Emphasizing subject matter content standards in teacher education can improve early childhood education and yield long-term benefits for the development and learning of the whole child. The author discusses in depth his five recommendations to teacher educators for learning content standards and incorporating them into teaching. These are: (1)…

It is in general considered self-evident that those people who will later transfer the educational content of culture to children and youth should themselves have first assimilated intensively as much of this culture as possible. They will then be able to pass on their education to others because they will know how such processes are gotten under…

The preparation of teachers in any discipline is a complex enterprise with an array of stakeholders serving as gatekeepers. In the May "Kappan", Sam Wineburg focused his analysis of the preparation of social studies teachers on the curriculum standards of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and on the teacher preparation…

This article reports the findings of a shared review of the initial preparation of teachers for special educational needs (SEN) in Ireland. The research was funded by the Centre for Cross Border Studies as part of its remit to support collaborative developments by teacher educators throughout Ireland, North and South. Policies for SEN and for…

There are concerns about the quality of religious education teaching in England and a national framework for religious education has been developed to give the subject a firmer basis. This basis comprises knowledge, skills and understanding that involves thinking about and with reasons. Teachers of young children cannot be experts in all subjects.…

In the past, autobiographical writing was often used in teacher education courses simply as a way to identify the concerns of pre-service teachers, to bring those concerns forward so that they might better be addressed. Increasingly, teacher educators have recognized the importance of the individual's lived experience as relevant to the…

Environmental educators often maintain that primary school education should endeavour to improve and protect the environment through producing an "environmentally informed, committed and active citizenry," yet existing research shows that the implementation of environmental education in primary schools is problematic and has had limited…

States have fashioned wildly different ways of judging whether teachers already in the classroom meet the federal standard of "highly qualified," raising the possibility that teachers in some states will not face the high hurdle that Congress intended. However, to be deemed highly qualified under the federal law, teachers must hold a…

A fundamental issue inherent to education policy is whether teacher qualifications such as certification status, degree level, preparation, and experience predict student achievement. While existing research provides some direction regarding the potential importance of these qualifications for productivity in secondary schools, less is known about…

This paper addresses concerns regarding the preparedness of newly qualified teachers to deliver Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) in the United Kingdom in relation to the training received during Initial Teacher Education and through early Continuing Professional Development. The paper is situated not only within a context where OfSTED…

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…

The purpose of this qualitative exploratory study was to investigate the perceived state of civics education as viewed by practicing teachers in three large high schools (each with a student enrollment of at least 2,200) in the midwestern and southeastern United States, in an effort to discover what teachers in different geographical regions deem…

This issue of the Center's "Systems Newsletter" will be the last one published under the aegis of Dr. JoyceVanTassel-Baska, the Center's founder and current Executive Director. As of this August Dr. VanTassel-Baska will officially retire from the College of William and Mary and the Center. She will still be an integral part of the Center…

This study compares the views of teachers and professional development facilitators about effective professional development (PD). We analyzed interviews with 72 teacher participants and 23 PD facilitators involved in nine science and mathematics PD projects. The teachers' themes for characterizing effective PD included classroom application,…

This study explored the potential acceptability of performance pay to new teachers by investigating attitudes toward performance pay of students preparing to be teachers. Focus groups and a survey of students preparing to be teachers at a large U.S. university were conducted. Most students expressed a preference for some form of performance pay…