In England and Wales, Initial Teacher Education depends upon a legal and contractual partnership between schools and higher education institutions in which teacher mentors are often trained to support student teacher development. This article investigates the much less formal kind of partnership model that has evolved in Scotland, using one…

Science in early childhood is of great importance to many aspects of children's development. Planning for improvement of science instruction should take into consideration the problems teachers encounter in their performance of their task. However, exposition of problems of early years teachers, especially those with many years of experience, is…

Previous studies into teacher attitude and motivation have identified staff development as one of the contributing factors in using ICT (information and communication technology) effectively in the classroom. Substantial funds have been provided for such staff development in recent years in the United Kingdom. Currently, ICT training is being…

The methodological characteristics of teaching in primary and secondary education make it necessary to revise the pedagogical and instructive lines with which to introduce the new Information and Communication Technologies into the school context. The construction of Web pages that can be used to improve student learning is, therefore, fundamental…

Teacher education programs have been slow in responding to the increasing diversity in education systems and tertiary institutions. This article focuses on the development of teacher education programs for immigrant teachers, drawing on interview and other data from a study of 110 teachers in programs at the Faculty of Education, University of…

Greece has so far seen the introduction of computers into its schools on only a limited scale. Nevertheless, technological reforms are under way to integrate information and communication technology into education at all levels. This research project has studied the views of early childhood teachers on the prospect of computer use or information…

The transition from generic mentoring to specific mentoring practices can provide a stronger focus for developing preservice primary teachers (mentees) in subject-specific areas. Constructivist theory and a five-factor model towards specific subject mentoring are proposed as ways to develop mentees' teaching practices. Firstly, constructivist…

The process of developing competencies by students in a school-based initial teacher education program was analyzed for a whole currently available population of 26 in-service students preparing to become educational assistants using: (1) a Kolb-type questionnaire on learning style; (2) a storyline instrument graphically showing competence grows…

This article explores three aspects regarding the supporting of teaching and learning through ICT (information and communication technology). First, the use and value of storyboarding as a preferable technique prior to the creation of a pupil-authored CD-ROM by children aged 9 and 14. Second, responses to the innovation by practicing teachers.…

This inquiry uses teacher-candidate critiques of science lessons as a means of evaluating the effectiveness of an instructor's pedagogical approach to promote teacher candidate understanding of the nature of science (NOS) in a science methods course. Three cohorts of teacher candidates enrolled in a middle-years teacher education program were…

Preservice and inservice teachers were asked to examine 2 considerably different museum-based worksheets and to choose which, if any, they might use if they were conducting a science field trip for upper elementary or middle school students. The more detailed, survey-oriented worksheet was chosen more frequently than the open-ended,…

Although clean, potable groundwater constitutes one of our most valuable resources, few students or science educators hold complete and appropriate understandings regarding the concept. Recent studies that focus on secondary students' and preservice science teachers' understandings of groundwater found little difference between the groups'…

In this study, peer assessment was applied in assessing elementary science teaching skills. Preservice teachers taught a science topic as a team to their peers in an elementary science methods course. The peers participating in the science lesson assessed teacher-groups' elementary science teaching skills on an assessment form provided by the…

Drawing on the work of Dewey, we present a view of science education from the perspective of art and aesthetics. This perspective places a transformative, aesthetic experience at the forefront of educational objectives. Such experience involves the application of learning in everyday contexts, expansion of perception, and development of an…

The purpose of this study was to determine if teachers who participated in a professional development program continued to learn about inquiry and inquiry teaching as they implemented inquiry in their classrooms. A qualitative design utilizing inductive analysis was used to investigate teachers' understanding and classroom implementation of…