Despite the long history of the study of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), two facts remain obvious. First, there are almost as many conceptions regarding the definition of PCK as there are researchers interested in it. Second, it is largely unclear which methods enable teacher educators to best prepare teacher candidates to use PCK. Recently,…

Understanding and promoting effective teaching are central concerns of the engineering education community. This paper reports on research to investigate the processes by which construction of teaching portfolios in a socially supportive context can promote the advancement of teaching knowledge and ability. By characterizing how a specific…

The authors examine the field of contemporary teacher knowledge research. Specifically, they examine the use of narrative representations by researchers in this field. They make a general argument for the development of distinct narrative genres in teacher knowledge research because considerations of distinct genre styles can help researchers…

This article challenges the tradition in much history education research of privileging teachers' content knowledge--and within this area, their understanding of evidence and epistemology--in explorations of the knowledge shaping their pedagogical reasoning and practice. Moving away from the normative statements that often follow from this…

The relation between teaching, instruction and children's learning arises whenever models of the teaching-learning process are discussed or whenever problems of learning occur. Despite massive research efforts we still know little about how differences in learning activities are related to students' learning. The primacy of teachers and teaching…

Most teacher education programs receive many more applications than they can accept. How should programs select among applicants and how should the programs evaluate the success of their selection processes? In this article we review the criteria utilized throughout North America to select prospective teachers into education programs. The…

This sixth and last paper in the series describes four elements believed to be crucial to a high quality pedagogy for educational foundations. These four elements are derived from a close reading of the previous papers. The work of Osguthorpe, Sanger, Haniford, and Mucher, four of the authors in this series, is cited as both a source for these…

This investigation asked a small group of student teachers participating in their first pre-service teaching practice in New Zealand to state what they understood by the term feedback, how they expected to be given feedback, what they hoped to gain from the feedback they received, and what they found useful, particularly in relation to influencing…

In this paper, we review various challenges in regard to educating children with and without disabilities from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds. The challenges discussed include (1) biased assessment that results in mis- or overrepresenting CLD students in special education, (2) difficulty distinguishing between disability…

State oversight for teacher preparation programs mostly ignores the impact of graduates on the K-12 students they teach, and it gives little attention to where graduates teach or how long they remain in the profession. There is no evidence that current state policies hold programs to high standards in order to produce teachers who can help…

Our current system for holding U.S. teacher education programs accountable doesn't guarantee program quality or serve the needs of schools and students. State oversight for teacher preparation programs mostly ignores the impact of graduates on the K-12 students they teach, and it gives little attention to where graduates teach or how long they…

Student initiatives play an important role in inquiry-based science with all students, including English language learning (ELL) students. This study examined initiatives that elementary students made as they participated in an intervention to promote science learning and English language development over a three-year period. In addition, the…

With the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA), the definition of a specific learning disability was significantly altered. No longer is it required that a student demonstrate a discrepancy between ability and performance to receive educational support (Horowitz, 1999). With this in mind,…

Becoming "Asia literate" is a pivotal part of the federal government's "Education Revolution". The federal government asserts that "equipping young Australians with the knowledge and skills to communicate and work with our regional neighbours...such skills must be a core element of an Australian school curriculum"…

An important aspect of developing science literacy for all students is developing science-literate teachers. With the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, many middle school teachers found themselves in a position where they were no longer qualified to teach middle school science. This study was designed to help science teachers…