Literacy is a concept that is continually evolving (Barr, Watts-Taffe, & Yokota, 2000). It is widely agreed that literacy emerges from a variety of abilities (Dickinson & McCabe, 2001). This perspective on development has implications for interventions because, if literacy-related skills emerge as interrelated systems, then optimal…

Although the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 dismisses the role of pedagogy in teacher education, teacher educators see the need for a deeper pedagogy that includes the teaching of thinking and socioemotional processes, which are missing in traditional teacher preparation programs. This article outlines criticisms of teacher education found in…

The purpose of this study was to determine the competencies (knowledge, skills, and abilities) required of effective Agricultural Science teachers both inside and outside the classroom as perceived by preservice and inservice teachers and to suggest ways that preservice teachers can gain those competencies prior to entering the teaching…

This paper investigates the effects of a sustained professional development project in South Australia in which a small group of preschool educators worked with the authors to develop their own knowledge and skills in facilitating young children's mathematical learning. Through the development of an approach to pedagogy that linked the mandated…

The article argues that preparing to be, in Shulman's words, "ready, willing and able" to teach with ICT can be supported by an integrative framework of teacher professional knowledge which recognizes connections between subject domain knowledge, the didactic relation with information and communications technology (ICT), and an openness…

Research into student teachers' perceptions, attitudes and prior experiences of learning suggests that these experiences can exert an influence on practice which can be relatively undisturbed by their initial teacher education. This article is based on the initial findings of an all-Ireland survey of all first-year students on B.Ed. courses in…

This article connects teachers' experiences of reflective school portfolio development to the idea of teachers' knowledge communities, the different groups and individuals with whom teachers negotiate meaning for their stories of experience, lived and told, and re-lived and re-told, over time. The reflective analysis makes the case that the…

This paper offers a reliability analysis of the teacher questionnaire used in the Teacher Education and Learning to Teach (TELT) Study conducted by the National Center for Research on Teacher Education (NCRTE). Data for the study were collected from 648 teachers and prospective teachers at 11 teacher education program sites throughout the United…

Numeracy can be defined as having the competence and disposition to use mathematics to meet the general demands of life at home, in paid work, and for participation in community and civic life (Willis 1992). An important aspect of developing the capacity to use mathematics in everyday life is, for students at school, to use mathematics to meet the…

The Mathematics Teacher Preparation Content Workshop, held March 19-21, 1999, focused on two questions: (1) What is the mathematical knowledge teachers need to know in order to teach well? and (2) How can teachers develop the mathematical knowledge they need to teach well? Chapters include: (1) "Knowledge of Fundamental Mathematics for Teaching"…

This document presents papers from a National Science Foundation (NSF) working conference to identify research issues and implementation strategies that support quality classroom assessment. Papers include: (1) "Understanding and Improving Classroom Assessment: Summary of Issues Raised" (George W. Bright and Jeane M. Joyner); (2) "Recommendations…

An experimental course, "Thinking about Writing," was started in 1999 at the University of Dundee and ran for three years across the first half of the B.Ed. Degree course for two consecutive years. The unit's focus was on a metacognitive approach to understanding writing, particularly knowledge about writing and monitoring of the writing…

This study addresses the question of how pre-service elementary teachers can be induced to change their attitudes to mathematics. Pre-service elementary teachers want to get mathematical answers right. They want to know which formulas to use, and how to get the correct answer. The paper presents transcriptions of student writing that illustrate…

This study was designed to investigate how a sample of primary student teachers developed their understanding of scientific ideas, their perceptions of the knowledge that they needed to teach the school curriculum, the sources of their learning, and their views on becoming teachers of science. Focus is placed on their own understandings of their…

This booklet describes and explains the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) national standards for social studies teachers; which were approved by the NCSS Board of Directors on April 27, 1997. The booklet consists of two general sections: (1) an introduction, which contains, in addition to an overview, information about the background…