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    Content-focused learning improves teacher practice and student results

    By Learning Forward
    August 2011
    Vol. 32 No. 4
    Content focus and coherence are fundamental to professional devel- opment that helps teachers boost student learning. Learning Forward’s Outcomes standard emphasizes that teacher learning should be focused on subject-matter content and how students learn that content, and consistent with the in- dividual, school, and district factors that shape teachers’ work lives. Several key scholars have helped shape our un- derstanding of content focus and coherence and provided evidence to support their significance. CONTENT FOCUS Lee Shulman (1987) helped initiate the discussion of focusing on content and how students learn content. He highlighted what some researchers call pedagogical con- tent knowledge — the specialized knowledge teachers need to effectively convey content to students, such as the knowledge to select appropriate models to illustrate new concepts, as well

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    Authors

    Laura Desimone

    Laura Desimone (lauramd@gse.upenn.edu) is associate professor in the Penn Graduate School of Education in Philadelphia, Pa. Her work explores how state, district, and school policy can better promote changes in teaching that lead to improved student achievement and to closing the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students.

    References

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