In this interview, Andy Hargreaves posits that teachers need a high level of creativity and flexibility to be effective in their work, and they must understand their larger social mission. Yet standardization is working against those very qualities. Real professional learning communities, more than just teams of teachers solving problems, can help…

This paper presents a model--"hypertextual function"--to consider teachers' thinking, practice, and development in the use of technology. Hypertextual function is a multi-dimensional model linking a teacher's knowledge about students ("familiarity") and technology ("facility"), with a teacher's teaching practice of integrating technology with…

Fostering student teachers' confidence and competence to teach science in early childhood settings is a complex and challenging task for teacher educators situated in university classrooms. The research reported in this paper is based on an analysis of 3rd-year early childhood student teachers' assignments. The assignment required them to…

Findings from an on-going design experiment within a year-long graduate course for middle school teachers of mathematics are reported. The purpose of the course was to help teachers assist students in transitioning from arithmetic to algebraic reasoning. Goals included developing teachers' ability to interpret, compare, and generalize across…

This article draws on two research studies concerned with student teachers' learning of subject-specific pedagogical knowledge: a naturalistic study within two secondary school science departments and a collaborative action research project focused on two contested aspects of the history curriculum. Both confirmed the complexity of the process by…

Lesson planning is integral to teachers' professional development in China. It includes their individual reflection and study as well as the collegial activities undertaken to prepare the lesson. In China, organizational structures for both individual teachers and a school's professional community embed lesson preparation in two activities:…

This paper examines the fundamental yet largely neglected distinction between school subjects and academic disciplines in the discourse on teachers' specialized subject-matter knowledge. It analyses and critiques the curricular positions embedded in that discourse in the light of five possible relationships between school subjects and academic…

This paper reports my efforts as a teacher educator to improve our understanding of the process of learning to teach. It illustrates how the nature of the knowledge developed by teacher educators about their practice is often embedded in complexity and ambiguity. This knowledge is explored as a source of tensions that teacher educators can learn…

Mentoring is often an important component of alternative certification programs, yet little is known about what novices learn about science teaching through mentoring relationships. This study investigated the advice given by two mentor science teachers to their proteges. Findings indicate that mentors gave more advice related to general…

This study explores the extent to which an activity used in an elementary science methods course affected the preservice teachers' content knowledge, attitudes, and self-efficacy. The participants were 172 students enrolled in five sections of elementary science methods. Students participated in a 9-week investigation on life cycles using…

This article describes a professional development course intended to improve the content understanding of middle school mathematics teachers. The design of the course included three professional learning strategies: problem solving, examination of student thinking, and discussion of research. The concepts studied in the course included multi-digit…

The authors describe a partnership between two departments, in a school of education that involves educational leadership and curriculum and instruction graduate students sharing their expertise of teaching and learning with student teachers and alternatively certified teacher interns. This project provides graduate students with active…

A teacher's sense of {instructional} efficacy has been considered a critical variable in student academic performance. Researchers Tschannen-Moran and Hoy Woolfolk (2001, p.783) defined teachers' {instructional} efficacy as a teacher's judgment of his or her capabilities to bring about desired outcomes of student engagement and learning, even…

Teacher educators may need to pay attention to pre-service elementary teachers' motivation to learn mathematics in order to help them develop a deep level of understanding from their mathematics content courses for teachers (content courses) and to help them develop the disposition to learn mathematics throughout their careers. In this…

This study examined the differential effects of two components of the Interactive Strategies Approach (ISA) professional development program on outcomes related to teacher knowledge, teacher practice, and student reading achievement. The professional development for teachers focused on word solving skill among struggling first grade readers. The…