Regardless of the grade they teach, teachers are professional decision-makers committed to supporting children's learning. Making decisions about what to teach and how to teach it best is simply a nonnegotiable feature of their job: only teachers have the specialized knowledge and professional training required to design meaningful learning…

This qualitative case study describes how one beginning primary grade teacher benefited from collaborative lesson-planning meetings with her grade-level colleagues. The teacher accumulated knowledge of curriculum, pedagogy, and professional contexts as she participated in planning meetings each week during her first year of teaching. Furthermore,…

This qualitative case study reports how 5 first-year kindergarten/primary teachers utilized knowledge and skills from their teacher preparation program as a means of approaching curricular decision-making for instructional practice. In many ways, participants drew from university courses, field experiences, or both to help them make sense of their…