ABSTRACT
Teaching is a highly complex and sophisticated business. Teachers develop a complex and tacit professional knowledge of practice, which develops over time through experience. This knowledge is difficult to articulate and share, which makes teaching appear easier than it seems. This chapter introduces the purpose of this book, which is to better understand, articulate and share the nature teachers’ professional knowledge of practice. The research approach was initially framed using the notion of pedagogical discontent; however through data collection and analysis, the notion of pedagogical equilibrium emerged as a more appropriate way of conceptualising the development of teachers’ professional knowledge. Teachers appeared to be searching for equilibrium in four broad areas of practice: content knowledge, organising for teaching, organising for learning and when managing student attitudes and behaviours. This chapter offers an overview of the structure of the book and introduces the SRCL framework, which is used throughout the book to summarise challenges to pedagogical equilibrium.
