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Amidst a worldwide concern with teacher quality, recent teacher reforms often focus on how to certify teachers, how to evaluate teachers, how to recruit the best and brightest people to be teachers, and how to fire bad teachers. The political discourse of these policy reforms oftentimes depicts teachers as largely inactive transmitters of knowledge and does not recognize the agency they have in affecting standards. Yet, such a narrow framework may suppress teacher pedagogy, practices, and also teacher beliefs. In this chapter, we seek to understand the extent that two types of math teacher beliefs – traditional and constructivist orientations – are related to national cultural factors. In doing so, we test both “culturist” and “neo-institutional” hypotheses by observing how those beliefs vary across different nations.

This chapter considers ways in which lesson study may be introduced and sustained within the school–university partnerships that already exist within an initial teacher education (ITE) course. In particular, the authors describe the challenges and opportunities associated with ITE lesson study partnerships and ways in which lesson study can deepen and even transform the nature of the school–university partnership. The authors draw on third-generation Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (Engeström, 2001) to highlight pre-service teachers’ roles as ‘boundary crossers’ between the activity system of the university ITE course and the activity system of the school department in which they are placed. The authors argue that pre-service teachers, despite their inexperience as teachers, have an important opportunity to introduce the practices of lesson study that they are learning about into the schools in which they are placed. They are also able to promote approaches to lesson planning and observation that support the values of the course and thus, through mentor development, strengthen the school–university partnership more widely than the specific lesson studies carried out. The authors outline three models for productive ITE lesson study partnerships, and argue that even a relatively small number of lesson study events throughout the school year can establish the beginnings of a transformation in the school culture away from a performative focus on evaluating the teacher and towards a more productive focus on school students’ learning. This, in turn, deepens the partnership between university and school by aligning both parties more closely around a shared focus on studying learning.

In this chapter, we discuss cases involving pre-service mathematics teachers. These cases highlight teachers’ understanding of perspectives as they solve and analyze student work involving tasks that call for translations between algebraic and graphical representations. Findings suggest that flexible or inflexible knowledge structures influence participant’s attempt to analyze or address student thinking.

Findings from this study highlight a major concern for teacher education and IBL efforts. If teachers do not have a flexible knowledge base to draw from, teachers may fail to capture important aspects of students’ thinking and help students develop appropriate understandings. Such failure may result in missed opportunities to effectively assist students to explore, create and communicate, ideas that are core to IBL.

Lesson study has become a popular approach for supporting the development of student-teachers within initial teacher education (ITE) programmes. In a short space of time, the original model of lesson study, originating in Japan, has been adapted to fit into the work contexts of different national systems and ITE provider structures. This chapter classifies the different emerging models of lesson study into three main groups, university and hybrid approaches, practicum approaches and heterodox approaches. Learning study is also considered, due to its developing popularity, as a practice development approach. Having outlined the different models of lesson study used in ITE, the authors go on to outline some of the main challenges and advantages of participating in lesson study which have been identified in the literature.

Beliefs about teaching influence practice and can play a powerful role in the day-to-day decision-making of teachers. Pre-service teachers commonly accrue their original set of beliefs on teaching from teacher preparation programs or personal experiences, but unlike teachers with more experience, new teachers are more susceptible to changing their beliefs on teaching once they become official teachers of record. If these beliefs change in a negative way, such as by adopting a set of beliefs that views students through a deficit lens, or capable of achieving less than their privileged counterparts, then schools will continue to foster tendencies for social reproduction instead of tendencies for social justice. In urban schools, this increase in negative perceptions of students is even more common as new teachers face challenges that are less likely to occur in non-urban schools. Findings suggest that new teachers do change their beliefs during their first year, and that these beliefs often reflect the beliefs of trusted and close colleagues within their social networks. While some teachers experienced positive changes in their beliefs and teaching practices, other teachers experienced negative changes in their beliefs that unfavorably affected students. Most teachers were unaware of their belief changes, but offered explanations for how and why their beliefs could have changed without their noticing over the course of the study. Implications and possible directions for future research are discussed.

An on-line professional development environment, Knowledge Networks On the Web (KNOW), is described as an example of how on-line video can be employed in support of teacher learning in systemic reform contexts. The design of KNOW is founded on the notion that teacher learning is most effective when it can be linked directly to the classroom enactment of curriculum, and when it can leverage the knowledge of a community of teachers. A conceptual model of teacher learning and a model for conducting research based on that model are described to explain how teacher learning from the use of KNOW can be linked to student learning to improve overall system design.

There have been calls to embed Information and Communication Technology (ICT) into pre-service teacher courses in preference to technology only courses as a means to provide graduate pre-service teachers with the necessary skills to integrate ICT into their teaching practice. This chapter describes a case study of a pre-service science education curriculum course that was designed to embed ICT into its curriculum, assessment and delivery. The tutor modelled best teaching practice in the use of learning technologies. The theoretical framework is Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) viewed through a representation construction approach. This approach involved the students undertaking a series of representational challenges where they constructed and critiqued representations. The study found increased student engagement with learning technologies and an enhanced TPACK over the period of the course. Several factors that may have led to these findings are discussed.

Much of the lesson study research in initial teacher education (ITE) is focussed on single cases and pilot projects. As a result, there is very little consideration of the wider cultural and organisational issues which need to be considered if lesson study is to become embedded within ITE partnerships in the longer term. The move from novelty to sustainability is not an easy one but is rarely considered within the LS literature. Here, the authors argue that Normalisation Process Theory, a framework first developed in the medical, health and social care sphere can be used to offer a wider, organisation-level perspective on successfully embedding lesson study in ITE partnerships.

This chapter is presented in four distinct sections designed specifically to help early career scholars gain valuable insight into the complexities of preparing for and succeeding as a faculty member in the United States’ (US) system of higher education. The first section will explore the vast and multifaceted landscape of higher education across the US, anticipating that readers will be inspired to seek more regionally and institutionally specific perspectives as appropriate to their own interests. The second section offers a reflective narrative from the perspective of a doctoral candidate working strategically to help ensure a smooth transition to a faculty appointment in the US system. This section will provide perspectives on doctoral program aims and structures in the US along with the day-to-day work of a doctoral candidate working within the context of a college of education. In the following section of this chapter the authors offer guidance for engaging in impactful and innovative work to help ensure early career success. Such advice includes working across traditional academic boundaries and pursuing timely and influential research questions that deepen understandings across often distinct lines of inquiry. Finally, the authors present brief perspectives from several experienced faculty who remind us of the larger picture of what it means to truly thrive in the competitive environment of higher education.