Media literacy education is relevant to the social studies for a number of reasons. Media provide compelling fiction and nonfiction narratives about people, places and events. Indeed, many young people's knowledge of world events and cultures comes from media representations. Media also helps shape attitudes and opinions about history, government…

This study confirmed the observed strengths and weaknesses of AC candidates as described by those responsible for their hiring and supervision. The findings were consistent with those found in the literature. According to school administrators making hiring decisions, AC candidates are stronger in content knowledge and weaker in pedagogy than…

This book is based on the author's 20-plus years of consulting with school districts and other educational organizations in designing, piloting, and training educators in the use of teacher-performance evaluation systems. Its primary purpose is to help both teachers and their evaluators collect more comprehensive and accurate assessment data for…

In 1999, Liping Ma published her book "Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: Teachers' Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in the United States and China," which probed the kinds of knowledge that elementary school teachers need to convey mathematical concepts and procedures effectively to their students. Later that year,…

The intent of teacher education is to develop a person's skill, knowledge and ability to foster learning in pre-K-12 education settings. Preparation in this field of education carries added complexities, in that physical educators must address psychomotor, cognitive and affective goals. An introductory course for undergraduates should overview the…

This article investigates the attitudes of South African student teachers towards the theory of evolution and their willingness to teach it. The teaching of evolution has been excluded from the South African school curriculum for most of the 20th century. In 2008, Grade 12 learners were for the first time exposed to the concept of evolution in the…

In 1965, Memmi introduced the concept of a protectorate. "Whenever the colonizer states, in his language, that the colonized is a weakling, he suggests thereby that this deficiency requires protection. From this comes the concept of a protectorate" (pp. 147-8). While this concept is 45 years old, it is an apt metaphor for thinking about…

There is considerable research on teachers' beliefs and teachers' knowledge, but little empirical evidence exists as to the interplay between them. This article reports a study of 356 Norwegian teachers who answered a questionnaire and a multiple-choice test. Based on this study, the connections between two knowledge constructs and two beliefs…

This article examines Finnish cooperating physics teachers' conceptions of teacher knowledge in physics. Six experienced teachers were interviewed. The data was analyzed to form categories concerning the basis of teacher knowledge, and the tradition of German Didaktik and Shulman's theory of teacher knowledge were used in order to understand the…

The purpose of this study is to profile future science teachers' understandings of current environmental issues in the context of an education reform in Turkey. Knowledge base and understandings of elementary and secondary prospective science teachers about biodiversity, carbon cycle, global warming and ozone layer depletion were targeted in the…

Understanding frames of reference is critical in describing planetary motion and learning astronomy. Historically, the geocentric and heliocentric models were defended and advocated against each other. Today, there are still many people who do not understand the relationship between the two models. This topic is not adequately treated in astronomy…

Recent reforms of initial teacher education (ITE) in the learning and skills sector (LSS) in England are standards based and emphasise subject specialism. The reforms are underpinned by objectivist epistemological assumptions which are incompatible with socio-cultural theories of professional knowledge, and ignore the diverse teaching roles and…

Teacher preparation programs are required by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) to assess the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of teacher candidates. Dispositions and the personal values that support them are defined differently by NCATE and other experts in the fields of education and business. In order to…

This article describes the construction process and evaluation of the Agile Constructionist Mentoring Methodology (ACMM), a mentoring method for guiding software development projects in the high school. The need for such a methodology has arisen due to the complexity of mentoring software project development in the high school. We introduce the…

Preparing quality teachers has become a global concern as all nations strive for excellence at all levels. Yet, there is little consensus around what constitutes quality and how quality teachers might best be attained. This article takes up the issue of quality teacher preparation by exploring several pivotal questions: What might quality teaching…