Teacher learning, as with all learning, is influenced by the learner’s existing knowledge, the experiences afforded by the learning environment, and, particularly, those things in that environment to which teachers choose to attend. In the Australian study, all three mathematics teachers completed a test instrument adapted from the TEDS-M study (Tatto et al., 2012), assessing content knowledge (MCK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Information about the teacher’s existing knowledge would presumably provide part of any explanation for teacher subsequent capacity to learn from the experience of teaching a lesson. The maximum possible score was 49 (MCK: 29; PCK: 20). Teacher A scored 29 (14; 15), Teacher B 36 (24; 12) and Teacher C 30 (19; 11). The teachers’ total scores were not greatly different, but Teacher A, who scored highest in PCK scored lowest in MCK, suggesting that, for these teachers at least, PCK and MCK should be treated as distinct teacher attributes. This suggested that our analysis of teacher learning should investigate the development of teacher PCK and MCK as potentially separate phenomena, in terms of learning process, learning product and readiness to learn. Blömeke and Delaney (2012) reported that the correlation between PCK and MCK was generally strong, but varied between countries. Our preliminary results suggest this question warrants more fine-grained study. There was an interesting association between these data and those objects, events and considerations that the teachers reported attending to during the five interview sessions. For example, Teacher A (lower MCK; higher PCK) was far more likely than the other two teachers to refer to what she was noticing about individual students and the group, and how her mathematical focus, models and representations would accommodate this information. Such relationships between teacher knowledge, attention and learning constitute the major focus of this project.

Blömeke, S., & Delaney, S. (2012). Assessment of teacher knowledge across countries: A review of the state of research. ZDM The International Journal on Mathematics Education, 44(3), 223-247. Tatto, M. T., Peck, R., Schwille, J., Bankov, K., Senk, S. L., Rodriguez, M., Ingvarson, L., Reckase, M., & Rowley, G. (2012). Policy, practice, and the readiness to teach primary and secondary mathematics in 17 countries: Findings from the IEA Teacher education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M). Amsterdam, Netherlands: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.