The Wisdom of Practice: Essays on Teaching, Learning, and Learning to Teach

What do teachers need to know in order to teach well? How important is the depth and quality of teachers' content knowledge as a critical aspect of their ability to teach? How can teachers best be educated, and how can we assess their accomplishments as teachers? In what ways is the professional preparation of teachers comparable to the preparation of physicians and other members of learned professions? What kinds of educational research can provide deeper understanding of teaching, learning, and the reform of education? These are just some of the many questions answered in this landmark collection of Lee Shulman's best work. A pioneer in the field of teaching and teacher research, Shulman's work and thinking have long influenced teachers and researchers. But while Shulman is one of the most widely cited scholars in education, his writings have been scattered among a variety of books and journals—until now.

The Wisdom of Practice at last makes Shulman's major works on K-12 education and teacher education available in one volume. His interests in teaching of all sorts—in K-12 schools, in teacher education, in graduate programs for educational researchers, in liberal education—have been diverse. The essays included touch on such wide-ranging topics as the psychology of school subjects, medical problem solving, teacher knowledge, performance assessment, teaching in higher education, the scholarship of teaching and learning, the characteristics and pedagogies of the professions, the role of cases in professional education and research, and the character of relevant and rigorous educational research.

Lee S. Shulman has been president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching since 1997. From 1963 to 1982, Shulman was professor of educational psychology and medical education at Michigan State University. From 1982 to 2000, he was on the faculty at Stanford University. He is a former president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) as well as a past president of the National Academy of Education. Shulman has received the AERA's career award for Distinguished Contributions to Educational Research as well as the American Psychological Association's E. L. Thorndike Award for Distinguished Psychological Contributions to Education. A Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, he was also elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002.