Analyzes narrative essays--stories of rock formation--written by pre-service elementary school teachers. Reports startling misconceptions among preservice teachers on pebbles that grow, human involvement in rock formation, and sedimentary rocks forming as puddles as dry up, even though these students had completed a college level course on Earth…

Presents some examples illustrating the importance of probability, data analysis, and statistics for the preservice mathematics teacher, and suggests ways of teaching these topics. (Contains 13 references.) (ASK)

Author recounts his career as a premier bibliographer of group work. He examines the development of his career and points out the importance of making the broad literature on group work easily accessible to practitioners. Stresses the active nature of group leadership and describes his leadership process. (Author/JDM)

Discusses some results gathered in 1997-98 from Brazilian mathematics teachers. The research was done to investigate the teachers' mathematical language as related to the concept of function. Detects a dichotomy between formal and practical language. (Author/MM)

Explores the dynamic profile of a task as interpreted by a group of six prospective elementary teachers enrolled in a college biology course. Describes the shift from a planned task to a transitional task and finally an enacted task. (Author/MM)

Examines what primary teachers actually understand about the word 'chemical' and what they do to help young students arrive at a scientific conception of chemical. Indicates three main categories of teachers' views of a chemical and discusses the effects of a professional development course on this subject. (ASK)

Survey responses from 619 of 1,126 secondary vocational teachers in Louisiana indicated that most recognized the value of information technology but rate their knowledge and skills to use it in instruction as average to below average. Many have limited Internet access. Many use self-directed methods to learn about technology. (Contains 50…

In this article we discuss efforts to design and empirically test measures of teachers' content knowledge for teaching elementary mathematics. We begin by reviewing the literature on teacher knowledge, noting how scholars have organized such knowledge. Next we describe survey items we wrote to represent knowledge for teaching mathematics and…

Martina Bergman-Osterberg came to London from Sweden versed in the theory and practice of Swedish gymnastics as taught by Per Henrik Ling (1776-1881), and introduced his system into British schools, first while working for the London School Board and subsequently by establishing the Dartford College of Physical Training. This paper examines the…

Building on the research of Crites in theology and Clandinin and Connelly in education, the authors map out three variations of cover stories lived and told by preservice and in-service teachers in order to clarify their scholarship and inform the research of others. We examine how these narratives are formed around canonical stories that teachers…

Although the content and nature of teachers' practical and theoretical knowledge has continued to evolve since the mid to late 1970s, current conceptualizations of teacher knowledge do not adequately reflect the knowledge and skills teachers need to successfully navigate a technologically rich educational environment. This article summarizes…

This article describes a field biology course specifically designed for students planning to teach in the elementary or middle-level grades. The fundamental goal of the course is to improve students' science literacy and enhance their ability to apply science concepts in the classroom.

While teaching, teachers need to access both their knowledge of mathematics and knowledge of pedagogy. Practice-based materials afford teachers opportunities to reason about both mathematics and pedagogy within the context of teaching. Accepted systems exist for explaining and reasoning in the domain of mathematics; logic, procedures, and…

Teacher-coordinators and worksite mentors of high school work-based learning programs throughout Illinois were the subjects of this study which described worksite mentors' knowledge of teaching work skills to students participating in work-based learning programs and the nature of the training provided to these worksite mentors. There were no…

Elementary school mathematics teaching begins with the teacher's understanding of the mathematical content to be taught. The teacher knows how to "do" the mathematics, i. e., understands the concepts and truths concerning that mathematics. The teacher then decides how to present the mathematics. Based on the students' background in mathematics,…