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8 Teacher Learning
Pages 190-205

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From page 190...
... This chapter considers the kinds of learning opportunities available to teachers and analyzes them from the perspective of what is known about ways to help people learn. Teacher learning is relatively new as a research topic, so there is not a great deal of data on it.
From page 191...
... Meetings of professional associations and teachers' unions include numerous workshops and presentations in which teachers share their knowledge with other teachers. Other examples include the Physics Teacher Resource Agent Project of the American Association of Physics Teachers and the Woodrow Wilson Fellows, in which teachers are trained to provide workshops in instructional methods and materials, as well as content, for other teachers (Van Hise, 19861.
From page 192...
... Overall, there is minimal public investment in formal opportunities for professional development for practicing teachers. Most school districts spend only between 1 and 3 percent of their operating budgets for professional development, even with salaries factored in.
From page 193...
... Some projects provide professional development opportunities that include different stages of participation. The Wisconsin Teacher Enhancement Program in Biology (WTEPB)
From page 194...
... Knowledge - Ce ntered E Nero nme nts As ctiscussect in Chapter 6, effective learning environments are knowledge centered as well as learner centered. Ideally, opportunities for teacher learning include a focus on pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1966; see also Chapters 2 and 7)
From page 195...
... Several professional development projects for teachers use subject matter as the primary vehicle for learning; teachers learn how to teach a subject by focusing on their own experiences as learners. Examples include SummerMath (Schifter and Fosnot, 1993)
From page 196...
... "Exceptional Kids" Mazie Jenkins was skeptical when first told that research shows that first-grade children can solve addition and subtraction word problems without being taught the procedures. When she saw videotapes of 5-year-old children solving word problems by counting and modeling, Mazie said they were exceptional kids because they could solve "difficult" word problems, such as: You have five candy bars in your Halloween bag; the lady in the next house puts some more candy bars in your bag.
From page 197...
... An important approach to enhancing teacher learning is to develop communities of practice, an approach that involves collaborative peer relationships and teachers' participation in educational research and practice (Lave and Wenger, 19911. Examples include the Bay Area Writing Project (19791; the Cognitively Guided Instruction Project (Carpenter and Fennema, 1992; Carpenter et al., 1989, 19961; Minstrell and Hunt's (Minstrel!
From page 198...
... Again, the central questions involve looking deeply at student work, not trying to provide reasons (psychological, social, economic) that the student might not be producing strong academic work.
From page 199...
... AClrION IRlESlEA`lLCH Action research represents another approach to enhancing teacher learning by proposing ideas to a community of learners. Action research is an approach to professional development in which, typically, teachers spend 1 or more years working on classroom-based research projects.
From page 200...
... Finally, programs can differ as to whether they are primarily academic programs or whether their main purpose is certification or licensing. While programs can vary in these ways, they tend to have several components in common: some subject-matter preparation, usually liberal arts or general education for prospective elementary teachers and subject-matter concentration for prospective secondary teachers; a series of foundational courses, such as philosophy, sociology, history, psychology of education;
From page 201...
... . The components of teacher education programs collections of courses, field experiences, and student teaching—tend to be disjointed (Goodlad, 19901; they are often taught or overseen by people who have little ongoing communication with each other.
From page 202...
... identified several problems with current preservice teacher preparation programs: . Inadequate time: 4-year undergraduate degrees make it difficult for prospective elementary teachers to learn subject matter and for prospective secondary teachers to learn about the nature of learners and learning.
From page 203...
... When student teachers enter their first classrooms, the instructional methods, curricula, and resources can be very different from the ones they learned about in teacher education programs. So although prospective teachers are often anxious to begin their student teaching and find it the most satisfying aspect of their teacher preparation (Hollies, 1995)
From page 204...
... Nevertheless, there are a number of rich case studies that investigate teachers' learning over extended time periods and these cases, plus other information, provide data on learning opportunities available to teachers from the perspective of what is known about how people learn. Much of what constitutes the typical approaches to formal teacher professional development are antithetical to what research findings indicate as promoting effective learning.
From page 205...
... TEACHER LEARNING Successful learning for teachers requires a continuum of coordinated efforts that range from preservice education to early teaching to opportunities for lifelong development as professionals. Creating such opportunities, built out of the knowledge base from the science of learning, represents a major challenge, but it is not an impossible task.


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