Junior high school science teacher preparation,teaching behavior,and student achievement

The findings challenge both practices and prejudices in junior high school science teacher preparation.     

A teacher education program in elementary science that connects content,methods, practicum,and student teaching

Conclusion To educate teachers who have adequate content knowledge, possess the necessary skills to implement effective teaching strategies, and are confident and have positive attitudes toward science and the teaching of science, alternative teaching models are necessary. The University of Wyoming model provides such an alternative. Based on observations and interviews of students and the mentor teachers, it is apparent that it has created a very positive response in prospective teachers who have participated in it. The Wyoming model provided an effective process to train future elementary teachers. Even though it focused on science, the basis is general enough that it could be successfully extended to other disciplines with only minor modifications; however, all of the major components of the Wyoming model are vital to its success. Content courses designed specifically for prospective teachers have been successful in giving the students the content knowledge and providing opportunities for effective modeling. The seminars provide strong mechanisms to connect content to methodology and make the content relevant to teaching and to children. Because of their modeling, peer coaching, and sharing their time and students, the mentor teachers are essential partners in helping the university educate future teachers. Finally, the cooperation of all partners—district administrators, teachers, science content and science education university faculty, and students—is necessary to provide early and continuous experiences to prospective teachers. This material is based upon work supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Grant No. TTE-8851105). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, and/or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the NSF.     

Teaching in elementary school: Perceptions of foreign-trained teacher candidates on their teaching practicum

The Alternative Teacher Accreditation Program for Teachers with International Experience (ATAPTIE) is a special Bachelor of Education program funded by the Ontario government in Canada to provide new immigrants with the skills and knowledge needed to re-certify and find jobs in Ontario elementary schools. This paper presents interview data that explores the opportunities and challenges ATAPTIE teacher candidates experienced in their teaching practicum. Lave and Wenger's notion of situated learning [(1991). Situated learning. New York: Cambridge University Press] was used to understand the candidates’ learning and acculturation into the teaching profession. Findings contribute to how professional immigrants from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds adapt to Canadian elementary classrooms.     

The team teaching experiences of pre-service science teachers implementing PBL in elementary school

The current phenomenological-qualitative case study examined the team teaching related experiences of 17 Israeli student teachers in the context of using the project-based teaching method in the course of their pedagogical practicum module conducted in elementary schools. The focus of the study was on participants’ experiences in terms of quality and content. Data collection methods included reflective reports and in-depth interviews. Data analysis was conducted using the qualitative method for content analysis. Findings of the study indicate that during team teaching, the student teachers underwent a process of four qualitatively different experiential stages, each of which is characterised by a unique set of experiences. There was also a qualitative difference at each stage between the experiences of student teachers who emerged with an overall positive assessment and those who emerged with an overall negative assessment of team teaching. The practical implications of the findings are discussed. This research contributes to the professional literature on the team teaching of science courses, and may serve to encourage educators to implement team teaching as part of student teachers‘ practicum involving a project based, student centred methodology.     

我国中小学学校与学生的法律关系浅析

学校与学生的法律关系是委托监护关系，这是学生被保护的需要，也是学校和教师职责所决定的。但是学校对学生的监护是在特定时间和空间负有部分监护职责，对学校事故民事责任的承担，学校与监护人的责任有根本不同。     

The political socialization of children and the structure of the elementary school

Based on Dreeben's (1968) work, this paper suggests some of the mechanisms by which the social structure of the school influences the political socialization of children. The structural characteristics considered are the age-cohort classroom and the pupil-teacher authority relationship. These characteristics are hypothesized to lead to several social-psychological consequences, including the development of a generalized other of peers, a sense of personal efficacy, the perception of non-family authority figures as benevolent, and the expectation that these authorities will behave universalistically. These consequences are then linked to political orientations toward the political community, regime, and authorities.

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Résumé Cet article, basé sur le travail de Dreeben (1968), suggère quelques moyens par lesquels la structure sociale de l'école influe sur la socialization politique des enfants. Les caractéristiques structurales desquelles on traite sont la classe déterminée par l'âge des enfants et la relation d'autorité entre l'élève et l'enseignant. En considérant ces caractéristiques, on émet des hypothèses qui ont plusieurs conséquences psychologiques et sociales, y inclus le développement d'un autre généralisé des pairs, un sens de l'efficacité personnelle, la perception des personnages d'autorité hors de la famille comme bénévolents, et l'expectative que ces autorités se comporteront universellement. Ensuite on montre les liens entre ces conséquences et les orientations politiques vers la communauté, le régime, et les autorités politiques.

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Cornell University

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An extended and revised version of a paper originally presented at a meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, February 1968.     

Toward the mark of empowering policies in elementary school science programs and teacher professional development

In this commentary, I discuss how policy initiatives play out in two different contexts for elementary school teachers yet produce very similar outcomes regarding teachers’ professional development and school science learning for elementary students. Ironically, the outcomes that we want see in elementary school science learning and professional development are not realized when policies are introduced that distract from practices that were working prior to new reforms.     

Differential effects of three professional development models on teacher knowledge and student achievement in elementary science

To identify links among professional development, teacher knowledge, practice, and student achievement, researchers have called for study designs that allow causal inferences and that examine relationships among features of interventions and multiple outcomes. In a randomized experiment implemented in six states with over 270 elementary teachers and 7,000 students, this project compared three related but systematically varied teacher interventions—Teaching Cases, Looking at Student Work, and Metacognitive Analysis—along with no‐treatment controls. The three courses contained identical science content components, but differed in the ways they incorporated analysis of learner thinking and of teaching, making it possible to measure effects of these features on teacher and student outcomes. Interventions were delivered by staff developers trained to lead the teacher courses in their regions. Each course improved teachers' and students' scores on selected‐response science tests well beyond those of controls, and effects were maintained a year later. Student achievement also improved significantly for English language learners in both the study year and follow‐up, and treatment effects did not differ based on sex or race/ethnicity. However, only Teaching Cases and Looking at Student Work courses improved the accuracy and completeness of students' written justifications of test answers in the follow‐up, and only Teaching Cases had sustained effects on teachers' written justifications. Thus, the content component in common across the three courses had powerful effects on teachers' and students' ability to choose correct test answers, but their ability to explain why answers were correct only improved when the professional development incorporated analysis of student conceptual understandings and implications for instruction; metacognitive analysis of teachers' own learning did not improve student justifications either year. Findings suggest investing in professional development that integrates content learning with analysis of student learning and teaching rather than advanced content or teacher metacognition alone. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 333–362, 2012     

The occurrence of analogies in elementary school science books

An analogy is a model drawn from one contextand used to support understanding in anothercontext. This study investigates the extent towhich analogies in instructional science booksare provided by authors. The books surveyed areavailable from commercial suppliers andintended for use in the elementary schoolclassroom with 7 to 11 year old children.Eighty texts were analysed for the presence orabsence of analogies. Forty-five of the booksoffered no analogies at all. In the remainingthirty-five books, 92 analogies were found.These were classified in line with earlier workon analogies for older students by Curtis andReigeluth (1984) and the findings arediscussed. The extent to which teachers candraw upon the analogies in such texts tosupport children's understanding isconsidered.