Teachers use several modes of knowledge to engage with specific groups of students and respective classroom challenges on an everyday basis: They draw on codified knowledge that they may take from research, on personal knowledge that they acquired, and on practical knowledge that enables them to perform in class. The distinction between codified knowledge and personal knowledge has been highlighted by other researchers to date, e.g. McIntyre (2005, 360) who noted the “impersonal nature of research knowledge is quite different from the personal nature of teaching”. Biesta (2010, 496) noted the distinction between personal knowledge and practical knowledge stating “there is always a gap between the knowledge we have and the situations in which we have to act”. It is how teachers connect research knowledge and personal knowledge with their own teaching practice that enables them to perform expertly in class and make situated judgements: “Among many situations, all seen as similar with respect to plan or perspective, the expert has learned to distinguish those situations requiring one reaction from those demanding another” (Dreyfus & Dreyfus 2005, 787). From this background, the talk theoretically introduces an updated personal knowledge view (Polanyi 1998). This view emphasises that situated discriminations rely on both personal and practical knowledge, and this knowledge provides orientations used for teaching. Orientations for teaching are continually refined by teachers through continual detachment and involvement (Dreyfus 2007). From a Documentary Method view (Bohnsack, Pfaff & Weller 2010), these orientations consist of patterns which include both orientation frameworks that address specific subsets of educational action, e.g. communication of subject knowledge and classroom management, and orientation schemes that address institutional norms and personal values for teaching. Teachers draw on these orientations dynamically to react to perceived challenges, and situations are reframed to address a challenge and match it with an adequate orientation that fits a perceived classroom challenge (Wieser 2015). The Documentary Method view specifies a perspective on knowledge teachers engage with to refine and adapt their orientations for teaching: Resources to develop orientations for teaching – such as findings from research – are seen as external to the personal knowledge of a teacher, and need to be acquired and connected to the personal knowledge of a teacher to become relevant to their practice. This talk incorporates a discussion of initial findings from ethnographic fieldwork and Documentary Method data analysis that focuses on changes of personal orientations of teachers for teaching.

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