The content knowledge of teachers matters in the classroom. It influences their ability to deliver lessons, select activities for their students and assess students' learning. This study investigates the experiences of biology pre-service teachers who were required to teach physics and earth science concepts during their pre-service teaching. Such…

Research Goes to School (RGS) is a professional development program that focuses on high school teachers of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. This collective case study examines RGS participants and their use of project-based learning (PBL) as they implemented curricular units that they developed at the RGS summer…

This dissertation is a case study about how teachers use Learning Management Systems (LMS) and teaching technologies in their classes. Research was conducted through interviews, observations, and document analysis. Data analysis yielded fourteen themes and thirty-two codes about teachers' beliefs and experiences. Codes were validated using…

Background: The knowledge that is required for teaching includes subject matter content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Although CK and PCK are distinct components of the teachers' knowledge, the distinction between those two components and the relationships between them are still underexplored. In a previous study, we…

Background: Teacher self-efficacy has received attention because of its direct relationship with teachers' classroom behaviors. Since engineering has been increasingly introduced in K-12 (precollege) education, development of an instrument to measure teachers' self-efficacy in the context of teaching engineering has been needed. Purpose…

Many scholars have written about using the history of mathematics in the teaching of pre-service mathematics teachers. For this study, pre-service mathematics teachers developed an electronic journal of reflections based on presentations in the history of mathematics in a secondary mathematics education course. The main purpose of the…

This article reports a heuristic case study that explored how components of Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK) manifested in the artifacts of post-Baccalaureate pre-service teachers. Self-reported perceptions of their technology integration competencies were high. End-of-semester presentations reflected three distinct views of technology…

Since the beginning of the reform movement in science education, there has been concern that elementary teachers lack the science content knowledge (SCK) needed to engage students in authentic scientific inquiry. This study included 19 preservice elementary teachers and examined the development of their SCK within the context of a uniquely…

In this investigation, we assessed 443 teachers' beliefs with the "Teaching Ability Belief Scale" (TABS) and the "Importance of Teaching Knowledge Scale" (ITKS). Using cluster analysis, we identified four groups of teachers based on their responses to the TABS reflecting "Innate," "Learned,"…

This study investigates new teachers' challenges in implementing the secondary mathematics and English Common Core State Standards (CCSS) using a survey approach that addressed 17 secondary mathematics and English teachers' understanding and implementation of the CCSS and their needs for collaboration with peers in a positive learning community.…

This case study introduces the notion of an operative system to describe elementary teachers' knowledge and practice. Drawing from complex systems theory, the operative system is defined as the network of knowledge and practices that constituted teachers' work within a lesson study cycle. Data were gathered throughout a lesson study cycle in which…

The goal of this study was to investigate Turkish science and mathematics teacher candidates' levels of attainment in chemical literacy. These candidates had all studied the new Turkish chemistry curriculum in high school. The sample of the study consisted of 112 students, who were first-year students in the Department of Secondary Science and…

Professors endorse a symbiotic relationship between research and teaching, but empirical evidence supporting this relationship is inconsistent. Many studies operationalized research and teaching too narrowly to detect the believed relationship. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 27 chemistry professors from a large…

The goal of the following study is to identify a pedagogic signature, according to LS Shulman, for working with students who have special educational needs. Special educational needs are defined as significant limitations in personal development and learning which require particular educational measures beyond regular education. The development of…

In this article we problematize the purpose of teaching science in preschool and the competences preschool teachers need in order to conduct science activities in the classroom. The empirical data were collected through an action research project with five preschool and primary school teachers (K-6). In the first section of this paper we use one…