In-service teacher development programs are perceived as a common way to foster school improvement. Nevertheless, program evaluation to date ends with the assessment of acquired knowledge, skills, and motivation, frequently disregarding the actual learning transfer and its conditions. This study aimed to investigate how individual and situational…

Scientific concepts of learning and the brain are relevant for biology teachers in two ways: Firstly, the topic is an object of instruction (e.g., long-term potentiation). Secondly, biology teachers must guide their students towards sustainable learning. Consequently, their own understanding of learning and the brain has an especially far-reaching…

Opportunities to learn (OTL) is used as a research concept for describing and analysing the curriculum of a programme which frames the learning and development of preservice teachers. Typical elements of teacher education programmes are investigated: the representation of content in courses of the subject, subject-related pedagogy and general…

There is no doubt about the necessity for the inclusion and the integration of minority groups in German school system. Although there are different recognised politics and developments within the school policy of the 16 federal states in Germany, there are also common important political issues. While heterogeneity in minority groups is…

Personal epistemological beliefs are considered to play an important role for processes of learning and teaching. However, research on personal epistemology is confronted with theoretical issues as there is conflicting evidence regarding the structure, stability, and context-dependence of epistemological beliefs. We give evidence how theoretical…

Natural history museums (NHMs) are important out-of-school learning settings for teaching science; therefore, familiarisation with NHMs is crucial for future teachers. This article presents a student teacher training program in the form of an optional module for Master of Education Biology students at a major German university that focuses on NHMs…

Practicum experiences offer student teachers a place to observe and interact with real students, teachers and curriculum in natural school settings (Cohen, Hoz, & Kaplan, 2013). Therefore, the practicums in teacher education programs can provide meaningful opportunities for the reflection of beliefs. Only very few studies have used a…

The study examines the connection between domain-specific learning opportunities in English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher preparation and preservice EFL teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Using a sample of 444 preservice EFL teachers for secondary schools, it contrasts groups at the end of the 2 phases required in German teacher…

Language teaching centres have been tasked predominantly with ensuring that prospective and enrolled students are able to fulfil established language criteria required for both domestic and international study programmes. It is less common, however, that language centres are responsible for ensuring the language and communicative skills of…

The study compared the perceptions of adults from four countries about storytelling. Americans (N = 153), Germans (N = 163), Chinese (N = 324), and Vietnamese (N = 356) completed a survey. Americans' scores on measures of storytelling experiences were the highest overall. Americans and Germans reported having significantly more childhood…

This study explores critical incidents regarding differing cultures-of-use in telecollaboration against the backdrop of Hong Kong and German teacher education contexts. The rationale for the exchange was to model technology use and task design with the ultimate goal of internationalizing teacher education and supporting global citizenship.…

This paper focuses on commonalities and differences of three approaches to large-scale professional development (PD) in mathematics education, based on two studies from Germany and one from the United States of America. All three initiatives break new ground in improving PD targeted at educating "multipliers", and in all three cases…

Germany's vocational education and training (VET) and corresponding teacher-education programmes are known worldwide for their integrated framework. Government legislation unifies companies, unions and vocational schools, and specifies the education and training required for students as well as vocational teachers. Changing from the Diplom…

Globalization has an immense effect on education. Education relies on the teacher and the process by which teachers are developed. In this context, the expectations of teacher role and options for teacher preparation today have key roles to play in educating children to become responsible citizens of increasingly multicultural societies and active…

This study investigated the relationship between policies related to the recruitment, selection, preparation, and certification of new teachers and (a) the quality of future teachers as measured by their mathematics content and pedagogy content knowledge and (b) student achievement in mathematics at the national level. The study used data…