This paper employs Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as an analytical heuristic in exploring the internationally prevalent situation of teaching out-of-field. Drawing on interview transcripts, we use CHAT to frame the activity of a young teacher teaching mathematics out-of-field in a small rural K-12 school in Australia. We identify and…

Describing and analyzing teaching practice has been a focus of researchers interested in the interaction and connections between teachers' content knowledge and their pedagogical knowledge. This study described the role of a teacher's mathematical content and pedagogical content knowledge in involving students in learning and solving Science,…

Teachers must draw upon their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to effectively teach their disciplinary content. While there are abundant studies on teachers' PCK, those focused on career-change teachers are limited. This study examines the PCK development of pre-service STEM career-change teachers, an increasingly prominent group of teachers…

The characteristics and content of post-graduate courses in special and/or inclusive teacher education in Australian universities were examined using publicly available material on university websites. Content analysis was guided by a set of content area elements covering desirable skills and knowledge for special educators that were identified in…

Teachers' confidence in navigating the complexities of 'being a teacher' influence their behaviour, how they are perceived, how they make sense of their environment and circumstances and their successes. A web-based survey was developed and distributed to music teachers via an online community of practice. This paper reports on the respondents'…

Reforms in STEM education call for reframing teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) by focusing on development of students' knowledge and scientific literacy through socioscientific issues (Lee, 2016; Zeidler, 2016; Johnson et al., 2022). We developed a two-year professional development (PD) for 6-12th grade STEM teachers that embedded SSI…

Teacher knowledge is a critical factor in student success. In the Classroom Promotion of Oral Language cluster randomized controlled trial, we aimed to determine whether a teacher professional learning intervention focused on promoting oral language led to improved teacher knowledge. We report a study of the impact of professional learning on…

How a sample of university educators described STEM, expected outcomes of STEM, expertise of STEM educators, and STEM learning environments were investigated through drawing- and text- based responses. Data were examined by applying the "Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) Specialisation" plane (Maton, 2014). Participants generally held…

In mathematics education, subject matter knowledge matters! This paper reports findings from a study of relationships between teachers' understandings of content, the tasks they design and their interpretations of student thinking. A combined methods approach was used to gather multiple data sets from 64 upper primary teachers. The study found…

In this paper, we examine junior secondary mathematics teachers' understanding of mathematical structure, and how they promote structural thinking in their teaching. Five teachers were surveyed, and three were interviewed and the observed teaching a junior secondary mathematics class. Results showed that teachers have conflicting understandings of…

While it is widely believed that Specialized Content Knowledge (SCK) is essential to effective and quality mathematics teaching, the specific constructs that compose SCK remain underspecified. This paper describes the development and use of a new framework that extends the notion of SCK. The framework was trialled with a cohort of 90 first year…

This paper forms part of the response by the Australian Geography Teachers Association (AGTA) to two school education related recommendations put forward in "Geography: Shaping Australia's Future" (National Committee for Geographical Sciences, 2018). The recommendations are: The National Committee for Geographical Sciences and AGTA write…

Rowland's Knowledge Quartet (KQ) model can provide illuminating insights into teacher practice in mathematics classrooms. This paper explores a framework developed for pedagogical technology knowledge (TPACK) to consider teacher practice in integrated technology classrooms alongside the KQ model. Observations of a Year 11 class in an Australian…

Pre-service teachers (PSTs), like practising teachers, enact their mathematical content knowledge (MCK) in pursuit of instructional goals during lessons. In this study, I explored the relationship between six secondary mathematics pre-service teachers' goals and the MCK that they chose to enact in 10 lower secondary algebra lessons. The findings…

Much has been written about the decline in Australian literacy standards, as measured by international tests, and concerns have been expressed about the quality of teacher preparation for teaching early literacy to young children in their first years of school. Preservice teacher knowledge of research evidence supporting the essential components…