ABSTRACT

Teacher education appears to have changed little in half a century or more. Although various instructional models, from traditional classroom instruction to apprenticeship/internship approaches, have gained and lost favor during this time, 1 preservice education programs continue, appropriately, to address three areas: knowledge of subject matter, knowledge of instructional processes and procedures, and implementation of appropriate processes and procedures in the classroom. Yet, for all of the innovations that have been and are being tried, it has generally been the case that teacher education programs are more successful at enhancing future teachers’ knowledge of subject matter and instructional procedures than at developing their instructional decision-making abilities (e.g., see Munby, Russell, & Martin, 2001)—even though the making of moment-to-moment decisions about what to teach, when to teach it, and how to best do so is perhaps what characterizes the most effective classroom teachers.