Following a mixed-method approach research design, this paper reports on two studies that seek to investigate teachers' sense of preparedness to deal with student heterogeneity and its effect on their differentiated instructional practice. The first study uses nationally representative data from the National Educational Panel Study in Germany (N =…

What a 'successful career' means to teachers is little understood, although this would allow schools and educational governance alike to support teachers' development, and to reduce their attrition. This study examines how 240 school teachers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland conceptualize career success, as compared to 185 health-care/social…

In March 2020, many schools worldwide were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This closure confronted mathematics teachers with the challenging transition to emergency remote teaching (ERT). How did students experience ERT, and how did these experiences relate to context variables and to their teachers' beliefs and practices? In particular, what…

Increasing the supply of qualified teachers is a priority in many nations as a prerequisite to accomplishing UNESCO's Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) to "ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all" by the year 2030. Questions remain however concerning definitions and…

Experimentation is a complex problem-solving process. In biology lessons, experiments involve creative thinking and open discovery; however, they still require some degree of instructional guidance. The right balance between discovery learning and instructional guidance depends substantially on students' prior knowledge. Students with low prior…

How do teachers deal with multilingual pupils, and what reasons govern these choices? Whereas most studies on this topic have examined teachers in schools with monolingual policies, this paper includes teachers at bilingual schools. Framed by pedagogical theory, we present a qualitative research study based on interviews with teachers in the…

Given the increasing diversity of the student body, teachers are called to appropriately address students' various learning needs by means of differentiated instruction (DI). However, empirical research has yielded mixed evidence on teachers' reported use of DI. Using nationally representative data from the National Educational Panel Study in…

It is widely recognized that education plays a key role in addressing current global challenges. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) combines local actions with global thinking. In Virtual School Garden Exchanges (VSGEs) primary and secondary students from the Global South and North interact and communicate digitally about their school…

Comparing teachers' self-assessment to classes' assessment of quality of teaching can offer insights for educational research and be a valuable resource for teachers' continuous professional development. However, the quality of teaching needs to be measured in the same way across perspectives for this comparison to be meaningful. We used data from…

Prior research suggests that teachers' positive perceptions of a reform are key when it comes to its successful implementation. The importance of teachers as enactors of change efforts results from their close tie to what is happening in the classroom. This suggests that without persuaded change agents, innovations are unlikely to be implemented…

Geography educators have long taught anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC) using geospatial data, visualizations, analysis tools and models. We examined the attitudes of teachers at secondary schools, research institutions, colleges and universities tasked with teaching using one such technology. We designed a seventeen-question online survey…

In Germany schools are obliged to foster students' digital competences. Based on the proficiency levels of students' computer and information literacy (CIL) from the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS 2013), and a theoretical approach to media education in school, this paper aims to provide evidence on the relevance of…

This systematic review investigates the relevance of general pedagogical knowledge for successful teaching. It synthesises the empirical evidence of 10 769 teaching professionals and 853 452 students from primary to tertiary education in 21 countries. The meta-analysis of 20 quantitative studies revealed significant effects for teaching quality…

When schools in Germany were closed in Spring 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, distance teaching and learning was implemented. Teachers and schools strived to recreate learning programs and education in a new and unknown way. To learn about ways that distance learning can work well for students and schools, several teachers and principals…

This paper investigates how bilingual Upper Sorbian-German teachers who belong to the Sorbian speech community (Lusatia, Germany) introduce the minority language during German language lessons in an Upper Sorbian school. In Lusatia, as well as in Sorbian schools, bilingualism is not of equal character; minority language speakers are all bilingual…