Describes the shift in view concerning conditions of knowledge in education, examining the practical ramifications of positivism and ways in which it impacted relationships between professors and school practitioners. The paper discusses the emergence of phronesis as an alternative to episteme as an orientation to knowledge, exploring the…

A survey of 69 agriculture master's students at Texas Tech and Texas A & M universities received 46 responses. Students rated perceived competence highest in the areas of enhancing teaching and learning, ability to focus attention and deliver information, and content skills. Lowest ratings were in cross-national agriculture, effective use of…

Investigates the relationship of subject matter knowledge in science and the patterns of entering, leaving, and remaining in the teaching profession among college graduates trained as science teachers. Science subject matter knowledge was found to have significant (P=0.01) effect on the likelihood of being a nonrecruited versus a career teacher…

Provides evidence that explanations provided by qualified science graduates and by writers of textbooks do not necessarily make sense from a scientific or even a logical perspective when critically examined. Suggests that the process of sharing ideas is problematic and teachers and pupils need to examine critically each other's understanding and…

Study investigated elementary student teachers' propositional knowledge of classroom management, examining their conceptions of control. Elementary student teachers completed a survey with two tasks designed to elicit thinking about rule-based, dominance, and nurturance conceptions of classroom control. Results indicated rule-based conceptions…

This study explored the kinds of interpretive frameworks that university professors used in constructing and implementing pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in order to understand better the generic nature of PCK. Phenomenological interviews with professors who were recognized as experienced teachers indicated that they constructed and used…

Identified images, ideas, and knowledge that preservice elementary educators brought with them to their programs, noting changes resulting from coursework. At the beginning of the semester and 13 weeks later, students wrote and drew about their images of ideal teachers. Less than half of the students had clear images, and half had conflicted or…

Discusses ways in which teachers in Texas have managed to keep up with trends in educational technology and thus raise their teaching effectiveness. Describes the process of teachers as learners that developed from a professional-development program. The program provided computer knowledge in all commonly used areas, and furnished all participants…

Describes a framework for investigating approaches to mathematics teaching, in light of recent reforms, which is used to explore the struggles of a veteran middle-school mathematics teacher as he attempted to modify his teaching practices. Concludes that the teacher was successful in broadening some aspects of his pedagogical thinking and…

Shares experiences and growth in a teacher's knowledge about learning while teaching mathematics. (ASK)

Describes some of the problems inherent in preparing teacher-education students to become elementary school teachers when they have minimal skills and knowledge in the content areas they will someday be teaching. Suggests that little can be changed or improved without concomitant changes in the prevailing information-age culture. (Author/LRW)

Primary teachers should understand the nature of the real-number system and the relationships among its subsets. Presents results of a study in which preservice primary teachers (n=58) and first- and second-year mathematics students (n=47) completed a survey on the real-number system. Concludes that the second-year students were the best…

Examines changes in official Finnish school-reform discourse over the past 30 years, noting four discursive changes from the 1860s to the 1990s (individualization of students, disciplinization of teaching knowledge, goal rationalization, and decontextualization). Interprets these shifts as the result of a blend of utopianism and rationalism which…

Teachers (N=110) of students with visual impairments in Florida were surveyed to determine their use of various types of access technologies. Although each category of device, with the exception of refreshable braille devices, was used by at least 25% of the teachers, most respondents were not familiar with most of the devices listed, and lacked…

Identifies subject and teaching knowledge that primary school teachers can use to effectively develop children's understanding of electricity and simple circuits. Presents a set of electricity concepts that are appropriate for primary children to explore. Contains 19 references. (DDR)