The history, culture and practices of Central America are inadequately addressed in teacher preparation and professional development across the United States, and especially in California based on the author's analysis of teacher preparation. Information about the histories, cultures and practices add to the linguistic and pedagogic knowledge-base…

Mainland China has a highly centralised curriculum development system. A study of two schools in northeast China, one in a rural area and the other in an urban area, indicates that the primary mathematics curriculum has been widely adopted by teachers at the classroom level. Feeling the intense pressure generated by the national mathematics…

For over a decade, school-based mentoring has been employed as a key strategy in initial teacher training programmes. The diversity apparent in training settings as well as trainees' backgrounds raises questions in relation to the mentoring practice and the knowledge base that underpins it. By adopting a phenomenological, social constructivist…

Models play an important role in science education. However, previous research has revealed that science teachers' content knowledge, curricular knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge on models and modelling are often incomplete or inadequate. From this perspective, a research project was designed which aimed at the development of beginning…

This study considered middle school mathematics teachers use of rubrics to score non-traditional tasks. A group of eighth-grade teachers attended a two-day workshop where they evaluated assessment tasks and discussed the use of an associated scoring rubric. Scored samples of student work submitted by the teachers indicated that they had difficulty…

Many teacher education programs are working at a feverish pitch to ensure that their graduates are considered "highly qualified" in light of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, which reduces teacher competency to proof of subject matter knowledge as demonstrated by passing a state test and completing requisite number of courses in the…

The intent of this qualitative study is to narrate (Brodkey, (1987a). "Education Quarterly," 18, 67-76; "Written communication," 4, 25-70; Qualitative communication research methods. (1987b). Lindlof, (1995). (pp. 172-174): London Sage Publications) the master teachers as aggregate sample subjects' pedagogical understanding and…

In every classroom where interactivity is part of the learning process, teachers become facilitators. Facilitating in the multicultural classroom presents special challenges for teachers in overcoming psychosocial problems that may be present when people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds interact. Students represent different…

Staff development is aimed at changing practice. Change creates conflict. Little work has been done to gain insight into the conflict that teachers experience in the implementation of staff development. This study examines conflict in a staff development project aimed at increasing teachers' knowledge and implementation of problem-based integrated…

We report the development of an assessment instrument that provides a profile of the attainment and the errors of pre-service primary teachers across the mathematics curriculum. We describe test development, analyses and test validation involving a sample of 426 pre-service teachers in the first year of their training in primary education courses…

During the last two decades teachers in many countries have found themselves facing new demands and changes. In his "intensification thesis" Apple made a powerful attempt to conceptualize and explain these changes: the growing economic and management oriented perspective on education leads to intensification of teachers' work, implying deskilling…

The specialist knowledge and skills of science teachers is far too easily overlooked and undervalued, due, in part, to the tacit nature of the knowledge that underpins expert science teachers' practice. For science teachers to better recognize, describe, and share their professional knowledge there is a need to develop new and meaningful ways…

In 1933, Dewey presented a speech in which he linked democracy, social class, and teacher activism as integral factors when addressing educational issues. This article argues that those issues include social issues as well. It examines democracy, social class, and present problems in the preparation of teachers, organized around the 1933 questions…

In this article, the authors conducted a bit of action research. As a starting point, they gathered information from physical education majors regarding their knowledge of appropriate practices in elementary physical education as outlined by the Council on Physical Education for Children (COPEC). The authors constructed an 80-item survey from…

What does it take to become effective teachers of students of culturally, ethnically, linguistically, and racially diverse backgrounds? Based on research with teachers over the past several years, this paper discusses what it means to teach students of diverse backgrounds with heart, courage and conviction, and the implications of their practice…