Course Identification

Cognition, Learning and Instruction (course code 20245022)

Teaching is “an enormously difficult job that looks easy” (Labaree, 2000) especially as mathematics and science teachers are increasingly expected to establish more ambitious cognitive and social goals for their teaching, while they also navigate multiple changing teaching contexts, such as curricula updates, technological advancements, and unstable sociopolitical situations, to name a few. 

Against this background, and in order to expand our ability to study, explain, and consequently to support teacher learning with more complexity, this course focuses on description and discussion of the main theoretical perspective on STEM teacher learning. 

Informed by cognitivism, sociocultural, commognitive, interactional, ecological, complexity, and sociopolitical theories of learning, the course will be based on intensive critical reading of journal articles and students will have the opportunity to choose articles for theoretical consideration as well as to lead some of the discussions.

Finally, this course syllabus is a dynamic and fluid document, subject to changes to accommodate the evolving interests and research areas of the students and the group as a learning community.
 

1. List the different approaches to STEM teacher learning and the differences thereof.
2. Appraise, in a critical way, each of the learning approaches
3. For students with a research project in STEM teaching, articulate the theoretical foundations of their own project. For those without a research project, this requirement may not apply.
4. Read both effectively and critically articles and scholarly argumentation from both within and outside the paradigms being discussed.
5. Suggest implications for design and support of teacher learning by integrating topics discussed in class.
    

Ball, D. L., Thames, M. H., & Phelps, G. (2008). Content Knowledge for Teaching: What Makes It Special? Journal of Teacher Education, 59(5), 389–407. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487108324554

Bannister, N. A. (2018). Theorizing collaborative mathematics teacher learning in communities of practice. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 49(2), 125-139. 

Borko, H. (2004). Professional development and teacher learning: Mapping the terrain. Educational Researcher, 33(8), 3–15.

Boylan, M., Coldwell, M., Maxwell, B., & Jordan, J. (2018). Rethinking models of professional learning as tools: A conceptual analysis to inform research and practice. Professional Development in Education, 44(1), 120–139.

Clarke, D., & Hollingsworth, H. (2002). Elaborating a model of teacher professional growth. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18(8), 947–967. 

Coburn, C. (2001). Collective sensemaking about reading: How teachers mediate reading policy in their professional communities. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23(2), 145-170. 

Cohen, D.K. (2011) Teaching and Its Predicaments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Cochran-Smith, M., Ell, F., Ludlow, L., Grudnoff, L., & Aitken, G. (2014). The challenge and promise of complexity theory for teacher education research. Teachers College Record, 116(5), 1–38.

Desimone, L. M. (2009). Improving impact studies of teachers’ professional development: Toward better conceptualizations and measures. Educational Researcher, 38(3), 181–199.
 
Dudley, P. (2013). Teacher learning in Lesson Study: What interaction-level discourse analysis revealed about how teachers utilised imagination, tacit knowledge of teaching and fresh evidence of pupils learning, to develop practice knowledge and so enhance their pupils’ learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 34, 107–121. 

Ehrenfeld, N. (2022). Framing an ecological perspective on teacher professional development. Educational Researcher, 51(7), 489-495.

Horn, I. S. (2005). Learning on the Job: A Situated Account of Teacher Learning in High School Mathematics Departments. Cognition and Instruction, 23(2), 207–236. 

Horn, I., & Garner, B. (2022). Teacher learning of ambitious and equitable mathematics instruction: A sociocultural approach. Routledge.

Kazemi, E., & Hubbard, A. (2008). New directions for the design and study of professional development: Attending to the coevolution of teachers’ participation across contexts. Journal of Teacher Education, 59(5), 428–441.

Kennedy, M. M. (2019). How we learn about teacher learning. Review of Research in Education, 43(1), 138–162. 

Kind, V. (2009). Pedagogical content knowledge in science education: perspectives and potential for progress. Studies in science education, 45(2), 169-204.

Labaree, D. F. (2000) On the Nature of Teaching and Teacher Education: Difficult Practices That Look Easy. Journal of Teacher Education 51(3), 228–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487100051003011.

Lefstein, A., Louie, N., Segal, A., & Becher, A. (2020). Taking stock of research on teacher collaborative discourse: Theory and method in a nascent field. Teaching and Teacher Education, 88, 102954. 

Lefstein, A., Vedder-Weiss, D., & Segal, A. (2020). Relocating research on teacher learning: Toward pedagogically productive talk. Educational Researcher, 49(5), 360–368. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X20922998

Little, J. W. (2002). Locating learning in teachers’ communities of practice: Opening up problems of analysis in records of everyday work. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18(8), 917–946. 

Lortie, D. (1975). The Limits of Socialization (Chapter 3). Schoolteacher (pp. 55-81). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

Opfer, V. D., & Pedder, D. (2011). Conceptualizing teacher professional learning. Review of Educational Research, 81(3), 376–407.

Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 4-14.

van Es, E. A., & Sherin, M. G. (2010). The influence of video clubs on teachers’ thinking and practice. Journal of mathematics teacher Education, 13(2), 155-176. 

Vedder-Weiss, D., Segal, A., & Lefstein, A. (2019). Teacher face-work in discussions of video-recorded classroom practice: Constraining or catalyzing opportunities to learn? Journal of Teacher Education, 70(5), 538-551.