In this article, the present form of science (mainly physics and chemistry) teacher training in Finland is described with special reference to the case of the University of Jyväskylä and the University of Helsinki. The article is divided into a description of the primary school teacher (class teacher) and secondary school teacher education (subject teacher). All teachers in Finland, both on the primary and secondary levels, have at least a master's degree. The faculty of education (faculty of behavioural sciences in Helsinki) is responsible for teacher (primary school teacher) education. Subject teachers are trained in co-operation with different subject departments of different faculties and departments of teacher education (department of applied science of education in Helsinki) and university teacher training schools. We show that pre-service teacher training has been an introduction for continuing professional development. Research-based approaches have been employed in teaching at university for educating teachers as researchers. Therefore, theoretical knowledge is enhanced and also pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), which Lee SHULMAN proposed, is regarded as one of the most important knowledge for teachers in the pre-teacher training system in Finland.

A questionnaire survey was conducted on newly employed primary school teachers. The contents included 1) their belief in the usefulness of science, 2) their attitude toward inquiry, 3) their academic attitude, 4) their pleasure in science instruction, 5) their confidence in their observation and experimental skills, and 6) their confidence in instructing individual units, with the following results: (1) Regarding the usefulness of science, more than 90 percent of the newly employed teachers answered affirmatively in regard to material aspects such as daily living and environmental protection. (2) Regarding their attitude toward inquiry, the percentage of teachers who answered that they make plans for observation and experimentation based on a hypothesis (anticipation) was extremely low, at 12.7 percent. This finding suggested that an inquiring attitude was not developed in many of the newly employed teachers. (3) Regarding academic attitude, the number of the newly employed teachers who read books about science and frequently go to museums and science centers was very small, at only a few percentage points. This suggested that they did not aggressively acquire scientific knowledge on their own. (4) Regarding taking pleasure in science instruction, 94.8 percent of the newly employed teachers answered affirmatively, saying, "It is a pleasure to have students make a new discovery through observation and experimentation." (5) Regarding confidence in observation and experimental skills, 80 to 90 percent of the newly employed teachers felt that they had acquired skill in the manipulation of common experimental tools and instruments such as alcohol lamps. On the other hand, the number of them who answered affirmatively about "the making of an electromagnet" was somewhat small, that is, 47.6 percent. This result suggested a lack of experience in making scientific objects. (6) The newly employed teachers who answered that they could teach science with confidence showed the largest percentage of 67.5 for "three forms of water," and the lowest percentage of 31.1 for "the structure and changes of the solid earth", which depended on individual units. For other units, approximately 40 to 60 percent of the newly employed teachers did not have confidence in the instruction of science.

In this study, we designed a "Guide for Science Learning" to support the realization of selfregulated learning and verified its effects through science class practice. As a result, its effectiveness was proved based on students' construction process of scientific concepts. In a questionnaire, each item in the "Guide for Science Learning" was evaluated affirmatively. The unit design in this study takes into account the number of classes in the standard curriculum. Therefore, it can become a concrete proposal for classes which use constructivist views of students' cognitive theory.

In this study, we analyzed the intentional conceptual change process of students in the study of plants in the lower secondary school science class by evaluating three outcomes: 1) observation/experiment of the facts that they described; 2) figurative description (a mimetic word/a simile/a metaphor) as the means of explanation for 1); and 3) reasoning to construct a scientific concept based on 1) and 2). From such analysis, we pointed out the fruitfulness of conceptual change based on the intention of the learner. Furthermore, we proposed three policies of guidance: (1) The teacher needs to make students understand both the content and the perspective of learning. (2) The teacher needs not only to make students keep intentional learning in mind (internalization) but also to require expression (externalization) in order to communicate the results to another person. (3) The teacher needs to make students form a consensus in regard to the scientific concept and to paraphrase interpretations.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the usefulness of the "conflict sheet" as a metacognitive tool in the acquisition of the principles of the simple pendulum in the elementary school science class. As a result of this research, the following three points became clear: 1) There is a high possibility that lessons which use the "conflict sheet" in the planning stage of the experiment stimulate metacognition during the experiment activity. 2) The higher the child's metacognition was, the more possible it was for lessons using the "conflict sheet" to exert influence on the conceptual acquisition of the principles of the simple pendulum. 3) For many of the children in upper class metacognitive groups, lessons that used the "conflict sheet" helped bring about metacognition equivalent to monitoring in regard to the elements of the principles of the simple pendulum.

A lower secondary school student undertook the role of a science teacher in two elementary schools. We analyzed the contents of these classes. In addition, we analyzed the contents of the lesson study discussion performed later. The decision to use a lower secondary school student in the role of science teacher was made in accordance with the principle that learners perform well. The student did talks by "the experience exchange case" in a lesson study discussion. The student participated in the talks as "teacher," "professor," and "learner" in a lesson study discussion. It is important for the spot teacher to make use of the matters that emerge in the lesson study discussion.

In the science class, there are many cases in which mathematical knowledge is necessary. We used a questionnaire to discover whether science teachers working at Tokyo Metropolitan High Schools teach mathematical content in science classes and whether they think that teaching mathematical concepts is necessary. The following things became clear: (1) Nearly half of science teachers teach significant figures, exponents, and means in science classes. (2) Over 70% of science teachers think that significant figures and errors should be taught in science classes, and about half of them think that means, exponents, vectors, and logarithms should be taught in science classes. (3) At schools where more than 60% of students want to go to four year universities, science teachers are less likely to teach means. (4) There is a tendency for errors and exponents to be taught in physics and chemistry classes, logarithms in chemistry classes, and vectors in physics classes. (5) Teachers who teach significant figures also teach errors and exponents as well. Teachers who teach errors also teach significant figures and means, but do not teach probabilities, standard deviations, normal distributions, or scatter charts.

The purpose of this study is to propose a method to link assessment data of the student's work and the rating on his or her permanent record card. This method assesses the student's work from two points of view, a micro-viewpoint and a macro-viewpoint. We taught biology to seventh graders with this method. The findings of this study are as follows: (1) When we used this method, we assessed the student's work only once every three classes. It was not much additional work for teachers. (2) We regarded performance-based assessment as important as paper tests. When analyzing the correlation between the rating of performance-based assessment and the score of regular tests, we found that performance-based assessment helped us to assess the student's academic achievement more than paper tests alone. (3) As we introduced performance-based assessment, students learned about inquiry, experiment, conclusion, and presentation. And we found that some students showed inference ability, which can be called reading literacy. Although it is usually difficult to develop this kind of ability by using lecture-style classes, this method helped students in this respect.

In this study, in order to promote the internalization of student thinking in science learning, we built an interactive science learning programme for upper secondary school based on the three forms of representation (enactive, iconic, and symbolic) advocated by J. Bruner. As a result, when students were given ample opportunity to make and explore models, their knowledge representation forms were of a high order, and their understanding of abstract concepts was enhanced. Therefore, the viewpoint of psychological assessment was an indispensable element to promote repeated internalization and externalization of student thinking. The process of internalization and externalization of student thinking was simulated by utilizing the electronic blackboard. As a result, it was vital in order to use the scaffolding teaching strategy effectively and to assess student learning. This enabled the teacher to introduce new models or extend previous models in ways that maximize students' learning.