Teacher preparation is a highly contested area in England with a range of epistemological approaches potentially being promoted through the availability of a range of preparation routes. The dominant model of teacher preparation used by programmes led by university education departments is that of developing reflective practitioners. However, other models, including those coined as ‘craftworker...

Not all graduates of teacher education programs become great teachers. Critiques of teaching quality consistently point a finger at teacher education, implying that if only teacher preparation was improved then better teaching would be more common. Teacher educators quite rightly identify all kinds of external factors that undermine their best efforts such as the poor funding of teacher educati...

Our new feature is a section with articles on teacher preparation. The Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC), an APS/AAPT/AIP program, will be soliciting these articles and organizing this section. PhysTEC provides dramatic improvement of science preparation of physics, physical science, and elementary teachers, developing programs that work at a wide range of institutions. Our thanks t...

Applying a modified-Delphi technique, this research study sought consensus from business education mentor teachers regarding the top three areas in which business education student teachers were prepared as well as underprepared for their roles as teachers. Further, the mentor teachers provided recommendations for business education teacher preparation programs to implement to better prepare th...

This paper describes a model for generating and accumulating knowledge for both teaching and teacher education. The model is applied first to prepare prospective teachers to learn to teach mathematics when they enter the classroom. The concept of treating lessons as experiments is used to explicate the intentional, rigorous, and systematic process of learning to teach through studying one’s own...

The middle years of schooling (Years 5-9) has emerged as a significant field of educational research in the last two decades but investigation of specialised approaches to middle level teacher education has received little attention. The rationale for specialised programs or units is that middle level teachers require specific preparation to be able to meet the educational needs of young adoles...

A number of factors affect successful implementation of an integrated science curriculum, including various outputs and inputs related to teacher quality such as professional development experiences, adequate planning periods, and adequate content preparation of teachers with regard to content knowledge associated with the curriculum taught (Huntley, 1998; Knudson, 1937; Leung, 2006; Palmer, 19...

Surprisingly, foundational knowledge about cognitive science (CS) is not included in all teacher preparation programs or required for certification in all states. Here, I examine the impact of infusing CS content into teachercandidates’ coursework by providing half of the pedagogy instructors with professional development on big ideas in CS (memory/attention/transfer/problem solving/practice/ex...