In this article the authors examine The Student as Historian project in highlighting how critical historical thinking can provide other and more complex renditions of history. The authors note that teachers' understandings of educational ends, purposes, values, and critical content knowledge are entwined and inextricable from ideological stances…

The authors' experiences of observing teaching and learning in schools have led them to become concerned at the dominant paradigm of a "pedagogy of poverty" at the expense of a "pedagogy of plenty". Bernstein's theory of power and control of education knowledge is overtly practised in classrooms globally. This is evidenced in…

This work discusses the use of Darwin's "Tree of Life" as a didactic analogy and metaphor in teaching evolution. It investigates whether biology teachers of pupils from 17 to 18 years old know Darwin's text "Tree of Life". In addition, it examines whether those teachers systematically employ either the analogies present in that…

Teacher knowledge guides a teacher's behaviour in the classroom. Teacher knowledge for technology education is generally assumed to play an important role in affecting pupils' learning in technology. There are an abundant number of teacher knowledge models that visualise different domains of teacher knowledge, but clear empirical evidence on how…

Historical excurse was suggested as a beneficial form of using the history and philosophy of science in the modules of learning materials developed within the History and Philosophy in Science Teaching project. The paper briefly describes the theoretical framework of the produced modules, addressing ontological and epistemological aspects of…

Dialogic teaching--a pedagogical approach that involves students in a collaborative construction of meaning and is characterized by shared control over the key aspects of classroom discourse--has been largely advocated by contemporary research and theory. However, studies in the US and UK continue to document the persistence of monologic…

This paper compares lessons on linear equations from the same curriculum materials taught by two teachers of different levels of mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT). The analysis indicates that the mathematical quality of instruction in these two classrooms appears to be a function of differences in MKT. Although the two teachers were…

Although the level of controversy varies from one community to the next, biology teachers across the United States struggle to teach evolution. Some face pressure to teach both religious and scientific theories of human origins; others did not have adequate coursework on evolution during teacher preparation. As a result, many biology teachers are…

As a graduate student in a teacher-training program, I saw firsthand the gulf between the methods suggested by my professors and classroom practices that are didactic and lack depth. My concern over these issues has led me to examine research related to them, and the findings suggest that the perception that social studies is in trouble is very…

Identifying English Education courses focused on young adult literature as apposite sites for exploring teacher conceptions of youth and the texts aimed for youths' consumptions, this article addresses the multiple sources of tension--and pedagogical potential--of teaching a young adult literature course centrally framed around controversial…

In this study, we expand the Cohen and Ball triangle of interactions to explore the relationship of professional development to classroom practice. We consider a case study of one teacher's implementation of a task from professional development in her 7th grade classroom. We were specifically interested in how the content and pedagogy of the…

This study investigates the influence of teacher understanding on student understanding through teacher practice. Three elementary school teachers participated in a university course that discussed mathematical and pedagogical knowledge regarding addition and subtraction word problems. The data from this study were analyzed qualitatively to…

Research suggests that the enhanced role of proof in mathematics classrooms presented in current standards and reform policy poses great challenges for teachers and will require substantial teacher learning. However, to date there is little research detailing what mathematical knowledge might be useful for teaching proof or how professional…

This study reports on the trial of a school-based professional development process aimed at helping science teachers improve their inquiry-based science teaching skills. This process focuses on developing the pedagogical content knowledge of teachers through peer collaboration, under the guidance of a teacher educator. A multi-method interpretive…

This study explores the development of student teachers' skills in implementing collaborative learning (CL) using a multilevel repeated measures design. Participants were 105 pre-service teachers that were trained in CL implementation. The results indicate that student teachers generally perform well in implementing CL. Further, it appears that…