Section archive - Instruction in Teacher Training

This study examined preservice elementary teachers’ development of science content knowledge (SCK) within the context of an elementary science methods course. The findings reveal that the participating preservice elementary teachers strengthened and deepened their science content knowledge upon completing the course. This study suggests that any preexisting science content knowledge must be solidified and deepened and that potential misconceptions must be addressed.

This article describes development of an educational setting which fosters critical, social justice practices of teachers. Through course readings, museum visits, focus group discussions, and reflections on clinical observation experiences, preservice teachers developed a fictitious educational setting that incorporates critical, social justice practices and privileges the experiences and cultural backgrounds of all K-12 students. The authors developed recommendations for how future educators problematized ideas of courage, race, and diversity in developing the setting.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of three different computer integration models on Turkish pre-service mathematics teachers’ beliefs about using computers in mathematics education. The results indicated a remarkable change in beliefs within the Exploring Mathematical Relationships with Mathematical Software (EMReMaS) and Integrated Model (IM) groups concerning computer use in teaching and learning mathematics. Another significant result is that the beliefs of the students in the IM group are statistically higher than the ones from the EMReMaS group. The author suggests that pre-service mathematics teacher education programmes should give their students opportunities to learn about mathematical software and relevant instructional technologies and opportunities to use these technologies and software to design and implement reform-based mathematics lessons.

This study aimed to explore the influence of Singapore teachers’ beliefs on enacting new curricular content. Furthermore, as an attempt to address the gap in learning study literature, the authors also wanted to explore how the teachers’ beliefs changed and in turn prepared them to deal with new curricular initiatives. The outcome of the analysis resulted in capturing three ways the participating teachers experienced their own learning: (1) increased degrees of student-centered pedagogy and challenges to teachers’ prior assumptions about science pedagogy; (2) increased awareness of possibilities and limitations of their beliefs about science pedagogy; and (3) emergence of new understandings about new curricular content and science pedagogy.