In a longitudinal study of 496 students in 27 self-contained German elementary school classrooms, performance in mathematical word problems and arithmetic tasks was measured at the end of Grades 2 and 3. A questionnaire was used to assess the degree to which teachers' pedagogical content beliefs in elementary mathematics reflect a cognitive constructivist orientation, rather than an associationist or direct-transmission view of learning and teaching. Our findings show that a cognitive constructivist orientation was associated with larger achievement gains in mathematical word problems. Moreover, teachers with a direct transmission view were not more successful than teachers with a cognitive constructivist orientation in fostering students' computational proficiency.

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It has been repeatedly shown that teaching placements are highly valued by student teachers. However, there is very little knowledge on the impact of different forms of support for placements on the learning of future teachers. One model to support placements is Content-Focused CoachingSM. In a quasi-experimental intervention study, we investigated the impact of this form of support using questionnaires, video recordings and interviews with dyads of practical teaching staff and their placement students. The results of the survey show that practical teaching staff trained in Content-Focused CoachingSM (intervention group NIG = 16) integrated basic elements of this model into their repertoire and that their teaching practice is significantly different to that in the control group (NKG = 16), which supports placement students in the traditional way. Indicators for learning in the context of lesson meetings, furthermore, give evidence that placement students in the intervention group achieve significantly better learning results than their counterparts supported in the traditional manner. The assessment of teaching quality, based on the video recordings, was also significantly better than for the control group.

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