Section archive - Programs & Practicum

The present study explores the impact of a training in neurocognitive insights on teachers’ stress. The authors found that the training had a significant impact on the stress experienced by teachers in their professional and personal functioning. The participants experienced less stress, more confidence and less impulsiveness. Furthermore, the participants showed a greater awareness of functioning, state of mind and stress, as well as clear prefrontal attitudes. The participants also mentioned changes within themselves and their professional environment. They indicated that teacher–student relationships were improved and unwanted or problematic students’ behavior was decreased.

The present study examines how teacher education programs contributed and/or responded to the emergence of social studies as a school subject in the early part of the twentieth century. The authors argue that the data reveal some longstanding assumptions about the development of the social studies field. For instance, there was little agreement among subject matter and education specialists regarding what constituted the social studies curriculum. Hence, there was little agreement on what social studies teachers and students needed to know. However, this little agreement suggests that disarray in the social studies field may have been as much a function of disorder in the realm of teacher education as it was of conflict among national committees. The authors conclude that the current study represents first efforts in a pursuit of understanding the historical connection of teacher education and curriculum reform.

The purpose of this paper is describe the authors' pedagogical framework for the twenty-first-century learning practices in teacher education. The authors argue that teacher education has been challenged by the need to enhance the new teachers’ ability to implement new pedagogical approaches and take advantage of ICT for teaching and learning. Since the current way of working in teacher education does not match well enough the needs of twenty-first-century learning environments, such as inquiry-based learning approaches that focus upon collaboration and social forms of learning, as well as the use of ICT. According to the authors' approach, pre-service teachers are educated in a way they are supposed to teach their future students.

In this study, the authors examined the design of a short-term study abroad program for inservice teachers and the impact of the program on both teachers’ intercultural competence development and their teaching beliefs and practices. The authors conclude that study abroad programs offer a unique opportunity for teachers to develop intercultural competency and teaching beliefs through intercultural immersion experiences. They also emphasize that teacher educators interested in integrating study abroad programs in professional development programs need to design intentional and meaningful integration of cultural experiences, teaching opportunities, language learning, reflection, and collaboration.