digital documentaries into their social studies classrooms. Thornton's (2001a) concept of the teacher as curricular gatekeeper and Mishra and Koehler's (2006) Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framed the study. The teachers worked within the…

"Mathematics teacher educator-researcher-mentor" is a mouthful, but an accurate title to describe the range of roles of mathematics teacher educators across the nation and around the world. There is limited research about the professional development of teacher educators and even less research specific to mathematics teacher educators. This…

Students often enter preservice teacher literacy curriculum and pedagogy classes with conflicting and certainly varied notions about which literacy practices matter in middle years classrooms. Debates about authentic learner-centered tasks versus basic skill acquisition circulate in the media, in school curricula, and in the talk of teachers and…

This study explored social studies teachers' views of learner-centered instruction and learning theories by employing the methods and procedures of the qualitative research tradition. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participants. The techniques and strategies of inductive qualitative data analysis were used to analyze…

The purpose of this paper is to share a performance assessment task and rubric designed to assess secondary school mathematics preservice teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and skills. The assessment task and rubric were developed in collaboration with five education faculty, four arts and sciences faculty, and four high school teachers over…

The Academy for Educational Development (AED) sent a research team to the University of Dayton (UD) on November 5-7, 2008, to conduct interviews with individuals who played significant roles in the university's teacher preparation program (see Appendix A). These interviews, along with additional materials provided by UD and identified by the AED…

In the drive to achieve universal primary education as one of the Millennium Development Goals, there is an increasing recognition of the urgency of focusing on teacher education to both meet the demand for more than one million qualified teachers required to achieve this goal within sub-Saharan Africa, as well as to combat the sometimes poor…

Laboratory Earth, a series of three NASA-Sponsored, on-line graduate courses for K-8 teachers, was designed to meet a variety of learning styles and appeal to teachers' motivation to learn the content and improve their teaching. This is especially important to teachers as they seek to demonstrate "highly qualified" status to meet No…

I investigated eight preservice teachers' understandings about culturally responsive pedagogy as they participated in a writing methods course in which they tutored children from different ethnic, socioeconomic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds in an afterschool program at a local community center. I also investigated how these preservice…

This research focused on the perceptions of pre-service and beginning health and physical education (HPE) teachers in relation to their preparedness for teaching. A questionnaire was designed to engage with teacher professional standards addressing (i), professional knowledge; (ii), professional relationships and (iii), professional practice.…

This study highlights the factors that contribute to excellence in urban science teaching as pinpointed by five urban African-American science teachers who have taught successfully in the urban system for over 10 years. These teachers shared their experiences and reflections on the qualities that contributed to their success and persistence as…

The Exploring Florida Science project goals were: (1) increasing content knowledge of secondary science teachers, specifically in topics that are important to the future of the state, and (2) providing secondary science students with digital media for use in project-based learning. A team of instructional designers, educators, scientists, web…

While it is generally accepted that pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is an essential knowledge base for science teachers, educational researchers are not clear on how it develops. Previous researchers have suggested that classroom practice may play a significant role. Therefore, it is important to look at beginning teachers' PCK and its…

The traditional pedagogical approach for teaching chemical bonding is often overly simplistic and not aligned with the most up-to-date scientific models. As a result, high-school students around the world lack fundamental understanding of chemical bonding. In order to improve students' understanding of this concept, it was essential to propose a…