This reflection illustrates the notion that professional development
is about how one teaches, and not about how students learn.
A shift in focus from teaching to learning represents a conceptual
change of the teaching enterprise because it puts on center stage
the experience of the learner as a critical component of the learning
process. This change stems from realizing that pedagogy as planned
or enacted by the teacher often differs significantly from learning
that takes place. It re-examines the misconception: “If I taught it,
the students learned it.” Hadar and Hotam (2012) and Hotam and
Hadar (2013) described this perspective as “pedagogy in practice”,
a term that views the learner’s experience as critical for understanding
the learning that takes place in a particular context.
This insight considers interplay between teaching and learning,counterbalancing the imperative of what teachers “should do” or
how teachers “should teach.” Similar to Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s
(1999) notion of knowledge of-, in-, and for-practice, this view also
focuses on the teacher as a learner. However “pedagogy in practice”
offers an additional perspective on teachers’ practice, namely the
student’s actual learning and understanding.