Suzanne M. Wilson

Teacher Preparation Research: An Insider's View from the Outside.

The authors were asked by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement and the U.S. Department of Education to conduct a review of high-quality research on five questions concerning teacher preparation. As part of that assignment, they were asked to develop a set of defensible criteria for including research in the review. In this article, they summarize what the research says about the five questions posed by their funders, and they discuss the development of the review criteria. The questions included attention to the subject matter and pedagogical preparation of prospective teachers, to the content and character of high-quality field experiences and alternative routes, and to research on the effects of policies on the enhancement of teacher preparation.

Professional Development for Science Teachers

The Next Generation Science Standards will require large-scale professional development (PD) for all science teachers. Existing research on effective teacher PD suggests factors that are associated with substantial changes in teacher knowledge and practice, as well as students’ science achievement. But the complexity of the U.S. educational system continues to thwart the search for a straightforward answer to the question of how to support teachers. Interventions that take a systemic approach to reform hold promise for improving PD effectiveness.

Integrity in Teaching: Recognizing the Fusion of the Moral and Intellectual:

In this article we examine the relationship between teaching as a knowledge endeavor and teaching as a moral enterprise, using episodes from our own elementary school teaching as sites for our analysis. One episode concerns the teaching of social studies, the second the teaching of mathematics. We first describe the episodes themselves, highlighting the ways in which they shed light on issues of pedagogical content knowledge and reasoning. We then revisit each episode with a different lens: that of teaching as moral work. Our framework consists of two essential components: concerns for subject matter and for students. This analysis is meant to be neither a complete delineation of teaching as a moral enterprise nor an exhaustive analysis of pedagogical content knowledge. It is meant to show that, in teaching, concerns for the intellectual and the moral are ultimately inseparable.

Wrinkles in Time and Place: Using Performance Assessments to Understand the Knowledge of History Teachers

New forms of assessment are sweeping the country. This article reports findings from one of the first projects to develop and field-test performance-based assessments for teachers, Stanford University’s Teacher Assessment Project. The authors analyze the responses of two high school history teachers on three perfomance assessments of teaching: (a) Evaluation of Student Papers, in which teachers read and responded to a set of student essays; (b) Use of Documentary Materials, in which teachers planned a classroom activity using primary sources; and (c) Textbook Analysis, in which teachers evaluated a selection from a widely used U. S. history textbook. Differences emerged in the teachers’ conceptions of their roles and responsibilities, their images of student ability and motivation, their views on student learning, and their subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge. The authors discuss what performance assessments can tell us about pedagogical knowledge and reasoning, and explore the implications of this work for policy and practice.

A Conflict of Interests: The Case of Mark Black:

In this paper, the author describes the case of a teacher, Mark Black, as he struggles to adapt to the calls for the reform of teaching in California. Drawing on a set of interviews and observations that are part of a larger study (see Cohen, Ball, and Peterson in this volume), the author explores how Mark enacts the curriculum of Real Math, the textbook that his school district recently adopted. Through the lenses of his beliefs about the nature and structure of mathematical knowledge, his beliefs about how students best learn mathematics, and his beliefs about his role as a teacher, Mark transforms the innovative textbook into a more familiar, traditional elementary mathematics curriculum. The author discusses four real and perceived constraints that influence Mark’s ability to enact the curricular policy proposed by the Framework and argues that teachers are themselves learners who need to be supported and nurtured as they try to change their practice.

Helping teachers meet the standards: New challenges for teacher educators.

In this article we describe the curricular standards that currently concern teachers and teacher educators alike. We propose that these reforms pose 3 significant challenges for teacher educators. First, the reforms are based on changing images of good teaching. Second, the teaching that lies at the heart of the reforms is undetermined and uncertain. Third, there is little theory concerning how beginning teachers learn to teach in these ways. Given these 3 challenges, we sketch-in broad strokes-several avenues for investigation that teacher educators may consider as they re-formulate teacher education programs in this standards-based era of educational reform.

Finding a canon and core : Meditations on the preparation of teacher educator-researchers

In this article, the author explores seven “unanswered questions” concerning the preparation of future teacher educator-researchers. She considers five questions concerning the substance of doctoral preparation: what the new generation of teacher-researchers would need to know about teacher education, relevant disciplines, research methodologies, teaching in universities, and K-12 schooling. She then briefly discusses the need to theorize about how doctoral students learn to teach and conduct research. In essence, the author proposes a curriculum for her own learning as a mentor and advisor in a doctoral program for future teacher educator-researchers.

Entering a Culture of Teaching: Teacher Induction in Shanghai

Li Mei is an energetic, cheerful woman who feels that teaching “is the hardest job under the sun, but the happiest”. [2] In her second year of teaching lower secondary mathematics, she teaches thirteen periods a week (the average load for most lower secondary teachers in Shanghai): six each to two different sixth-grade classes and one to an elective ‘activity class’ (huodong ke) that is geared at strengthening and deepening pupils’ interest in mathematics and helping them develop ‘divergent’ ways of thinking that stretch beyond the textbook. Her load is like that of most teachers in her school.

Who Should Guard the Gates? Evidentiary and Professional Warrants for Claiming Jurisdiction

This article explores empirical and theoretical literature relevant to accreditation of teacher education programs. The lack of substantial research on accreditation makes it impossible to make empirically based claims about the value-added of such processes, including how accreditation processes enhance the professionalization of teacher education. Contemporary scholarship, especially in sociology, also raises questions, especially about the uncritical acceptance of the professionalization movement in teacher education. After briefly reviewing three lines of criticism concerning professionalization, the authors use that literature to “read” both Wise’s (2005) description of the benefits of NCATE’s work and Murray’s (2005) description of TEAC’s role in enhancing professionalism in teacher education. Both authors presume that professionalization is a good; both fail to confront some of the central concerns about the exclusionary practices of professions in their descriptions of NCATE and TEAC. The authors conclude by suggesting that the professionalism movement within teacher education—while important—requires that we encourage and embrace both internal and external forms of criticism.

Cacophony or Embarrassment of Riches: Building a System of Support for Quality Teaching.

Teacher quality is at the center of today’s ardent discussions about the educational system, with calls for the reform and critical review of teacher development programs. There is no lack of activity in response to these calls. There are thousands of teacher education, induction, and professional programs in the U.S. which offer teachers a veritable carnival of options. But these options exist in a (non)system with little coherence or control. In this article, the authors outline the dimensions of the variability of teacher learning opportunities currently available, the unintended consequences of that variability, and the challenges faced by educators as we attempt to reform the system, respond to our critics, and offer teachers coherent learning experiences that lead to high quality teaching.