Education & Pedagogy

Describes a project that combines technology, teacher education, and the use of manipulatives for mathematics instruction to enhance the professional development of prospective teachers. The multimedia developed in the project are a means of bringing the classroom environment to the university to facilitate discussions about prospective teachers' beliefs about mathematics teaching. (SM)

Examines technology use in teacher preparation, emerging state and national standards for educators and technology, and benchmarks for teacher preparation programs (including faculty preparation), and notes the importance of creating school-business partnerships to help finance this costly venture. (SM)

Describes preservice teacher education reform efforts at California State University San Marcos via program development and curricular design innovation. Beginning faculty worked on creating a middle level teacher education program informed by critiques of teacher education, visions for restructured middle schooling, and institutional realities. (SM)

Presents a series of studies that show how applicant-reported biodata, together with standard academic criteria, were used to select candidates in one Canadian preservice teacher education program. Analysis of data from 1986-90 indicates that assigning equal weight to academic and personal criteria has several advantages. (SM)

This paper examines current problems with schools of education, suggesting that while they are neither very successful at accomplishing the marriage of theory and practice nor well-rewarded for trying, there is great potential in a collective re-thinking about the future of schools of education. (SM)

To prepare undergraduates for careers in physical education it is recommended that physical activity courses develop varied knowledge bases related to the teaching of physical activity and that they integrate information across knowledge bases. The article discusses the history, current status, and future of the issue. (SM)

Paper illustrates how a prominent Chinese educator (and former student of John Dewey) experimented with Dewey's philosophy in Chinese teacher education, creating a normal school in rural China that prepared rural teachers, enhanced village renewal, encouraged school-community relationships, and met China's unique challenges and needs. (SM)

Describes four approaches to utilizing and addressing cultural differences in the classroom: multicultural education, anti-bias curriculum, global education, and international education. Presents diversity education techniques in terms of direct communication (explicit), indirect communication (implicit), cultural information resources available in print and via Internet, and directions for curriculum development. (SD)

Argues that comparative studies in higher education are helpful in conceptual restructuring and in understanding how higher education is shaped by common international trends, reforms based on comparisons, increasing trans-national cooperation, and some supra-national integration of systems. Recommends a semi-structured research design allowing for various conceptual approaches and for sometimes surprising research outcomes. (MSE)

The process of developing an online course through Women's International Electronic University revealed constraints many women face in continuing education participation, especially regarding family and work. Course developers faced challenges of teaching less technologically literate students through a technical medium, cost-recovery constraints, and time balance demands. (SK)

Researchers studied English and Swedish biology student teachers' perceptions of teaching health as part of biology. As part of the study, the students investigated secondary students' understanding of health. Surveys and interviews were effective in collecting student teachers' views. They indicated that student teachers' perceptions changed over a year, and student teachers learned about their pupils' misunderstandings about health. (SM)

Addresses the argument that the arts can empower education reform through two means: (1) teaching all children the arts and (2) teaching the arts as central to all learning. Conveys that by concentrating on aesthetic literacy and the nonuniversality of children's artistic development, arts educators will gain support for teaching the arts in elementary schools. (CMK)

Responds to a conference held in March 1996 entitled "Ongoing Inquiry" and designed to present the research methods and results of a five-year study of aesthetic education at the Lincoln Center Institute (New York). Discusses the assessment methods used, the assumptions underlying the assessment project, and the value of aesthetic education overall. (CMK)

Review of 205 continuing medical education (CME) websites found the following: most university sites offered only class schedules; far more commercial sites than university sites offered online CME content; 60-80% of content met quality control standards; only 10% of sites provided information on peer review of content. (SK)

All forms of teacher education share a common ground: they are rhetorical in nature and aimed at persuading teachers. This paper provides a case study of a reform project that seeks to support teachers rather than exerting power over them. The paper calls for an explicitly rhetorical approach to teacher education that is powerful without abusing that power. (SM)