Integrating Multicultural Children's Math Books Into Kindergarten Through Sixth-Grade Classrooms: Preservice Teachers' Reflections

This case study of mathematics instruction using children's literature reports on the experiences 47 elementary preservice teachers had in their mathematics methods course while completing a microteaching assignment. As part of the microteaching assignment, preservice teachers were required to plan and teach mathematics lessons based on children's books that included both mathematics concepts and multicultural aspects. The preservice teachers audio-recorded their lessons, transcribed the audio, and wrote reflective essays to articulate their experiences. At the end of the assignment, the professor and two additional researchers interviewed the preservice teachers about their experiences. Themes that emerged were (a) teaching experiences, (b) teaching performance, and (c) learning purposes and tools for integrating multicultural children's math books. The Learning Purposes and Teaching Strategies for Integrating Multicultural Mathematics Picturebooks Framework was developed to demonstrate the intricate balance needed to ensure mathematics learning happens during instruction with multicultural mathematics picturebooks.     

Saudi arabian students' chemistry achievement and science attitudes stemming from lecture-demonstration and small group teaching methods

The study was designed to determine differences between two chemistry teaching methods on students' chemistry achievement and attitudes toward science. The two methods were the large lecture-demonstration and small-group laboratory approaches to teaching chemistry. The subjects were 74 eleventh-grade Saudi Arabian students randomly assigned to the two treatment groups. The findings revealed that the small-group laboratory students exhibited significantly greater chemistry achievement than students in the lecture-demonstration group on both immediate and delayed posttests. The results also indicated that students taught by the lab approach possessed more desirable attitudes toward science.     

The Experiences and Personal Religious Beliefs of Egyptian Science Teachers as a Framework for Understanding the Shaping and Reshaping of their Beliefs and Practices about Science‐Technology‐Society (STS)

This research investigates the role of experience in relation to teachers’ beliefs and practices. The study adopted a social‐cultural constructivist perspective using an interpretive approach. The research was guided by teachers’ interpretations of their experiences related to teaching science through Science‐Technology‐Society (STS) issues. These interpretations are re‐interpreted to find meaningful conceptual categories (grounded in the data) from which to build a model to understand the influence of experiences within socio‐Islamic culture on teachers’ beliefs and practices. Data was collected from ten teachers using interviews and observations. The findings of this study suggest that it was mainly teachers’ personal religious beliefs and experiences that shaped their beliefs and practices. The research also led to a model, constructed on the basis of the data analysis, which suggests an explanation of how teachers’ personal religious beliefs and experiences influence their beliefs and practices.