Beginning teachers do not enter the classroom as finished products. Many school administrators say that new teachers are often exuberant and optimistic but ill-equipped for the classroom. There are some administrators who are openly exasperated with the low quality of teacher applicants who are available. A personnel director, after interviewing…

The purpose of this article is to report on a collaborative project among members of colleges of education, colleges of arts and sciences, and high school foreign language departments. The project involved conducting an online survey of 341 current foreign language teachers in Georgia in order to determine how these K?12 teachers perceived and…

This article draws on research involving 28 teacher educators in the first 3 years of their careers in the English higher education sector. It discusses the areas of tension they found in making the transition from teaching in the school sector to working in universities, the priorities they identified for their induction and the induction…

This study investigated prospective secondary science teachers' understandings of and intentions to teach about scientific modelling in the context of a model-based instructional module. Qualitative methods were used to explore the influence of instruction using dynamic computer modelling. Participants included 14 secondary science prospective…

The issue of science subject knowledge, and how to address the demands of this for both practising and trainee primary teachers, has constituted a core research enterprise in recent decades. The Professional Standards for Qualified Teacher Status entail considerable conceptual demands for many primary trainees. Generating meaningful causal…

What do the Internet, mobile phones, SATs, global warming, wetsuits, wind farms, laptops, recycling bins, iPods, the NLS and the Beckhams have in common? Answer: virtually no one had heard of any of these in 1986, when the first issue of "PSR" came out. The world of children and teachers has clearly changed since then. So what of "PSR" itself?…

There is considerable evidence regarding the academic and social difficulties children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) experience, but less is known about what their teachers do and should know. This article provides a summary of this evidence, including information on the difficulties experienced by students with ADHD, the…

This paper tests the utility of a new sociocognitive frame for analysing the development of teachers' knowledge--the knowledge integration perspective (Linn, Eylon, & Davis, in press; Linn & Hsi, 2000). In doing so, the paper describes one prospective elementary teacher's developing knowledge and highlights its complexity. The prospective teacher…

To date, the professional development school (PDS) preservice teacher preparation literature base is long on attitudinal analysis and short on comparative analysis of outcome variables. This article reports on a 2-year study comparing the lesson planning, teaching effectiveness, postlesson reflectivity, and content retention of professional…

The current movement in spirituality is extending into both K-12 and higher education. There is discussion at both levels of the need for the spiritual (not religion) to be a recognized part of the curriculum, to enable individuals to find personal meaning in the curriculum. This essay explores two themes--first, the importance of educators having…

Health educators are providing students with the health knowledge and health skills that are prerequisites for becoming health literate and using assessment tools to demonstrate effectiveness. In the school health educators' world, accountability equates to improved student knowledge and skills. To expect them to be held accountable for students'…

The concept of education "for" the environment is well documented in the literature but is apparently less common in practice. Some of the reasons provided for this rhetoric-reality gap include: the controversial and political nature of the subject, the difficulty of empowering students into meaningful action, the challenge of using…

Sex education in Portugal has become a right and an obligation starting in the first years of school. However, despite being required by legislation, this is not easy to achieve, partly because of weaknesses in the training of teachers, which need to be identified. In this study, data were collected about the knowledge, behaviours and beliefs of…

In Hong Kong, once a British colony, sex has traditionally been viewed as taboo and, as such, seldom talked about or openly discussed in public. As a result, there is reluctance on the part of most pre-to-secondary schools to implement sex education. The aim of this preliminary study was to investigate teachers' perceptions of preschool sex…

Student achievement and attitudes toward mathematics are influenced by the teacher, emphasizing the importance of quality teacher preparation. This study explored different preparations and the impact on pre-service teachers' pedagogical content knowledge. The sample included 96 pre-service teachers enrolled in a math course at one Midwestern…