Identified images, ideas, and knowledge that preservice elementary educators brought with them to their programs, noting changes resulting from coursework. At the beginning of the semester and 13 weeks later, students wrote and drew about their images of ideal teachers. Less than half of the students had clear images, and half had conflicted or…

Discusses ways in which teachers in Texas have managed to keep up with trends in educational technology and thus raise their teaching effectiveness. Describes the process of teachers as learners that developed from a professional-development program. The program provided computer knowledge in all commonly used areas, and furnished all participants…

Describes a framework for investigating approaches to mathematics teaching, in light of recent reforms, which is used to explore the struggles of a veteran middle-school mathematics teacher as he attempted to modify his teaching practices. Concludes that the teacher was successful in broadening some aspects of his pedagogical thinking and…

Shares experiences and growth in a teacher's knowledge about learning while teaching mathematics. (ASK)

Describes some of the problems inherent in preparing teacher-education students to become elementary school teachers when they have minimal skills and knowledge in the content areas they will someday be teaching. Suggests that little can be changed or improved without concomitant changes in the prevailing information-age culture. (Author/LRW)

Primary teachers should understand the nature of the real-number system and the relationships among its subsets. Presents results of a study in which preservice primary teachers (n=58) and first- and second-year mathematics students (n=47) completed a survey on the real-number system. Concludes that the second-year students were the best…

Examines changes in official Finnish school-reform discourse over the past 30 years, noting four discursive changes from the 1860s to the 1990s (individualization of students, disciplinization of teaching knowledge, goal rationalization, and decontextualization). Interprets these shifts as the result of a blend of utopianism and rationalism which…

Teachers (N=110) of students with visual impairments in Florida were surveyed to determine their use of various types of access technologies. Although each category of device, with the exception of refreshable braille devices, was used by at least 25% of the teachers, most respondents were not familiar with most of the devices listed, and lacked…

Identifies subject and teaching knowledge that primary school teachers can use to effectively develop children's understanding of electricity and simple circuits. Presents a set of electricity concepts that are appropriate for primary children to explore. Contains 19 references. (DDR)

Explains what inquiry-based science instruction means and points out the difficulty of creating this kind of instruction for teachers who are inexperienced in teaching. Presents a case study of a preservice teacher who explored whether it is realistic to expect preservice teachers to create and carry out an inquiry-based classroom. (Contains 38…

Explores how prospective elementary teachers (n=106) enrolled in elementary science and mathematics methods courses used algebraic reasoning to construct and describe relationships among and between variables in the context of solving a problem. Describes specific weaknesses characterized by the teachers' solutions. (Contains 17 references.)…

Used data for 3,786 students in mathematics and 2,524 in science to explore the relationship between student performance and the type of certification teachers held. Found evidence in mathematics that teachers with subject-specific training outperform those without subject matter preparation but found no poorer performance for students whose…

Investigates the content conceptions of an experienced high school mathematics teacher and links those conceptions to their role in the teacher's first implementation of reform-oriented curricular materials during a six-week unit on functions. Concludes that the teacher's well-articulated ideas about features of a variety of relationships in…

Reports on a study to discover physics student teachers' objectives for practical work in teaching physics. Participants took a course based on a unique perceptional approach. Results indicate that after attending the course, student teachers found that the practical work which they had done was very useful. (Author/MM)

Describes three actions necessary to improve teacher quality: Improve teacher preparation by deepening teachers' content knowledge and strengthening candidates' experiences in schools, hire qualified teachers, and support teacher learning. (PKP)