My research in teacher education is grounded in almost 30 years of being a university teacher educator. I have been consistently involved in scholarly activities, including research on learning to teach in elementary and secondary schools. This research has extended to include studies of the teaching and learning of science for prospective and practicing teachers and continues to the present day. The theoretical frames I have used as a basis for making sense of teaching and teacher knowledge have changed and in accordance with these changes I adapted my approach to teacher education. Consistent with my beliefs about publication and subjecting my ideas to peer review I published the differing approaches that I have adopted to teacher education during my career. These are evident throughout my vita as journal articles, chapters in books, and books. The most recent research that I have undertaken involves learning to teach through coteaching. With my colleagues I have studied diverse aspects of coteaching and numerous recent publications have been coauthored, including several books with Wolff-Michael Roth.

I began to study teaching and the manner in which it mediated learning in 1973. Since then I have been consistently involved in investigations that have encompassed K-College, once again focused mainly, though not entirely, on science in high schools. In the past five years my research in this area has focused on the teaching and learning of science in urban high schools in which almost all learners are African American from home circumstances of relative poverty. Presently my research in this area is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. With two recent graduates (Gale Seiler and Rowhea Elmesky) I am writing a book that contains 17 chapters from the researchers involved in the current research. Next year two more books (single authored) are planned – one methodological and the other focused on teaching and learning science in urban high schools.

The methodology I employ in my research has evolved to reflect my use of a variety of theoretical frames in my research. Recently I have developed research practices that cohere with theories from cultural sociology and activity theory. My approach, which is largely critical ethnography, is augmented with micro-analyses that involve intensive research using videotapes. The techniques I use include frame by frame analyses, micro-ethnography of video vignettes, and a search for spatial and temporal patterns evident in replays at speeds of up to five times the normal pace. My present studies are intensive, longitudinal, actively involve participants as researchers, and are informed by diverse data sources that include video-ethnographies produced by high schools student researchers.