Evolution is central to biology education and yet, it is often one of the most misunderstood and controversial topics that biology educators must teach. Research spanning the last four decades has shown that students continue to struggle, even with direct instruction, to understand the process of evolution by natural selection. In my first…

Students possess alternative conceptions of many science topics, and these conceptions can act as obstacles for learning scientific concepts. In the field of biology education, students' alternative conceptions of evolution have been widely investigated. However, there is little research on how teachers diagnose and deal with these alternative…

Educators constantly hear the mantras "develop relationships with students" or "add a personal touch"? They know they will be better teachers if they connect with their students, but how can they if their students come from very different backgrounds than they do? How do educators find common ground? The common ground is the…

There have been many revolutions in the past 500 years but none quite so sustained and "society changing" as the march of secularisation and the move from a theocentric perspective to a scientific world view. The age of scientific discovery has led to the scientific method--put simply, evidence that can be sustained by rigorous…

This study explores pre-service elementary school teachers' understandings of evolutionary science and their feelings and concerns about teaching evolution in Canadian elementary schools. Data were collected through a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Most participants reported acceptance of evolution as a scientifically factual…

Describes and discusses an epistemological approach to the education of science teachers that emphasizes similarities in knowledge and modes of acquiring knowledge among children, scientists in their historical contexts, and student teachers. (ZWH)