Professor Lianghuo Fan, Head/MaSE, just published his latest book addressing a major issue about teacher learning and professional development. Entitled “Investigating the Pedagogy of Mathematics: How Do Teachers Develop Their Knowledge?”, this book presents two research studies that he conducted in the US and Singapore, respectively, to investigate how different sources contribute to the development of teachers’ pedagogical knowledge. The first study, which was earlier introduced into China, has had an important influence on China’s national policy on school-based teacher professional development (see earlier post) and now has been cited over 900 times (excluding book citations). The book describes:
- how teachers’ own teaching experience and reflection, and their daily exchanges with colleagues, are the most important sources of knowledge,
- how important in-service training and organized professional activities are,
- how teachers’ previous experiences as students, their pre-service training and their reading of professional literature have less influence on the development of their pedagogical knowledge.
The findings in the book are believed to have significant implications for teachers, teacher educators, education administrators, researchers, as well as policy-makers worldwide. Professor Fan comments, “I am very happy that the book has been eventually published by Imperial College Press, and I hope that the book can be of value not only to readers in the US and Singapore and mathematics educators, but also to any educational policy makers and researchers, teacher educators, school administrators and teachers, and graduate students who are interested in the theme of teachers’ knowledge development, since the issue how teachers gain their knowledge has general importance and communality in different countries and across different subject matters, and it is also internationally a common challenge to continuously improve teachers’ professional knowledge.”
The book is widely available in online stores such as Amazon (click here). For more information, please click here for an e-flyer and here for the book introduction.
Posted By : MSHE