When teachers can devote the time and effort to make sense of new conceptions underlying reform initiatives and programs, they will likely increase their understanding of contemporary educational ideas and issues. This puts them in a better position to examine, critique, and improve their own practice. One idea commonly embraced by researchers and reformers, for example, is the constructivist learning theory, which is a radical departure from views of learning held by the majority of teachers. The educational system does not typically accommodate or promote the kind of deep rethinking that is necessary for teachers to understand constructivism and its implications for teaching. Teachers may, however, be involved in the implementation of a new program or curriculum that is based on constructivism. Without an understanding of this theory of learning, they make changes to their practice at a fairly superficial level and, thus, may not achieve the results envisioned by reformers.

Although understanding ideas such as constructivism will help teachers create new knowledge of teaching and learning, they still need to be able to take the next step and consider these ideas in light of their daily context. Ball and Cohen (1999) discussed teachers' learning, saying

	The knowledge of subject matter, learning, learners, and pedagogy is essential territory of teachers' work if they are to work as reformers imagine, but such knowledge does not offer clear guidance, for teaching of the sort that reformers advocate requires that teachers respond to students' efforts to make sense of material. To do so, teachers additionally need to learn how to investigate what students are doing and thinking, and how instruction has been understood...The best way to improve both teaching and teacher learning would be to create the capacity for much better learning about teaching as a part of teaching. (p. 11)

So, in light of the many new ideas, theories, and agendas that are part of contemporary efforts to reform or improve schools and the specificity of individual school contexts, the problem for this study is: How can teachers be supported in developing the understanding necessary to make coherent instructional decisions that promote student learning?

Following an extensive literature review , we identified several assumptions that would guide our work on this problem: (1) teachers are learners and professionals who construct their own knowledge of teaching and learning; (2) dialogue, inquiry, and reflection are professional activities that can promote teacher learning; (3) teachers should be partners in generating knowledge of teaching; and (4) teachers can develop a stance toward instructional decision making that is clearly focused on students and learning. We proposed that teachers who are able to bring the components of the system - curriculum, instruction, assessment, external mandates, and community context - together intentionally with a focus on student learning have created what we are calling "instructional coherence." Such coherence leads to improved educational experiences for learners as teachers make their instructional decisions by using both information collected in the classroom about what and how their students are learning and information from external sources about what is important for students to learn.