Teachers often have difficulty implementing inquiry-based activities, leading to the arousal of negative emotions. In this multicase study of beginning physics teachers in Australia, we were interested in the extent to which their expectations were realized and how their classroom experiences while implementing extended experimental investigations…

Presents a study that took place in an inner-city neighborhood school populated mainly by African American students characterized by poverty. Explores the discourse and practices of students and three co-teachers as a curriculum was enacted to provide opportunities for students to learn about the physics of motion through designing, building, and…

Describes the teaching practices of one exemplary physics teacher. Identifies those teaching practices which can be considered exemplary and worthy of attention and analysis by physics teachers and teacher educators. Reports four assertions by the data from observations and interviews with teachers and students. (YP)

Presents the case study of a university-level instructor teaching a course in physical science to prospective elementary and early childhood teachers. Concludes that the beliefs of the instructor constrained the enacted curriculum to an extent that gaps between the needs of students and the enacted curriculum were wider at the end of the course.…

Uses videotaped lectures and interviews to understand lectures in a physics course for prospective elementary teachers. Reports that the professor staged Aristotle, natural philosophy, and students' observations and intuitive knowledge in opposition to Galileo, controlled experiments, and mathematical inscriptions. Concludes that this form of…