Compared to their more experienced colleagues, novice teachers are more likely to experience burn-out and leave the profession. They are also more likely to be assigned out-of-field. This paper shines a light on the emotional and cognitive nature of what is involved for these teachers as they learn to teach out-of-field. Fortune lines technique…

Learning to teach science out-of-field (OOF)--teaching science without the required qualifications or specializations--raises a number of challenges for teachers. This paper uses a spatial-temporal lens to examine teachers' experiences of learning to teaching science subjects OOF over time. The analysis draws on longitudinal interviews with OOF…

There is wide acceptance that there are teacher shortages, particularly in physics, chemistry and mathematics, and in rural and hard to staff schools. An issue that arises because of this shortage is teachers teaching subjects that they are not qualified to teach. In this paper, I draw on my research and that of others to outline the issues for…