Many classroom teachers are not teaching children to read at proper levels because they lack skill administering diagnostic tests and need practice interpreting children's reading behavior during testing. The text-lecture approach may be adequate for imparting information about diagnostic procedures, but it is not adequate for developing skill in…

The Competency Based Teacher Education (CBTE) effort in science methods has been responsible for generating a different approach to university-level instruction. Student achievement of specified goals is greater than in the traditional program, and study perceptions of the instructional experience suggest that competency-based instruction…

A competency-based teacher education program is the most complete approach to training bilingual teachers because trainees know what is expected to be certified, change is built into the program, and students receive credit for life experiences. In the sample program described here, an interdisciplinary committee first stated an integrated view of…

The Yazigi Project for the Teaching of English in Brazilian High Schools, a 2-year, nationwide program for the retraining of high school teachers of English as a foreign language, involved 2,210 teachers and a team of 60 teacher trainers and retrainers. Each training session lasted 6 days and totalled a minimum of 30 hours, with a maximum of 50…

The Program reported here was designed to help improve the quality of education in the nations elementary and secondary schools. It pursued this goal in two ways: first, by helping selected, potentially influential experienced teache to pursue full-time graduate education in specially planned courses of studies; second, by fostering and…

An extensive inservice training program involved principals, teachers, teacher-aides, and parents. It becan in 1970 with a summer workshop, and then throughout the following school year, substitute teachers were provided 1 day each week to release the teachers from school to attend classes at Portland State University. The program was monitored…

This sixth module in the series for preservice elementary teachers develops the following concepts of diagnosis in mathematics: diagnostic techniques and instruments; the identification of specific learner behaviors; the concrete, semi-concrete, and abstract continuum aspect of learning mathematics concepts and skills; Piagetian developmental…

A case study approach was used to explore the relationship between subject matter knowledge and the acquisition of pedagogical content knowledge in the preparation of preservice elementary mathematics teachers. A preservice elementary teacher was interviewed prior to her mathematics methods course to ascertain her subject matter background and…

Describes participants' experiences in collaboratively teaching a social studies methods course as part of a Professional Development School project, noting changes in participants' attitudes and apprehensions. Data from taped conversations, journals, and interviews indicated that weekly interactions and joint decision making helped surmount…

This study investigated the effectiveness of introducing e-mail applications into preservice elementary science methods courses at two distant universities. Interviews with instructors and analysis of correspondence between students indicated that, despite problems of incorporating e-mail into the course, interest level in and attitudes toward…

The Drake University (Iowa) pharmacy school has developed an elective teaching clerkship to help prepare pharmacy students as university teachers. Course goals were to familiarize students with issues in university-level teaching, promote understanding of theories underlying specific teaching methods, and apply general teaching technique and…

Maintains that two goals in multicultural art education are developing students' sensitivity to the techniques and inspiration of artists and utilizing that understanding to discover more about their own beliefs and values as translated through an art object. Describes a case-study lesson based on this approach. (CFR)

Describes methods of using technology in a preservice social studies methods course that show how technology can support teacher planning and how technology can increase teacher effectiveness. Knowledge of instructional materials is discussed, and how to demonstrate the integration of technology into the curriculum through simulations for decision…

Two methods of delivering direct instruction to preservice teachers were compared. Students (n=37) in a reading course learned the Directed Reading Activity (DRA) via lecture and discussion; 37 others learned with videotape and related practice. The latter group retained and used DRA knowledge better over a longer period. (Author/SM)

Describes a lesson on pseudoscience for a teaching methods course that promotes active student participation, is not a laboratory activity, and follows the sequence of the three phases associated with the learning cycle model. Contains a true-false science questionnaire to be administered to students as a bridge to discussion. (PR)