Previous literature on learners' epistemological beliefs about physics has almost exclusively focused on analysis of university classroom instruction and its effects on students' views. However, little is known about other populations or factors other than classroom instruction on learners' epistemologies. In this study, we used a cross-sequential…

China has a long history of education, which can be traced back to the Shang Dynasty (1523 B.C. to 1027 B.C.). During this long history changes occurred as the needs of society changed. During the Warring States Period (770 B.C. to 221 B.C.), the philosophies of Daoism and Confucianism were developed. These philosophies became the cornerstone of…

The goal of this study was to examine the impact of the integration of global experiences on in-service teachers' international perspectives in mathematics classroom teaching through offering a graduate course "Global Perspectives in Mathematics Teaching" in the form of the East Meets West Program. This program engages teachers in an…

The preparation, recruitment, work, and career of teachers are important in education. This is no exemption for special education. However, the shortage of qualified teachers serving students with disabilities has long been an international problem. In China, both the quantity and the quality of special education teachers are of concern. This…

With a large-scale online K-12 teacher professional development course as the research context, this study examined the effects of facilitating feedback on online learners' cognitive engagement using quasi-experiment method. A total of 1,540 discussion messages from 110 learners (65 in the experimental group and 45 in the control group) were both…

Since implementation of reform and opening-up policy, China's teacher education has got significant success on policy design, legislation process, theory research, system reform, model innovation and teaching qualification system building. Teachers' educational background level has been increased. Teachers' professional ethics and teaching…

This paper reports on a Professional Learning Programme undertaken by primary school teachers in China that aimed to facilitate the development of "adaptive expertise" in using technology to facilitate innovative science teaching and learning such as that envisaged by the Chinese Ministry of Education's (2010--2020) education reforms.…

"Lesson explaining" has been developed in China from an evaluative resource to an effective form of teacher professional development with the value of emphasizing teacher reflective practice. This paper begins with a general description of lesson explaining. Then an example of "explaining" a mathematics lesson for teaching…

Despite widespread scepticism about the impact of INSET (in-service teacher training) initiatives on teacher development, INSET participation has remained one of the major routes for teachers' professional development. This article reports on an evaluation of a part-time INSET programme for secondary school English teachers delivered by a national…

This paper explores the attitudes of teachers, as adult learners, towards learning to do animation. A part of popular culture which second-language students enjoy, until recently, animation has been technically too demanding for non-specialists to learn. Adult learners can experience e-learning as transformative, but also as a barrier. Thus,…

When English becomes the international language with the globalization of the world, it is not surprising that EFL teachers are pushed to the front of TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) because teacher quality is thought to be the factor that matters most for student learning. EFL teachers are expected to be more knowledgeable and…

Despite the frequent criticisms directed toward them, in-service teacher training (INSET) programmes remain one of the most commonly used approaches for enhancing teachers' professional development. This article reports on a study that examined the effects of a part-time masters of education INSET programme based in Central China. The main source…

The Chinese Government has conducted a series of top-down reforms of teacher education over the past several decades. The reforms have established a relatively stable teacher education system, regulated teacher education programmes and curricula, and provided opportunities for in-service teachers to be trained and to upgrade their educational…

This research investigated the development of critical thinking of middle school chemistry teachers in Shaanxi province of China. In-service and pre-service teachers' critical thinking are examined in order to provide evidence for establishing teachers' standard. The sample in this study consisted of 69 in-service and 61 pre-service chemistry…

The current nation-wide reform of Chinese primary and secondary education prompted an empirical research project, "An empirical investigation of in-service English teachers in primary and secondary schools and a study of a pre-service language teacher education program", conducted at Baoding, China. This project is considered as…