Pedagogy. Pedagogical knowledge of teaching and assessment refers to the ability of educators to assess, plan, implement, and evaluate teaching and learning in terms of their engagement of learners. Cochran-Smith and Lytle refer to knowledge-in-practice as a form of teacher learning acquired through direct classroom experiences with students. This type of teacher learning encompasses the repertoire of pedagogical actions teachers develop in response to the “particularities of everyday life in schools and classrooms.”

Knowledge-in-practice privileges knowledge “embedded in the exemplary practice of experienced teachers” in a process of professional knowing-in-action, ably described by Donald Schon. Components of the knowing-in-action process include how master teachers make judgments about instructional strategies and appropriate curriculum, how they identify and lift up certain curricular themes or concepts, and, especially, how they reflect on and modify their practice.

Central to the knowledge-in-practice relationship is an image of teaching as “wise action in the midst of uncertain and changing situations.” Therefore, teacher learning “hinges on enhancing teachers’ understandings of their own actions--that is, their own assumptions, their own reasoning and decisions, and their own inventions of new knowledge to fit unique and shifting classroom situations.”