There has been much debate in recent years as to the amount and type of mathematical knowledge that teachers need to acquire. One set of recommendations is provided by the Mathematical Education of Teachers (MET) report, produced jointly by the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America. This paper reports on efforts…

Families of 159, 4- to 8-year-old children with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) were randomly assigned to parent training (PT); parent plus teacher training (PT + TT); child training (CT); child plus teacher training (CT + TT); parent, child, plus teacher training (PT + CT + TT); or a waiting list control. Reports and independent observations…

Changes in 70 teachers' confidence, attitudes and science understanding were tested before and after a major in-service programme. Attitudes were assessed using a 49-item Likert-scale test that probed attitudes to practical science teaching and in-service training. Multi-choice and open-ended questions measured understanding of electricity;…

This paper presents the first phase of a study in teacher education, which explored how a conceptual framework for creativity with information and communication technology (ICT) might be developed and expressed in professional development for primary education pre-service and newly qualified teachers. The Creativity and Professional Development…

Technological advances in the new millennium may evoke disquiet among administrators and teachers taxed with understanding how to harness new capabilities and merge them with sound pedagogy. To understand how gaming might bridge the gap between student interest and how lessons are taught, graduate students in science education at North Carolina…

Practical and engaging, this book contains 21 case studies that help students apply curriculum theory to classroom reality. Each case is authored by an in-service teacher, reflecting on ways to improve instruction by making changes to various aspects of the curriculum. These real-life examples investigate up-to-date curricular issues ranging from…

In response to the need for more qualified primary school teachers in Lesotho, the Lesotho College of Education (LCE) introduced the Distance Teacher Education Programme (DT EP), an in-service training programme for unqualified and underqualified teachers. As part of the curriculum in this programme, the more than 1 200 student teachers who were…

Teachers attending a 5-week in-service retraining course completed a survey asking them to rate their current competencies and training needs in 24 variables (N = 210). Intuitively, teacher competencies and their perceived needs of retraining should be negatively correlated. However, the correlations between teacher competencies and perceived…

Past research has indicated that a number of problems in the teaching of science in elementary classrooms are rooted in the preparation of inservice teachers. One continuing concern is elementary teachers' lack of science content knowledge. As indicated by numerous research studies reporting positive results, one method of addressing these…

"Hands-on Current Electricity" gives K-8 teachers the opportunity to experience inquiry learning about current electricity by (1) experimenting with current electricity through a variety of activities, (2) discovering preconceived mental models of electricity used to understand their observations, (3) creating new mental models that have greater…

The purpose of this paper is to describe the model of a mathematics and science staff development cooperative and focus on the evaluation of the mathematics component. The Mathematics and Science Education Cooperative (MSEC) was a comprehensive, long-range staff development program to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics and science at…

The child care workforce is changing. More than ever before, directors must contend with faculty whose educational levels, job expectations, and career aspirations differ widely. Teachers vary in their experience, professional demeanor, stages in career development, and most recently, generational differences that impact the significance and…

This report summarizes the activities and findings of the external evaluation of the "Science: It's Elementary" (SIE) program in the period June 2007 through May 2008. The SIE program is managed by ASSET Inc. and overseen by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. SIE is an initiative aimed at improving elementary science instruction…

This study sought to understand how an online cohort in a master's program, comprised of teachers from the same school district, constructed knowledge about instructional theories and practices. Participants in this descriptive study included 10 teachers from the same rural school district. Data collection consisted of a focus group and written…

From a case study looking at continuing professional development (CPD) within a rural primary school cluster, teachers' views of the way their needs were met, what controlled their CPD, and the impact of school and system needs on their CPD experiences were analysed. This confirmed the existence of tensions between these levels of need in relation…