Teaching Qualifications and Teaching Assignments: How They Influence Teachers' Professional Development Choices
In contrast to NCLB, teachers define effective teaching as a function of content knowledge and good pedagogy. Teachers work in an environment where their assignments shift from year to year, and where they have relatively little power in determining what they will teach. They seek a variety of professional development experiences, including both BSP and non-BSP offerings that they believe will be immediately useful to them. Regardless of their years of teaching experience however, their interest is in bolstering content knowledge along with their pedagogical skills, Boston Science Partnership strategies; CCLS and CCCs meet both of these interests in different ways. CCLS places pedagogy in the foreground and content knowledge in the background, while the CCCs place content in the foreground and pedagogy in the background. Incorporating both pedagogy and content knowledge acknowledges what teachers know to be true - that to teach effectively, one needs both.
