This study of classroom discourse and other data from a physical science course for in-service teachers show the areas of success and challenge of the participants in making claims supported by justifications. It also shows that the teachers learned to make scientific claims and were able to make some justifications. Nevertheless, many found the…

The National Science Education Standards have outlined flexible processes children perform when engaging in scientific inquiry. Cases narratives are a common component of many university science education courses but rarely are they used as a tool to evaluate the preservice teachers within these courses. This article describes the construction of…

This study investigated teachers' motivation, expectations, and changes to teaching practices due to a 6 week summer professional development program involvement. Participants (n = 67) attended the Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program within a major university in southeast. Surveys and interviews were used to collect data to answer the…

Just as individual teachers have orientations to teaching and learning science that influence their practice, we assert that professional development (PD) projects also have an orientation that guides the design and implementation of the entire project; a construct we term "PD Project Orientation". The purpose of this study was to validate the…

This study was designed to examine benefits and challenges of teaching through videoconferencing in the context of students' field placement experiences, particularly as it relates to an inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning math and science. In the context of mathematics and science methods courses, preservice teachers, with the…

In this study we described an action research project enacted by a veteran Kindergarten teacher (Sarah) in the context of a professional development program. Over the course of a year, Sarah collaborated with other teachers in a small group to investigate how to use "Science Talks" to promote student learning in Kindergarten classrooms. A…

In this case study, an exemplary seventh grade science teacher's beliefs, planning decisions, implementation, and student reactions to her student-centered methods were examined over a 4-week unit on genetics. This situation was unique because the teacher was new to the profession and her students had no prior experience with student-centered…

The "flexibly adaptive" model of professional development, developed in the GIT Ahead project, enables secondary science teachers to incorporate a variety of geospatial technology applications into wide-ranging classroom contexts. Teacher impacts were evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively. Post-questionnaire responses showed significant…

Effectively enacting inquiry-based science instruction entails considerable changes in classroom management practices. In this article, we describe five interconnected management areas that need to be addressed when managing an inquiry-oriented K-8 science classroom. We introduce a pyramid model as a framework for thinking about these management…

The research questions addressed in this study were: what types of epistemological beliefs do elementary students have; what types of metacognition do elementary students have; and what are the relationships among students' perceived characteristics of constructivist learning environment, metacognition, and epistemological beliefs. A total of 626…

This study evaluated Gregoire's (2003) Cognitive-Affective Conceptual Change model (CAMCC) for predicting and assessing conceptual change in science teachers engaged in a long-term professional development project set in a large school district in the southwestern United States. A multiple case study method with data from three teacher…

This paper describes research that compares preservice early childhood teachers' cultural values and the values they believe are held by scientists. Using the Schwartz Values Inventory (SVI) (Schwartz (1992) "Adv Exp Soc Psychol" 25:331-351) preservice early childhood teachers cultural values were assessed, followed by an assessment of the values…

The attitude construct is widely used by teachers and researchers in mathematics education. Often, however, teachers' diagnosis of a "negative attitude" is a causal attribution of students' failure, perceived as global and uncontrollable, rather than an accurate interpretation of students' behaviour, capable of steering future action. In order to…

What kind of mathematical knowledge do prospective teachers need for teaching and for understanding student thinking? And how can its construction be enhanced? This article contributes to the ongoing discussion on mathematics-for-teaching by investigating the case of understanding students' perspectives on equations and equalities and on meanings…

Although growing numbers of secondary school mathematics teachers and students use calculators to study graphs, they mainly rely on paper-and-pencil when manipulating algebraic symbols. However, the Computer Algebra Systems (CAS) on computers or handheld calculators create new possibilities for teaching and learning algebraic manipulation. This…