The Interdependence of Teaching and Learning

The varied chapters of this book seek to capture the complexities of teaching and learning in today'sschools, and they share an interest in exploring the influences of knowledge construction in the moment andover time. Teaching and learning are human processes, interrelated and dynamic. We assembled thiscollection to unpack what it means to teach and to learn, teasing out some of the implications and challengesof such complicated educational processes that are often misconstrued as causal or linear. As educatorscurrently residing in the United States, we find this a particularly pressing agenda, given the current focuson common core standards and reducing teaching and learning to conceptual and pedagogical stepby-stepprocedures. Our primary concern in putting together this book was to provide a conceptual and politicalfoundation from which to construct and defend understandings and practices of teaching and learning thatembody the complexity of educational endeavors and relationships. The isolation of teaching from learning,and the othering of both teachers and students, one from the other, suggests that knowledge is synonymouswith information. This book challenges such assumptions.The project underlying this text can be seen as a means of rethinking how teachers' and students' perspectives of practice and curriculum influencewhat learning opportunities are provided to students. Chapters written by established and new thinkers in the field of education demonstrate the waysin which teachers reformulate relationships between teaching and learning in school settings. Our second objective is to examine local constructions ofknowledge over time and how those constructions are consequential for teacher and student learning. By examining patterns of practice and processesof knowledge construction in elementary, secondary, and undergraduate classrooms, the authors of these chapters lay a foundation for examiningcommonalities and differences in the construction of knowledge and practices across educational levels, disciplines, and in-school and outof-schoolsettings.