Teachers' Personal Epistemologies

<p>The focus of this book is to explore teachers’ evolving personal epistemologies or the<br />beliefs we hold about the origin and development of knowledge in the context of teaching.<br />The chapters focus on a range of conceptual frameworks about how university and field?based experiences influence<br />the connections between teachers’ personal epistemologies and teaching practice. In an earlier volume we<br />investigated preservice and inservice teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices (Brownlee Schraw and Berthelsen<br />2011). While we addressed the nature of teachers’ personal epistemologies learning and teaching practices and<br />approaches for changing beliefs throughout teacher education programs the volume did not address conceptual<br />frameworks for the development of teacher’s personal epistemologies. To address this gap the book is focused on<br />teacher educators teachers and teacher education programmers in universities with an overall aim of highlighting<br />how we might support preservice teachers’ involvement in learning that is challenging and inservice teachers’<br />engagement in professional experiences that promote changes in teaching practice. We argue that teachers need to be<br />encouraged to question their beliefs and develop increasingly sophisticated beliefs<br />about their knowledge and their students’ knowledge that facilitate learning and<br />intellectual growth.</p>