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Metacognition in science teaching involves processes that include self-awareness and self-regulation. Metacognition enables the teachers to facilitate student learning and to reflect on their teaching in order to enable themselves to improve or to make any changes to their teaching. In particular, teaching activities, especially in the 21st century, do not merely involve the transfer of knowledge and then applying that knowledge into daily life, but teachers need to reflect, plan and evaluate learning outcomes to enhance further in teaching. This study attempts to gain the perspective and implementation of metacognition skills in teaching science in the primary school classroom. The data was collected through a qualitative research method based on interviews with six science teachers in primary school using semi-structured interview protocol. The interview data were analysed for emerging themes, guided by the research questions. Teachers have a similar perspective of the understanding of metacognition in science teaching. Further discussion focuses on the implementation of metacognition in science teaching. This discussion is divided into three aspects, which are constraints faced, overcoming the constraints, and efforts made to implement metacognition in science teaching. Hence, the understanding of science teachers in regards to metacognition in science teaching is important and gives a positive impact towards teaching and learning in primary science teaching.

This is a qualitative study with a twofold aim. The first aim is to describe and analyse teachers' perceptions of advantages and challenges with a model for continued professional development (CPD) for primary school teachers. The CPD course was about inquiry-based learning (IBL) in science education. The second aim of the study is to analyse the teachers' thoughts after implementing inquiry-based methods in their own science teaching. The empirical data, in the form of video transcriptions, notes, interviews and results from electronic forms, were collected during and after four separate in-service courses for teachers (N=26). The analysis of the data is done through thematic analysis. As positive results, the teachers emphasised the implementation of IBL with their students and the individual mentoring, which were parts of the CPD model. Teachers highlighted the importance of students' possibilities to make investigations based on their own questions, which proved to have a positive impact on students' interest and motivation. Teachers also saw the importance of their own planning and goal setting. The results indicate that the teachers perceived a tension between having control and relinquishing control, which can become a challenge. Two other challenges were teachers' perceived lack of time for planning and implementing but also teachers' deficient subject knowledge.

In the last years, research has paid strong attention to pre-service primary teachers’ views of mathematics. Interviews and questionnaires to pre-service teachers during their academic studies are the mainly used tools for collecting data. Qualitative and quantitative approaches may give different insights. In this paper, after a review of the different methods used in the literature to face the topic of pre-service primary teachers’ views of mathematics, we propose a new method. A clustering technique is applied to data collected with multiple-answer questions about pre-service primary teachers’ views of mathematical ability. Obtained clusters are interpreted and compared.

This study used an experimental, pretest-posttest control group design to investigate whether participation in a large-scale inquiry project would improve primary teachers’ attitudes towards teaching science and towards conducting inquiry. The inquiry project positively affected several elements of teachers’ attitudes. Teachers felt less anxious about teaching science and felt less dependent on contextual factors compared to the control group. With regard to attitude towards conducting inquiry, teachers felt less anxious and more able to conduct an inquiry project. There were no effects on other attitude components, such as self-efficacy beliefs or relevance beliefs, or on self-reported science teaching behaviour. These results indicate that practitioner research may have a partially positive effect on teachers’ attitudes, but that it may not be sufficient to fully change primary teachers’ attitudes and their actual science teaching behaviour. In comparison, a previous study showed that attitude-focused professional development in science education has a more profound impact on primary teachers’ attitudes and science teaching behaviour. In our view, future interventions aiming to stimulate science teaching should combine both approaches, an explicit focus on attitude change together with familiarisation with inquiry, in order to improve primary teachers’ attitudes and classroom practices.

The present work presents the results of a research carried out with teachers of primary education of a private school located in the city of Sao Paulo. The abovementioned research investigated teachers’ conceptions about problem solving approach, trying to understand how this concept exert influence in their practice. The theoretical framework was composed by ideas of Guy Brousseau, specifically those concerning the theory of didactic situations (TDS) and the concept of didactic contract. This qualitative research consisted of two distinct instruments: a questionnaire aiming at the analysis of these conceptions and the subsequent observation of the classes of these teachers, aiming at a confrontation between discourse and practice. The results showed that the subjects understand the importance of their problematizing role in the classes and value the mathematical thinking of the students; however, they still have some difficulty in organizing an antagonistic milieu, capable of provoking imbalances and autonomous advances in knowledge construction. Some effects of the didactic contract were also identified and described. El presente trabajo trae los resultados de una investigación realizada junto a las profesoras polivalentes de los años iniciales de una escuela de la red privada de São Paulo que investigó cuáles son sus concepciones acerca del tema Resolución de Problemas, buscando comprender de qué manera ejercen influencia en su práctica. El cuadro teórico recurre a las ideas de Guy Brousseau, específicamente aquellas relativas a la teoría de las situaciones didácticas (TSD) y al concepto de contrato didáctico. La investigación, de abordaje cualitativo, se valió de dos instrumentos distintos: un cuestionario objetivando el análisis de esas concepciones y la posterior observación de las clases de esas profesoras, buscando un enfrentamiento entre discurso y práctica. Los resultados apuntaron que los sujetos comprenden la importancia de su papel problematizador en las clases y valoran el pensamiento matemático de los estudiantes; sin embargo, todavía tienen cierta dificultad en organizar un milieu antagonista, capaz de provocar desequilibrios y avances autónomos en la construcción del conocimiento. Además, se identificaron algunos efectos del contrato didáctico, debidamente descritos. O presente trabalho traz os resultados de uma pesquisa realizada junto às professoras polivalentes dos anos iniciais de uma escola da rede privada de São Paulo que investigou quais são suas concepções a respeito do tema Resolução de Problemas, buscando compreender de que maneira exercem influência em sua prática. O quadro teórico recorre às ideias de Guy Brousseau, especificamente aquelas relativas à teoria das situações didáticas (TSD) e ao conceito de contrato didático. A investigação, de abordagem qualitativa, valeu-se de dois instrumentos distintos: um questionário objetivando a análise dessas concepções e a posterior observação das aulas dessas professoras, visando um confronto entre discurso e prática. Os resultados apontaram que os sujeitos compreendem a importância de seu papel problematizador nas aulas e valorizam o pensamento matemático dos alunos, contudo ainda têm certa dificuldade em organizar um milieu antagonista, capaz de provocar desequilíbrios e avanços autônomos na construção do conhecimento. Identificou-se, ainda, alguns efeitos do contrato didático, devidamente descritos.

The use of open problem-solving tasks in mathematics education challenges teachers’ beliefs, knowledge and practices. This article examines the practices of two primary teachers and their 3rd to 5th grade classes during a three-year in-service teacher training project aiming to increase mathematical problem-solving in class. Three lesson videos and two interviews with each teacher were used to provide the data for this study. The results show how different teachers in terms of their beliefs, knowledge and practices during the problem-solving activities can produce mathematically different learning opportunities. Teacher Ann saw mathematics as too rigorous, and to combat this, gave her pupils a great deal of autonomy. Her pupils were encouraged to come up with creative solutions. Teacher Beate emphasized mathematical understanding. Her pupils were guided cognitively and they came up with mathematically elegant solutions. In teaching open problem-solving both autonomy and cognitive guidance are needed. The use of open problem-solving tasks in mathematics education challenges teachers’ beliefs, knowledge and practices. This article examines the practices of two primary teachers and their 3rd to 5th grade classes during a three-year in-service teacher training project aiming to increase mathematical problem-solving in class. Three lesson videos and two interviews with each teacher were used to provide the data for this study. The results show how different teachers in terms of their beliefs, knowledge and practices during the problem-solving activities can produce mathematically different learning opportunities. Teacher Ann saw mathematics as too rigorous, and to combat this, gave her pupils a great deal of autonomy. Her pupils were encouraged to come up with creative solutions. Teacher Beate emphasized mathematical understanding. Her pupils were guided cognitively and they came up with mathematically elegant solutions. In teaching open problem-solving both autonomy and cognitive guidance are needed.

Living in a context marked by pluralism and heterogeneity is never straightforward, even less so if you belong to a marginalised part of society, in terms of social status, culture and religion. The processes that lead to social exclusion take effect in the first years of a child's life and too often they are formalised in the school system. In Italy, research data and statistics reveal a deep-rooted disparity in the academic trajectories of students from a migrant background when compared with what we might term “native” students. Since the reduced level of attainment of such “non-Italian” students is already noticeable in primary school, where the formal process of acquiring the language skills required in education takes place, we decided to work with teachers from this level of schooling to discover if, and in what way, they have the skills and training required to teach such students. The teachers chosen had taught in multicultural classes for a total of at least five years. Hoping to ascertain whether these teachers employed intercultural competencies in their teaching practice – and if so, which ones – we selected a method based on the narration of a problem situation encountered during their time in teaching. To date, fifty teachers have been interviewed. Analysis of the interviews reveals a heterogeneous reality, with some teachers displaying new forms of sensitivity and cultural competence in response to a changing world and a changing school population, while others seem entrenched in an outdated mindset.

In this study, the effects of primary education teachers ‘technology literacy skills on students’ success is examined. Using stratified random sampling, the sample of the study was selected among 5th grade primary school teachers in Afyonkarahisar. Data was collected by Information Technology Literacy Survey developed by the researcher, a personal information questionnaire and the 5th grade general performance test which is applied twice a year by the National Ministry of Education. It was found that teachers’ technology literacy skills did not affect students’ success. Education and teaching, instructional technology, the utilization of instructional technology and its effects were further discussed.

Relationship with mathematics is a crucial variable in the professional development of pre-service primary teachers: it can largely affect pre-service teachers’ reactions to educational prompts and also their future didactical choices in classroom. Many researches showed that pre-service primary teachers have often developed a negative relationship with mathematics during their mathematical experience as students. This paper adopts a narrative methodology to investigate about the origins and development of these relationships. Specifically, it investigates how pre-service primary teachers tell the events that they recognize as crucial for the development of their relationship with mathematics. Results indicate the relevance of success/failure experiences, and the key-role of the teacher therein.

Bu çalışma, 04-08 Şubat 2010 tarihleri arasında İstanbul[Türkiye]’da düzenlenen 2. World Conference on Educational Sciences (WCES-2010)’da bildiri olarak sunulmuştur. The aim of this study is to propose a categorization of concept drawings that permits the analysis of preservice primary teachers' conceptualization. Students were asked to draw a rectangle in the course of a mathematics lesson and a flower in that of science. The sample included 50 students from the primary education department at Uludag University, Bursa, Turkey. Their responses were analyzed using the same grid. Two main categories were distinguished: the drawing of a concept's structure (conceptual, iconic, redundant/missing drawing) and labeling/coding of the concept's parts (comprehensive, partial, incorrect labeling). The first finding shows that students who produced a response categorized as conceptual and iconic drawings were identified as in the comprehensive labeling category. Thus, there may be a relationship between conceptual and iconic drawings and conceptual comprehension. Another finding concerns the similarities in the categorization of responses for both maths and science questions. Students who made iconic and conceptual drawings were able to label more correctly than students who drew a redundant/missing drawing. In addition, it can also be said that for the biology drawing the whole flower was observed whereas in geometry an abstract subject which is not generally observed was made physical by the drawing.

This paper presents a study concerning Greek primary school teachers’ (n = 162) ideas about the particulate nature of matter and their explanations of physical phenomena. The study took place during an in‐service training course where the effectiveness of a specially designed intervention was tested. A key feature was an approach based on the concept of a substance and its states rather than “solids, liquids, and gases”. Pre‐intervention, the teachers held misconceptions similar to those of pupils. Also, there seemed to be some relationship between the teachers’ particle model ideas and their explanations of phenomena. Post‐intervention, the teachers’ descriptions and explanations were found to be significantly improved, with almost zero correlation between pre‐ and post‐intervention scores. Implications for science education are discussed.

In England, there have been concerns that some primary teachers lack the necessary skills to teach the National Curriculum. The aim of this research was to ascertain the level of confidence of students completing a one-year primary teacher-training programme in relation to teaching in general and teaching music in particular. 341 students from four higher education institutions in England completed a short questionnaire. While almost all teachers had confidence in their ability to teach, only about half were confident about teaching music. There were statistically significant differences in response depending on whether the students played one or more musical instruments. Instrumentalists were more confident, those playing more than one instrument exhibiting the highest levels. Most students believed that more time should be spent on training, although they praised its quality. The implications of the findings are discussed and alternative ways of addressing the problem are considered.

This paper uses research from neuroscience and the psychology of mathematics to arrive at useful recommendations for teaching mathematics at primary level to poor students in developing countries. The enrollment rates of the poorer students have improved tremendously in the last decade. And the global Net Enrollment Ratio (NER) has improved since 2001 from 83.2 percent to 90-95 percent except in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Making teaching of math and other subjects efficient for the poor in developing countries is a great challenge, particularly in south Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Many developing countries have explored new means of teaching math and other subjects. Mongolia changed its mathematics education, aiming to build a new set of priorities and practices, given the abandonment of earlier traditions. Similar to international trends of the time, South Africa in the 1990s extensively applied the constructivist learning philosophy which relied on exploration and discovery, with little emphasis on memorization, drill, In conformity with a belief that teachers could develop their own learning programs, there was virtual absence of a national or provincial syllabus or textbooks. Students were expected to develop their own methods for arithmetic operations, but most found it impossible to progress on their own from counting to actual calculating. This study integrates pertinent research from neuroscience and the psychology of mathematics to arrive at recommendations for curricular and efficient means of mathematics instruction particularly for developing countries and poor students at primary level. Specifically, the latest research in neuroscience, cognitive science, and discussions of national benchmarks for primary school mathematics learning, form the basis of our recommendations. These recommendations have a reasonable chance of working in the situational contexts of developing countries, with their traditions and resources.

This study describes and analyses the conceptions of primary teachers and secondary teachers of Physics-Chemistry, Biology-Geology and Geography-History with respect to the concept of heritage and its teaching and learning, taking the model of teacher-researcher as the theoretical referent. The data collection instrument used was a questionnaire, designed on the basis of categories which in their turn were used for the analysis of the resulting data. The results show a high degree of homogeneity in pedagogic content knowledge, in contrast to the heterogeneity of the conceptions with respect to purely content knowledge.

The objective of this study was to know the teachers’ pedagogic competence to manage the teaching and learning of IPA at SD Negeri Tamansari 1 Kota Yogyakarta and MIN Kota Yogyakarta II. The research methods of the study is descriptive qualitative. Data were collected through observation, interview, and documentation. Data were validated by using triangulation. Data were analyzed descriptively. The result of data findings shows that the teachers’ pedagogic competence to manage the teaching and learning of IPA at SD Negeri Tamansari 1 Kota Yogyakarta is categorized “good”. Meanwhile, the teachers’ pedagogic competence to manage the teaching and learning of IPA at MIN Kota Yogyakarta II is categorized “poor”. The similarity of the teaching implementation for both schools is they try hard to develop a democratic teaching and students’ center-based teaching. They have a different teaching method. At SDN Tamansari 1 Kota Yogyakarta, the teachers implement minds-on and hands-on teaching process, that is, the experimental, demonstrational, and observational teaching, while the teachers at MIN Kota Yogyakarta implement theoretical (rote learning) teaching approach. Those differences were caused by some factors, such as: teachers’ qualification, teachers’ certification and professionalism, and the students’ background.

Bu çalışmanın amacı, sınıf öğretmenlerinin öğrenci kontrol ideolojileri ile ilgili görüşlerini incelemektir. Araştırmanın örneklemini, Niğde ili merkezi ve bağlı bulunan köy ve kasabalardaki ilköğretim okullarında görev yapmakta olan 176 sınıf öğretmeni oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmada "tarama modeli" kullanılmıştır. Çalışmada veri toplamak için "öğrenci kontrol ideolojileri ölçeği" kullanılmıştır. Araştırmanın amacına dayalı olarak, yüzde, standart sapma, bağımsız gruplar t-testi, tek-yönlü ANOVA analizi gibi istatistik test teknikleri kullanılmıştır. Çalışmada elde edilen sonuçlara göre, sınıf öğretmenlerinin genel olarak insancıl öğrenci kontrol ideolojisine sahip bulundukları sonucuna varılmıştır. Sınıf öğretmenlerinin öğrenci kontrol ideolojilerinin cinsiyete göre farklılaşmadığı, ancak mesleki kıdeme, eğitim durumuna ve görev yapılan okulun yerleşim birimi değişkenlerine göre mesleki kıdemi 1-5 yıl, lisansüstü eğitim yapan ve görev yapılan okulun yerleşim birimi şehir merkezi olan öğretmenler lehine anlamlı şekilde farklılaştığı saptanmıştır., The main purpose of this study was to analyse pupil control ideology of primary (classroom) teachers. 176 primary teachers working in elementary schools from Nigde province and its districts constituted the sample of the research. The "survey method" was employed in this research. The data of this research were collected by using the "Pupil Control Ideology Scale". In order to analyse the data obtained, mean, standard deviation, the independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA analysis were used. Results of this study show that primary teachers had "humanistic pupil control ideology" in general. Also, it was found out that there was not a statistical significant difference between primary school teachers in terms of gender. On the other hand, it was found a statistical significant difference between primary teachers in relation to occupational seniority in favour of younger teachers. It was also found out that there were statistical significant differences between primary teachers in terms of educational level and settlement place of school variables in favour of teachers with postgraduate level of education and working in schools in the city centre.

Today, raising and educating children is becoming increasingly difficult, not just from a material point of view. In this context, it is vital that the axiological universe of primary-school teachers is able to contribute significantly to building the moral benchmarks of the young pupils. The study aims to identify the set of values that define the professional profile of a primary teacher. The main method we have used was the questionnaire-based inquiry. The questionnaire was applied during the 2013- 2014 school year. All the results will be integrated into the initial and continuous teacher training processes.