Whether this learning is described as the monitoring and adjustment of good practice or analyzed more completely according to a model of pedagogical reasoning (Wilson et al., 1987), teachers gain new knowledge and understanding of their students, schools, curriculum, and instructional methods by living the practical experiments that occur as a part of professional practice (Dewey, 1963 Schön, 1983). First, they learn from their own practice. Practicing teachers continue to learn about teaching in many ways. In some cases, teachers’ opportunities for learning have been consistent with what is currently known about ways to facilitate learning in other cases they have not (Koppich and Knapp, 1998).Īfter discussing opportunities for learning, we examine the topic of teacher as learner from the perspectives used in Chapter 6 to characterize effective learning environments. Understanding teachers’ opportunities for learning-including the constraints on teachers’ time-is important for developing a realistic picture of possibilities for lifelong learning. Some are formal many others are informal. We begin our discussion by examining opportunities for teacher learning that are available to practicing teachers. Our discussion of these cases is based on the assumption that what is known about learning applies to teachers as well as to their students.

But the research that does exist, generally in the form of rich case studies, provides important information about teachers as they attempt to change their practices. Teacher learning is relatively new as a research topic, so there is not a great deal of data on it. 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. If teachers are to prepare an ever more diverse group of students for much more challenging work-for framing problems finding, integrating and synthesizing information creating new solutions learning on their own and working cooperatively-they will need substantially more knowledge and radically different skills than most now have and most schools of education now develop.

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