Criticizes the typical methods course, which has students devise lesson plans without giving them the opportunity to test the plans on those for whom it is intended. (JA)

This column provides an updated list of thirty online lesson plan sites. Some are general, some specific, and some are geared toward one age level or another. The sites described cover topics ranging from American History to Physics to Astronomy.

The art room is the canvas, and all furnishings and objects are the art supplies. All art room surfaces and spaces can be used to communicate an art lesson. Artists in all media plan visually, and art lessons should be planned and preserved as are other works of art. As a young art teacher, the author felt it was important for his students to…

This paper outlines the knowledge and attitudes that 57 language teachers in Japan have regarding copyright laws in relation to using external materials in the classroom. A 13-item online survey was distributed, and semi-structured interviews were conducted, to ascertain what teachers know about Japanese copyright laws, and the teachers' resultant…

One semester while attempting to help pre-service teachers learn how to make mathematics relevant to the lives of young children, it occurred to the author that many preservice teachers in teacher education programs were uncomfortable outside of their own personal cultural experiences. Having recently read some work of Claudia Zavslavsky (1996),…

Slavery in the pre-Civil War United States is a hard topic to teach, not only because it raises issues of racism and injustice, but also because students assume so much. Often, they think all northerners were abolitionists or "good guys" and southerners were "bad guys" who enslaved African Americans because they viewed them as inferior. England,…

This article describes a twist on the basic "Science 101" investigation of having students observe a birthday candle before, during, and after burning. It engages students in exploring the attributes of a candle, introduces them to the concepts of empirical observation and investigation, and involves them in developing and conducting a burning…

Historical thinking and historical analysis have become significant themes within the ranks of social studies educators. In this article, the author talks about the importance of teaching historical analysis and historical thinking using the Internet. He presents websites that both explain the two concepts and also provide lesson plans,…

The study investigated the effects of three types of evaluation on preservice teachers' performance, knowledge and attitudes related to writing lesson plans that incorporate technology. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of the three treatment conditions: teacher-evaluation, self-evaluation or peer-evaluation. All groups completed three class…

Children who learn math fundamentals in preschool and kindergarten have the best chance of later achievement in school--but too often, children don't get the effective early math instruction that makes all the difference. Now there's a core early childhood textbook that helps current and future educators teach the most critical math concepts to…

New information and communications technologies (ICT) are redefining teacher education. A university faculty member and an instructional technology consultant incorporated information and communications technologies within a graduate university methods course. The following research questions explored student perceptions of using Web 2.0 tools as…