Ronald J. Bonnstetter

Classroom Climate and Instruction: New Goals Demand New Approaches

Uniformly, science teachers express the same goals for their students, goals that emphasize attitude, communication, creativity, and application of knowledge. Yet, the traditional role of the teacher ignores these goals and focuses on attainment of knowledge, rarely going on to applications. This paper suggests, rather specifically, how to provide instruction that leads to the expressed goals. These specific behaviors come from a three-part model where expressed goals define the role of the student and the students roles are, in turn, stimulated by the teacher.

Laboratory Earth: A Model of Online K-12 Teacher Coursework

Laboratory Earth, a series of three NASA-Sponsored, on-line graduate courses for K-8 teachers, was designed to meet a variety of learning styles and appeal to teachers’ motivation to learn the content and improve their teaching. This is especially important to teachers as they seek to demonstrate “highly qualified” status to meet No Child Left Behind standards. These graduate-level courses consist of four modules of two to four lessons each. Pre- and post-course surveys indicated significant increases in teachers’ (n=51) content knowledge, science teaching efficacy beliefs (STEBI-A), sense of community within the course (LEO) and science teaching enjoyment (STES). Qualitative data indicated teachers valued the cohort system, content aligned to teaching needs, and the instructor’s response to requested feedback. Results indicated that online courses can provide valuable professional development opportunities for K-12 science teachers to deepen their knowledge, sharpen their skills, and maintain their knowledge of science developments. Because teachers play an important role in the development of their student’s attitudes towards science, it is extremely important that science and education communities collaborate to create courses that use contemporary pedagogy to address the content-knowledge needs of teachers required by National Science Standards criteria.

The Value of EEG-Based Electromagnetic Tomographic Analysis in Human Performance and Mental Health

Most work done in areas such as counseling, therapy, leadership, and coaching involves some aspect of decision making. New electroencephalographic (EEG) electromagnetic tomographic analysis (ETA) imaging techniques provide a mechanism for exploring decisions, while the individual is directly engaged in everyday choice making, by exposing our precognitive emotional responses to identified thoughts, feelings, and actions. This article discusses gamma wave activity research, at the precognitive level, and its use for describing approach-avoidance decision making. Armed with these new insights, an individual can better understand the emotional triggers that affect our daily decisions.

International Partnerships as a Means of Reforming Science Teacher Education

This chapter examines, in the context of individual countries, the reform efforts that are on going in the area of science teacher education. It also examines the simultaneous renewal process of the development of partnerships and the mutual assistance and growth that these partnerships offer. This chapter does not profess to provide a “model” that can be easily implemented in other institutions. Rather, we hope that readers will take away information about how these partnerships have been arranged, the impact of the partnerships on all stakeholders involved, a better understanding of the change process in diverse settings, as well as several case study overviews of reform efforts and their impact on the countries involved.