Despite significant pressure to reform science teaching and learning in K12 schools, and a concurrent call to reform undergraduate courses, higher education science content courses have remained relatively static. Higher education science faculty have few opportunities to explore research on how people learn, examine state or national science…

This study investigated the predictive ability of an intentional learning model in the change of preservice early childhood teachers' conceptual understanding of lunar phases. Fifty-two preservice early childhood teachers who were enrolled in an early childhood science methods course participated in the study. Results indicated that the use…

This study illustrated a pathway of growth that a preservice teacher might traverse when learning to use and develop equitable assessments (EA). The study is rare in that it looks at the development of preservice teachers' understanding and ability to design EA. I examined the understanding and implementation of EA of 23 secondary preservice…

The purpose of this article is to present the new National Science Teachers Association-Standards for Science Teacher Preparation (NSTA-SSTP). The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) is the new national accreditation organization for programs of education. NSTA collaborates with CAEP to establish content specific standards…

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary school pre-service teachers' understanding of photosynthesis and to examine if a refutational text can support understanding of photosynthesis better than a non-refutational text. A total of 91 elementary school pre-service teachers read either a refutational or a non-refutational text…

The Australian Government initiative, Teaching Teachers for the Future (TTF), was a targeted response to improve the preparation of future teachers with integrating technology into their practice. This paper reports on TTF research involving 28 preservice teachers undertaking a chemistry curriculum studies unit that adopted a technological focus.…

We investigated how prospective teachers used physics content knowledge when analyzing the talk of elementary children during special activities in an undergraduate physics content course designed for prospective teachers. We found that prospective teachers used content knowledge to reflect on their own learning and to identify students'…

A number of science education policy documents recommend that students develop an understanding of the enterprise of science and the nature of science (NOS). Despite this emphasis, there is still a gap between policy and practice. Teacher professional literature provides one potential venue for bridging this gap, by providing "activities that…

Described herein is the academic lineage and independent validation of the Self-Efficacy Teaching and Knowledge Instrument for Science Teachers-Revised (SETAKIST-R). Data from 334 K-12 science teachers were analyzed using Partial Credit Rasch models. Principal components analysis on the person-item residuals suggest two latent dimensions:…

Educators have argued the need for greater attention on how teachers learn to teach writing in science (Kelly and Bazerman in "Appl Linguist" 24(1):28-55, 2003; Martin in "Writing science: literacy and discursive power." University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, pp 166-202, 1993). This article summarizes the findings of a…

This study has investigated the use of an open guided inquiry laboratory course in which a group of pre-service teachers planned and implemented practical work for school purposes. A total of 32 pre-service teachers (physics, mathematics, and chemistry majors) participated in the study. Each participant wrote a reflective essay after completing…

One of the characteristics of effective science teachers is a deep understanding of science concepts. The ability to identify, explain and apply concepts is critical in designing, delivering and assessing instruction. Because some teachers have not completed extensive courses in some areas of science, especially in middle and elementary grades,…

Science teachers' content knowledge is an important influence on student learning, highlighting an ongoing need for programs, and assessments of those programs, designed to support teacher learning of science. Valid and reliable assessments of teacher science knowledge are needed for direct measurement of this crucial variable. This paper…

Using a case study method, the experiences of a group of high school science teachers participating in a unique professional development method involving an argue-to-learn intervention were examined. The participants (N = 42) represented 25 different high schools from a large urban school district in the southwestern United States. Data sources…

This research explored science teachers' pedagogical discontentment and described its role in teachers' consideration of new teaching practices. Pedagogical discontentment is an expression of the degree to which one is discontented because one's teaching practices do not achieve one's teaching goals. Through a series of structured interviews…