This open access book seeks to create a forum for discussing key questions regarding theories on teaching: Which theories of teaching do we have? What are their attributes? What do they contain? How are they generated? How context-sensitive and content-specific do they need to be? Is it possible or even desirable to develop a comprehensive theory of teaching? The book identifies areas of convergence and divergence among the answers to these questions by prominent international scholars in research on teaching. Initiating exchanges among the authors, it then evaluates whether consensus can be reached on the areas of divergence. The book concludes by discussing lessons learned from this endeavor and outlines steps that need to be taken for advancing future work on theorizing teaching. As such, the book is aimed at readers interested in an overview of the theorizing of teaching and key open questions that, if addressed, help to move the field forward.

This book reviews the current state of theoretical accounts of the what and how of science learning in schools. The book starts out by presenting big-picture perspectives on key issues. In these first chapters, it focuses on the range of resources students need to acquire and refine to become successful learners. It examines meaningful learner purposes and processes for doing science, and structural supports to optimize cognitive engagement and success. Subsequent chapters address how particular purposes, resources and experiences can be conceptualized as the basis to understand current practices. They also show how future learning opportunities should be designed, lived and reviewed to promote student engagement/learning. Specific topics include insights from neuro-imaging, actor-network theory, the role of reasoning in claim-making for learning in science, and development of disciplinary literacies, including writing and multi-modal meaning-making. All together the book offers leads to science educators on theoretical perspectives that have yielded valuable insights into science learning. In addition, it proposes new agendas to guide future practices and research in this subject.

There has been much debate in recent times between the Anglo American tradition of curriculum studies and the Continental and North European tradition of didactics (Didaktik). As important as such debate has been, this book seeks to add new voices to the debate representing ideas and traditions from a different part of the world. The focus is on Chinese curriculum thinking that has passed through a number of stages and currently represents a blend of some aspects of the American tradition and Chinese cultural traditions. How does Chinese thinking about curriculum, teaching and learning resonate with European didactic traditions and what are the implications for theorizing an expanded field of curriculum studies? This book deliberately transcends borders and cultures to explore new territory, to provide a platform for open dialogue and to open up new areas of investigation Chapters include, Curriculum Reform and Research in China: A Social-Historical Perspective What Mathematics Did Teachers Learn? Comparison of the School and the Pre-Service Teacher Mathematics Curricula in Germany and Taiwan Living in Parallel Worlds: A Transatlantic Dialogue between General Didactics and Instructional Design

Theorising Teaching in Secondary Classrooms is a brand new text for all teachers endeavouring to understand their own practice. It provides a serious introduction to how to holistically reflect on and conceptualise your classroom teaching by helping you situate your practice within the international theory on teaching, and the social, cultural and institutional contexts for teaching. It challenges you to: critically reflect on your own practice articulate your own theorising of pedagogical practice describe and evaluate your own theorising within the international research and literature critique and discuss current pedagogical issues being debated nationally and internationally.

This book examines the relationship between teacher theorizing and teacher action as illustrated by the curricular and instructional practices of teachers. The authors show that all teaching is guided by theory developed by the teachers. Teachers could not begin to practice without some knowledge of the context of their practice and without ideas about what can and should be done in those circumstances. In this sense, teachers are guided by personal, practical theories that structure their activities and guide them in making decisions. This literature is very significant in explaining and interpreting many phenomena of schooling such as why teachers alter curriculum documents and other policies, how inservice education can be improved, how supervisors can help teachers to improve their practices, and how administrators can become leaders to improve education. This perspective has broad and specific implications for every facet of education. Those interested in teacher education and development, in supervision, in curriculum, and in administration will find it especially relevant.

If teacher education, as a field of study, is to contribute to the revitalization, re-moralization and re-politicization of Education, this book argues that it needs to be alert to questions of teachers’ intellectual and political freedom and to concerns about the legitimacy of what we do in teacher education, in the name of Education. Anne Phelan demonstrates how curriculum theorizing can serve such an educational project by engaging concerns about subjectivity (human agency and action), society, and historical moment, thereby widening the field of insight in teacher education and informing debates about new trajectories for policy and practice. Exploring teacher education through ethical, political, aesthetic vocabularies, drawn from the Humanities, is vital at a time when the dehumanizing influences of performativity, standardization and accountability are evident in education systems across the world, and when we are in danger of losing the things that we most value and are the least measurable - relationships, independent thought, and ethical judgment. Curriculum Theorizing and Teacher Education will be of interest to teacher educators who are practicing, researching, or (re)designing teacher education, as well as policy makers who are curious about new possibilities for framing the "problem" of teacher education at provincial, state and federal levels.

The last two decades have seen a burst of renewed interest in narrative theory across many academic disciplines as scholars analyze the power of storytelling in print and other media. Teaching Narrative Theory provides a comprehensive resource for instructors who aim to help students identify and understand the distinctive features of narrativity in a text or discourse and make use of the terms and concepts of the field. This volume in the Options for Teaching series is organized to assist teachers at different levels of instruction and in different disciplinary settings. In twenty-one essays, the contributors discuss narrative theory's various teaching contexts (e.g., classes on literature, creative writing, and folklore and ethnography); key concepts and terms (e.g., story and plot, time and space, voice, perspective); applications beyond printed texts (e.g., film and digital media); and impact on other areas of theory (e.g., gender and ethnic studies). A glossary provides a guide to the challenging technical terminology characteristic of the field, and the volume as a whole emphasizes the importance of understanding and implementing technical terms in learning narrative theory.