Discusses the changing educational context in France, reviewing the relationship between teacher training and professional practice and presenting a model of the development of pedagogical reasoning that shows the relationships between core concepts of pedagogical content knowledge, sociocultural context, and verbal interaction. (SM)

This article explores the potential of innovative, reform-based, middle school mathematics curricula to impact the professional development of teachers. Specifically, this 4-year study (N = 131 participants) examined the degree to which repeated experiences with reform-based curriculum activities impacted prospective teachers' mathematical content…

Becoming a competent civic educator--one who can inspire and prepare students for informed, responsible, and humane participation in civic and political life--requires ongoing study of the content, pedagogy, and resources of civic education. Many elementary, middle, and high school teachers (and their students) would benefit from effective…

Good teachers of critical thinking ask hard questions of students; however, they must also ask hard questions of themselves to be the best possible teacher and provide the best learning environment. In this article, two veteran educators present reflective questions that teachers might ask themselves as they prepare and implement courses. These…

The relationship between knowledge and pedagogy is an important one and needs further exploration. Does a degree in archaeology provide a basis for teaching contemporary history? Is the high-flying physicist able to teach adequately the biology of a general science course? Can a primary teacher successfully work across the whole of the primary…

This study examines the development of teachers' metastrategic knowledge (MSK), a component of metacognitive knowledge, in the context of higher order thinking. Participants were 14 junior high school and high school science teachers who attended a professional development course. Data collection was carried out by triangulation of several data…

Past and present research has provided evidence to support the claim that technologies for teaching and learning must be pedagogically sound. However, educational technologies are also part of a complex process involving the people in the implementation of the innovation. In this paper, I review existing research and explain what both of those…

Half-way through this first decade of the 21st century, educators are working diligently to ensure that all students learn and schools demonstrate annual yearly progress. Schools are scrambling to find ways to reach students who are struggling. Once again professional development is being seen as a major tool to support improved practice and to…

This article addresses the underlying beliefs needed by teachers of young children if their learning communities are to be successful and self-sustaining. The relationships of language arts and social studies content to specific academic, social and literary rituals are discussed in the context of classroom examples in the United States. Trust and…

Much of the focus in the distance education (DE) literature centers around the learner and learning, almost to the exclusion of the teacher and teaching. Consequently, instructors of DE courses have been left suspended in virtual space. This article focuses on the teachers' position in the DE course content, especially with respect to the type of…

While the goal of science education used to be to produce more scientists, that goal has changed with the introduction of the National Science Education Standards (NSES) (NRC 1996). Society has recognized that it is essential for everyone, regardless of vocation, to understand the fundamentals of science and technology. The phrase that has come to…

In this research I examined the enactment of liberatory pedagogy, a teaching practice that promotes equity for all learners, from the uniquely informative perspective of young women majoring in mathematics and elementary education. It is grounded theory that seeks to understand the role of personal identity and social location in learning and…

This paper revisits the prevalent concept of pedagogical content knowledge and examines how (and when) each of its components works with/on/against the other in the production of meaning and experience in the educative process. Its purpose is not simply to suggest that content and pedagogy need to come together to provide for powerful…

This study compared the pedagogical content knowledge of mathematics in U.S. and Chinese middle schools. The results of this comparative study indicated that mathematics teachers' pedagogical content knowledge in the two countries differs markedly, which has a deep impact on teaching practice. The Chinese teachers emphasized developing procedural…

This study investigated elements of pedagogical knowledge when students' higher order thinking was an explicit and focused instructional goal. The findings suggest a model that consists of 6 elements. It seems that, for all these elements, the source of differences between teachers' various pedagogies may be tracked to the basic distinction…