Preparing Future Teachers of Geoscience
Special Issue of the Journal of Geoscience Education
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Journal of Geoscience Education (JGE) is soliciting manuscripts for a thematic issue on preparing future teachers of geoscience. Please contact special-issue associate editors, Ann Bykerk-Kauffman or Sandra Rutherford or JGE Editor Carl Drummond for further information.
Description
Future teachers are one of the most important constituencies in our geoscience courses. Because they will go on to teach, it is important that we help them learn both geoscience knowledge and effective ways to impart that knowledge to students. Many future middle and high school teachers major in our departments and take both introductory and upper division courses. Future elementary and middle school teachers are an important population in our introductory courses.
Increasingly, we teach geoscience courses that are specifically designed to serve future elementary and middle school teachers.
This issue will examine the spectrum of ways in which geoscience courses are being designed to serve the needs of students who are preparing to become teachers: courses that serve only future teachers, those where future teachers are explicitly considered in the design of the course, and those where evaluation suggests that future teachers are well served.
Some subtopics that may be addressed in this issue include
- Teaching the nature of science
- Aligning courses with national and state science education standards
- Teaching and modeling best teaching practices (e.g. hands-on activities, guided discovery, collaborative learning, constructivism, etc.)
- Helping students achieve deep lasting understanding of fundamental concepts
- Fostering enthusiasm for and willingness to teach earth science
- Providing opportunities for students to practice planning lessons and teaching children
- Assessment of the effectiveness of our courses
Submission Guidelines
The submission deadline is March 1st, 2008; the anticipated publication date is November 2008. Letters of submission should state that the manuscript is intended for this special issue. The Journal of Geoscience Education only accepts submissions through its web-based file management system. Authors must submit their manuscripts in pdf format. For specific submission instructions, go to http://www.nagt.org/nagt/jge/instructions.html.