Teaching in Context: The Social Side of Education Reform

Teaching in Context provides new evidence from a range of leading scholars showing that teachers become more effective when they work in organizations that support them in comprehensive and coordinated ways. The studies featured in the book suggest an alternative approach to enhancing teacher quality: creating conditions and school structures that facilitate the transmission and sharing of knowledge among teachers, allowing teachers to work together effectively, and capitalizing on what we know about how educators learn and improve. The studies also show how social dynamics influence the speed, depth, and success with which any new idea is implemented, and how policies enacted without adequate consideration of their impact on the social fabric of schools can produce unintended negative consequences.
 
Policies aimed at improving teaching should focus on strengthening the organization as a whole so that all teachers are likely to improve. The chapters in this book point to the need to reevaluate current policies for assessing and ensuring teacher effectiveness, and establish the foundation for a more thoughtful, research-informed approach.