Teaching is by nature a complex activity filled with ambiguities and dilemmas. Teaching also is fundamentally a moral activity, making the dilemmas and ambiguities both pedagogical and moral in nature. This article describes one teacher's reflections on her efforts to resolve the dilemmas and ambiguities presented to her by the competing…

In the "Learning and Teaching" course at the University of Waikato (New Zealand) College of Teacher Education, explorations are being conducted into the advantages of training student teachers to work, on a more genuinely collegial basis, with the college's cooperating teachers. The assumptions and objectives of the course focus on…

A survey of 428 instructors at four community colleges in the San Jose, California, area was conducted in May 1978 to determine the degree of importance with which faculty viewed selected pedagogical skills, and to correlate these opinions with the respondents' teaching experience and educational backgrounds. The survey instrument asked…

TO IMPROVE MATHEMATICS TEACHING, A QUESTIONNAIRE WAS SENT TO 1,000 SECONDARY AND 2,018 ELEMENTARY SCHOOL MATHEMATICS TEACHERS IN ALABAMA. RESPONSES WERE RECEIVED FROM 964 (33.4 PERCENT) OF THOSE QUERIED. AMONG THE FINDINGS WERE (1) 62.5 PERCENT OF THE TEACHERS HAD 4-YEAR OR CLASS B CERTIFICATES, 26.9 PERCENT HAD 5-YEAR OR CLASS A, 3.4 PERCENT HAD…

School teachers are in a profession that offers little advancement, but there is reason to believe that teachers go through significant developmental changes during their teaching years. Information about human development, career development, teacher characteristics, and the occupation of teaching indicates the likelihood of significant teacher…

This study was designed to determine (1) how experienced secondary school English teachers evaluate themselves in knowledge of English and in English teaching abilities, and (2) the relationships among this self-evaluation, number of years of teaching experience, and college degrees. In mid-November, 1967, the Illinois State-Wide Curriculum Study…

A study of 100 geographers during their first year of full-time college teaching revealed that the teachers had difficulty in achieving their educational goals. The worst areas of performance by the new teachers included knowing how to stimulate students to high intellectual effort and changing teaching methods as appropriate. (RM)

Nine chapters address current issues in teaching, focusing on: (1) "Teacher Quality and Quantity" (James B. Stedman); (2) "Progress Through the Teacher Pipeline" (Robin R. Henke, Xianglei Chen, Sonya Geis, and Paula Knepper); (3) "Raising the Achievement of Low-Performing Students: What High Schools Can Do" (Gene Bottoms); (4) "Knowledge and…

This report describes U.S. K-12 teachers' satisfaction with teaching as a career and identifies some workplace-related factors associated with satisfaction. Factors examined include school and workplace characteristics, teacher background, salary, and other benefits. Results are presented in three sections. The first section describes satisfaction…

Science education and the preparation of science teachers have been of great concern over the past two decades. This research investigated the influence of an extended elementary science teaching practicum upon preservice elementary teachers' (N=19) science self-efficacy. It explored both quantitatively and qualitatively the progression of teacher…

This longitudinal study examined the extent to which developmentally appropriate practices of teaching and evaluation are accepted and implemented in primary schools and the relationship of teacher educational background and experience with the use of these practices. Data were obtained from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study kindergarten…

Examines the stories that teachers tell each other in the staff room. Identifies and characterizes these stories according to what they reveal about teachers' concepts concerning power and the teachers' role. Explores how these concepts develop in the wider sociocultural climate of the school. (MJP)

The political events characterizing the start of a teaching career were investigated for three teachers who told the stories of their early years on the job. Data analysis reveals that their thoughts and actions are influenced and sustained in three streams of consciousness (biography, role demands, and school culture). (SLD)

To explore why teachers rejected videotaping as an observation and coaching method, researchers interviewed 29 teachers enrolled in teacher supervision classes to determine the human and the technical issues involved. About one-quarter of the problems were technical malfunctions and limitations, and the rest resulted from human responses to…

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is a much debated and studied construct. In this article, we adopt an all-embracing view of PCK to examine the development of one elementary science teacher's knowledge over a 10-year period. We portray this teacher's knowledge at three critical points in her career--as a student teacher, beginning teacher, and…