This guide discusses personal causation theory (the initiation by an individual of behavior intended to produce a change in the environment) and its application in a theoretical framework for courses in educational psychology. The work of deCharms, Fielder, Koenigs, and Muir is explored as the theoretical background for classroom applications of…

To help students in school develop a flexible understanding of subject matter, teachers need to foster understanding of the relationships within and across disciplines, what specialists in a field do, how knowledge in a discipline is generated, tested, and revised, and how knowledge in the discipline relates to the learners' environment.…

This descriptive study of vocational teachers' classroom behavior and their students' achievement after the teachers took ITIP (Instructional Theory into Practice) training found the following: (1) vocational classroom teachers perceived some increase in their instructional skill in all areas, although the majority of respondents reported no…

The novel is important to teach; there is no one novel, though, that every student needs to read; flexibility and ingenuity are called for. (JH)

Unfortunately, most college students learning to be teachers learn methods from their English professors, and this can be changed only by extensive experiences in group-centered classrooms. (JH)

To train teachers through mere apprenticeships would be an unhealthy over-reaction against excessively scholarly emphases of the recent past. (JH)

Intended for teacher educators in reading, this paper provides criteria for evaluating texts for reading methods courses. The first part of the paper discusses some considerations in choosing a text, including course format, how frequently the text will be used, and whether the text will be a supplemental, companion, or principal resource. The…

A competency-based methods course for preservice secondary mathematics teachers is described. Ten competencies, or skills, are identified as necessary for the successful teaching of mathematics. Each student either tests out of or works through a series of modules associated with each skill or competency. The objectives may be either knowledge,…

This paper is a detailed description of the foreign language methods course at Eastern Montana College. It is designed as an aid to teachers and curriculum planners who need practical suggestions about the format of a methods course. The paper begins with the course description that appears in the Eastern Montana catalog. This is followed by the…

Most reading methods courses do not provide many experiences in children's literature. Because teachers have experienced an elementary school setting in which free reading was discouraged, and because teachers teach as they were taught, this trend continues. The need for a second reading course at the undergraduate level is clearly apparent.…

Reported is a study designed to determine (1) if there was any significant relationship between elementary teachers' realistic and idealistic attitudes toward selected science-related concepts, (2) if the degree of open- or closed-mindedness of the teachers had any relationship to these realistic or idealistic attitudes, and (3) if instruction had…

This is the report of a study designed to (1) examine the status of teacher-training preparation in the new elementary science programs in methods classes of institutions in Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, (2) identify characteristics of the methods courses, and (3) examine opinions of the instructors about the new science…