ABSTRACT

More than two decades have passed since Lee Shulman called for educational researchers to move beyond generic studies of teaching to create “pedagogical content knowledge” that explores the ways that students learn in particular academic fields (Shulman, 1986). As the present volume amply illustrates, the intervening period has seen at least the beginnings of a sustained and systematic reevaluation of the intersection of the content and the practice of disciplines with student learning. Dai Hounsell and Charles Anderson’s work on “Ways of Thinking and Practicing in Biology and History” (Chapter 6) provides an excellent example of the progress that has been made in this area, and it can also serve as the occasion for a consideration of how these insights can be integrated with the actual practice of instructors within the disciplines.