Best Practices in Chemistry Teacher Education
Abstract
Chemistry teachers at all levels educate students who will be future chemists, chemical engineers, biologists, other STEM professionals, and informed citizens. The better they do their job and the more inclusive they are in their teaching, the better chance of students being interested and successful in chemistry. But chemistry teaching is a complex pursuit requiring understanding of the chemistry content, students, instructional strategies, assessment methods, and more. Just as they provide opportunities for their students to improve their understanding of chemistry, chemistry teachers need opportunities to improve and develop their knowledge and skills for teaching chemistry. With reform efforts in chemistry education occurring at all levels and with the demand for chemistry educators at the K-12 level, learning experiences which effectively impact their teaching practice are needed for chemistry teachers at all levels. After a discussion of the need for chemistry-specific teacher education, this chapter provides an overview of the rest of this book, its structure, and use for chemistry teacher educators, teacher educators generally, and those interested in reforming and improving chemistry education.
