This symposium seeks to answer the question of how teachers learn to teach effectively. We examine this question with careful attention to context bringing together historical, theoretical, and empirical work. Beginning in February 2014 we have begun to develop a framework that will allow us to collect data to inform our question across a large number of countries and areas of teaching knowledge. We intend to engage in a review of the state of knowledge from 1980 (when major reforms of and insights into teacher education began in different contexts) to date. We will use “backward mapping” to chart the evolution of the research that has supported current and past innovations in teacher preparation to answer questions such as: does the research literature point to common features of effective teacher education across countries and contexts? Does university-based teacher preparation provide unique opportunities to learn to teach? Is strong content knowledge sufficient to become a good teacher? What is the role of pedagogical content knowledge and other knowledge that is acquired in partnership between teacher education programs and schools? How have strong accountability and standardized testing trends in a growing number of schools systems, affected teacher education and the organization of experiences that support learning to teach?

These questions are located at the core of different conceptions of knowledge across the contexts of teacher learning as they interact with what individuals bring with them as they are initiated into teaching. The purpose of this symposium is to introduce our framework and our methodology for data collection. Individual papers will answer question of how teacher learn to teach effectively in different countries considering the history and the theory as well as empirical evidence. These examples will also illustrate the internationally variability in different conceptions of knowledge in the context of learning to teach (e.g., curriculum, what knowledge counts as important among teacher educators and for teacher education, school knowledge, pupil knowledge).

After a short introduction we present four papers using a comparative framework to contrast the literature and research trends from the following countries Bulgaria and Russia, Czech Republic and Slovakia, Ireland and Finland, and the U.S. and the U.K. The first two papers are subject matter specific while the other two cuts across subject matters. The conclusion will seek to discuss the connections between practice, research and policy across these different settings. These papers together demonstrate the complexity embedded in the knowledge that is considered worth having for teachers and by implication students, and the complex history and theory involved in the provision of effective teacher education.

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