The increasing use of technology to meet the vast educational needs of our expanding world has led to heightened concerns about learning experiences within educational environments that are removed from the immediate purview of instructors (Duffy & Kirkley, 2004). Recent calls for use of more collaborative environments in which students interact…

The first challenge in designing and teaching any course is to decide what to teach. At most colleges and universities, the process of selecting course content is an extremely local enterprise. Sometimes the decisions are made by a small group of faculty members, but most often they are made by a single professor with the responsibility of…

In the practice of teacher education, most would agree that critical reflection in and on the process of learning to teach and the activities of teaching play a central role in teachers' professional development. Using Vygotskian sociocultural theory, we examine how narrative inquiry functions as a culturally developed tool that mediates teachers'…

This qualitative case study examined web-based portfolio development in the service of supporting reflective thinking and learning within the innovative context of Professional Development Schools. Specifically, this study investigated the nature of the evidence-based philosophies developed by prospective teachers as the central part of the…

In a series of three papers, I examine the identity development of three Chinese women teachers as they moved back and forth between Eastern and Western cultures and languages amid the rapidly changing events of the last four decades. This life-based narrative inquiry, situated between non-fiction, fiction, and academic discourses opens up…

In this article knowledge productivity, a process that creates conceptual artifacts, is used as a way to investigate the outcomes of collaborative and enquiry-oriented activity by teaching professionals. It is an outcome of the motivation to learn (self-regulation) in that it studies the issues from different professional perspectives (reflection…

"Learning how to Learn--in classrooms, schools and networks" is a four-year, multi-site project funded under the Economic and Social Research Council Teaching and Learning Research Programme and concerned with the development of formative assessment practice. This article describes how analysis of a large double-scale questionnaire…

Methods courses in teacher education programs have made a transition in the last years toward field-based experiences as part of the preparation for teaching science in the elementary school. However, little conclusive evidence exists as to any desirable influence field experiences are having on science teaching attitudes and learning. The purpose…

Drawing on existing work in the area of creativity and early years education, this paper maps the process of an exploratory study which sought to identify what characterizes "possibility thinking" as an aspect of creativity in young children's learning. With the aim of developing a framework for identifying "possibility…

A teacher education program designed to adequately prepare preservice teachers to instruct culturally and linguistically diverse students in their classrooms is described. Under the supervision of a professor and a graduate assistant in a required methods course at a private midwestern Christian university, 24 preservice teachers, who use a…

The traditional differences in philosophy and approaches to teaching and learning between colleges of education and sciences have been repeatedly cited as one of the major obstacles in providing appropriate teacher training programs. In an effort to alleviate this problem, Wright State University (Ohio) has fostered a unique environment through a…

The National Science Foundation funded a project to: (1) identify major areas of science education research in which sufficient studies have been conducted to permit useful generalizations for educational practice; (2) conduct meta-analyses of each of these areas; and (3) prepare a compendium of these meta-analyses along with interpretative and…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional approach that has been used successfully for over 30 years and continues to gain acceptance in multiple disciplines. It is an instructional (and curricular) learner-centered approach that empowers learners to conduct research, integrate theory and practice, and apply knowledge and skills to develop…

This paper describes the development of children's ability to pose and answer questions and discusses the teacher's role in enhancing these problem-solving skills. Several chapters review theoretical and empirical work related to these issues: models of man, general intellectual development, the mother's role in children's intellectual development…

This report describes the rationale, methodology, findings, and recommendations of "Project Synthesis," a research study which synthesized and interpreted information found in six selected databases. Using a discrepancy model, five focus groups (biological sciences, physical sciences, inquiry, elementary school science, and…