Towards Research-based Science Teacher Education: Proceedings of the 18th Symposium on Chemical and Science Education held at the University of Bremen, 15-17 June 2006 (Beiträge zur Didaktik)

The 18th Symposium on Chemistry Education held at the University of Bremen in June 2006 was titled "Towards Research-based Science Teacher Education". The symposium continued a long tradition which started in 1981 at the University of Dortmund. So in 2006 we were celebrating the symposium's 25th anniversary.

The symposium on research-based science teacher education was intended to contribute to the demand stated by Veal and Hill (2004) that teacher education development must be influenced by research about teachers` beliefs and their knowledge base. From a constructivistic point of view, more research related to teachers' and student teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning, their pedagogical and pedagogical content knowledge, their views about curriculum structures and curriculum emphasis', and their knowledge about implications of the learning environments on children's learning, are needed to structure courses that effectively support changes in teachers' and student teachers' initial beliefs about science teaching. But, the symposium also objected on how to develop these views through science education research, innovations in teacher training, or continuous professional development programs objected on changing the views and beliefs of science teachers and to develop their pedagogical content knowledge.