LEARNING FROM RESEARCH ON TEACHING: PERSPECTIVE, METHODOLOGY, AND REPRESENTATION
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ADVANCES IN RESEARCH ON TEACHING Series Editor: Jere Brophy Volume 1: Volume 2:
Teaching for Meaningful Understanding and Self-Regulated Learning Teacher Knowledge of Subject Matter
Volume Volume Volume Volume
3: 4: 5: 6:
Planning and Managing Learning Tasks Case Studies of Teaching and Learning Learning and Teaching Elementary Subjects Teaching and Learning History
Volume 7: Volume 8:
Expectations in the Classroom Subject-Specific Instructional Methods and Activities Social Constructivist Teaching: Affordances and Constraints
Volume 9: Volume 10:
Using Video in Teacher Education
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ADVANCES IN RESEARCH ON TEACHING VOLUME 11
LEARNING FROM RESEARCH ON TEACHING: PERSPECTIVE, METHODOLOGY, AND REPRESENTATION EDITED BY
JERE BROPHY College of Education, Michigan State University, USA
STEFINEE PINNEGAR McKay School of Education, Brigham Young University, USA
Amsterdam – Boston – Heidelberg – London – New York – Oxford Paris – San Diego – San Francisco – Singapore – Sydney – Tokyo iii
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CONTENTS LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
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INTRODUCTION Stefinee Pinnegar and Jere Brophy
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PART I: INTRODUCTION PERSPECTIVE: WHOM SHOULD I ASK? LISTENING TO PRESERVICE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS Andrea K. Martin and Tom Russell STUDENT-LED PARENT CONFERENCES Janet Alleman LETTERS FROM MY GRAND-STUDENTS: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE TEACHERS Barbara Morgan-Fleming, Aretha Faye Marbley and Janet Jordan White TEACHERS’ PERSONAL MODELS OF INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN Susan G. Magliaro and R. Neal Shambaugh
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PART II: INTRODUCTION METHODOLOGY: HOW SHOULD I LOOK? A REPRESENTATIVE JOURNEY OF TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF SELF: A READERS’ THEATER Sally McMillan and Margaret A. Price BUILDING A SELF-REFLECTIVE COMMUNITY: TEACHER DEVELOPMENT WITH EXEMPLAR TEACHERS Lynn M. Brice, Lynn Nations Johnson, Katharine E. Cummings and Sarah Summy PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ IMAGES OF TEACHING H. Carol Greene and Susan G. Magliaro THE POSITIONING OF PRESERVICE TEACHER CANDIDATES ENTERING TEACHER EDUCATION Celina Dulude Lay, Stefinee Pinnegar, Meridith Reed, Emily Young Wheeler and Courtney Wilkes LEARNING TO TEACH WITH THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED Peggy Placier, Suzanne Burgoyne, Karen Cockrell, Sharon Welch, and Helen Neville
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PART III: INTRODUCTION REPRESENTATION: HOW DO I SHOW WHAT I SAW? THEATRICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF TEACHING AS PERFORMANCE Shifra Schonmann
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LIVING IN TENSION: NEGOTIATING A CURRICULUM OF LIVES ON THE PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE LANDSCAPE Janice Huber and D. Jean Clandinin
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VIDEO ETHNOGRAPHY AND TEACHERS’ COGNITIVE ACTIVITIES Peter Y. K. Chan and R. Carl Harris
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LOOKING AT OURSELVES: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AS SELF-STUDY Helen Freidus, Susan Feldman, Charissa M. Sgouros and Marilyn Wiles-Kettenmann DISCUSSION Jere Brophy and Stefinee Pinnegar
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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Janet Alleman
College of Education, Michigan State University, USA
Lynn M. Brice
College of Education, Western Michigan University, USA
Jere Brophy
College of Education, Michigan State University USA
Suzanne Burgoyne
College of Arts and Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA
Peter Y.K. Chan
School of Education, Brigham Young University Hawaii, USA
D. Jean Clandinin
Centre for Research for Teacher Education and Development, University of Alberta, Canada
Karen Cockrell
College of Education, University of MissouriColumbia, USA
Katharine E. Cummings
College of Education, Western Michigan University, USA
Susan Feldman
Bank Street College of Teacher Education, USA
Helen Freidus
Bank Street College of Teacher Education, USA
H. Carol Greene
College of Education, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
R. Carl Harris
School of Education, Brigham Young University, USA
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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Janice Huber
School of Education, St. Francis Xavier University, Canada
Lynn Nations Johnson
College of Education, Western Michigan University, USA
Celina Dulude Lay
Independent Researcher, Independent Researcher Provo, UT, USA
Susan G. Magliaro
School of Education, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA
Aretha Faye Marbley
College of Education, Texas Tech University, USA
Andrea K. Martin
Faculty of Education, Queen’s University, Canada
Sally McMillan
College of Education, Texas Tech University, USA
Barbara Morgan-Fleming
College of Education, Texas Tech University, USA
Helen Neville
College of Education, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA
Stefinee Pinnegar
McKay School of Education, Brigham Young University, USA
Peggy Placier
College of Education, University of MissouriColumbia, USA
Margaret A. Price
College of Education, Texas Tech University, USA
Meridith Reed
McKay School of Education, Brigham Young University, USA
Tom Russell
Faculty of Education, Queen’s University, Canada
Shifra Schonmann
Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Israel
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List of Contributors
Charissa M. Sgouros
New York City Board of Education, USA
R. Neal Shambaugh
College of Human Resources and Education, West Virginia University, USA
Sarah Summy
College of Education, Western Michigan University, USA
Sharon Welch
College of Arts and Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA
Emily Young Wheeler
Graduate Division of Education, The Johns Hopkins University, USA
Janet Jordan White
College of Education, Texas Tech University, USA
Marilyn Wiles-Kettenmann
Bank Street College of Education, USA
Courtney Wilkes
Messa High School, Gilbert, AZ, USA
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INTRODUCTION This is the 11th volume in the Advances in Research on Teaching series, and the second to address teacher education and professional development. The previous volume (Brophy, 2004) focused specifically on the use of video in those contexts. This volume casts a much broader net, looking at studies of a variety of teacher education and professional development issues. The studies were selected to offer contrasts in the types of informants who provided the data, the methods used to collect the data, and the means chosen for representing and communicating what was found. This volume grew out of a series of sessions held at the Invisible College for Research on Teaching and Teacher Education, during its annual meetings held immediately prior to the American Educational Research Association’s meetings. The sessions were attended by researchers interested in how perspective (who was asked), methodology (how questions were explored), and representation (how results were represented) were related to what the researchers had learned in their studies of teaching, teacher thinking, and teacher education. These sessions led to the organization of two symposia for the program of the American Educational Research Association, one on perspective and methodology and the other on the impact of representation. Discussion subsequent to the symposia led to the organization of this book. Over the last 20 years, a variety of qualitative methodologies has been used to explore the development of teachers from initial preservice courses through advanced professional development activities for experienced veterans. These methods have generated a variety of findings about teaching, teacher learning, and teacher education. Discussions of this work often feature two issues: (1) validity (Can the method be trusted to generate accurate data?) and (2) generalizability (Can the findings be articulated in ways that make them applicable in other contexts?). Researchers who use qualitative methods have generated insights about their affordances and constraints, as well as findings suggesting principles for understanding teaching and promoting teacher development. Yet, qualitative research paradigms typically do not make claims based on the kinds of foundational criteria for generating knowledge that establish a basis for xiii
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generalization. This book addresses this dilemma by providing findings, insights, and claims from qualitative research that appear to generalize beyond the settings that generated the data. The findings should inform our thinking about teaching and teacher education, and the explorations of the affordances and constraints of qualitative research methods should provide insightful (and sometimes controversial) contributions to our thinking about research on these topics. The book as a whole might be called a living meta-analysis of research on teaching. It is living because the chapters present research on ways of exploring living, or embodied knowledge, of teaching and teacher education practice. It also is living in the sense that each chapter presents an account of research findings that reflect ongoing explorations into teaching, teacher knowledge, and teacher education. In these chapters, the researchers reveal how questions about these topics grew in their own thinking; how the methodologies they used shaped, limited, and gave focus to their work; how the ways in which they chose to represent their findings gave shape to those findings; and how their methodologies continue to develop as tools for exploring further the questions that spurred their research and for addressing new questions that give continued vitality to their research and their practice as teacher educators. The book is also a kind of meta-analysis because the collective chapters reflect the current status of research on teaching using unusual and yet productive methodologies for exploring and understanding the topic. Each chapter provides a summary of what we know about particular aspects of research on teaching. In Chapter 4, for example, Magliaro and Shambaugh remind us that there is no agreement on what teacher knowledge is or how it is organized. In Chapter 10, Schonmann articulates another knowledge tension in research on teaching and teacher education, namely the recognition that teaching might be an art form and thus difficult to teach. In Chapter 2, Alleman reminds us that research in teacher education reveals that teacher educators sometimes engage in practices that they never used themselves as teachers. The work of Freidus, Feldman, Sgouros, and Wiles-Kettenmann in Chapter 13 is based on the knowledge that efforts to promote teachers’ professional development are mostly ineffective. The work of Brice, Nations Johnsons, Cummings, and Summy described in Chapter 6 is positioned at the intersection of theory and practice, because bridging that divide is a declared regularity in most research on teaching. Martin and Russell founded the work presented in Chapter 1 in the fact that calls for reform will not in and of themselves change teaching practice, which points to the need for
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attention to the ‘‘authority of experience’’ that preservice teachers bring to their programs. In Chapter 8, Lay, Pinnegar, Reed, Wheeler, and Wilkes remind us that most college students who enter teacher education are white, slightly less economically advantaged than their peers, more altruistic, and more likely to have experience tutoring children and working with special-student populations. Greene and Magliaro developed their work described in Chapter 7 on the knowledge that preservice teachers enter college with an apprenticeship of observation that is mostly tacit but yet filters what they take in from their teacher education program. In Chapter 5, McMillan and Price assert even more strongly that students come with defined notions about what teaching is and what teachers do, often construing it as a relatively simple transfer of information from themselves to their students. In Chapter 9, Placier, Burgoyne, Cockrell, Welch, and Neville explore claims that preservice teachers learn best from direct experience and that drama can be a tool for providing such experiential learning opportunities. In Chapter 12, Chan and Harris explore the possibilities for case-based curricula to transform teachers’ thinking and develop their professional knowledge. In Chapter 3, Morgan-Fleming, Marbley, and White note that discussions of what constitutes good teaching are seldom informed by the opinions of students, even though many of these students will themselves become teachers and are currently informed by their apprenticeship of observation as it has progressed to date. This suggests the value of asking them about their perceptions of how well their teacher is doing, not just testing their knowledge and skills. Finally, in Chapter 11, Huber and Clandinin explore teaching in its context as a curriculum of lives, moving from what we know about administrators’ and teachers’ stories to live by to exploration of children’s stories within that knowledge landscape. Taken together, the chapters provide a holistic, yet analytic understanding of what is and can be known about teaching (practice, knowledge, learning to teach, and teacher education). This holistic understanding is unpacked more completely in the discussion chapter at the end of the book. The book is a kind of meta-analysis in another sense as well, because it provides examples of a variety of research methodologies documented through particular studies, reflection on these methodologies, and consideration of their affordances and constraints. Various chapters provide examples of what research looks like when it employs various methodologies including narrative, self-study, positioning theory, talk-aloud, performance, archival study with journaling, collaboration, participatory action research, and teacher professional development groups. As they illustrate the
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strengths and limitations of their methodologies for developing knowledge about teaching, the chapters offer learning experiences comparable to inspection of the work of expert seamstresses. The authors show us their finished products (methods, findings, and conclusions) but they also make visible the particulars of their research strategies, turning the final products inside out to let us see the seams, darts, and construction processes that created them. What these revelations can teach us about research on teaching is also explored more fully in the discussion chapter. Two strategies unite the book and create the living meta-analysis of research on teaching that it offers. The first is a series of questions around which the authors have organized their chapters. All of the authors reveal what questions guided their study; how and why they chose to study teaching from their particular perspective and to use their particular methods; why they engaged in particular forms of analysis and represented their thinking in particular ways; what they learned about teaching, teacher thinking, or teacher education; what they came to understand about the strengths and limitations of their methods; and how their thinking developed about their questions, their methods, and their findings. The second factor that unites the book is its structural organization. A simple, yet profound and often forgotten characteristic of research is that what we learn in research on teaching is shaped, focused, and influenced by whom we ask, how we look, and how we represent what we see. The progression of chapters builds appreciation and provides examples of the fact that what we learn about teaching may depend on whom we ask (preservice or inservice teachers, their students, their supervisors, or their family or friends). They also illustrate the role of methodology in shaping initial research questions and leading the researchers to newer questions. By the end of the book, readers should have a more concrete understanding that self-study, narrative, collaborative action research, or the constant comparative method, all can have an impact on what we learn and how research questions get shaped. Finally, researchers often forget that the ways we represent findings may result in different understandings about teaching and teacher knowledge. Multimedia cases, readers’ theater, drawings, and stories all communicate knowledge but in different ways, thus calling forth different strategies for judging the accuracy or veracity of the findings. The chapters reveal that we learn different things about teaching when we ask different stakeholders in the process, when we use different methods for studying it, and when we use different ways of representing our findings. Each chapter contributes unique elements to the argument composed by the book as a whole concerning the
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impact of these choices on what we know and what we can learn about teaching. We assume that readers are practitioners of or researchers on teaching or teacher education. As such, we invite you to enter into this living metaanalysis by bringing your own experiences to it and imagining and re-imagining what you know about teaching, educating teachers, or research on teaching and teacher education. Approaching the book in this manner should allow you to revivify the static knowledge it presents by connecting it to and bringing it to life within your own understandings of teaching, teacher education, and research on teaching and teacher education.
REFERENCES Brophy, J. (Ed.) (2004). Using video in teacher education. New York: Elsevier.
Stefinee Pinnegar Jere Brophy Editors
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PART I: INTRODUCTION PERSPECTIVE: WHOM SHOULD I ASK? A dilemma arises anytime a teacher, in the moment of teaching, tries to determine what or how much the class understands. This is the question of whom to ask: The least knowledgeable student, the quickest intellect, the plodder, the average student, etc. This decision will determine to some extent what the teacher learns about the understanding or skill of the class, which in turn will guide the teacher’s next action. Of course, asking only one student will not provide a comprehensive view of the knowledge of the class as a whole. In a similar way, researchers’ and teacher educators’ decisions about whom to ask about teaching will determine what they learn. Across the book, we will see the impact of who gets asked on what is learned about teaching. Part I offers poignant contrasts. In Chapter 1, Martin and Russell argue for listening to the voice of the preservice teacher. In Chapter 2, Alleman reveals her own voice in judging and developing professional practice, as well as the voices of her students’ parents. In Chapter 3, Morgan-Fleming, Marbley, and White ask young students taught by their former preservice teachers. In Chapter 4, Magliaro and Shambaugh advocate asking teachers themselves. In combination, these chapters provide a more comprehensive view of what we know about teaching, but also remind us (through contrast) of the importance of attending to the ‘‘Whom should I ask?’’ question as we study teaching, teacher thinking, and teacher education.
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LISTENING TO PRESERVICE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS Andrea K. Martin and Tom Russell ABSTRACT This chapter provides a range of data that we broadly characterize as listening to preservice teachers’ perceptions and representations of teacher education programs. Our first purpose is to illustrate the variety of ways in which it is possible to listen to those learning to teach and to illustrate the rich complexity of the replies we received. Our second purpose is to illustrate how these data have encouraged and sustained us in the development of our own teacher education practices, both in the university classroom and in practicum supervision in schools. Calls for the reform of teacher education appear frequently, yet there is little evidence that appropriate changes are occurring on a significant scale. We understand this reality in terms of our own situations within a preservice program that appears to fall short of its potential to build on an extended early practicum experience. Insightful analyses of the shortcomings of preservice teacher education programs are numerous. Feiman-Nemser (2001) offers an analysis that points to the central importance of seeing Learning from Research on Teaching: Perspective, Methodology, and Representation Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 11, 3–39 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1016/S1479-3687(05)11001-3
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teacher education as a continuum from preservice through induction to inservice professional development. Our experiences gathering the data reported here and our experiences developing our own teaching practices in response to these data drive us to the following conclusions that provide the overall theme for this chapter. Preservice teacher education will not move toward its goals solely on the basis of calls for reform (such as Goodlad, 1990) and coherent analyses of what should happen in teachers’ professional development (as offered by Feiman-Nemser, 2001). Careful and creative listening to those learning to teach is essential as an important addition to the experience of learning to teach and as a source of incentives for teacher educators to examine and develop their personal teaching practices. Reflective practice must be pursued, documented, and shared by teacher educators. Those learning to teach must have access to such studies and opportunities to explore how these relate to their developing understanding of their professional roles and responsibilities. Further, unless teacher educators make explicit what reflective practice is and model how to go about it, the notion will remain in the realm of jargon. In presenting these conclusions at the outset, to provide a broad background for the data and perspectives that follow, we are uncomfortably aware that our sense of optimism may not be justified. We have been impressed over many years by the insightful and realistic analyses of school culture and of teacher education provided by Sarason as early as 1971 and subsequently extended and re-presented in a variety of creative ways. We hope that our data suggest some reasons to challenge some of the familiar assumptions about learning to teach, but our view is not as broad as Sarason’s, who now appears to have opted for the quite realistic, some would say pessimistic, conclusion that our ‘‘system’’ of schools, universities, and teacher education is not likely to change: What finally convinced me was the recognition that no one – not teachers, not administrators, not researchers, not politicians or policymakers, and certainly not students – willed the present state of affairs. They were all caught up in a system that had no self-correcting features, a system utterly unable to create and sustain contexts of productive learningy. There are no villains. There is a system. You can see and touch villains, you cannot see a systemy. The reform movement has been about parts, not about the system, not about how the purposes of parts are at cross-purposes to each other, not about how the concept of purpose loses both meaning and force in a system that is amazingly uncoordinated and that has more adversarial than cooperative features. (Sarason, 1998, p. 141, emphasis added)
We believe that listening to those learning to teach can act as one self-correcting feature of teacher education; many such features are needed. For us,
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listening implies much more than hearing the words teacher candidates speak. Listening is a process that moves beyond uncritical acceptance to carefully analyzing and interpreting statements in relation to program goals and values. This chapter draws on our 8 years of attention to preservice teachers’ perceptions and representations of teaching and learning. Our attention to these perceptions and representations was inspired by the experience of dramatic changes to the structure of the preservice teacher education program at Queen’s University in 1997–1998. Perhaps the most significant of many changes was the major shift in attention to learning from experience, generated by lengthening the fall practicum placement and moving it forward to the very beginning of the program. Focus groups were used productively in the pilot project that preceded the structural changes, and we have continued to conduct focus group interviews at the end of each program year since 1997. Both of us regularly teach preservice methods courses. While Andrea teaches in our elementary program and Tom teaches in our program for secondary teachers, both of us supervise teacher candidates during an extended 9-week practicum period that begins in early October. This practicum period began on the first day of school in September in the first 2 years of the restructured program, 1997–1999. We believe it is our shared experiences teaching methods courses while also supervising practicum placements that have made it possible for us to focus on issues of learning to teach in the ways that we describe here. The organization of the chapter follows that provided by the editors of this collection. We begin by describing some of the questions about teaching and teacher education that inspired us to gather the data reported here. Then we describe the rationales underlying our selection of questions and perspectives. The third section, by far the largest, presents a range of data that led us to new insights into teaching, teacher thinking, teacher education, and learning to teach. This section includes a series of Narrative Boxes that illustrate a range of listening formats. We go on to explore the strengths and limitations of our methodology and then draw the chapter to a close by summarizing the development of our ideas and practices as we collected and analyzed data.
QUESTIONS ABOUT TEACHING THAT GUIDED OUR RESEARCH The research that produced the data illustrated in this chapter began with end-of-program focus group interviews of randomly selected volunteers at
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the end of each academic year since 1998. Our initial goal was to gather data that might indicate the extent to which significant changes to program structure were generating intended and unintended changes in the perceptions of those completing the preservice program at Queen’s University. The questions for these annual end-of-program focus group interviews were initially framed in very broad terms and have been held constant over 7 years; they always generate extensive point and counterpoint within a focus group of five to eight individuals. 1. If a friend of yours asked about the B.Ed. program at Queen’s, what would you say were the highlights? 2. If you were explaining to someone how you learned to teach this year, what would you include in your account? 3. What kinds of questions did you formulate during the fall term extended practicum? 4. How did the winter term help you to address these questions? 5. In the future, what steps will you take to ensure that you continue to grow as a teacher? 6. Are there any other comments you would like to add? We were so impressed by the power of this set of questions in the initial focus group experience in 1998 that it came as something of a shock that our organization and many of those who work within it did not seem to place a similarly high value on listening to what teacher candidates had to say as they left the program to seek careers in teaching. An evaluation of the restructured program appeared in a collection of papers that interpreted the pilot year and the first year of full implementation (Upitis, 2000), but that initial line of broad organizational inquiry into program change seemed to vanish as quickly as it had arisen. We both found that the feature of a much longer practicum period much earlier in the program gave new energy both to our methods courses and to our supervision and support of candidates during the practicum. In the context of that re-energized teaching, we found ourselves doing more listening and we also found ourselves able to listen in ways that had not been possible when placements were shorter and came later in the program. We could pay greater attention to candidates’ evolving conceptions of teaching and learning, and we could pay greater attention to what they were learning from experience and how that subsequently drove their learning. As we paid greater attention to our own teaching practices and our students’ responses to them, we realized that we could and should focus more directly on learning to document and interpret our own professional learning and to
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help our students do the same. This sets the stage for explaining our questions and the perspectives we have used to explore them.
REASONS FOR CHOOSING STUDY QUESTIONS AND PERSPECTIVES Our research has emphasized the perspective of the preservice teacher. We are also interested in the perspective of the teacher educator toward the preservice teacher. Cochran-Smith (2004, p. 295) argues that teacher education has been conceptualized in three major ways in the last 50 years: as a matter of training, as a matter of learning, and as a matter of policy. How the preservice teacher thinks of learning to teach – as any or all of these three or in other ways – may be even more important than how teacher educators think of learning to teach. We have been particularly struck by the seeming absence of conversations about learning to teach between preservice teachers and teacher educators within our own Faculty of Education. As already noted, the impetus to study preservice teachers’ views arose from major changes to the structure of our preservice program. A period of planning and consultation was followed by a pilot project involving 60 volunteers (about 10% of our program). Focus groups were used during the pilot year to help identify improvements for the full-scale pursuit of the new structure in 1997–1998. It seemed important to continue the focus groups into the new program to explore whether we were actually changing the qualities of the graduates of our program. We have pursued the perspectives of those learning to teach because we find them so relevant and insightful and so helpful in developing our own practices. Teacher educators will always want their graduates to be more than they can possibly be, for the professional demands on teachers are countless and their preparatory experiences can never be as rich and complete as we would like. We find that we have become ‘‘addicted’’ to listening to our program’s graduates because they confirm some of our beliefs about program effects as they also challenge us to think more deeply about our personal practices. The Authority of Experience Munby and Russell’s (1994) work with teacher candidates in the context of studying the development of new teachers’ professional knowledge led them
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to conclude that individuals had little, if any, understanding of what they were learning, both practically and conceptually, and that fostering such understanding would require attention to the authority of their practicum experiences. We are not at all surprised that the [teacher candidates] show little insight into the nature of what they might be learning from experience during practice teaching. They are having teaching experiences and are hearing the words of experienced teachers in relation to their teaching experiences. But there is little sense of an awareness of the unique nature of learning from experience. Instead, there are tensions associated with not hearing enough propositions about teaching (the medium they associate with learning), with credibility in terms of recent teaching experience, with not knowing what to make of observation experiences, and with confusion about the nature of teacher education. In the absence of any clear delineation of the epistemology of practice and the nature of the authority of experience, they understandably look for the familiar and trusted authority of position and reason associated with propositional knowledge rooted in the experience of those who have been successful teachers. (Munby & Russell, 1994, p. 93)
This line of research eventually extended to a major literature review of teachers’ professional knowledge and its development (Munby, Russell, & Martin, 2001). As we did this work, we became increasingly attentive to the ways in which experience drives both perceptual change and conceptual change, for those whom we teach and for ourselves as well.
Perceptual Change and Learning to Teach Kessels and Korthagen (1996) offered a novel perspective for reducing the ‘‘theory–practice problem’’ by drawing on the Greek distinction between episteme and phronesis, a distinction usually translated as the difference between scientific understanding and practical wisdom. While episteme is at the core of our experiences of schooling and thus quite familiar, phronesis calls attention to our perceptions and how they are influenced by experience – a domain that we are not accustomed to considering in the context of knowledge and schooling. The ultimate appeal of phronesis is not to principles, rules, theorems, or any conceptual knowledge. Ultimately the appeal is to perception. For to be able to choose a form of behavior appropriate for the situation, one must, above all, be able to perceive and discriminate the relevant details. These cannot be transmitted in some general, abstract formy. This faculty of judgment and discrimination is concerned with the perception or apprehension of concrete particulars, rather than of principles or universals. (p. 19, emphasis added)
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They extend their comments about the significance of phronesis for those learning to teach in words that challenge the fundamental premises of many preservice teacher education programs: The point of phronesis is that the knowledge a student needs is perceptual rather than conceptual. Therefore it is necessarily internal to the student, it is in the student’s experience instead of outside it in some external, conceptual form. It is thoroughly subjective.y And so there is nothing or little to transmit, only a great deal to explore. And the task of the teacher educator is to help the student teacher explore and refine his or her perceptions. This asks for well-organized arrangements in which student teachers get the opportunity to reflect systematically on the details of their practical experiences, under the guidance of the teacher educator – both in group seminars and in individual supervision. (p. 21, emphasis added)
Acknowledging that we live in an educational world that relies extensively on episteme, we do not claim to have mastered fully the meaning of phronesis. We do agree with Kessels and Korthagen’s conclusions about implications for teacher education. Before we can understand our students’ experiences and help them explore their developing perceptions, we must listen, and we must do so in as many different ways as possible. Conceptual Change in Learning to Teach There is an extensive research literature related to teaching concepts to students in elementary and secondary schools. We have explored some of this research in preparing a review of literature related to learning to teach science in particular (Russell & Martin, in press). There is also an important strand of research on conceptual change related to the teaching of physics at the university level, and this literature has recently been summarized by Knight (2004), who offered the following five recommendations to those who teach introductory physics courses in post-secondary settings: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Keep students actively engaged and provide rapid feedback. Focus on phenomena rather than abstractions. (p. 42) Deal explicitly with students’ alternative conceptions. (p. 43) Teach and use explicit problem-solving skills and strategies. Write homework and exam problems that go beyond symbol manipulation to engage students in the qualitative and conceptual analysis of physical phenomena. (p. 44)
The need for recommendations such as these is amply indicated by conclusions such as the following, taken from the stance of teaching mathematics.
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ANDREA K. MARTIN AND TOM RUSSELL Few now deny that school mathematics as experienced by most students is compartmentalized into meaningless pieces that are isolated from one another and from the students’ wider worldy. This experienced meaninglessness of school mathematics devastates the motivation to learn or use mathematics. (Kaput, 1989, p. 99)
We find that the research on conceptual change and its implications for teaching specific subjects readily generates important parallel implications for teaching people how to teach. Many of those who begin preservice teacher education programs appear to assume that what they need is information (how to plan a lesson or a unit, how to manage a classroom of 30 adolescents) and that once they have the relevant information it will be a straightforward matter to use it as they attempt to teach. As we have listened to teacher candidates, we have been increasingly puzzled by the lack of consideration of conceptual change as a critical, if not central, element of teachers’ professional learning. Knight’s five recommendations seem just as appropriate as recommendations for teacher educators as they are for science teachers. Dissonance as a Focus for Understanding and Fostering Conceptual and Perceptual Change We find it productive to view our listening to teacher candidates in terms of four categories of dissonance presented by Breault (2004, p. 851), whose wordings we paraphrase in summarizing the types of dissonance he identified with respect to portfolio development in a preservice program. ‘‘Dissonance’’ is a powerful element in most strategies that seek to foster conceptual or perceptual change. Dissonance is also an indicator of issues that preservice teachers need to resolve if they are to understand their preservice program experiences and their own learning. Purposive dissonance: Do the various program elements interact harmoniously? Is it clear why assignments are given and what purposes they will achieve? Axiological dissonance: What is the value of investing so much time and effort in this element of our program? [Practicum time seems to be valued without question, while courses and their assignments are often challenged when such dissonance is recognized.] Perceptual dissonance: Do the students and teacher educators in a program share perceptions of the purpose and value of various activities and assignments? Are students or teacher educators aware of their colleagues’ perceptions of purpose and values? Contextual dissonance: Does the context in which activities are carried out support or undermine the value and declared purposes of the activities themselves?
These four types of dissonance are helpful reminders of the many ways in which preservice teacher education programs can drift from their intended
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goals. Most programs involve an array of diverse courses taught by an array of diverse teacher educators; the potential for conflicting messages is high. Program elements other than the practicum are not usually self-evidently valuable to those learning to teach, and neglecting this reality can have unfortunate consequences. Perceptions of the value of the many elements of a preservice program tend to be influenced by previous educational experiences, which do not always foster the developments teacher education programs seek. Finally, activities need to be supported by the contexts in which they are situated, and contexts such as the practicum are not always under the control of the teacher education program. While dissonance can be valuable when it is deliberately created to challenge prior beliefs and existing perceptions, dissonance can be destructive when it arises unintentionally and when teacher educators are not only unaware but also do not actively listen for and respond to its effects.
NEW INSIGHTS ABOUT TEACHING, TEACHER THINKING, TEACHER EDUCATION, AND LEARNING TO TEACH Every teacher has spent many years as a student, years when perceptions and images of how teachers can and should behave were internalized unconsciously and uncritically. This reality alone helps to explain the extreme stability of teaching and teacher education in the face of extensive critical analysis and calls for reform. Our years as students did not teach us to listen to our own learning; we assumed that teachers could and should be the judges of the quality of our learning. While we have tried to attend to and value our students’ comments about their experiences of learning to teach, the context of dramatic program reform inspired us to pay much greater attention to how we were listening and what we were hearing, both about our student teachers’ experiences and about our own efforts to improve our practices. Our new insights focus on the importance of perception and reflection-IN-action (not reflection-on-action; Scho¨n, 1983) for those learning to teach and for teacher educators themselves. The language we use to discuss schools, classrooms, and school experiences has far more power over us and our teacher candidates than may be apparent in most teacher education classrooms and program descriptions. Bereiter and Scardamalia (1996) illustrate this possibility when they critique what they call the ‘‘folk theory of mind’’ that sees the mind as a container.
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ANDREA K. MARTIN AND TOM RUSSELL There are important kinds of learning that do not readily fit the container metaphor. They are difficult to teach by ordinary methods, because pedagogy has evolved as a craft for cultivating mental content. They are difficult to test, because educational testing of course depends heavily on the container metaphor; it is a matter of inventorying mental contents. Because they are unspecifiable in mental content terms, they may also be difficult to defend as educational objectives. At the same time, there are important kinds of mislearning or problematic learning that ought to be taken into account in education but that are difficult to come to grips with unless they are reduced to mental content. (p. 486)
In our preservice classrooms, we work to put our students in touch with their own learning. We find that we learn to listen to our own learning as we listen to their responses to our various teaching moves. Just as different subject areas are increasingly attentive to the significance of students’ existing views for teachers’ efforts to achieve conceptual change (see Knight, 2004), so we are increasingly attentive to the significance of teacher candidates’ existing views of what teachers should and can do. Most of the extensive but (in our view) superficial attention to reflection in preservice teacher education is what Scho¨n (1983) described as reflection-on-action, quite different from and in many ways unrelated to the reflection-in-action that was central to his attempts to describe how professionals learn in action. We see two essential elements in reflection-in-action: reframing (or changing perceptions of) the events of practice, and then exploring new perceptions by taking actions that emerge from the new perceptions. In this data-presentation portion of the chapter, we describe the many ways in which listening to those learning to teach has led us to reframe our perceptions of various program elements. In the final portion of the chapter, we describe some of the resulting changes to our teaching. The first section that follows presents an extensive analysis of data from end-of-program focus groups, while the second section illustrates a range of listening strategies inspired by what we heard in the focus groups. We hasten to remind readers that we do not accept every statement of every teacher candidate as a valid comment on preservice teacher education. Rather, we explore and interpret both the comments that occur repeatedly and the comments that express a range of opinions as we listen for ways to reframe our own thinking about how to achieve the most productive learning in our teacher education classrooms. Data from Teacher Education Focus Groups We continue to be struck by the richness of the data from focus groups conducted at the end of each academic year since the full implementation of
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our restructured B.Ed. program. The most notable feature of the restructuring was an extended practicum of 14 weeks, beginning on the first day of the school year, interrupted only by two on-campus weeks approximately midway through the practicum. As restructuring proceeded, many stumbling blocks were encountered that tempered optimism about systemic change and underscored how painful and confounding reform can be. Two years after full implementation of the restructured program, the extended practicum was reduced to 10 weeks and began after 4 weeks of university classes in September, thus reverting to a more traditional teacher education pattern of formal classes preceding practica experiences but still maintaining a substantial practicum experience early in the program. Cook-Sather (2002) argues that students’ perspectives must be authorized. She contends that if constructivist frameworks are promoted whereby students are actively engaged in their own knowledge construction, then their voices must be heard to provoke a ‘‘conceptualization of teaching, learning, and the ways we study them as more collaborative processes’’ (Cook-Sather, p. 3). Examining the reform experience through the voices of our teacher candidates is our way of authorizing and honoring the perspectives of those for whom the program has the greatest impact. As noted earlier, extensive analysis accompanied the initial stages of our reform endeavor (see Upitis, 2000); beyond that, we appear to be singular in our ongoing efforts to listen closely to the voices of our candidates, to collect and analyze data, and to document our findings. The academic years 1997–1998 and 1999–2000 were crucial for gaining an awareness of candidates’ perceptions of their professional learning and of the impact of program structure on that learning. The year 1997–1998 marked the first year of full implementation of the restructured program, while the year 1999–2000 saw candidates no longer in the schools on the first day but instead attending education classes for 4 weeks prior to their practica. Thus we here report data drawn from four focus-group interviews conducted with discrete groups of elementary and secondary teacher candidates in these two important years. We followed familiar techniques of qualitative data analysis (McMillan & Schumacher, 2001; Patton, 2002), informed by Krueger (1998) on analysis specific to focus group interviews. Three major themes emerged in understanding candidates’ perceptions of their professional preparation: 1. Situating the Practicum within the Program – key components of program structure and some of the problematic effects of implementation.
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2. The Process of Learning-to-Teach – the complexity of the learning process and how candidates were aided or thwarted as they wrestled with the attendant challenges. 3. Perspectives on Professional Learning – a broader view that considers the need for program coherence and transcendence and the forging of a professional identity. Situating the Practicum within the Program The most distinctive feature of the restructured program is an early extended practicum, originally 14 weeks, subsequently 10 weeks, beginning in the fall term. Virtually unanimously, candidates endorsed this practicum and the opportunity it provided to become immersed in the life of the school. They found it ‘‘phenomenal’’ to ‘‘really [get] into the flow of things’’ and become ‘‘familiar with the requirements of the school, the students, your fellow staff’’ (1998, Elementary). They saw the practicum as ‘‘the closest thing to any real experience that we could have’’ (1998, Elementary) and the place where ‘‘you really learn, hands-on, what it’s like to be out there’’ (2000, Secondary). They welcomed the experience of ‘‘getting to know the students in your class and the dynamics of the class, andyto start implementing more of your own strategies, andyactually get[ting] to teach at least one whole unit’’ (2000, Secondary). Candidates concurred that the extended practicum not only ‘‘allowed us to grow’’ (1998, Elementary) but also was where they ‘‘learned the most’’ (2000, Secondary). A key thrust of our program is learning from experience, congruent with Dewey (1938), Scho¨n (1983), and Lave and Wenger (1991). DarlingHammond (2000) suggests that reforms of teacher education that have created more tightly integrated programs with extended clinical preparation interwoven with coursework on learning and teaching lead to teachers who are more effective and more likely to enter and remain in the profession. Notable structural features of our program include the quick start-up to the academic year and the two on-campus weeks that punctuate the fall term. Of particular interest to us were candidates’ assessments of the configuration of the fall term. Overall, they appeared more satisfied when they spent the first 4 weeks of the term in classes, in contrast to an August orientation week followed by their practicum beginning on the first day of school. All participants, except one, were dissatisfied with the on-campus weeks, which they saw as fracturing the fall semester. In the 1998 data sets, there was widespread agreement that the August orientation week was ‘‘insane,’’ ‘‘a flurry of madness, meeting people and trying to getyassignments’’ and course outlines that ‘‘I’m not going to look
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at for four months’’ (1998, Elementary). For these elementary participants, the merit of being in the schools for the first day in September received varied reviews, including a modest ‘‘nice,’’ a more enthusiastic ‘‘excellent!’’ [because] ‘‘it made such a tremendous difference on how we set up the rest of the four months,’’ and a recommendation that more time ‘‘at the beginning at the Faculty’’ would provide ‘‘a better basis before we get sent out there,’’ foreshadowing the 2000 change. The secondary candidates appeared relatively neutral toward the first day in school experience, commenting neither for nor against. However, they were vocal about feeling ill prepared for ‘‘what you’re going to see when you get out there for four months’’ and decried not knowing about lesson plans and where to access appropriate resources. These comments are not surprising from people who were successful in a school system that virtually always places theory and instruction before experience or practice. In the 2000 data sets, most candidates agreed that September classes prior to their practicum were worthwhile. ‘‘You got to meet people, to see the resources, and to share, and I thought that was really important.’’ Others liked the ‘‘heads-up’’ about what they ‘‘should be looking for in the classroomyand how you get the most out of your students,’’ and what was ‘‘expected when you go to the practicum.’’ A divergent view was expressed by a secondary candidate, who had been ‘‘out [of school] a long time,’’ who felt that something was missed by not being in the schools for the initial week ‘‘so you belong to the school a lot more.y You’ll know the kids; you’ll know how the school works.’’ Another secondary candidate relayed that the associate teachers at his school thought, ‘‘it would be beneficial’’ for candidates to be in the school initially, but they would have had so little time to devote to candidates because ‘‘everything’s going on and it’s chaotic.’’ As vigorous as was the praise for the extended practicum and the alternate practicum, equally vigorous was the protest about the on-campus weeks. Although designed to punctuate the extended fall practicum, to build on the program’s thrust of learning from experience, to provide opportunities to contextualize candidates’ classroom experience, and to begin to connect practice and theory, this did not appear to happen for any of the focus-group participants. The interruption of practicum experience by a short period of formal classes continues to be a contentious issue. Purposive, axiological, and perceptual dissonance were quite apparent in the comments of those to whom we listened. Some candidates found that in ‘‘every single class, we talked about our experiencesyfor the first week.’’ In the second week, they were frustrated with the absence of structure where ‘‘almost every class wasydecide your own agenda for this class or decide a
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topic or choose from these topicsy, andyI’m the last one to scream for structure, buty’’ (2000, Elementary). Candidates recommended abandoning the on-campus weeks, staying in the schools for an uninterrupted extended practicum, and then returning to the Faculty in December for classes and completion of first-term assignments and coming ‘‘back fresh [in January]’’ for the winter term. There was a lone dissenting voice; one secondary (2000) candidate found that the on-campus weeks enabled her to look at teaching from a ‘‘different standpoint’’ and recognize the ‘‘angle of a teacher.’’ She noted, ‘‘When I came back after my placement, I’m like, oh my gosh, I talk while the teacher is talking, and I don’t accept that.’’ After listening to these candidates, we concluded that achieving the intended purposes of the on-campus weeks was far more complex and challenging than faculty members were prepared for. The on-campus weeks continue, and we continue to hear complaints. These comments have inspired us to make this period more productive in our own classrooms. The Process of Learning to Teach Key variables involved in candidates’ conceptualization of learning to teach and their perceptions of the necessary scaffolding include (1) learning from experience and its two standard-bearers, self-directed learning and reflection-in-action, (2) professional knowledge, and (3) the criterion of relevance. Learning from Experience. Warmly embraced was the major theme of the restructured program, learning from experience. ‘‘I learned the most by doingy. I don’t think anyone can really teach you how to teach. That’s what I was expecting when I came here. Someone’s going to teach me how to teach. But that’s not how it works’’ (1998, Secondary). The complexity of learning-to-teach was aptly captured in the participants’ recognition that there is no ‘‘process or equation that you can plug factors into and get the right answery. You learn by doing. Often, you learn by doing wrong, and you need that forum, that opportunity to do wrong’’ (1998, Secondary). They saw self-directed learning and reflection as important companions to learning from experience. Self-Directed Learning (SDL). Candidates supported the notion of selfdirected learning but expressed some reservations as to its operationalization. They recognized that it was up to them to ‘‘set my own expectations. No one else is going to tell me what I have to doyI can get out of it what I want’’ (1998, Secondary). Although they supported the idea of SDL, participants expressed concern about peers who were not ‘‘embracing that, yand those people are going to be your colleague and my colleague, and
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I don’t want to work with that person who got nothing out of their time at the Faculty’’ (1998, Secondary). Another candidate cautioned that freefloating SDL was insufficient. She described one of her courses as ‘‘brainstorming, sharing your experiences with your colleagues, but in terms of actually getting concrete information or getting tools that you can somehow plug into your experiences,yit’s been a letdown’’ (1998, Elementary). If the potential of SDL was to be realized, these participants believed that one had to be committed, professionally responsible, and provided with opportunities to explore ‘‘pedagogical tools’’ and make applications that would inform the ‘‘concrete’’ world of practice. Reflection. Several participants recognized that reflection needed to be an ongoing process if it were to truly support professional growth. One candidate made ‘‘a case for the importance of thinking of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.’’ She recommended, ‘‘Maybe being a little more critical of what we’re doing rather than just sort of becoming photocopies of the teachers we had’’ (1998, Elementary). Another found, ‘‘I had all these questions about motivating adolescents and realized that I wasn’t motivated as a learner either, so that was a really interesting kind of reflective process’’ (2000, Elementary). For other candidates, however, reflection was perceived as an add-on, rather than an integral piece of the learning-to-teach process. We had these assignments, and some of those were just filler assignments like ‘‘How to Reflect’’ on this, and I don’t have the couple of hours to sit down and do that. I’ve got to get a job, and I’ve got to prepare for this, and do this interview. (2000, Secondary)
Similarly, another thought that, given their schedules, ‘‘we’re not given time to sit back and reflectyand think, ‘well, what can I do?’’’ (2000, Secondary). Although seen as valuable, reflection was generally perceived as an after-the-fact process – as reflection-on-action – and, for some, merely an appendage when confronted with competing demands. Professional Knowledge. Candidates saw the core of the learning-to-teach process as professional knowledge. Pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and knowledge of learners were foremost. Pedagogical Knowledge. Candidates valued opportunities in their own classes for ‘‘hands-on’’ learning, ‘‘That’s how I learn best, and chances are that’s how the students are going to learn best as well’’ (2000, Elementary). Others identified the importance of critical thinking and ‘‘not just knowledge, knowledge, knowledge’’ and learning about ‘‘investigative approaches.’’ Other aspects of pedagogical knowledge that participants highlighted as critical were classroom management, general principles of assessment and
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evaluation, and cooperative learning strategies. However, cooperative learning appeared to be solely translated into groupwork ad nauseum. If I have to do any more groupwork, I’m going to have a heart attack! That’s what we do; that’s ALL we do. For a Faculty that is supposed to be teaching us about different learning styles, we’re always catering to the exact same one. I hate groupwork! (2000, Elementary)
Pedagogical Content Knowledge. Elementary candidates welcomed learning about how to take advantage of cross-curricular connections. ‘‘I had never even heard [of] it before, and now my brain is constantly in crosscurricular mode’’ (2000, Elementary). Secondary candidates valued the experience of actually writing a unit and the challenging questions that posed. I get to pick what they learn? I get to design a unit? How on earth do I do that, and why does somebody think I am able? O.K., I have a degree in history, but you don’t know what courses I took when I got that degree. What do I pick? What do they need to know? (1998, Secondary)
This candidate asked for a forum to play out these questions and was sharply critical of disembodied class discussions that did not connect the abstract to practice: ‘‘Ask yourselves WHY you teach something! You can talk theoretically about ‘aim’ and ‘rationale’ until the cows come home, but until you sit down and write a unit, you don’t know what the heck you’re talking about.’’ Knowledge of Learners: Seeing beyond Curriculum. Participants flagged the critical importance of motivation and engagement and providing ‘‘opportunities to sustain their [students’] interest.’’ They recognized, ‘‘Kids have no use for stuff that they find meaningless, so you have to find a way to put meaning into learning’’ (1998, Secondary). To do this required making explicit connections between ‘‘a textbook example or manipulative’’ and ‘‘your real life example’’ because ‘‘if you don’t make the connection, then they don’t necessarily learn what you want them to learn’’ (2000, Secondary). They also realized that teachers cannot assume that ‘‘something that’s a little unconventional’’ guarantees that learning has occurred. ‘‘You have to make sure that you question them a lotyso that they can make the connections’’ (2000, Secondary). Candidates would have liked to know more about models of integrated programs that operate ‘‘outside of the traditional realm’’ and capitalize on students’ interests. An elementary candidate neatly captured ‘‘seeing beyond curriculum’’ as the ability to consider ‘‘what my students’ needs are compared to my own needs and not only [be] focused on teacher-centred learning, but on where kids are at’’ (2000).
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Relevance to Practice. As a professional program, the criterion of relevance to practice was paramount. Participants valued resources – both human and material – that would enable their teaching, and targeted coursework and assignments that either helped or hindered their learning-to-teach. They spoke glowingly of courses, particularly curriculum, where ‘‘hands-on resources’’ were provided or developed and shared, like ‘‘resource binders,’’ ‘‘curriculum units,’’ ‘‘a resource fair,’’ ‘‘web pages,’’ and ‘‘demos.’’ They realized that the available resources ‘‘are tremendous,’’ but they had a responsibility ‘‘to make the effort to get the most out of that’’ (1998, Elementary). Given that their professional role demands that they deliver the Ontario curriculum, it is not surprising that candidates were hungry for substantive resources that would assist them, hence the refrain echoed throughout the 1998 (Secondary) data set, ‘‘We need stuff, not fluff!’’ Candidates valued professors who modeled good practice, engaged them, and were passionate. These professors were not about ‘‘the answer’’ but instead ‘‘developed the questions with usyand sometimes you don’t leave the classroom with an answer, but maybe more questions, and that’s leading you towards finding the answer’’ (2000, Secondary). Conversely, professors who did not ‘‘genuinely care about what they’re doing and really [don’t] want to prepare you for next yearywiped outyeverything that we learn [about] what a good teacher is and how [to] create a positive learning environment’’ (2000, Secondary). Additionally, participants were frustrated by redundancies, ‘‘We did rubrics in every single classy.We did cooperative learning in every class’’ (2000, Secondary). They thought, ‘‘It would be nice if the professors talked to each other about what they were doing’’ (2000, Secondary) to minimize the repetition. ‘‘Purpose’’ and ‘‘relevance’’ were the defining characteristics of worthwhile assignments in courses where professors demonstrated their ‘‘commitment.’’ In contrast, in classes where there was ‘‘no leadership’’ and ‘‘busy work’’ or ‘‘filler’’ assignments, candidates ‘‘questioned [their] value.’’ Candidates wanted ‘‘substance,’’ but ‘‘we’re touching on so many issues but not really going into any depth or details’’ (1998, Secondary). Representative was the candidate who said: As important as the query behind the pedagogical theory is, and as interesting as it can be, we all seem to want the skills. We want to be able to walk away with concrete things that we can do in the class[room]. (1998, Secondary)
Meaningful assignments included action research: As much as I hated it, [it] may be one of the best things I didy. Hanging some theory on a real nuts-and-bolts problem that you had, and you had to try to figure out ‘‘Why?’’ and
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ANDREA K. MARTIN AND TOM RUSSELL figure out what you could doy. May be find a solutiony. At the end, I felt, ‘‘This is pretty neat. I’m glad I did this.’’ (1998, Elementary)
Elementary math and language assignments that involved ‘‘learning through experience’’ where ‘‘you had to investigate, you had to read, you had to use many tools to come up with that final projectywere very good’’ (1998, Elementary). Perspectives on Professional Learning This theme takes a broad view of candidates’ professional preparation and reveals candidates’ sense of the importance of coherence and transcendence in their program and their conceptualization of professional identity and professionalism. Coherence and Transcendence. Across all data sets, participants roundly criticized the absence of program coherence and of discussions that addressed broad-based educational issues and principles of practice. They described the program as ‘‘disjointed’’ and having ‘‘no continuity.’’ [We did not experience any] framed discussion [of] things that transcend curriculum – like pedagogy, learning styles, assessment, evaluationy. Once THOSE things are in place, then you can plug any curriculum into [it]y. If I understand the whole notion of assessment and evaluation, then I can plug in a Gr. 4 assignment in science or mathy. That’s easy – way more than trying to do it the other way around. (1998, Elementary)
They were looking for ‘‘common ground, something that’s bringing it together and having a focus’’ (1998, Secondary). They wanted discourse that addressed substantive questions like ‘‘What do we mean by education?’’ and ‘‘Who is education really for?’’ (2000, Elementary). Consolidation. Candidates explicitly asked for ‘‘a period of consolidation’’ where they could weave together what they had learned. They felt that their year was ‘‘in bits and pieces,’’ where some of the larger issues only ‘‘come in and out’’ on a piecemeal basis. For example, they wanted to understand what anchors pedagogical decisions about curriculum delivery. It becomes very much a ‘‘here’s the curriculum and you can do this, this, and this for this grade level,’’ but where are the bases for this? There’s not enough studyyif I’m going to go into this, I want to have a big picture. (2000, Elementary)
‘‘Knowing how to teach curriculum’’ with ‘‘no handle on the history,’’ no consideration of ‘‘political stance’’ or challenge of the status quo left them feeling ‘‘herded through’’ (2000, Elementary). They wanted to pursue the contextual and situated nature of learning more deeply, ‘‘in an inner city setting,ydo you spend your time teaching the provinces of Canada or how
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to say please and thank you?’’ (2000, Elementary). They wondered where communication was, ‘‘teachers need to know how to communicate with their students, and never has anyone brought up communication’’ (1998, Secondary). They wanted a forum for their questions and recommended building workshops into the year that could address some of these substantive issues. The Theory–Practice Relationship. Participants expressed concerns relating to theory, to practice, and to the relationship between them that contributed to their perception of program incoherence. Put simply, they wanted more theory: ‘‘a lot more on the philosophies,’’ on ‘‘theory related to education.’’ They acknowledged that theirs was a minority opinion: ‘‘Most of the people I talked to are just as glad we didn’t have any’’ (1998, Elementary). Deftly pointing to the need for theory and practice was the candidate who said, ‘‘I think the practical stuff is important, but I think I’ve decided that it’s important because I haven’t gotten anything good in theory either’’ (1998, Secondary). In terms of practice, candidates wanted far more by way of real world application. It was necessary but not sufficient to know ‘‘This is what AD(H)D is;’’ needed was ‘‘How do you address that?’’ (1998, Secondary). They asked for help in realizing the skills acquired during their practica: ‘‘The closer I get to the end, the less I feel I’ve learned about the fundamentals that I’m going to build my program on, and that’syscary’’ (2000, Elementary). Professional Identity. Professional identity was anchored by candidates’ beliefs about their students and themselves and their configuration of professionalism in terms of commitment to ongoing learning, collaboration, and recognition of the power of the position. Secondary candidates spoke tellingly about learning ‘‘different priorities’’ from their students who were not university or college bound. They recognized that, contrary to their own experiences, a ‘‘university degree [may not be] the best education,’’ and it was imperative that they respected and addressed ‘‘other options’’ and ‘‘prepared them as lifelong learners’’ (2000, Secondary). They found it ‘‘eyeopening’’ and ‘‘learned a lot from them [students].’’ Confronted with the challenges they encountered in many classrooms, elementary candidates similarly found it eye-opening, ‘‘We’re dealing with kids that are carrying weapons, and kids that will laugh in your face and swear at you, and call you namesyI was totally unprepared for it’’ (2000, Elementary). Candidates reframed their beliefs about their students as they realized how inextricably connected were students’ backgrounds and their experience of school.
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Participants identified a central component of being a professional as having ‘‘the tools to evaluate the work when it is done’’ (1998, Secondary). This included goal-setting and applying critical thinking skills to their own practice, acknowledging that they needed to continually self-evaluate to both ‘‘do it [the job] and be able to look at it and say, ‘Done well,’ ‘Not done well,’ ‘Needs improvement,’ ‘Great! Don’t touch a thing’’’ (1998, Secondary). Also central was the capacity ‘‘to choose and to recognize’’ (1998, Secondary) alternative methods and approaches, to appraise, and to make changes accordingly. Above all, the need to question, ‘‘Why am I hereystanding up in front of these kids?’’ (1998, Elementary) was paramount. Professionalism. Commitment to Ongoing Learning. Across the data sets, candidates agreed that as professionals they had to ‘‘internalize the concept of professional development’’ (1998, Secondary). Pointing to the need to ‘‘stop and say, ‘Why do I choose to teach?’’’ required ‘‘always learning things’’ and ‘‘to actually say, ‘How?’’’(1998, Secondary). Participants provided numerous examples that ranged from the professional to the personal. They were keenly aware that what they did outside of school could ‘‘translate’’ into school and be ‘‘channeled through [their] teaching’’ (2000, Elementary). Collaboration. Candidates recognized that collaboration was critical, given the intense demands of teaching. ‘‘There’s so much [to do]; it’s so huge’’ (2000, Elementary); therefore accessing one’s ‘‘community’’ was a way of ‘‘finding new strategiesy[and] resources’’ that ‘‘opened my mind’’ (2000, Secondary). They acknowledged how important it was to learn that they did not have to ‘‘reinvent the wheel’’ and ‘‘it’s okay toyaccess [one’s] community’’ (2000, Elementary). They valued having a support network, ‘‘from those exchanges comes affirmation, but also insight’’ (2000, Elementary). Recognition of the Power of the Position. Candidates realized that teaching carries with it both power and responsibility, ‘‘We need to be asking, ‘How dare you teach?’ythat needs to be asked more often because it IS such a powerful position’’ (1998, Secondary). They spoke of their deep respect for the profession and, consequently, ‘‘for what it is we want to get out of it [their program]’’ (1998, Secondary). Hence their concern for rigour, ‘‘you don’t slap the assignments so that you can say the program is rigorous. You slap the assignments so that there is value to the program’’ (1998, Secondary). You can ask things of me. I have a degree. I can read. I can DO things; and I can work under pressure; and you can give me real assignments, with real consequences, with real deadlines, and I’ll do them. (1998, Secondary)
They did not buy into a production model of education with schools as assembly lines, ‘‘I want this kid to produce X much. I want this kid to
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demonstrate X quantity of knowledge’’ (1998, Secondary). And they did not want to be allied with a program that was ‘‘quantity-tough’’ rather than ‘‘quality-tough.’’ They asked for respect – ‘‘the overall thing here has been ‘don’t question, just do it,’ and that’s frustrating. We’re smarter than that’’ (2000, Elementary). They also asked for the chance to speak with a critical voice. The power and responsibility of the position demands no less. Summarizing the Big Picture of Professional Learning. The complexity of teacher education and the challenges of systemic change are well illustrated by the discrepancy between our views, as teacher educators, of the restructured program and the views of these candidates. (Segall, 2002, provides a more elaborate analysis of such issues at the level of a teacher education program.) We thought we had a coherent program where practice and theory could be neatly interwoven; candidates said otherwise. We thought we had a program that provided multiple opportunities for self-directed learning; candidates countered this. We thought we had a program that consistently supported the development of reflective practitioners; for many, this was not so. Breault’s (2004) four types of dissonance were evident throughout candidates’ comments in the focus groups. They asked for rigour and relevance, accountability and professionalism, coherence and transcendence. When they did experience exemplary teaching that embodied passion and commitment, they were inspired. ‘‘How teachers learn affects what they learn’’ (Feiman-Nemser & Remillard, 1996, p. 79). Not only must good teaching be modeled, it must be unpacked. We expect candidates to pay close attention to their learners’ needs and abilities; they expect no less of us. Thus, they were not only keenly aware but also sharply critical of all types of dissonance within their program of professional learning. Earlier, we cited Cook-Sather’s (2002) belief that students’ perspectives must be authorized in ‘‘sustained contexts and on-going dialogue about the meaning and nature of education’’ (p. 11). This requires that students be included not merely ‘‘as a gesture’’ but ‘‘to change the terms and the outcomes of the conversations about educational policy and practice’’ (p. 12). We invited students into focus-group conversations and we believe we have been richly rewarded for our efforts. To be more than a gesture, we have learned that we need to ‘‘take a more holistic and critical approach to interrogate and challenge the structures, approaches, and mythology of teacher education’’ (Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998, p. 169). The practicum is the centerpiece of any preservice program and other program elements must be developed in relation to the practicum. Self-directed learning must be genuinely self-directed, reflection must be both taught and
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modeled, and both must be supported actively. We must listen continuously for and respond directly to signs of various types of dissonance that may undermine program coherence.
Data from Other Strategies for Listening to Teacher Candidates In the remainder of this portion of the chapter, we demonstrate other ways we have developed for listening to teacher candidates. In presenting these approaches to listening, we adopt a format of ‘‘narrative boxes’’ in which the statements of those we have listened to are set out clearly so that readers may consider how they might have interpreted what we heard and whether they would consider using similar strategies in the context of their own classrooms and programs. Each narrative box shows Tom working in some way to take a critical lens to his own practice. The first listening strategy is one that Tom introduced into his own teacher education classroom after hearing about a practice that one teacher named ‘‘tickets out of class.’’ Every teacher entertains the hope at the end of a class that students have achieved most of the lesson’s objectives. Until we prepare and mark quizzes and tests, we have little explicit evidence to support such hopes. One apparently simple procedure involves file cards or small pieces of paper given to students in the last few minutes of class with the request that they write down (1) ‘‘the main point of today’s lesson,’’ and (2) ‘‘something you would like to understand better.’’ (We believe that responses should always be anonymous.) As simple as this strategy sounds, it is, like most changes to our habits, difficult to make a regular feature of one’s teaching. Tom finds that once he makes the effort to request tickets out of class in his first four classes of the year, students subsequently remind him if he forgets to stop in time for them to write. Such a simple technique seems quite powerful with respect to the theme of ‘‘listening to one’s students.’’ The breadth of responses is always a powerful reminder of each student’s uniqueness. The depth of responses is a similarly powerful stimulus to planning the next lesson. It is always essential to reveal in as many ways as possible in subsequent interactions with students that their comments have been read, interpreted, and incorporated into teaching plans. The following comments were made on tickets at the end of a class on January 3, 2005, when the class met for the first time after completing weeks 5 to 9 of their practicum. Tom introduced the idea of making a portion of their subsequent learning self-directed, and it was invaluable to be able to begin to judge their responses to something unfamiliar.
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Narrative Box 1 illustrates listening in the medium of writing rather than speech, and the comments are specific to one class. The next two narrative boxes return to broader program effects as in the focus groups. These illustrate that listening need not be limited to interviews of randomly selected focus group participants. Small or large groups of individuals from one’s own classes may be willing to meet to discuss overall program effects. In our experience, those learning to teach tend to be very forthcoming. In April 2000, in a conversation with another candidate that was videotaped for research purposes, an individual in Tom’s physics method class described how different elements of the program structure appeared to contradict the broadly asserted importance of ‘‘reflection’’ in our preservice program. In January 2001, in a similarly videotaped meeting with three other teacher candidates discussing their perceptions of the preservice program, an individual in Tom’s practicum supervision group described the need to ‘‘raise the bar’’ of teachers’ college expectations. Narrative Boxes 2 and 3 illustrate clearly the types of comments that we heard in the focus groups about the process of learning to teach and about evolving perspectives on professional learning. The individual speaking in Narrative Box 3 has clearly moved beyond that initial familiarity of teaching that makes teaching look so easy. How many beginning teachers seem to be saying ‘‘Just tell me how to teach?’’ It is tempting to respond with ‘‘If
Narrative Box 1. ‘‘Tickets out of Class’’ Indicate Range of Responses to an Activity. Today was very therapeutic for me. I enjoyed the conversation and discussion. It was very good debriefing time for me. The self-directed learning seems intriguing. I really miss this group of people when I’m gone on practicum. It is a very good group for communication. I am really excited about the list of visitors, as it appears that there is a great cross-section of people in various aspects of education. I am a little concerned about the self-directed learning phase because I don’t understand the dynamics. I am sure it will become clear in the next few weeks. I appreciated coming up with my own goals for where I want and need to be for next September. It was good to hear others’ battle stories from prac. I feel like part of a family.
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Narrative Box 2. Listening Reveals Inconsistency across Program Elements. The structure of the program knocks the wind out of these reflection sails. Six weeks of theory in the first place: what message does that send about the role of experience in your learning?yNot only have we been hammered with this bad idea of learning for the last four years [of undergraduate studies], but now they show up here and the first six weeks sets them off on that. And then you come back [after the practicum] and the real reflection time is during – resume´s and jobs and school boards – the first week is all about the school boards you have to be worrying about – and now ‘‘reflect’’ and do all these assignments on reflection. And guess what? People are either going to completely take them as a joke and just write about anything – it doesn’t matter – and they hand it in and go and do their job applications and their resume´s and their portfolios. So the structure of the program just kills it in the sense that not only do people have this default conception of what learning is and what learning to teach is, but the program format just hammers it home. (Teacher candidate, 2000–2001, transcribed from Russell, 2002)
teaching is so easy, why do you need to be told?’’ The individual in Narrative Box 3 has clearly moved beyond the view that teaching is easy and realized that the first year of teaching is going to be very difficult, and hence the request for higher expectations. The remaining narrative boxes illustrate additional listening strategies in the written mode. Narrative Boxes 4 and 5 report comments received by email from former students teaching outside Canada. During the Queen’s program in 2002–2003, one individual enrolled in classes taught by each of us impressed us with his intellectual and personal integrity. By teaching outside Canada in 2003–2004 and then moving to a country where the school year matches the calendar year, this individual’s first year of teaching actually spanned 18 months in two quite different non-Canadian settings that follow the Ontario curriculum. We have followed this new teacher’s progress with interest and found the message in Narrative Box 4 indicative of the value of listening to former students as they move into their teaching careers. Our program introduced this new teacher to action research as a
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Narrative Box 3. Listening Reveals a Need for Greater Challenges. I think that for me what I got out of this was talking about what we see happening here and what the potential is to change, and I think that all four of us have the common denominator that we all believe that there is enough happening here that it is possible to raise the bar of what is expected of us a lot higher. And all of us feel a little disappointed that the expectations are so low that we can’t help but trip over those kinds of expectations. And I think that in talking about things, well, we want to be here for two years and we want to have more self-directed learning and we want to have the freedom to write 10 pages about a burning issue and we want to listen to each other – all of those things suggest the extraordinary potential in this place. And the fact that we are sitting here talking about it is another indication of our priorities. We are committed to being excellent educators and that’s really exciting for me, to think that there are at least three other people in here who share a commitment to thinking about what it is we are doing and to try to make it better, because we know that it can be better than what we are already doing. That’s my feeling about this meeting. (Teacher candidate, 2001–2002, transcribed from Russell, 2002)
strategy for directing one’s own professional development and to P.O.E. (Predict–Observe–Explain) as a powerful alternative to the more familiar demonstrations done in science classes. These values have persisted for this graduate, despite substantial pressures to teach in traditional ways. His message constitutes a commitment to himself and also helps to sustain us in some of our commitments to productive professional learning. Every year spent with preservice teachers results in a few individuals who are particularly memorable for both positive and negative reasons. Inviting those who appear to have made the most of their program experience to summarize their strategies as advice for those who follow them, can be a very productive way of listening to those completing a program. The material presented in Narrative Box 5 has been appreciated by many since it was prepared in 2001. The author is the same person who spoke in Narrative Box 2. These five narrative boxes illustrate only a few of the ways in which teacher educators may listen to those they teach. In this central portion of the chapter, we have illustrated the power of listening both at the teacher
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Narrative Box 4. Listening to Former Students Now Teaching. My practice in the classroom hasn’t been spectacular. I’ve rarely ‘‘applied’’ what I believe about teaching and learning, predominantly because I knew first hand what ‘‘swimming against the stream’’ can feel like and how much energy and emotional stress it can create. I’ve followed the ‘‘teaching as transmission’’ model of notes and lectures, followed by examples. The students are SO very passive and quiet. I initially thought it was a language thing; but after one semester, I’ve come to believe that the language barrier is the smaller problem to cope with. However, I catered to their passivity because it was familiar to them, and it didn’t create ‘‘waves.’’ After our ‘‘midterm marks fiasco,’’ our assessment was modifiedy less criterion-referencedy less rubrics. An interesting case of how politics can interfere with classroom practice. But all of this is now done. I want to retool. I want to put ‘‘theory to practice’’ and improve the learning environment for my students. I’ll probably start an AR [action research] project related to self-regulated learning and metacognition. We tried a learning log this semester, and there’s at least some temporary evidence that a small minority of the students ‘‘got the point.’’ I want to build on this and try to bring ‘‘more experiences’’ to the students. I only did one POE all semester longy and not because I planned it; one of our ‘‘cook book labs’’ went very wrong, so I quickly modified ‘‘the demo’’ of glowsticks into a POE. I really should have used more of these. (Former teacher candidate, personal communication, November 19, 2004)
education classroom level and at the program level, first by presenting and interpreting the results of focus-group interviews and then by presenting other listening strategies with data that also illustrate themes and issues from the focus groups. The data here also illustrate important observations made by Feiman-Nemser (2001, p. 1030): The ongoing study and improvement of teaching is difficult to accomplish alone. Novices need opportunities to talk with others about their teaching, to analyze their students’ work, to examine problems, and to consider alternative explanations and actions. If novices learn to talk about specific practices in specific terms, if they learn to ask for clarification, share uncertainties, and request help, they will be developing skills and dispositions that are critical in the ongoing improvement of teaching.
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Narrative Box 5. Inviting a Graduate to Summarize Learning Strategies. My objective was not to get a piece of paper, but to learn. Doing well in my courses was the last thing I cared about [in a Pass– Fail system]. While others were laughing about what a joke all of this reflection was compared to the real assignments that they were used to in their undergraduate degrees, I actually did it and soon came to see the impact that it had on my students and myself. My reflection was not only focused on my work as a teacher, but on McArthur’s functionality as a place of education (i.e., the program structure, the courses, the professors). Where I saw holes, I did what I could to fill them in for myself (i.e., suggesting alternate assignments, creating my own assignments and, dare I say, not doing some assignments at all). I became aware of the fact that ‘‘HOW we teach IS the message’’ both in and around McArthur, and in and around my associate school and made sure that the messages I was sending by how I taught were consistent with the messages I was trying to teach. I fell in love with Action Research. Just because the assignment is long and at first seemingly complicated, does not mean the procedure is; what takes you days to write about can be easily employed and understood every day in your classroom. I shared my teaching (i.e., my learning) with my students; let them in on the game. I kept an ongoing list of good ideas that I want to try eventually; there will never be enough time to do/try them all in one year. I kept an ongoing list of my core values that I want to be sure I never lose sight of when I am teaching. I sought and listened to others’ feedback (especially my students). I allowed myself to change. (Teacher candidate, July 2001)
There can be little doubt that we have convinced ourselves of the importance of listening to those who are learning to teach. This is an appropriate moment to remind readers that listening is much more than hearing. The listening that we believe can be rich and productive, in teacher education classrooms and in classrooms generally, is listening that is thoughtful,
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critical and responsive. Individual comments must never be generalized, nor should they be accepted at face value. We have learned that listening that helps us improve our teaching requires us to collect data, to identify, interpret and confirm patterns, and finally to modify our teaching in ways that respond explicitly to what we were told.
STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF OUR METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH As we prepared this chapter, we became increasingly aware of its self-study nature. The invitation to prepare the chapter directed our attention to the various ways, illustrated above, in which we have listened to students in the 8 years since dramatic program reform inspired us to listen for the changes that students actually reported, so that we could look for clues that the restructuring was achieving its goals. We have come to realize that the more we listen, the more we are driven to develop our own teaching practices to try to achieve program goals within our own classrooms. Thus our listening has driven our research into the realm of self-study, a domain that Tom found himself in when he returned to the secondary school physics classroom in 1991 and 1992. We offer a final narrative box to remind ourselves and others that listening to those we teach can and should be complemented by listening carefully to our own professional learning (Narrative Box 6). The methodology supporting this chapter is fundamentally qualitative. Methodology for self-study continues to evolve, but a major set of guidelines is provided by Bullough and Pinnegar (2001) and extensive discussions are now available in Section 3 of the International Handbook of Self-study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices (Loughran, Hamilton, LaBoskey, & Russell, 2004). Bullough and Pinnegar (2001, p. 19) set criteria for selfstudy in these words: A self-study is a good read, attends to the ‘‘nodal moments’’ of teaching and being a teacher educator and thereby enables reader insight or understanding into self, reveals a lively conscience and balanced sense of self-importance, tells a recognizable teacher or teacher educator story, portrays character development in the face of serious issues within a complex setting, gives place to the dynamic struggle of living life whole, and offers new perspective.
Preparation of this chapter began with identification of ‘‘nodal moments’’ in our work as teacher educators. By searching for patterns in the development of our teaching and professional learning, we have constructed a
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Narrative Box 6. Listening to One’s Own Relevant Experiences. How can I best help people learning to teach? No easy answers to this question were expected when I returned to the physics classroom, and few were forthcoming. A reflective stance to practice rarely provides easy answers, and this in itself is an important understanding for those learning to teach. By acquiring again my own physics students and by listening to them, I now understand much more fully why I recommend to those learning to teach that they listen to their own students’ views of what they see their teacher doing at the front of the classroom. I now understand why my sense of how I can best help people learning to teach can be summarised as follows: Don’t teach just by copying successful experienced science teachers (although this can be a useful way to begin). Don’t teach by theory alone. Don’t teach just by what worked for you as a student. Teach by what you know you are doing. Have the evidence that will enable others to understand your practices. This will include recognising at least three sources of authority: theory and reason, others’ successful practices, and your own personal experiences and those of your students. (Russell, 1995, p. 16)
retrospective and autobiographical account of what we see as major changes in our teaching practices and in our interpretation of those practices. In constructing this chapter, we have tried to be particularly attentive to the following guidelines set out by Bullough and Pinnegar (2001). Biographical and autobiographical self-studies in teacher education are about the problems and issues that make someone an educator. The autobiographical self-study researcher has an ineluctable obligation to seek to improve the learning situation not only for the self but for the other. (p. 17) Quality autobiographical self-studies attend carefully to persons in context or setting. Quality autobiographical self-studies offer fresh perspectives on established truths. (p. 18)
While we have tried to be honest to ourselves, we readily acknowledge that this is not a study in which a methodological approach guarantees that
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our conclusions are ‘‘right.’’ We are not looking for right answers; as noted, we have found ourselves trying to shift preservice teachers away from the search for right answers (and more and more ‘‘resources’’). Each new stage in our research involves a cycle of listening, selecting a focus for changed practice, and an exploration of the consequences of changes. Once we convince ourselves that we actually did change our practices, we again listen to those we teach for evidence of the effects of change. The next cycle of listening inevitably enables us to hear something we had not heard before, and so we continue. Thus the cycles are recursive. The strength of our methodology is in the search for evidence of the effects of changed practices, always attending to the elusive goals of teacher education reform. The shortcoming of our methodology is its personal and subjective nature; this shortcoming is of less concern to other self-study researchers than to those who pursue the quest for ‘‘scientific’’ educational research (Cochran-Smith, 2005, pp. 223–224). We see two essential features to this methodology: (1) collecting data that show clearly that we are listening to those we teach, and (2) publishing analyses and interpretations of those data so that others may critique and offer alternative interpretations.
DEVELOPMENT OF OUR THINKING ABOUT THE QUESTIONS, METHODOLOGY, AND REPRESENTATION OF FINDINGS Summarizing the development of our thinking over the complex terrain of program change, program effects, and the evolution of personal teaching practices is no simple task. Preparing this chapter has given us new appreciation for the interaction between our research and our practice as we work to improve the courses we teach and the preservice program in which our courses are situated. The task of reporting and interpreting the various ways in which we have listened to teacher candidates in our program has also been a task of reinterpreting the evolution of our own teaching. In broadest terms, we are aware that the calls for teacher education reform continue, as do calls for improvement of teaching in elementary and secondary schools. We are increasingly aware of the roadblocks that arise simply because these two levels of reform are not seen as complementary pieces of the same large intellectual and practical puzzle. We applaud Feiman-Nemser’s (2001) achievement in outlining a continuum of teacher education from preservice preparation through induction and initial
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professional development to continuing professional development. In one sense, the principles and insights captured in her review and analysis should be enough to initiate and sustain teacher education reform throughout the English-speaking world; we ‘‘know’’ so very much about what preservice teacher education is trying to achieve and we certainly know what its familiar shortcomings are. As Feiman-Nemser (2001, p. 1049) notes, the shortcomings are not limited to preservice programs: The problems of preservice preparation, induction, and professional development have been documented. The charge of fragmentation and conceptual impoverishment applies across the board. There is no connective tissue holding things together within or across the different phases of learning to teach. The typical preservice program is a collection of unrelated courses and field experiences. Most induction programs have no curriculum, and mentoring is a highly individualistic process. Professional development consists of discrete and disconnected events. Nor do we have anything that resembles a coordinated system. Universities regard preservice preparation as their purview. Schools take responsibility for new teacher induction. Professional development is everybody’s and nobody’s responsibility.
Nevertheless, there seems to be extensive evidence that propositional knowledge alone does not and will not generate or sustain change (Goodlad, 1990; Sarason, 1996). We see at least two essential additions to Feiman-Nemser’s account: (1) listening (actively, responsively, and in diverse ways) to those who are learning to teach, and (2) extending that listening into the study of one’s own practice as a teacher educator. Because we have listened for most of a decade to those leaving our program, we immediately respond to the points made by Feiman-Nemser. And as we study our own practices (Russell, 1995, in press; Russell & Bullock, 1999), we are able to explore the practical significance of conceptualizing teacher education and development as a continuum. Program changes since 1997–1998 have generated many pressures to adjust how we teach. We feel fortunate that our early work with focus groups has inspired us to continue to listen to those we teach, and that listening has compelled us to re-examine our own teaching. In that process we have come to appreciate the high need within a preservice program for coherence and collaboration (Russell, McPherson, & Martin, 2001) rather than various forms of dissonance (Breault, 2004). Our findings seem best represented when we try to capture in words the changes in our own perceptions of what preservice teacher education can and should be and the changes that are emerging in our personal teaching practices in preservice classes. Our experiences listening to those learning to teach and then identifying the teaching changes they have inspired, help us
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to appreciate Cook-Sather’s (2002) arguments for ‘‘authorizing’’ students’ perspectives on learning: Most power relationships have no place for listening and actively do not tolerate it because it is very inconvenient: to really listen means to have to respond. Listening does not always mean doing exactly what we are told, but it does mean being open to the possibility of revision, both of thought and action. At a minimum, it means being willing to negotiate. Old assumptions and patterns of interaction are so well established that even those trying to break out of them must continue to struggle. And understanding that is part of what it means to listen. (Cook-Sather, 2002, p. 8)
We present our conclusions in the form of statements that Berry and Loughran (2002, p. 17) characterize as ‘‘assertions that guide our practice’’ – statements that guide our actions and help us understand their purpose. Perhaps the broadest conclusion we can draw at this stage in our work is the following: Listening is far more effective than telling or questioning if we wish to foster the development of new teachers’ perceptions and their ability to learn from experience. In drawing this conclusion, we are obviously not suggesting that all a teacher educator needs to do is listen. Rather, we are suggesting that listening is an essential first step in designing learning contexts that will be more productive for those we are helping learn to teach. This approach includes at least two fundamental elements of preservice teaching – designing activities that develop and illustrate new perspectives on teaching and learning, and designing activities that help candidates interpret their practicum experiences and link them to those new perspectives. This process is recursive and iterative; once begun, listening must become a regular and persistent feature of one’s teaching. We have also come to the following conclusions about the challenges of listening and learning: Learning to teach requires learning to listen to one’s own learning. Narrative Box 5 presents our most eloquent illustration of this statement, which offers a point of view that most preservice candidates rarely seem to reach. The author of this statement told us that he developed this skill of listening to his own learning in his last 2 years as an undergraduate. When he found himself unable to comprehend what lecturers were saying, he used a different color of ink to write in his notebook about why the teaching strategies he was experiencing were unproductive for him. He prepared the statements in Narrative Box 5
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when Tom invited him to summarize his approach to learning during his preservice program. We now use these statements to encourage other candidates to listen more closely to their own early professional learning. Learning to teach teachers requires learning to listen to one’s own learning as a teacher educator. We are genuinely astonished by how much our thinking about our own teaching has been challenged and extended by listening to preservice candidates who are beginning to think about the quality of their own learning to teach. Russell (2005) was moved to re-think his entire approach to fostering reflective practice by exploring one candidate’s comment that teacher educators should do far less preaching of the value of reflection and far more teaching of the skills and intricacies of reflection. Teaching and learning to teach are not about ‘‘getting it right.’’ They are more about ‘‘getting in touch’’ with how and why we are teaching as we do and with the full range of effects we are having on those we teach. Here we are trying to capture Scho¨n’s (1987, p. 158) sense of reflectionin-action as a ‘‘reflective conversation with the materials of a situation,’’ in which listening plays a significant role. Here we are also extending Sarason’s (1996, p. 367) insights about the way that right answers can rapidly reduce student interest, whether students are in kindergarten or in a teacher education classroom. There is a world of difference between wanting to learn and having to learn. The enemy of productive learning is disinterest, boredom, and the feeling that what you think and feel is seen as irrelevant by others, learning is a chore, a chore of routines developed by adults who see the learner as an empty vessel to be filled for reasons the student neither comprehends nor accepts.
When we argue, as we do here, for the importance of listening to preservice teachers, we are also aware that we are modeling to future teachers a practice that we believe is essential for them to carry into their own classrooms. We are not saying that preservice teachers already know what they need to learn or that their opinions alone should drive their learning to teach. We are saying that neither we (as teacher educators) nor they (as teachers) can create contexts for productive learning without carefully listening to our respective learners. The preceding assertions about the challenges of listening and learning lead us to offer the statements below that describe the development of our
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personal teaching practices as a result of listening to preservice teachers. These are offered as specific illustrations of our conclusion that if one is serious about improving the outcomes of teacher education, then one must first be serious about changing interactions within the teacher education classroom. At this stage in our own development as teacher educators, moving away from and beyond a right-answer environment and listening critically and carefully to those we teach are central in our efforts to create more productive contexts for learning to teach. We ask questions differently, we attend to and change the pace, and we avoid the R-word (‘‘reflection’’) until well into the year. We speak openly about reflection only after we have provided exercises that develop skills of reflection (Russell, 2005, provides further details about this change). We try to be much more explicit about educational purposes and rationales as we work to weave practical experiences into theoretical perspectives. We stress that sharing of practicum experiences must move beyond story-telling to in-depth analysis of problematic elements of practicum experiences. As we explore the ‘‘Why?’’ of education, in addition to the more obvious ‘‘What?’’ and ‘‘How?’’, we also try to be explicit about these same aspects of our work with those we teach. We try to avoid being didactic, and we also try to be explicit about why we try to avoid being didactic. Here we are working to illustrate ways to move beyond the familiar ‘‘what’s the right answer?’’ pattern of classroom interaction and to do this in ways that are both practical and conceptual. Any teacher or teacher educator attempting to move beyond teaching-as-telling in order to create a context for more productive learning must confront the innate response of all teachers to perpetuate the practices that were modeled by their own teachers throughout school and university. We encourage collaboration among teacher candidates – sharing experiences, sharing resources, and working to develop the issues fundamental to our courses. Candidates often recognize that their preservice collaborative learning with peers is quite productive, but it is a huge further step for them to create similar opportunities for collaboration within the schools where they begin to teach. Thus it is important for us to develop rationales for collaboration among learners and to highlight the importance of listening. We try to use the ‘‘big picture’’ of coherence, collaboration, and minimal dissonance to foster broad program goals within our own courses. We find ourselves wondering, at times, if we as teacher educators, like our
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teacher colleagues in schools, can be so busy cramming in as much content as possible that we lose sight of more fundamental issues of teaching and learning, ones that are explicit in Sarason’s (1996, 1998, 2002) concern about creating contexts for productive learning. Listening to those we teach and to those who complete the program in which we teach has been our most valuable source of inspiration as we work to reshape our own preservice classrooms into contexts for more productive learning about how to teach. We conclude by recalling that our own learning has developed slowly over a period of years and will most certainly never be complete. Making visible the features of schooling that we tend to take for granted, but must become aware of if we wish to improve, is a slow and complex process that is both inspired by and supported by actively listening to those we teach.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT Funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada supported the collection of much of the data reported in this chapter.
REFERENCES Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1996). Rethinking learning. In: D. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds), Handbook of education and human development: New models of learning, teaching and schooling (pp. 483–513). Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. Berry, A., & Loughran, J. (2002). Developing an understanding of learning to teach in teacher education. In: J. Loughran & T. Russell (Eds), Improving teacher education practice through self-study (pp. 13–29). London: RoutledgeFalmer. Breault, R. A. (2004). Dissonant themes in preservice portfolio development. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 847–859. Bullough, R. V., Jr., & Pinnegar, S. (2001). Guidelines for quality in autobiographical forms of self-study research. Educational Researcher, 30(3), 13–21. Cochran-Smith, M. (2004). The problem of teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 55, 295–299. Cochran-Smith, M. (2005). Teacher educators as researchers: Multiple perspectives. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 219–225. Cook-Sather, A. (2002). Authorizing students’ perspectives: Toward trust, dialogue, and change in education. Educational Researcher, 31(4), 3–14. Darling-Hammond, L. (2000). How teacher education matters. Journal of Teacher Education, 51, 166–173.
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Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan. Feiman-Nemser, S. (2001). From preparation to practice: Designing a continuum to strengthen and sustain teaching. Teachers College Record, 103, 1013–1055. Feiman-Nemser, S., & Remillard, J. (1996). Perspectives on learning to teach. In: F. B. Murray (Ed.), The teacher educator’s handbook: Building a knowledge base for the preparation of teachers (pp. 63–91). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Goodlad, J. I. (1990). Teachers for our nation’s schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Kaput, J. J. (1989). Information technology and affect in mathematical experience. In: D. B. McLeod & V. M. Adams (Eds), Affect and mathematical problem solving (pp. 89–103). New York: Springer-Verlag. Kessels, J. P. A. M., & Korthagen, F. A. J. (1996). The relationship between theory and practice: Back to the classics. Educational Researcher, 25(3), 17–22. Knight, R. D. (2004). Five easy lessons: Strategies for successful physics teaching. San Francisco: Addison-Wesley. Krueger, R. A. (1998). Analyzing and reporting focus group results. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Loughran, J. J., Hamilton, M. L., LaBoskey, V. K., & Russell, T. (Eds) (2004). International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Press. McMillan, J. H., & Schumacher, S. (2001). Research in education: A conceptual introduction (5th ed.). New York: Addison Wesley Longman Inc. Munby, H., & Russell, T. (1994). The authority of experience in learning to teach: Messages from a physics methods class. Journal of Teacher Education, 45, 86–95. Munby, H., Russell, T., Martin, A.K. (2001). Teachers’ knowledge and how it develops. In: V. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (4th ed., pp. 877–904). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Russell, T. (1995). Reconstructing educational theory from the authority of personal experience: How can I best help people learning to teach? Studies in Continuing Education, 17(1&2), 6–17. Russell, T. (2002). Sharing the authority of experience: Perspectives on learning to teach. Multimedia CD-ROM Kingston, Ontario: Queen’s University, Faculty of Education. Russell, T. (2005). Can reflective practice be taught? Reflective Practice, 6, 199–205. Russell, T. (in press). How 20 years of self-study changed my practice. In: C. Kosnik, C. Beck, A. Freese & A. Samaras (Eds), Making a difference in teacher education through selfstudy: Studies of personal, professional, and program renewal. New York: Springer. Russell, T., & Bullock, S. (1999). Discovering our professional knowledge as teachers: Critical dialogues about learning from experience. In: J. Loughran (Ed.), Researching teaching (pp. 132–151). London: Falmer. Russell, T., & Martin, A. K. (in press). Learning to teach science. In: S. Abell & N. Lederman (Eds), Handbook of research on science education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Russell, T., McPherson, S., & Martin, A. K. (2001). Coherence and collaboration in teachereducation reform. Canadian Journal of Education, 26, 37–55.
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Sarason, S. B. (1996). Revisiting ‘‘the culture of the school and the problem of change’’. New York: Teachers College Press. Sarason, S. B. (1998). Political leadership and educational failure. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Sarason, S. B. (2002). Educational reform: A self-scrutinizing memoir. New York: Teachers College Press. Scho¨n, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books. Scho¨n, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Segall, A. (2002). Disturbing practice: Reading teacher education as text. New York: Peter Lang. Upitis, R. (Ed). (2000). Who will teach? A case study of teacher education reform. San Francisco: Caddo Gap Press. Wideen, M., Mayer-Smith, J., & Moon, B. (1998). A critical analysis of the research on learning to teach: Making the case for an ecological perspective on inquiry. Review of Educational Research, 68(2), 130–178.
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STUDENT-LED PARENT CONFERENCES Janet Alleman ABSTRACT This chapter describes a unique model used by one teacher educator to provide an authentic process for assessing student learning and observing how students represent themselves as teachers to their families. The student-led parent conference is a means of making learning more viable and more intrinsically motivating because it incorporates elements of choice and a real audience for evaluation. A powerful by-product is the credibility it can give to at least one recommendation university professors often make about what classroom teachers should do.
BACKGROUND ‘‘We ask our students to cross bridges we’ve never crossed.’’ Those words from Debbie Meier at an American Educational Research Association (AERA) session several years ago struck me like a bolt of lightening. I had planned to initiate student-led conferences at Michigan State University with my class of interns, and Debbie’s jolting words led me to add family members to the mix.
Learning from Research on Teaching: Perspective, Methodology, and Representation Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 11, 41–73 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1016/S1479-3687(05)11002-5
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To change a syllabus in the middle of the semester is risky, but to add parents of young adults in a university setting is radical. I have learned, however, that you can get ‘‘buy in’’ if you present a solid rationale, show enthusiasm, and position your revision as a bonus. I never used the word ‘‘mandatory.’’ I admitted that I had no previous history of this venture, knew of no other professional in a university setting who had adopted this model, and did not know what the results would look like, but always believed in students’ capacities. I too, would be a learner in this initiative. Letters were sent to family members explaining the goals of the conferences (see Appendix A). I pointed out that this practice is carried out in many K-12 schools and that their child’s first-hand experience with it as an aspiring teacher would add to his/her repertoire of respected teaching practices. As the semester continued, in-class assignments were discussed as usual but with references to using the materials to explain their insights about social studies during their conference. Interning experiences also were grist for discussion and analysis. I encouraged students to collect artifacts for incorporation into their student-led parent conferences. The students could choose the format for the upcoming conference. PowerPoint, videotape, and comprehensive portfolio entries, either paper or an electronic version with interactive discussion were listed among the possibilities. The goals were the same: to share with family members their understanding and appreciation of social studies and what that looks like in a classroom using the national and state standards and benchmarks; to showcase strengths in teaching social studies; and to discuss their current weaknesses and their plans for increasing competence in the field. Interest and excitement swelled as the semester wore on, and performance goals were being replaced by mastery goals. Instead of just trying to look smart, students were trying to become smarter (Dweck, 1985). Several expected their family members to challenge their ideas, which served as an added motivator for careful planning. Some students admitted that their families believed anybody could teach, so they questioned the need for a 5-year teacher education program. Others voiced frustration about their families’ acceptance of their career choice. After all, most other professionals make a lot more money. Thorough preparation for a culminating assessment was at an all-time high. Scheduling conferences was problematic, given work schedules and the need for family members to travel to the university. I had to be willing to meet with families on weekends and at night. Once in awhile I suspected an inconvenient time was selected as a strategy for getting out of the activity.
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When one student insisted, ‘‘My family can only come at 11:00 p.m. on Friday night,’’ I said, ‘‘Great! I have the keys to the building.’’ Word got around that ‘‘She will go out of her way to be available. She views this as a very important part of the course.’’ That first attempt at student-led conferences exceeded even my wildest expectations, and subsequent repetitions have refined the practice and made me even more aware of this as a powerful learning opportunity. Despite the enormous time commitment, Ed Smith, a science colleague who shares the same students as part of our cohort configuration, recently agreed to collaborate on this initiative. After participating in 30 hours of conferences last month, he had this to say: ‘‘This experience was awesome. It is indeed a serious event. The positive impact, although perhaps difficult to measure, is so apparent. I admit I was blown away by many of their presentations. When I walked into the room and saw their exhibits and how professional they appeared, I realized how much of themselves they had invested. I observed and heard a richness about their work that we simply don’t capture in a written report or essay.’’ Ed’s reassuring words coupled with what I have witnessed over the last 6 years convince me that this method has a place in the teacher education program. While it is not for everyone, its ‘‘high touch’’ (hands-on, in-your-face) format zeroes in on unique and powerful elements of teaching and learning.
WHAT QUESTIONS ABOUT TEACHING HAVE GUIDED MY INQUIRY? Questions that have nudged me over the past 6 years include: How can I (1) make teaching and learning more authentic? (2) make teaching and learning more aligned? (3) make my social studies course and its content more powerful and memorable? (4) engender a stronger sense of learner accountability? (5) create growth-producing assessments instead of simply another exercise in ‘‘doing school’’ by completing a final exam usually consisting of several essay questions, which typically result in rhetorical responses? and (6) encourage family support as novices launch their professional careers? Every year I ask these questions and the student-led parent conference continues to surface as the most satisfactory answer.
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RATIONALE FOR STUDENT-LED PARENT CONFERENCES Rationales for establishing the student-led parent conference as a culminating learning opportunity for my social studies course for interns were simply to model an effective educational practice and to provide a more authentic assessment of what was learned. Its success has led to my investment in and study of this mastery goal-oriented practice. Recalling my own personal experiences as a child often led me to rethink my teaching/learning practices as I yearned to make school a more meaningful place for children today than it was for me. My possible influence comes through the stories I share with classroom teachers and through my college instruction of preservice educators. Of course, to increase appreciation of one’s wrenching experiences of the past, unpacking the issues, engaging in reflection, and providing tools for change are necessary. I smile as I recount my first parent conference attended by my dad and mom with my first-grade teacher, Miss Morgan. In fact, it has made an indelible mark on my views about assessment. I can still picture the red chair I regularly occupied in the hall at my elementary school, because of my untimely questions and under-my-breath chatting to whoever would listen. I hated those dittoes and those ridiculous simple stories in the reading books. Miss Morgan never figured out that going to the hall was a reward. I got noticed by lots of passersby. They admired my hair bows and long curls, and were mystified by my less-thanremorseful demeanor about my hall status. I recall my uneasiness when my parents were summoned for that first night conference. I insisted that my mom and dad take me along. After all, the conference was about me. Deep down I hoped the teacher would temper her remarks with my presence. The look on Miss Morgan’s face when I showed up for the unprecedented visit convinced me this was out of the ordinary. I vaguely remember my parents praising me after the conference for being so grown up. While they always appeared to support my teachers, I realized much later that they were somewhat uneasy about my reactions to them. However, the learning opportunities they provided at home and their insistence that I do my best in class kept me motivated and undoubtedly attributed to my school success. I realize now that I was a good student and I got good grades, except in deportment, despite my difficulty of ‘‘staying within the lines!’’ I always wondered what bad things the teacher was saying about me, and if I would pass on to the next grade. I had no knowledge of the assessment process and
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no real concept of myself as a learner. As a classroom teacher, I always invited the students to attend conferences, and I am thrilled to see schools moving a step beyond and putting conferences into the hands of the learners. I have realized for a long time that the main issues associated with assessment are similar across the K–University range. My own students – interns with four plus years of college – still fumble around and often seem to accept little responsibility for their own learning. Frequently, their comments reveal that they view any assessment as something done to them, not something they do for themselves. Too often, I have experienced teacherpleasing and/or complacent students with an attitude of ‘‘Just tell me what I have to do – how many typewritten pages it needs to be, etc. – and then leave me alone.’’ I have desperately wanted more student involvement and a higher level of student interest in learning. After all, these preservice students soon would be first-year teachers. Together, the reading I had done, the elementary teachers who shared with me the successes they experienced with student-led parent conferences, and my own memories convinced me that this structure could reveal a lot about what students learned in my social studies course and how it would inform their work as interns. I became convinced that student-led parent conferences had great potential for meaningful learning and could promote at least three elements essential to student performance in school. Relevance We cannot, at any level, afford to teach only what we like best or understand and appreciate the most. We must consider the individual experiences of our students – what they bring as well as the range of grade levels and contexts in which they will find themselves. To attain the goals of my social studies course, college students must be able to see the importance of the concepts they are learning, connect these concepts to their prior learning, and relate them to the students in their intern settings. My students can more easily see relevance in their coursework when they know that an audience beyond the walls of the college classroom and their intern classroom will see and review this work. Responsibility: Making the College Student more Responsible for Learning A student-led parent conference offers one method for increasing student responsibility for learning. Because these college students know they will be
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reporting to their parents and often other significant adults in their lives on a range of social studies topics, they begin to see the importance of submitting high-quality products, keeping track of the work I have returned with generous feedback, and revising when appropriate. They begin to seek out extra credit and enrichment opportunities. As an example, 65% of a recent class has agreed to present their unit plans at an upcoming state social studies conference, and all members of the class are planning to attend sessions. Reporting to Other Adults: Increasing Effectiveness While it is rare for families to question university professors about how their children are doing, the conference can provide a forum for communicating learning in a detailed and direct way that everyone can understand. As a byproduct, the conference can provide practice for conferring with families of their elementary students in the near future.
SETTING DIRECTIONS FOR THE CONFERENCES Student-led parent conferences require context and preparation. In reflecting back on the last 6 years of these conferences, I believe, three guiding principles are necessary for their success: a classroom community needs to be developed, communication needs to be established, and relationships have to be built. Developing a Classroom Community As soon as the first class session starts, I work toward creating a classroom community, where everyone feels comfortable taking risks, where the students help one another and value others enough to learn from and with them. Weaver (1990) points out that ‘‘People do not engage or invest themselves in learning tasks that they perceive as threatening to their self-esteem’’ (p. 10). We begin by talking about what a learning community is and what we want ours to look like, sound like, and feel like. Charts with our ideas are co-constructed and then posted around the classroom, and periodically reviewed as a means of reinforcing the qualities we want to experience. We talk about our classroom as a microcosm of society and the importance of practicing citizenship first-hand.
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Communication Established Our next class activity consists of discussing what it means to be an ideal learner and listing attributes. Examples typically included are: creative, mentally engaged, produces more than the minimum, open-minded, asks thoughtful questions, is positive, comes to class prepared, etc. After our initial discussion, each student is asked to select one ideal learner attribute to work on, write it down, and briefly brainstorm with a peer about what strategies can be used to work on it during the session. At the end of class, each student self-assesses, giving himself/herself a grade with an eye toward becoming a more ideal learner. This practice is replicated each session. Periodic discussions about becoming a more ideal learner take place. This has positively impacted our learning community. Putnam and Burke’s (1992) text provides guidance for other foundational learning community activities. Multiple forms of cooperative learning are used to subsidize the community and to facilitate socialization and learning. Additionally, every student volunteers to serve on a committee to help our class. Committees usually include physical environment, social issues, transportation, technology, education, and social activities. Committees generate lists of tasks they will handle for our community. The net result is class ownership and a happier and more engaged cadre of learners.
Relationships Established Committee work, cooperative learning activities, co-peer planning and teaching lessons in our class, rug meetings designed to hash out issues that arise in our community or in the field placement settings, and a carefully crafted assignment that asks students to share their childhoods through stories and artifacts coupled with an engaging discussion regarding the social studies elements embedded in their personal lives go a long way in fostering relationships. These relationships in turn promote ‘‘We are in this together and our student-led parent conferences not only make us unique and special, they represent a challenge we are going to figure out how to meet.’’
PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER The student-led parent conference model is described the first day of class as a featured component of the course – one that acknowledges student
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efficacy, self-monitoring, and reflection (see Appendix A). The description of the initiative suggests high expectations for the course (i.e., motivation, expectancy/value) and the power of the student learners in deciding what theory and practices they will take from the course, apply in the internship, and share with their families. While for many the thought of conducting an hour-long conference at the end of the semester seems unrealistic and overwhelming on the first day of class, reality gradually takes over after multiple references to the culminating activity. Students assume more responsibility for learning, and preparation begins quickly. Assignments throughout the semester are designed to engage students in meaningful social studies learning, promote life application, and encourage reflection. Frequently, students are reminded of work samples, portfolio entries, photos, written assignments, etc., that they might consider sharing at their conference. I have developed somewhat of a system over the last 6 years, although it is still changing and evolving. I know that if I am going to guide my interns through the semester successfully, I need to have a clear map of where we are going. Every fall, I sit down, review my notes, and think about the successes of the last conferences, the changes that need to be made, and the new ideas to be tried. I consider the best co-constructed ways to allow students to reflect on their own learning. Recent examples include a set of guiding questions that interns can use as they develop their reflective papers focusing on the unit they design and a holistic rubric to use in planning the conference. The students gradually see themselves as capable of participating in the assessment process as reflective learners – and to a large extent controlling that process. I talk with them about the importance of my communicating early in the semester with their families – but only after they feel comfortable and prepared to field questions that their families may have. After all, it is an anomaly at a university. I explain that I want them to experience a powerful process that many K-12 schools are currently engaged in planning and/or implementing. I introduce this class as very special – one that includes many ‘‘out of the box’’ learning opportunities that will prepare them to teach in ways that surpass their expectations. Among these learning opportunities is the student-led family conference. After I assign select readings associated with the process, we engage in Q/A. I read the letter I will be sending to the family members (see Appendix B). I ask them to alert their families that the letter will be arriving, be prepared to field questions, and to talk about scheduling. On occasion, I get a call from a harried parent who, despite the contents of the letter, suspects the worst and needs to be assured that the student is not being dismissed from the program. Recently, I have received a
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few calls requesting two conferences – one for mom and another for dad. In all but one instance, family negotiations resolved the issues. Often additional members attend – sometimes as obvious neutralizers. For example, one grandmother introduced herself as the person who came to keep everything friendly. She said, ‘‘I’m here to keep these people apart.’’ In the one tenuous situation, I scheduled separate conferences; however, at the last minute one parent cancelled. The student’s response when I expressed concern was simply, ‘‘Jan, don’t worry about it. They have so many issues. I just wish they’d both grow up.’’ One wanted additional time that excluded the student; however, at the conclusion of the conference, the parent indicated that this was no longer necessary. Throughout the semester, we talk about elements of the course that should be underscored within the conference. I assure the students that by the time the conference arrives, they will be very competent and confident – if they choose to be. I tell them, ‘‘You have enormous capacity. You have the final say in your learning. You are the best qualified individuals to share what you have learned. You are the experts. Your family members will be amazed with what you understand and can do!’’
Practice Conference I have tried a variety of approaches with this stage. One thing I have learned is that there is not enough time during regularly scheduled class sessions – during the period when students feel adequately ready – to have a ‘‘dry run’’ for each student. Most recently, I solicited a volunteer to role play her presentation for the class. A debriefing discussion followed. Subsequently, I assigned every student to create a ‘‘mind movie’’ of the upcoming conference using magic markers or crayons and white paper to depict it. Much to my surprise, all of the students were totally immersed in the activity. Their multiple-scene ‘‘walk through’’ was shared with a peer. The mind movie and subsequent discussion focused primarily on the process, because if this is unclear, it could create a barrier to successful communication of the content. I encourage students to do complete rehearsals on their own using all of the props, including segments using technology. I underscore the power of being anticipatory and able to adjust if the need arises. We talk a lot about the questioning component and, given their audience, whether they want to respond to queries from family members throughout the conference or entertain questions at the end.
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The Conference The actual conferences include three critical participants. The first is the student who will lead the conference. The second is the parents and stepparents, grandparents, sometimes aunts and uncles, brothers, sisters, husbands, etc., as the primary audience. On occasion a classroom teacher also is invited. The third is the college professor – me – and recently my science colleague who will be present. Our role is to be actively, yet, silently engaged during the hour. On rare occasions and only if asked to, I would comment during the presentation. The student in charge sets the agenda and decides how the hour will be utilized (see Appendix C).
The Main Event: The Student-Led Parent Conference Despite the in-class discussions, role-plays, and mind movies as preparation for the conferences, there is an enormous amount of anticipation. The everpopular statement ‘‘I’m stressed’’ is repeated over and over – usually by the females. An occasional ‘‘I’m nervous’’ is mouthed by the males. And, there are those who cannot wait to ‘‘sock it to’’ a parent who for years has discounted teacher education or teaching as a profession. The first conference is always groundbreaking. You always hope for it to be topnotch because all the other students await their e-mail message from the first one to conduct his/her conference to get the ‘‘scoop’’ about how it went. I have found students to be really good judges of themselves. The student participant typically leaves with an ‘‘I did it!’’ perception and self-esteem is at a very high level immediately following the event, but she/he usually has some good pointers for classmates to follow, such as ‘‘Make sure you have an agenda,’’ ‘‘Make sure you get there early to set up your technology,’’ and ‘‘Don’t worry about too much time. It flies.’’ Usually the student and his/her family arrive 30–60 minutes early to ‘‘set up’’ for the conference. Set up might include displays of class expectations, student work, and/or children’s literature books, photos depicting instructional activities associated with the written units, and photos of field trips. PowerPoints, videos, and audios are readied for the presentation. Occasionally, food is prepared and/or background music is provided. An overarching sense of anticipation and professionalism prevails over everything, including the attire of the student presenter. More than once, I have barely recognized an individual who was magically transformed from the cap
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pulled down over his/her eyes and loosely fitted threads to the suit/tie or dress/high heels combo. After introductions and brief but friendly chitchat, there is an opportunity for questions regarding the goals of the conference. Usually, the student reviews the role of the audience and preference for time of questioning. Sometimes the more formal opening of the conference begins after a ‘‘walk around’’ to become familiar with the displays, while in other instances, the artifacts are acknowledged within the presentation. While most students are convinced that there is no way they can talk for an hour, 99% of the time they use the entire time – and eat up the 15 minute breaks I have scheduled if they are running back to back. Some whine a bit because they wish for more time. I find that amusing – and positive. In many instances, I suspect that conversations about the event continue in the car or at the restaurant as they celebrate afterwards. The last conference this year was scheduled two hours before a personal commitment of mine. Bonnie rarely talked in class unless I prodded her, so I assumed that we would finish early. Much to my surprise, she talked for two and a half hours! She was very well prepared and proud to boast of what she had learned to her mom, who had driven three hours on icy roads to witness her daughter’s session. Her mother had this to say: ‘‘Great! Bonnie has always made me proud, but it was wonderful to be such a part of the process and to see her education, knowledge, and tools in the works.’’ Bonnie said, ‘‘I loved it. It was easy to talk. It was easy to think of all the many things I learned this semester. It will prepare me for interviewing. I also loved sharing with my mom and my instructors! I was nervous at first, but as it went on, I got better. I am glad I had this opportunity. I hope to use it in my own classroom next year!’’
Roles and Responsibilities of Participants Successful student-led parent conferences require changes in the roles and responsibilities that each participant has often become accustomed to at this level of education. Family members are asked to become more formally connected to their child’s education and become listeners and questioners in an on-campus scheduled event. The professor takes on a public and personal role with families and the responsibility is to be a listener during the conference. Students become leaders and it is their responsibility to provide
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clear evidence that they have been active members in the teaching and learning process and have assumed some responsibility for their education. Student’s Role This is the time the students have prepared for – their passage from college student to professional. Their role during the conference is to initiate, lead, and explain. Often students prepare agendas and post their goals for the session. Most describe how they would like to proceed and what they expect from the audience. Examples of advance organizers that two students shared with their families are shown in Appendix C. Students also decide how the hour is to be allocated – the amount of time to be spent on what they need to work on, etc. They also decide when the conference is complete. Parental Role The most vital task for the families, of course, is to attend the conference. At the conference, they need to listen carefully to what their child or brother/ sister, girlfriend, etc., is saying and ask questions to clarify. A few jot down questions to be posed at the conclusion of the conference. Before the conference officially ends, the student asks the families to complete feedback forms. Open-ended questions include: overall reactions to the conference, overall reaction to being invited to my child’s/sister’s etc., conference, the most powerful thing I learned from this experience, and recommendations I would make (retain format as is, retain and revise by _____, or reject and substitute). Praise from the parents seems to follow naturally after the conference. Generally, families seem excited with the conference and evidence of learning displayed. However, there are instances where it is obvious that the student is not ready for that first classroom position. In one situation, the parent had been unusually vocal about her daughter’s placement, blaming everybody but her daughter about her poor performance in both the college classroom and the intern setting. I dreaded my upcoming hour with this mother–daughter tag team of malcontents. Sure enough, Sally’s poor performance during the conference mirrored the history of the semester. I was unable to read mom’s facial expressions, body language, etc., but her voice was silenced. Counseling her daughter out of teacher education was met with no challenge. Family is important! Alexis, who had scheduled her conference late on a Friday evening to accommodate family driving in for the holidays from
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out of state, shared deep disappointment when she explained, ‘‘I’m really sorry to hold you to this late schedule. I counted on my dad and his wife to be here. My dad who has never valued anything I’ve done now says they’ll be too tired – they’ll need to unpack.’’ Alexis agreed it would be fine if I called him on the premise that ‘‘I was calling to confirm his presence.’’ After my conversation with the father, which subtly revealed his discomfort with anything related to a university, he agreed to participate. How joyful it was to see Dad’s response when a married daughter with three kids and two jobs along with an internship articulated what she had learned in ways that clearly revealed the artfulness of her practice. Dad took more photos than all the other families collectively – and he has since become my e-mail pal. As tearful Alexis left that night, she whispered, ‘‘Wow, for me this is a new beginning!’’ The respect Alexis earned that night could be captured in few other venues. Her father had this to say in his feedback: ‘‘I am very proud of my daughter. I did not know how much this would mean to her. I’m glad I was called. Alexis is good now and she will get better. It was great, Jan!’’ Then there is Kara’s family. A week before her conference, she showed up in my office to explain that she and her Dad had just experienced yet another major disagreement. She explained, ‘‘Just imagine, we were at this snitzy restaurant, and in the middle of my salad, I had to leave. This guy thinks I should be a clothing designer. He thinks that just because I wear clothes well that I should do it for a living. I ask, ‘So how would that career improve humankind?’ He simply refuses to give me any respect. I can’t wait to get in his face. I will be READY.’’ As she left my office, she added, ‘‘Now, my mom is a cold number – so don’t be put off by her.’’ I was anxious for ‘‘Kara’s Day in Court’’ to arrive. Kara’s written work and in-class participation were stellar, so I expected a topnotch session, and I was not disappointed. For whatever it is worth, mom gave me a big hug, and Dad somewhat sheepishly admitted, ‘‘Well, Kara has clearly convinced me that she is scholarly about her passion.’’ In his feedback he said, ‘‘Very good, Kara! You seem to be thoroughly involved with your students and their development, both academically and socially. I was very pleased to be here today and learn more about the teaching profession. The most powerful things I learned today focused on the current goals and methods of the teaching process, the experiences of your students, and the growth of you as a person.’’ Kara’s grandmother, who was also in attendance had this to say: ‘‘I graduated from MSU in 1959 as a teacher. I am most impressed at how much more Kara is prepared to teach than I was when I left State.’’
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Professor’s Role I feel extremely responsible for the learning that occurs within my college classroom. It has been a struggle to give up some control – to have students organize the learning environment, to provide choices in how they do some of the assignments, to elicit feedback from every class session and make changes accordingly, and to give students more of the responsibility for their learning and assessment. I hasten to add that all of this exists within the framework of the course description adopted by the department and is aligned with the goals of the course. It is also clearly explained to the students that the student-led parent conference is only one facet of the assessment – but a very important one. As my colleague, Ed Smith, noted after the final conference, ‘‘Boy, do you learn a lot about the interns. Some things actually make me a bit uneasy. I wish we had them another semester.’’ My responsibility in the process is primarily to organize the conference environment to guarantee success. This includes scheduling, making recommendations for assignments and artifacts that might be used in the conference, co-constructing guidelines for reflection, co-constructing a holistic rubric for the conference, designing activities such as role plays for preparing for the conference, attending to technology requests, and arranging for space to accommodate families. Then the professor steps back and lets the students conduct the conferences. Students become the teachers and I become a guide, an observer, and an unobtrusive helper.
STEPPING BACK The question parents ask in K-12 schools is ‘‘How is my child doing?’’ On rare occasions I too am asked this at the end of the student-led parent conference (usually following a less-than-stellar performance). Due to college students’ rights and privacy issues, I respond with caution – always in the presence of the student and in a manner that saves face and suggests recommendations for future development. Reporting to Parents Few topics in education are more controversial than grading, reporting, and communicating about K-12 students’ learning. While grading remains controversial in the higher education setting, and I do not pretend to have overcome the dilemmas associated with it, I position the conference as an
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opportunity to showcase what students have learned. The students and I co-construct a rubric (see Appendix D) and design guidelines and questions for planning the conference. Points are assigned to reflect value to the conference. I explain to the students that their grades may improve or stay the same as the result of their performance, adding that it would be a rarity for the grade to drop. In the 6 years I have been conducting conferences that has happened only once. No student in our community would risk not showing – and I have found that students want to ‘‘look good’’ in front of their families. At the college level, and especially with graduate students in their internships, families do not concern themselves with the grades. Families report on the written follow-up forms that while they rarely discuss grades with their adult child, the conferences provide them with a rich picture of what she/he is actually learning. They endorse student led parent conferences as an excellent way to communicate student achievement or performance.
What Happens for the Student? Since the conferences usually occur very near the end of the semester, due to students’ readiness and family schedules, there is no chance for a total class debriefing. Usually, however, about half of the students have experienced the conferences before the last scheduled session. Distinct feelings emerge. One is camaraderie – ‘‘like we are climbing a mountain and leaving our mark.’’ A closeness among students is created. They are having a common experience that unites them. Johnson and Johnson (1984) point out that to be an effective group, there needs to be cohesion. A second is celebration – those who have completed the experience are brimming with pride and readily cheer others on saying, ‘‘It’s great! You’ll surprise yourself! You can do it!’’ For those who have completed it, there is a sense of relief. When I ask how they would compare time preparing for an essay final vs. the conference, they chuckle and retort ‘‘No contest. You tricked us again!’’ Many echo the fact that while the time commitment is much greater, the learning is memorable. Another common response is, ‘‘I can’t believe how much I’ve actually learned.’’ The more anticipatory students admit that they viewed the entire course with extra seriousness because they realized that having an authentic audience raises the bar of learner expectations. As I stated earlier, students of all ages must see relevance to take on greater responsibility and be more accountable. They must value the work they are doing and be actively engaged in managing their own learning.
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Glasser (1997), in describing choice theory says, ‘‘We are all driven by four psychological needs: the need to belong, the need for power, the need for freedom, and the need for fun’’ (p. 599). My observations in my social studies classroom confirm that when college students enjoy what they are doing within the framework of the content goals, when they feel a sense of ownership and pride in their work, and when they are doing work that matters, they produce higher quality work. In Glasser’s terms, when students are able to satisfy one or more of these basic needs, they feel good. From weekly written feedback and surveys following the student-led parent conferences, I have found that students generally enjoy a sense of power or control over the situation. Of course, there are exceptions – those who for multiple reasons have reveled in powerfulness and avoidance. It is always a dramatic and scary shift and usually is evident in their presentations. Student feedback following the conference often contains remarks such as, ‘‘I really knew what I was doing’’ ‘‘I surprised myself.’’ ‘‘Actually, I enjoyed myself.’’ ‘‘I felt really professional.’’ ‘‘I really feel ready for that first job interview.’’ ‘‘I loved it!’’ ‘‘I talk every day to my parents but I was able to open up even more and really let them know what it takes to be a teacher.’’ Another consequence that students often describe is the opportunity to learn something new. The experience itself promotes new learning. In some sense, the conferences are like performance-based assessments in that these college students acquire new learning through the process of completing the assessment task (Mitchell & Neill, 1992). In preparing for a student-led parent conference, the college students must describe their work to individuals who care about them, but typically are unfamiliar with educational jargon. Their work includes both their social studies coursework and their internship in a K-8 setting, thus linking theory and practice. They must engage in self-reflection in order to articulate their thoughts about their work. By preparing for an audience throughout the semester and presenting to family in a conference setting, they learn something important that is typically not an intentional part of the curriculum. Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe (1998) in Understanding by Design describe six facets that make up what they call understanding. One of the facets they describe is self-knowledge: ‘‘The wisdom to know one’s ignorance and how one’s patterns of thoughts and action inform as well as prejudice understanding’’ (p. 57). They go on to suggest that to assess a student’s level of self-knowledge, we must ‘‘require students to self-assess their past as well as their present work’’ (p. 97). The conference allows my students to demonstrate their growth using their own work samples across
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the semester, and suggested questions to aid the planning process are provided. The net result is a better grasp of self-knowledge. The family members’ perceptiveness concerning their college students’ levels of cognitive and conceptual development is often unclear, although parents sometimes provide subtle cues in their feedback. One less-thanstellar conference by a student who had struggled a lot prompted his mother to write, ‘‘He had good posture in presenting what he has accomplished so far. It is good to get the feedback that he needs NOW, not when his internship is up.’’ Generally, students are fairly good judges of themselves. Often their written feedback provided at the end of the conference suggests that there are areas they do not understand about a given subject. On many occasions I privately recommend areas that need attention. The student-led parent conference serves as a powerful vehicle for examining knowledge of a subject and its application in the classroom.
What Happens for Parents/Family Members? There are a host of reasons for conducting student-led parent conferences. Among them are to promote student and professor self-reflection and assessment, to shift learner responsibility to students, to engage students in a rapidly growing practice in K-12 schools, and to reengage families and their adult children in dialogue about their profession. After all, within months these preservice teachers, soon to be novices, will be seeking their first teaching position. Emphatic support from family members can facilitate their adjustment to these transitions. Generally, families exhibit positive attitudes when they arrive at the conference, although many are tentative simply because they have never experienced such an event in a university setting. In fact, many admit that they have little insight regarding academics, the core of the institution. Their involvement is frequently simply financial. Even those who communicate frequently with their children, often about the teacher internship, confess that before the conference they had learned only a smattering of details – never a one-hour uninterrupted ‘‘story’’ about what has been learned and applied. Families generally leave with extremely positive reactions, as evidenced in their feedback. Common responses include: ‘‘I was a bit surprised to hear that Sharon’s college professor wanted me to attend a parent–teacher conference, but I am happy to come. I think it is a great idea to see first hand what she is learning and accomplishing. At first I was wondering what
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Sharon would talk about, but now I realize she has quite a lot to say about teaching. It’s much more in-depth than I originally thought.’’ Some leave realizing their children still have considerable developing to do before they can be expected to land that first position. For example, a couple of students got befuddled by technology glitches and had difficulty regaining poise. One mother exclaimed, ‘‘You’d better become more anticipatory and have a Plan B before you ever set out to interview.’’ Another said, ‘‘You talk way to fast. Even my heart was pounding. You seemed to be in some sort of race.’’ A dad was supportive but guarded in feedback to his daughter: ‘‘Well, I hope you’ll do better next semester, now that you’ve decided to give up field hockey. If you get up at 5 a.m. from now on, it better be due to classroom preparation.’’ Not all parents are pleased with their children’s choice of profession, either because of their own disappointments associated with teaching or because they had other dreams for their son or daughter. Public testimonies and tears, along with written comments, often reveal a softening of attitudes, a new-found and surprising respect for the teaching field and for intellectual fiber possessed by their child that, prior to the conference, they had no idea existed. On one occasion, a dad who was unhappy about having to drive 250 miles to attend this exercise and who admittedly had given his daughter grief for her aspirations toward a teaching career wept openly about his miscalculation. He publicly promised to do whatever he could to ensure that she follows her dreams. It was heartwarming to see him jump to his feet, hug his daughter who had eloquently presented what she had learned and how she had applied it in her internship, and suggest ‘‘We are going right now to shop for a Coach attache´ and an unlimited number of professional and children’s books so she has a good start.’’ He shook my hand and said, ‘‘Oh, by the way, please e-mail me a list of professional organizations she should be joining.’’ That was 3 years ago – and she is well on her way to beating the odds for leaving the profession. Is it possible her family’s changed attitude and support has made the difference?
What Happens for the Professor? There is a range of ability and developmental stages even within a class that has adequately satisfied entry and shortly will satisfy exit requirements of the program. Student conceptions of their K-8 children, learning, and teaching vary considerably. Some have progressed from simplistic to more complex interactive explanations of student behaviors, development, and
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learning. Some are still at the ‘‘show and tell’’ phase, while others have developed to the stage of conceptualizing and creating a learning environment designed to foster K-8 students’ learning and development. Their views on learning range from passive reception to active construction. They think of their roles and functions in a host of ways from simply facilitating and using prepared and prescribed materials to engaging in scholarly learning in an effort to carefully scaffold networks of knowledge structured around big ideas using a host of instructional modalities, constructing their own materials, and paying careful attention to goals. Students’ conceptual development is also revealed through the hour-long conference. Those with high conceptual levels are abstract thinkers; they are independent, self-actualizing, resourceful, flexible, and possess a high capacity of integration. They generally rate higher on positive characteristics such as warmth, perceptiveness, empathy, flexibility, ingenuity, task effectiveness, smoothness, and consistency. Low-conceptual level teachers rate higher on negative characteristics such as rule orientation, punitiveness, and anxiety (Harvey, White, Prather, Alter, & Hoffmeister, 1966; Heck & Davis, 1973). Hunt and Joyce (1967) found correlations between teacher conceptual level and ability to use learners’ needs as a basis for planning and evaluation. High-conceptual level teachers use a greater range of learning environments and teaching methods. These subtle nuances are generally revealed in students’ written assignments as well as in their in-class conversations and questions. They are typically validated during the conferences. In many instances, however, students reveal a higher level during the conferences. This, of course, is satisfying and serves as a gentle reminder to always be open to the student who reveals a lot more insight at the conference.
What is Required of a College Professor? Use of this technique requires a commitment to a more open model for assessment in which students decide what they will share and how they will share it. The use of co-constructed holistic rubric provides a framework for planning and implementation. The model and the process are intentionally open ended. They are designed to open the door to all students, encourage them to reveal their conceptions of teaching and learning with an eye toward social studies, using the modality that seems most comfortable. The professor must relinquish the belief that there are certain things all students must exhibit that they have learned in order to pass the course, because the conference focuses on what students want to show, obviously within their
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repertoire of understanding. Areas of weakness, uncertainty, or perhaps even misconceptions frequently are not unearthed. Besides broadening your view and giving students a big ‘‘say’’ in their assessment, the model requires the professor to take risks and be more public. When you sit down with the student and family for the conference, you are an ‘‘open book.’’ You have no idea what will be said, how your course will be characterized, or how the students’ conceptions will be articulated or interpreted. You walk a fine line, balancing the personal and impersonal. I continue to be amazed at the range of interpretations of class content and the weighing that students give to assignments, class activities, assigned readings, lecturettes, field trips, etc., as expressed during their conferences. As a professor, you have to be open to surprises, especially with students whose written and oral work in the college class is less than stellar but whose insights revealed during the conference are sometimes remarkable. Joe designed a very average unit focusing on community, yet, his description of individualizing student activities was very useful. His ability to personalize the unit and draw on local examples was quite remarkable. For example, he described a real-life local community example of dumping waste materials in the river and the negative ecological impact, etc. What I learned from Joe during the conference led me to schedule a followup conversation with him about his unit. He had underestimated the value of robust explanations. This is but one example of how conferences continue to guide modifications for future assignments and inform my practice. Finally, using conferences requires a great deal of energy – and nontraditional in terms of days and times. It is not uncommon to have a family require a 9 p.m. Friday or Saturday night appointment due to distance to be traveled or work schedules. Being accommodating is the secret for success in achieving nearly 100% attendance. One grandmother commented, ‘‘Jan, it’s impossible to turn you down given the array of time choices you provide.’’ In 6 years, only two parents have not attended – one due to health reasons and the other due to complete family communication breakdown. In both cases, friends and collaborating teachers served as substitutes.
IN SUMMARY: WHAT HAVE I LEARNED ABOUT TEACHING, TEACHER THINKING, TEACHER EDUCATION, OR LEARNING TO TEACH? Although even the first try yielded very informative and gratifying results, subsequent methodological developments have provided layers of complexity
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and a content richness that continues to fuel my curiosity and sustain me as an active learner. The insights I have acquired include the following: There is a range of abilities and developmental stages even among a class of students who have adequately satisfied entry and nearing exit requirements of a teacher education program. Student-led parent conferences reveal levels of learning and openly certify that additional work is needed in certain areas. Authentic audiences communicate high expectations. Authentic audiences promote student responsibility and student accountability. Student-led parent conferences put students in control. Student-led parent conferences at the college level nearly replicate purposes for parallel conferences in elementary schools, with an added value. They prepare preservice teachers for a process they are likely to be asked to do when they get their own classrooms. This process has not only been modeled; it has been experienced.
CONCLUSION Student-led parent conferences make learning more viable and are intrinsically motivating because they incorporate elements of choice and create authentic audiences and venues for assessment. This is as true at the college level as it is in the elementary school. Once you have crossed the bridge, as a professor, the chance of replicating the practice successfully skyrockets. Yet, each year presents a new learning experience and an opportunity to add enhancements. The process of capturing the individual voice is what is exciting and relevant to me. Students get to tell their own story from their own perspective. Families have the opportunity to really understand and appreciate from the college student’s point of view what learning has been significant and important. Parents have the opportunity to see the development of their child through another lens – a professional one. With the current focus on induction and the alarming figure that half of the teachers who enter the profession leave within the first 5 years, I am led to wonder ‘‘What role, if any, can family members play in this phenomenon?’’ I look at my own students across the 6 years I have been conducting these student-led parent conferences. I see that about 50% of my students represent the first generation of college graduates in their families. I reread
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all of the family feedback and informal notes I have captured from student comments. Several common patterns are apparent: Many families, when they leave the conferences, are shocked about the complexities of teaching; many arrive with a negative attitude for all sorts of reasons, including their own disappointment in education, their stereotypes about teaching and today’s children, and their concern for the financial status of the profession and the future of the field. For many, the student-led parent conference serves as a wake-up call to respect their child’s voice – and professional choice. More than a few admit misjudgments about their child’s decision. They come to realize how uninformed they and the public tend to be about a field that, in the words of one father, ‘‘is our only hope for a better tomorrow.’’ Is it possible that rekindling connections with parents – at the university level – can become a contributing factor to teacher retention?
Post Script For the past several years I have continued to ask questions such as: How can I possibly quantify all that my students are learning? What can I do if it is less than acceptable? What is absolutely essential for them to be able to do? How will I ensure that they apply it to their own practice in the years ahead? etc. I am a stickler about a goals-oriented approach, make sure my students are accountable, hold high expectations for them, and I actually expect more out of them than can possibly occur in a three-hour class once a week. That drive to ‘‘break out of the box’’ and accept the fact that the assessments I had been devising – mostly essay – were inadequate and guaranteed little about their future as educators led me to the conference model. As word of this spread, colleagues and administrators encouraged me to audio/video tape the sessions, look and listen for patterns, and document results that could be generalizable. At the risk of being defiant or worse yet, research deficient, I have avoided making these events public. Why? Because all too frequently we are silenced by standardizing and publicizing when we are at a steep learning curve and are grappling with multiple, incomplete, and at times conflicting answers. This is the situation of my interns. During the 6 years of developing this practice (which was never intended as research), it has remained strategically private – a family matter – a safe place to share insights, understandings, and methodologies with an open set
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of possibilities. The privateness of this trusting environment is underscored by the rare attendance of ‘‘outsiders’’ who gain access by request. Classroom teacher mentors for interns have been included on only four occasions, and two of those invited themselves. Only two families have videotaped the event, and no student asked to see a video of the practice. I purposely avoid any feeling of prescription or technique. It is all about personalizing learning and making it memorable – for themselves now and for their students in the years ahead. My students from past years frequently stop by to tell me that they are conducting student-led parent conferences with their classes, and taking lots of other positive risks as they evolve as teachers. Their student-led parent conference stands out for them as one of their most memorable experiences during their 5 years at MSU. I understand, appreciate, and apply professional and content standards to my teaching, I am a strong proponent of research, and I use a lot of assessment tools. However, I believe that we are kidding ourselves if we think that prescriptions are adequate or that data alone can give credence for institutionalizing a practice. Providing multiple private windows of opportunity to embrace personal growth should be considered as one effort to reclaim the integrity of teaching and learning. After all, we are all ‘‘works in progress.’’ I must confess when I turn out the lights, lock the door, and head home after the final conference, I am exhilarated, but exhausted. It is the end of semester chaos and the holiday season is passing me by. More than once I have thought, ‘‘There must be a better way.’’ I have been known to make lists identifying the trade-offs associated with this practice – maybe secretly hoping to uncover some major flaw. The problem is that the benefits column always outweighs the costs. My professional judgment to continue the student-led parent conferences remains intact. To witness student learning up close with the intimateness of family members captures a specialness and profoundness unlike any other teaching encounter. Individual differences are truly celebrated and the fund of knowledge and insight I gather about each student serves each individual well as she/he seeks employment, elicits my advice as a mentor, or as I offer guidance in career or professional development.
REFERENCES Dweck, C. (1985). An achievement goal analysis. In: C. Ames & R. Ames (Eds), Motivation in education (Vol. 2). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
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Glasser, W. (1997). A new look at school failure and school success. Phi Delta Kappan, 78(8), 597–602. Harvey, O., White, B., Prather, M., Alter, R., & Hoffmeister, J. (1966). Teachers’ belief systems and preschool atmospheres. Journal of Educational Psychology, 57, 373–381. Heck, E., & Davis, C. (1973). Differential expression of empathy in a counseling analog. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 20, 101–104. Hunt, D., & Joyce, B. (1967). Teacher trainee personality and initial teaching style. American Educational Research Journal, 4, 253–255. Johnson, D., & Johnson, R. (1984). Motivational processes in cooperative, competitive, and individualistic learning situations. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mitchell, R., & Neill, M. (1992). Criteria for evaluation of student assessment systems. Washington, DC: National Forum on Assessment. Putnam, J., & Burke, J. (1992). Organizing and managing classroom learning communities. New York: McGraw-Hill. Weaver, C. (1990). Understanding whole language: From principles to practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
APPENDIX A. STUDENT-LED CONFERENCE Each of you will have an opportunity to conduct a Student-Led Conference as your final evaluation project in our section of TE 802. The purposes of the conference are to: (1) model a practice now being used by K-12 teachers and students; (2) give you an opportunity to share what you have learned in the course; (3) demonstrate your progress; (4) demonstrate that you have met all course requirements; and (5) express what learning needs you have at this juncture in your development. Samples of your work, photographs, or other artifacts representing your professional initiatives, and feedback data from your CT are examples of what you might bring to our conference. I view this learning opportunity as a very positive culmination of our learning community efforts, and I hope you will likewise see this as a positive move toward your personal efficacy.
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APPENDIX B Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Smith 1610 Elm Lane Anywhere, USA 12345 Dear Mr. & Mrs. Smith: As you obviously know, I am your family member’s social studies professor this fall. Four years ago I launched a project that called for all enrollees in the course to engage in student-led parent conferences as a final assessment. The project has been so successful (99% attendance) that I have continued this practice. This student-led parent conference will provide you with an opportunity to hear first-hand what your family member has learned in teacher education (with an eye toward social studies), provide your family member with an opportunity to conduct a quasi interview, model a practice now being used in K-12 schools, and engage in an authentic assessment. This opportunity will give you a chance to celebrate in your family member’s rite of passage (from student to professional) and acquire insight into the importance of family support as the transition to first-year teacher is realized. I view this as a great learning opportunity for all of us and a very positive culminating activity as the first semester of the internship draws to a close. Please provide your family member with several possible times that you could be available. I will attempt to be very flexible and will be available on several evenings and on weekends. I will go out of my way to make sure you can come! Because of the benefits I have witnessed first-hand, I am willing to give up forty extra hours of my time during the holidays to make this learning experience available to every student in our class. I look forward to meeting you! If you have any questions, please give me a call! Sincerely,
Dr. Janet Elaine Alleman Professor
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APPENDIX C. STUDENT-LED CONFERENCE Rhonda Brown
AGENDA What have I been learning in TE 802? Aspects of powerful teaching:
Challenging Meaningful Integrative Active Value-Based.
Methods of exploring these five elements of powerful teaching
Classroom community Goal-oriented curriculum planning Selecting and representing content Constructivism and transmission Developing content through classroom discourse.
What am I doing in my classroom, and how has it progressed? Reading – Basal, workbook, DIP (Direct Intensive Phonics), literature, big books, and personal books. Writing – Handwriting, writing folders. Math – Manipulatives, addition, subtraction, patterns, evens and odds, quantity. Integrative themes – Apples. Our classroom’s link to the community. What does all of this mean? How have I reflected on past experiences? How will I go about planning now? What is coming up? An Author study A service learning project.
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Where am I headed with my classroom?
Physical nature of classroom Increase group and paired work Establish a more consistent writing schedule Allow for and encourage free reading Try new approaches to reading groups Further development of classroom community.
Thank you for being my guest and taking an interest in my teaching development.
AGENDA
Goals of Conference Amy’s Values in Life and How They Relate to Her Choice of Career Pre-assessment PowerPoint Presentation that Illustrates What I Have Learned and How I have Applied it in the Classroom Future Projections of the Classroom Next Semester and Reasons for these Changes Reviewing or Revising the Pre-assessment Opening any Closed Windows Thank You.
GOALS OF THE CONFERENCE 1. For my family to better understand who I am as a person and as a teacher. 2. For my family to understand how they have positively influenced my choices in life.
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APPENDIX D. RUBRIC FOR THE STUDENT-LED CONFERENCE
Goals Content/How to Use/Strategies – Why? Self-Reflection Analysis Enthusiasm for Teaching Samples of Student Work/Technologies.
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LETTERS FROM MY GRAND-STUDENTS: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE TEACHERS Barbara Morgan-Fleming, Aretha Faye Marbley and Janet Jordan White ABSTRACT In this chapter, a teacher educator, counselor educator, and educational psychologist look at written and pictorial representations of teaching created by a sixth grade class in West Texas. The school is predominantly African American and low income and, at the time of this project, was rated ‘‘recognized,’’ the second highest rating in the Texas system. The students’ representations are analyzed and discussed with reference to the literatures in curriculum and instruction, counseling, and educational psychology.
INTRODUCTION In our respective fields of teacher education, counseling, and educational psychology, we often find ourselves called upon to talk about K-12 teaching. While all of us have experience in this realm, we sometimes find a void. Learning from Research on Teaching: Perspective, Methodology, and Representation Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 11, 75–99 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1016/S1479-3687(05)11003-7
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Almost all the talk and research about schooling is done by adults, definitely a minority group when one considers all the participants in K-12 education. In this chapter, we ask sixth grade students to offer written and pictorial representations of teaching. Our goal is not to provide information distilled from a wide sample. Instead, we seek to present the particular views of a small group of students. Through this project, we hope to show the insights of this particular group, and to encourage others to seek out the views and wisdom of K-12 students in their communities.
The Grand-Students The letters and pictures discussed here come from sixth grade students in a small elementary school in West Texas. The school is predominantly African American and low income. At the time of this project, the school was rated ‘‘recognized,’’ the second highest rating in the Texas system. MorganFleming has taught field-based methods courses at the school for 6 years and has developed a relationship over time with the students; helping with field trips, judging science fairs, and participating in other activities with the children. Several of Morgan-Fleming’s teacher education students are now teachers at the school; and one day Morgan-Fleming told a group of sixth graders that they were blessed with a wonderful teacher because their teacher had been fortunate enough to have been taught by MorganFleming. One student responded, ‘‘That makes you our grand-teacher!’’ Over the years, Morgan-Fleming has thanked students for their help with the university students who were placed in their classrooms, and has asked the elementary school students to provide feedback about the pre-service teachers’ teaching. This activity was introduced by recalling those conversations and asking the students to produce letters and drawings that would help future teachers be successful. Twelve sixth grade students shared stories about good and bad teachers and teaching, and spent approximately 2 hours drawing and writing letters to future teachers. Our analysis draws on the twelve letters and drawings, and five are presented in the chapter (see the appendix).
CREATING MEANINGFUL REPRESENTATIONS Creating meaningful representations of teaching is no easy task. It is often comforting to offer a simple representation of a complex phenomenon. We assume that teaching has been adequately described, and that we understand
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what happens when teachers teach and students learn. Part of our work as researchers should be to question simple representations, asking what each highlights and what each masks. Teaching is a complex phenomenon, and it is easy to miss some important aspects when describing other aspects. It is therefore important that we offer multiple representations of teaching. As Cornell (1993) states: what we need may be more stories not fewer, braided tales woven from multiple points of view rather than the illusionary objectivity of the supposedly omniscient narrator (p. 332).
The importance of accurate representation can be seen in discussions involving the teaching of mathematics. As McKendree (McKendree, Small & Stenning, 2002) points out, Mathematics is replete with examples of problems which are easy to solve with one representation, but very hard with anotherypicking the right representation aids understanding and computation of a solution (p. 61).
McKendree’s description can also be seen as applicable to teaching. We often ask pre-service teachers if they have experienced things that appear difficult, but become easier as they get more involved. After they respond, ‘‘yes,’’ and give examples, we tell them that teaching is actually the opposite – it appears easy on the surface, but becomes more complex as one’s experience and knowledge increase. It is therefore important to have multiple representations of teaching that help new and experienced teachers look at the phenomenon from multiple angles, avoiding the ‘‘blind spots’’ that can make teaching less effective. Again turning to McKendree et al., (2002). The process of representation makes explicit and external our reasoning, which is the first important step in being able to be critical about our own and others’ thinking.yWe have seen that choosing a good representation can often help us consider the important aspects of a problem and can help us be more effective in searching for a solution. However, reasoning at the meta-level about what systems of representations there are points us to another important aspect of critical thinking that raises some tricky issues for teaching. This is the question of whether we have the ‘right’ problem in the first placey‘problem finding’ as this process is known (pp. 63–64).
Components of Representation In representing teaching, it may be helpful to use McKendree’s (McKendree et al., 2002) components of representation: that which is represented, the author of the representation, and the audience for the representation. Each
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component is complex when speaking of teaching. Below, we discuss each of these components with reference to teaching. What is Represented What are we representing in our representations of teaching? A number of scholars in curriculum and teaching have challenged the analytical separation of ‘‘curriculum’’ or the substance of schooling from ‘‘pedagogy’’ or the processes that occur during actual teaching episodes (see Doyle, 1992). This separation has traditionally implied a linear relationship between these two domains: First, there is curriculum to define what students are to learn, and then comes pedagogy to deliver the curriculum faithfully and effectively. This separation between substance and delivery suggests that curriculum stands outside classrooms and remains inert or even invisible in the study of classroom processes. There is little room in this scheme to focus attention on teachers’ and students’ interpretation except insofar as they represent deviations from the faithful delivery of content. In place of this traditional conception, scholars have emphasized a view of curriculum as a ‘‘contextualized social process’’ (Cornbleth, 1988), as ‘‘events’’ (Posner, 1988), as ‘‘what students have an opportunity to learn’’ (McCutcheon, 1988), or as ‘‘an evolving construction’’ resulting from the interaction of teacher and students (Zumwalt, 1989). They argue pedagogy is not simply a neutral pipeline for delivering content, but is a social context that has fundamental curricular effects (see Doyle, 1986). As Zumwalt (1989, p. 175) states, ‘‘Choices of ‘how’ are more than instrumental, they influence the curriculum, often in profound ways.’’ These socially embedded notions blur the distinction between curriculum and pedagogy. The curriculum is what teachers and students experience, and, thus, the relevant unit of analysis is, in Weade’s (1987, p. 15) term, ‘‘curriculum‘n’instruction.’’ Author of the Representation When considering representations of teaching, we must also consider the authors of the representations. If teaching is described only by teacher educators or teachers, parts of the phenomenon may be missed. Instead, we need representations from all stakeholders in education. One group often missing from the conversation is children. Although they are the audience for and are (hopefully) part of the teaching, we have limited knowledge of how they view/judge teaching. It is the goal of this project to explore ways to allow K-12 students to author representations of teaching so that we adults can see teaching through their eyes and their experience.
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This goal is especially important with reference to African-American students. Tucker et al., (2000) point to the importance of including this group in discussions about education: the views of African-American students, whom are, perhaps, the real experts regarding problems that occur among themselves, are often excluded from this theorizing and intervention planning. Several benefits may arise from requesting the opinions of African American students. For example, students may generate novel insights and interventions for boosting school success that have been overlooked by education experts and researchers. Additionally, students may participate more fully in policies and intervention programs that include their input (p. 206).
Audience of the Representation Finally, we must consider the audience of the representation. This chapter potentially has three audiences: Teacher educators, K-12 teachers, and preservice teachers. It is quite possible that the three audiences will see different things in the students’ writings. It is hoped that these differences will lead to a spirited and informative discussion. It is also hoped that this chapter can help encourage conversation between adults and children about teaching.
CHILDREN: A UNIVERSE OF STORIES According to Butcher (2000), first-person accounts or stories tend to be more real, intimate, and diverse, representing many cultures. The reification and validity of one voice or story over another is the result of historical, sociological, economic, and psychological disparities that privilege some stories while suppressing others (Billingsley, 1992; McNamee & Gergen, 1992; Pare, 1996). That is, cultural domination ‘‘can be seen as having the power and the influence to impose one story over another’’ (Sciarra, 2000, p. 35). From a multicultural perspective, voice implies having power to interpret and define reality, and the ability to construct, articulate, and therefore control how one’s experiences are presented to other people (Gilligan, 1982). Language is not simply a means for the voice to be vocal; rather for the voice to be empowering, it must be heard, not just spoken (Grainger, Goouch, & Lambirth, 2002; Quiroz, 2001; Ruiz, 1997). Our goal in listening to the elementary students’ stories, specifically students of color, about their conceptions of teaching was not just to garner from the children’s perspectives their wisdom on teaching and matters related to their schooling, but also to give witness and empowerment to their voices so that they are heard.
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Letting students’ voices be heard offers a way for young students to express and communicate their thoughts and feelings and experiences, a way to engage in the work of forming identity, and a way to develop a voice and practice using it. As one child in our study put it, ‘‘Kindergartners are also teachers.’’ By being that someone who listens, we may learn a lot about students’ experiences, how they construct learning, the factors that influence learning, and how they define successful teaching. This seems even more glaringly important when it comes to students from marginalized groups. Several studies (Arce, 2004; Garay, 2003; Ingram, 2003; Innes, Moss, & Smigiel, 2001; Kroeger et al., 2004; Warton, 2001) investigated the value of listening to the opinions of students, specifically those from underrepresented and marginalized backgrounds (e.g., deaf, low, socioeconomic status (SES), group of color) in regard to their own learning, and found that students’ voices have added critical perspectives to the data on effective teaching and critical pedagogy. In order to further understand the value of information that we gather about learning to teach from listening to students, specifically the techniques and skills of listening, active listening, and storytelling, we borrow from the counseling literature. According to Hughes and Baker (1990), ‘‘Listening is a more important skill than questioning when interviewing children.’’ Further, Ivey, D’Andrea, Ivey, and Simek-Morgan (2002) in referencing counseling, noted that ultimately, it is simply a process of listening to and learning from stories. Therefore, the task in listening to a person or a child’s story is understanding the story and then validating its meaning. In counseling, validating one’s belief system is an awareness and understanding of how a person makes meaning of his/her life and the events and problems she/he faces. In essence, concealed in each child’s story are the keys to understanding her/his worldview. Few would disagree that children are keen observers – with their own theories of how the world works. Each child’s voice is formed in the same way that adult voice is constructed; that is, experience and education help create opinions, ideas, and beliefs that eventually give rise to voice (i.e., Kelley, 1997; Looney, 1999). Voice becomes visible through both visual and verbal languages. Access to children’s implicit epistemic cognitions about learning and social scripts (Myers, Nichols, & White, 2003; White & Ortiz, 2004) potentially holds important insight for those individuals who care for and educate children (Bartsch & Wellman, 1995; Bosacki, 2003; Hoy, 2000). The nearer we get to the conditions in which children actually attribute meanings to objects and events, the more accurate our descriptions of those meanings are likely to be (Miles & Huberman, 1984).
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As Nichols (1992) states: If students were seen as active theorists, their theories might be given more attention in school. Rather than attempting to manipulate students’ theories, teachers and researchers might treat them the way scientists should treat other scientists with divergent theories: by engaging in dialogue where it is uncertain whether one perspective will prevail or a new one will emergeyyoung children are capable of spirited discussion of the nature and point of what they learn in school and can see such discussion as a valuable way of figuring out what matters in school and how to learn (p. 280).
As active information processors and sense makers, children become aware of things they had not anticipated and continually add variables and ideas to their models that hold meaning, value, and utility to help them organize and understand their world. Those very voices hold the content of lay epistemologies that have the power to inform those who are in the business of teaching in ways that are often left untapped, collectively or individually (Goicoechea & Packer, 2000). In this study, the sixth graders show themselves to be natural ethnographers. They offer visual and verbal accounts revealing the content of their lay epistemic cognitions concerning the emphasis of our teacher-training models.
THE CHILDREN’S ADVICE In this section, we offer general information gained from the students’ letters and pictures. (Five of the students’ letters and drawings can be found in the appendix.) Later, the students’ advice will be discussed and compared with reference to the educational research literature. The following recommendations were made by a majority of the students.
Advice from Students’ Letters 1. Don’t be too strict or to nice (Students point to the need for teachers to be in control, but still be understanding of students’ needs. Teachers are urged to be patient and not yell at the kids.) ‘‘don’t be too boring or too playful’’.
2. Establish relationships with your students 3. Be on time 4. Stay focused
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5. Get the student’s attention 6. Give examples and one-on-one instruction 7. Do what’s right (Students remind us that teaching is a moral profession) ‘‘Be a good role model’’
The students’ letters provide insight into how the students define ‘‘good teaching.’’ The text from five students’ letters are presented here and are discussed with reference to others’ research regarding students’ perceptions of teaching. Don’t be so strict. Have a game day once a week. Don’t be so nice. Have a tutoring class – AST (After School Tutoring) Have a snack time between 9 and 10 o’clock Don’t be so scared on your first time teaching at school. Nikendra (letter one) You should always help children to see what they are learning and you should always be nice to your students, and when you leave and then come back they will have a welcoming sign or something because they missed you! Also, you must be patient. You have to be patient because you have to know that not everybody learns fast. Joletha (letter two) Dear Future Teacher, I just have a few recommendations on how I think of a good teacher. For one thing, don’t start out being strict or very, very nice. What I mean by being very, very, nice is by giving us candy and treating us like kindergarten. Now, being too strict will not gain a bond between students. Being on time, now that’s a good one. When students wait for the teacher to come (they) can start something. What can happen is that we might start talking real loud, and start playing games that are not appropriate for school. Now don’t get me wrong, but I’m always late to school so I really don’t know what happens in the mornings in the library.
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To make kids feel like learning isn’t boring, play games, give good examples and explanations. Now, learning doesn’t seem so boring. When your class gets ready for a break, you’ll start talking and then you’ll start to get off topic, in your classroom during learning. It’s okay to get lost in a subject except in class. That’s how to maintain your focus. To help kids with work they didn’t understand, find a technique to help when they are at home doing homework. It could be helpful for one student, but not for all. This is a great letter to help teachers. Tamesha (letter three) Dear Future Teacher, When you come inside a room, introduce yourself. Don’t just come in and tell them your name is Mrs. Jones. Come in and tell them about your family and what subject you like, what foods you like, or about your childhood. Amimee (letter four) Dear Future Teacher, If you are my future, I would prefer you to: not be too strict or too nice be on time do what’s right stay on task make kids happy play games get people’s attention give good explanations work the problem with kids keep control of yourself participate in what some of the kids do give kids something if the kids are doing good like M&Ms, Skittles, or Laffy Taffy have good expectations for your kids Donna (letter five)
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DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS Studies of students’ views of teaching show similarities to the grand-students’ perceptions and advice. Cooper and Hyland (2000) found four major themes in their study of British students’ experience with trainee teachers. (1) Children enjoyed ‘‘activities’’ – doing, making, experimenting, both in and outside the classroom. It seemed that trainees arranged plenty of such opportunities. (2) Children were aware of the ways in which trainees supported their learning, often on an individual basis, through clear instructions, detailed explanations and probing questions. (3) Children felt individually valued by trainees. (4) Children observed, and evaluated, trainees’ strategies for creating a purposeful learning environment and making their classroom a good place to be (p. 10). In a study of African-American elementary and high school students (Tucker et al., 2000), students reported that: The single most important thing thatyteachers can do to help them make better grades is to ask questions to see if students understand and provide further explanations if not (55% elementary, 40% high school). Students also identified the importance of teacher patience (12% for both groups). Many elementary school students indicated that it was important for teachers to take more time teaching and explaining (15%), while high school students emphasized the importance of teacher praise and encouragement (24%) (p. 208).
Cooper and Hyland (2000) also found that students valued teachers that were approachable and who formed relationships with them (p. 12). Several of the students’ comments are similar to those found in the grand-students’ letters. She’s firm, but not unnecessarily strict. She lets you off if you’re repentant. Jodie, aged 9 She’s kind, but not soft. She’s strict enough. She treats everyone with respect. She’s always fair. She stops us going over the top. Sam, aged 11 (p. 15)
Representations of Teaching in Students’ Drawings Implicit cognitions can be tapped either visually through drawings or through written text (Roth, 1996). Individual drawings provide a window into how each child views teaching. In this section, we describe five of the students’
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drawings, looking for representations and ideas about teaching. These representations are then compared with other studies of students’ drawings. Nikendra (Drawing 1) draws Miss Benson, standing in front of the room, smacking the blackboard (with the reminder ‘‘Don’t be too strict’’) and saying the word ‘‘Algebra.’’ On the blackboard is written the daily schedule and three math problems that use variables (e.g., X 2Y47 ¼). Three students are seen from the back. Their desks contain folders for different subjects. Two of the students are named, ‘‘Mudd’’ and ‘‘Fat Albert.’’ Joletha (Drawing 2) offers a glimpse of Mrs. Johnson’s kindergarten class. Four students sit on the floor as Mrs. Johnson stands in between the students and a blackboard that offers advice (Additude is a little thing that makes a big difference), two messages from the children (‘‘We missed you’’ and ‘‘Welcome back Mrs. Johnson’’) and math problems with instructions (‘‘Do all your step(s) for Math only’’). The drawing is complex. Mrs. Johnson wears a suit with matching jewelry. Multiple colors are used. Tamesha (Drawing 3) draws Ms. Diaz who teaches Spanish, Chem(istry), Algebra, Social (Studies), and History. On the blackboard are written complex math problems (e.g., A þ B C þ D4 A2 ¼) along with the advice, ‘‘Study these problems because they will be on the test.’’ The picture is predominantly black and white. No students are represented, and the teacher has no face. The teacher’s gender is deduced from skirt, boots, and name. Amiee (Drawing 4) draws a smiling teacher standing in front of her desk, facing two students in rows. The students (one boy, one girl) have books on their desks and appear to be listening to the teacher. Donna (Drawing 5) draws a teacher standing in front of a blackboard on which is written her name (Mrs. Tiffiny) and two math problems. The picture is in black and white, and no students are represented.
DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS Children’s Drawings One long-term study that uses students’ pictures to study their perceptions of an occupation has asked students to draw pictures of scientists. According to Finson (2002): Taken as a whole, the extant body of research on draw-a-scientist tests and perceptions of scientists communicates to educators several things. First stereotypical perceptions are persistent. Since the Mead and Metraux (1957) study, the same basic elements comprising the stereotypical image have been revealed time and again in student and adult drawings (p. 341).
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Citing Chambers’ (1983) study of 4,807 elementary children in grades K-5, Finson (2002) lists seven attributes that appeared in students’ drawings of scientists. drawings of scientists: lab coat (usually white), eyeglasses, facial hair (beards, mustaches, abnormally long sideburns), symbols of research (scientific instruments and laboratory equipment), symbols of knowledge (books, filing cabinets), technology (products of science such as rockets), and relevant captions such as formulae and the ‘‘eureka’’ syndrome etc (p. 336).
Students’ pictures of teachers differ from drawings of scientists in that all but one of the pictures show teachers as female, but are similar in that the majority of teachers depicted are white. The latter finding was surprising in that both sixth grade teachers as well as the principal of this school are African American. Student drawings depict a range of icons from advertisement to school icons. For example, students’ drawings included icons of our commercial world (MUDD), entertainment world (Fat Albert), dress codes for school, symbols of classroom (apple, books, coffee cups, backpacks, chalkboards) and school norms (desks in orderly rows, teacher in front of the blackboard), and social norms (students sitting straight up with eyes toward teacher) (Rubinstein, 2000). Several drawings included text with sayings such as ‘‘You are all my shining stars.’’ The teacher dominates each picture. Five pictures include only the teacher, and in the others the teacher is large and centrally placed. Most pictures show mathematics instruction. This could be due to the fact that the students’ writings and drawings were taking place in the math room.
RESEARCH ON TEACHING General issues raised by the students that are also raised by the research literature include: classroom control, help-giving and seeking, maintaining students’ attention, the importance of time, and social and cultural norms of schooling. Classroom Control In the children’s narratives, the importance of balance and having classroom control was clearly articulated. One student wrote, ‘‘If you are my future, I would prefer you too, don’t be too strict or to nice.’’ Similarly, another cautioned, ‘‘Dear Future Teacher, I just have a few recommendations on
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how I think of a good teacher. For one thing, don’t start out being strict or very, very nice.’’ Other student’s advice includes the following: ‘‘Dear Future Teacher, Maintain focus, don’t be too strict or to nice.’’ Several students’ pictures show teachers dominating in size and position in the room (at the blackboard, with students facing them), but the expressions on the teachers’ faces are benign, friendly.
Help–Giving and Seeking The sixth grade students in this study were keenly aware of how varied instructional practices can impact student learning. Several students explicitly stated that ‘‘not everybody learns fast’’ and the job of the teacher [is to be] a ‘‘good helper.’’ Other students offered several solutions for how to be a ‘‘good helper’’ for future teachers. They advised that teachers should ‘‘walk around the class’’ and ask, ‘‘do you understand?’’ because [the teacher’s job] is to ‘‘help children’’ and ‘‘tutor kids’’ so ‘‘kids don’t have to ask questions.’’ They also advised that providing ‘‘good examples’’ with ‘‘explanations,’’ ‘‘work [the] problems’’ and ‘‘play games’’ [so that those] students ‘‘who don’t get it’’ would not make a ‘‘bad grade.’’
Maintaining Students’ Attention Instructional models incorporating information processing models underscore the importance of attention for processing and encoding information and the importance of novelty in attention (Cropley, 1999; Jessor, 1998). Gaining and focusing student attention are critical for effective learnercentered instruction. Novelty is associated with both prompting selective attention and the maintenance of sustained attention. Cueing strategies have been established in the instruction psychology literature as a cognitive process strategy to help students self-regulate and to make critical task variables salient. These sixth grade students mirror this critical aspect of attention and novelty for learning – both selective and sustained attention. Several students stated that teachers must ‘‘get students attention’’ so that ‘‘learning isn’t boring.’’ One reoccurring pattern in the narratives can be found when one student advised that teachers should make ‘‘learning fun’’ and that ‘‘games and other things like that help learning to be fun.’’ Some students advised that teachers should cue students by saying ‘‘study these
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problems because they will be on the test’’ and give ‘‘study tips’’ like make sure ‘‘to do all your steps in math.’’ In several of the pictures, students’ attention appears to be focused on the teacher. Not only did these students reveal cognitions about attention and novelty, they also gave similar advice for teacher behavior related to attention. Many students advised that future teachers should ‘‘stay on task’’ and ‘‘stay on the topic.’’
The Importance of Time Emerging cognitive psychology research has taken a cue from neuroscience in understanding the importance of developmental and cognitive aspects related to the perception of time in learning and instruction (Barkley, Edwards, Laneri, Fletcher, & Metevia, 2001; Suddendorf & Corballis, 1997; Zerubavel, 1997). Students in this study clearly understand the importance of the construct time as an organizing schema for student life, and as a social value factor for school. Over and over these sixth grade students advised future teachers to ‘‘be on time’’ so ‘‘kids’’ are not left alone to ‘‘start playing games’’ and ‘‘get out of control.’’ Many of the drawings that accompanied their text depicted chalkboards filled with the time period for each subject; the due dates for assignments and texts, and times noting lunch and breaks. A few of the chalkboard illustrations contain charts that display how the current day would look according to a timetable.
Social and Cultural Norms of Schooling Some students voiced implicit cognitions in this study that may reflect sensitivities to differences in cultural norms for adult (teacher) behavior within the social context of the classroom (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996; Minick & Stone, 1993; Palincsar, 1998; Patrick, 1997). For example, some students advised that future teachers make a good impression by ‘‘decorating their class with school feelings,’’ but not with ‘‘too much expression about school.’’ They should maintain ‘‘control of theirselves’’ and ‘‘don’t be too strict, don’t be so nice’’ and ‘‘don’t be too playful.’’ Other students advised that to be nice ‘‘give a welcome party’’ and ‘‘give candy like m & m’s, skittles or laffy taffy,’’ but not for ‘‘everything;’’ ‘‘we are not kindergarteners.’’ While these students reported a balanced affective student–teacher relationship, they also advised teachers to establish a sense of connectedness
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with them. One student advised, ‘‘being too nice and being too strict will not gain a bond between students.’’ Another student offered advice on how to promote a ‘‘bond.’’ This student advised that ‘‘when you come inside a room...introduce yourselfyand tell them your name is Mrs. Jonesycome in and tell them about your family and what subject you likeywhat foods you like, or about your childhood.’’ Other students revealed epistemic beliefs about the social nature of the school with cognitions about relationships between teacher behavior, student behavior, and school norms. They advised that future teachers should also ‘‘be on time for class’’ because ‘‘when students wait for the teacher to come, [kids] can start something. What can happen is that we might start talking real loud and playing games that are not appropriate for school.’’ Clearly, the preceding student voices revealed cognitions about the social schema for the culture of school. Vygotsky (Vygotsky, Vygotsky, & JohnSteiner, 1990) has proposed that through child–adult interactions, the signs and symbols of the culture are assimilated. The tapped cognitions of these sixth graders seem to support this notion and reveal some of the ways students have constructed the epistemologies about their world inside and outside of school and the potential ties between them.
CONCLUSIONS In order to really understand and teach others about the complexities of teaching, we must have representations penned by a variety of authors. Children are the audience for teaching; they should also have a part in its description, explanation, and reform. The advice given by students in this and other studies is similar to much of what is taught in schools of education, but including K-12 students’ voices provides nuance and context-specific information that educators can use to improve their policies and practice. Student constructions of epistemic knowledge of schooling, tapped through ‘‘advice to future teachers’’ comprised lay theories that touched on many areas of school life, including teaching methods, relationships with teachers, student misbehavior, curriculum content, and the appropriate activities for school. Von Glasersfeld (1995) has argued, knowledge is the result of active cognizing by the individual. Cognition is an adaptive process that makes an individual’s behavior more viable in a given environment; and cognition organizes and makes sense of one’s experience (p. 6).
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He further argues that there is a ‘‘social constructionist orientation’’ to knowledge that focuses on the cultural, social, and language-based interactions. Working from a social constructionist framework, Gergen (1995) encourages all educators to ‘‘be opened to the broadest conversation and a continuous process of reflection’’ (p. 39) because constructivism as a theory about knowledge and learning describes both what ‘‘knowing’’ is and how one ‘‘comes to know.’’ It would seem that after all, teachers and children co-construct their understanding of the world that gives rise to epistemic theories about the nature of teaching and learning within the social context of the classroom. To tap both children’s and teachers’ shared epistemic cognitions that reveal theories, we can return to our analogy that children are natural social scientists immersed in fieldwork, collecting data, ever so incidental, might reveal the very nature of our shared cognitions to inform teacher training. We hope this study will point to the importance of including K-12 students in educational conversations. To be truly effective, we must make sure that all participants are at the educational conference table.
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Minick, N., & Stone, C. A. (1993). Contexts for learning: Sociocultural dynamics in children’s development. New York: Oxford University Press. Myers, M., Nichols, J. D., & White, J. (2003). Teacher and student incremental and entity views of intelligence: The effect on self-regulation and persistence activities. International Journal of Educational Reform, 12(2), 97–116. Nichols, J. G. (1992). Students as educational theorists. In: D. H. Schunk & J. L. Meece (Eds), Student perceptions in the classroom (pp. 267–286). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Palincsar, A. (1998). Social constructivist perspectives on teaching and learning. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 345–348. Pare, D. A. (1996). Culture and meaning: Expanding the metaphorical repertoire of family therapy. Family Process, 35, 37–54. Patrick, H. (1997). Social self-regulation: Exploring the relations between children’s social relationships academic self-regulation and school performance. Educational Psychologist, 32(4), 209–220. Posner, G. J. (1988). Models of curriculum planning. In: L. E. Beyer & M. W. Apple (Eds), The curriculum: Problems, politics, and possibilities (pp. 77–97). Albany: State University of New York Press. Quiroz, P. A. (2001). The silencing of Latino student ‘‘voice’’: Puerto Rican and Mexican narratives in eighth grade and high school. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 32(3), 326–349. Roth, W. (1996). Art and artifact of children’s designing: A situated cognition perspective. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 5(2), 129–166. Rubinstein, R. P. (2000). Society’s child: Identity clothing and style. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Ruiz, R. (1997). The empowerment of language-minority students. In: A. Darder, R. D. Torres & H. Gutierrez (Eds), Latinos and education (pp. 201–224). New York: Routledge. Sciarra, D. T. (2000). Multicultural in counseling. Itasca, IL: FE Peacock Publishers. Suddendorf, T., & Corballis, M. C. (1997). Mental time travel and the evolution of the human mind. Genetic Social and General Psychology Monographs, 123(2), 133–167. Tucker, C. M., Herman, K. C., Keith, C., Pedersen, T., Vogel, D., & Reinke, W. (2000). Student-generated solutions to enhance the academic success of African American youth. Child Study Journal, 30(3), 205–222. Von Glasersfeld, E. (1995). A constructivist approach to teaching. In: L. P. Steffe & J. Gale (Eds), Constructivism in education (pp. 3–16). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Press. Vygotsky, S. S., Vygotsky, L. S., & John-Steiner, V. (Eds) (1990). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Warton, P. M. (2001). The forgotten voices in homework: View of students. Educational Psychologist, 36(3), 155–165. Weade, R. (1987). Curriculum’n’instruction: The construction of meaning. Theory into Practice, 26, 15–25. White, J. J., & Ortiz, R. (2004). Adolescent self-scripts: Parental response patterns on development of self regulated and controlled motivation within varied cultural contexts. Paper to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal. Zerubavel, E. (1997). Social mindscapes: An invitation to cognitive sociology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Zumwalt, K. K. (1989). Beginning professional teachers: The need for a curricular vision of teaching. In: M. C. Reynolds (Ed.), Knowledge base for the beginning teacher (pp. 173–184). Oxford: Pergamon.
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Barbara Morgan-Fleming is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Texas Tech University. Her research interests include classroom performance of curriculum and informal aspects of teachers’ knowledge. She has recent publications in Curriculum Inquiry, the International Journal of Social Education, Social Studies, and the Educational Forum.
Aretha Faye Marbley is an Associate Professor and Clinical Director in Counselor Education in the Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership at Texas Tech University. Dr. Marbley’s research interest is centered on the experience of people of color in mental health and education. Her research foci are power inequities due to gender, racial, and cultural factors.
Janet Jordan White is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership at Texas Tech University. Her research interests include the relationship among cognition, motivation, and instructional design to support achievement among adolescent learners. She has recent publications in The Journal of Educational Research and The Journal of Multicultural Perspectives.
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APPENDIX
Don’t be so strict. Have a game day once a week. Don’t be so nice. Have a tutoring class – AST (After School Tutoring) Have a snack time between 9 and 10 o’clock Don’t be so scared on your first time teaching at school. Nikendra (letter one)
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You should always help children to see what they are learning and you should always be nice to your students, and when you leave and then come back they will have a welcoming sign or something because they missed you! Also, you must be patient. You have to be patient because you have to know that not everybody learns fast. Joletha (letter two)
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Dear Future Teacher,
I just have a few recommendations on how I think of a good teacher. For one thing, don’t start out being strict or very, very nice. What I mean by being very, very, nice is by giving us candy and treating us like kindergarten. Now, being too strict will not gain a bond between students. Being on time, now that’s a good one. When students wait for the teacher to come (they) can start something. What can happen is that we might start talking real loud, and start playing games that are not appropriate for school. Now don’t get me wrong, but I’m always late to school so I really don’t know what happens in the mornings in the library. To make kids feel like learning isn’t boring, play games, give good examples and explanations. Now, learning doesn’t seem so boring. When your class gets ready for a break, you’ll start talking and then you’ll start to get off topic, in your classroom during learning. It’s okay to get lost in a subject except in class. That’s how to maintain your focus.
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To help kids with work they didn’t understand, find a technique to help when they are at home doing homework. It could be helpful for one student, but not for all. This is a great letter to help teachers. Tamesha (letter three)
Dear Future Teacher,
When you come inside a room, introduce yourself. Don’t just come in and tell them your name is Mrs. Jones. Come in and tell them about your family and what subject you like, what foods you like, or about your childhood. Amimee (letter four)
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Dear Future Teacher, If you are my future, I would prefer you to: not be too strict or too nice be on time do what’s right stay on task make kids happy play games get people’s attention
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give good explanations work the problem with kids keep control of yourself participate in what some of the kids do give kids something if the kids are doing good like M&Ms, Skittles, or Laffy Taffy have good expectations for your kids Donna (letter five)
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TEACHERS’ PERSONAL MODELS OF INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN Susan G. Magliaro and R. Neal Shambaugh ABSTRACT Different images of teacher knowledge and of teaching are described using the conceptual structure of Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999a), in which knowledge and practice are viewed as either formal, practical, or transformative. Instructional design (ID) represents a formal image of knowledge and frames the teacher as a problem-solver. Teachers, however, have been resistant to the use of ID. In a graduate ID course, students were given the task of drawing their own representation of the ID process. Two research questions framed the study, including How might these models be categorized? and What views of teaching were found in the models? From 13 deliveries of the course, 123 models and explanatory narratives were analyzed from students who were teachers. The course and ID model task are described. A recursive cycle of categorization and theme-building were used. Types of models included those characterized by Human Activity (51 models), Components (23), Artifacts (20), Organic (15), and Flow Charts (14). Views of teaching included Teachercentered (47 models), Designer-centered (36 models), Co-centered (18), Learner-centered (16), and De-centered (6). Analysis revealed that for teachers ID activity is a human activity and the principal focus for design activity is teacher needs. Implications are summarized in terms of teacher knowledge and expertise, as well as limitations to our methodology. Learning from Research on Teaching: Perspective, Methodology, and Representation Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 11, 101–134 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1016/S1479-3687(05)11004-9
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INTRODUCTION Most teachers are familiar with the term ‘‘planning,’’ the individual means by which teachers think about and make teaching decisions, often in a cyclical manner (Yinger, 1977). Instructional design (ID), meanwhile, is a systematic process, frequently represented through linear-visual models, that prompts users to analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate these decisions (e.g., Dick, Carey, & Carey, 2005). In the context of a master’s level ID course, we have asked students to draw their own models of the ID process. Our pedagogical curiosity was to see how our students represented their personal process for designing instruction throughout the course, the sense they were making of a formal ID process that we espoused in the course, and their reflections on their final personal models that served as a culminating course project. Over 10 years of teaching ID we have had many teachers as students. In looking at these final models, we discovered that students revealed not only ID process components, which was the purpose of the task, but also their ‘‘views of teaching,’’ sometimes depicted in a predominant metaphor. In some models, views of teaching took primacy over any ID model component whatsoever. This chapter summarizes our inquiry into how graphic representations revealed how the students in our classes who self-identified as either preservice or practicing teachers viewed teaching. While the three questions that organize the volume are applied to this chapter, we are particularly focused on the issue of Who did we ask? Our research represents a unique approach in that we prompted teachers to visualize their own ID process and explain it, rather than giving them a published model that they should follow in their own practice. The first section of this chapter provides a conceptual background of teacher knowledge and beliefs, and the unique qualities of visual representations to shed light on the experiential nature of teacher knowledge and beliefs. To address the question How did we look? We used a process of categorization and theme-building to analyze teachers’ personal models of ID. The second section describes the methodology we developed to analyze teachers’ personal models of ID. In terms of answering the question How did we show what we saw? We initially looked at how teachers represented the ID process, but our inquiry shifted to how teachers viewed teaching and the emergent categories of these views. The third section reports the results of our analysis reporting categories of model types and ‘‘views of teaching.’’ We conclude the chapter with a reflective section that addresses the issues common to all of the chapters in this volume.
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THE TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVE We asked teachers to represent ID in their own models, rather than accepting our representation or the representations by published authors. This pedagogical decision implies a perspective on how teachers develop knowledge about teaching. In this section, we examine three perspectives on knowledge and teaching. Next, we summarize how visuals have contributed to teacher knowledge; specifically, models, images, and metaphors. Then, we make a case for connecting ID to teaching, which answers a hidden but important question: Why teach ID in the first place? Teachers’ Knowledge There is no agreement of what teacher knowledge is and how it develops. Researchers have characterized teacher knowledge and provided organizing frameworks in a number of ways (for a review see Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999a; Munby, Russell, & Martin, 2001). These perspectives frequently differ based on the role of researchers and teachers in ‘‘who is asking?’’ and ‘‘who is being asked?’’ We use the three contrasting relationships posed by Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999a) as a means to illustrate that educators frequently talk about teachers, teaching, and teacher learning in very different ways. Our inquiry, too, can be better appreciated, understood, and critiqued by discussing these different perspectives. The three contrasting relationships of knowledge and practice are labeled by Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999a) as knowledge-for-practice, knowledgein-practice, and knowledge-of-practice. Each knowledge–practice relationship is categorized in terms of images; namely, images of knowledge; images of teachers, teaching, and professional practice; and images of teacher learning and teachers’ roles in educational change. To clarify these three knowledge–practice relationships we use the following terms: formal knowledge, practical knowledge, and transformative knowledge, respectively (see Table 1), in order to discuss our findings later in this chapter. We identify frequently cited examples of each knowledge–practice relationship, such as personal practical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, and record Images of Teacher Knowledge and Images of Teaching to see the differences in these images across the three perspectives. Formal Knowledge The first relationship of knowledge and practice, or knowledge-for-practice, as conceptualized by Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999a), sees accomplished
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Table 1. Comparing Constructs across Images of Teacher Knowledge and Practice. Construct Formal knowledge Novice-expert (Bereiter & Scardemalia, 1993; Berliner, 1988) Pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986)
Practical knowledge Personal practical knowledge (Elbaz, 1983, 1991) Wisdom of practice (Shulman, 1987) Craft knowledge (Grimmett & MacKinnon, 1992) Personal practical knowledge (Clandinin, 1986) Knowing-in-action (Scho¨n, 1983) Transformative knowledge Self and School Context (Bullough & Gitlin, 1995) Teacher Research (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999b)
Images of Teacher Knowledge
Research-based findings Teaching models
Forms of representations Forms of knowledge Concepts Curricular materials Research-based findings Non-propositional, holistic, tacit, emotional, continuously under revision Pedagogical knowledge and reasoning Pedagogical learner knowledge
Experience and reflection Classroom situations Consider-reconsider Professional practicum Action-artistry
Images of Teaching
Apprentice Modeling teaching Problem-solver Potential Codification, Handbooks Best practices
Rules of practice, practical principles and images Definitions, descriptions, and reproductions of good teaching Sensible know-howMoral and critique Decision-maker Knowledge-melder Dilemmas Coach Assisted performance
Personal theories, voice, and school policies
Personal, group, and school stories
Systematic inquiry into teaching Critiquing teaching, curriculum Democratic schooling and social justice
Collaborative, community, relationships Talk, and critique Change agent
teachers are those who learn a body of knowledge and apply it in their teaching. A formal knowledge base characterizes this relationship (McDiarmid, Ball, & Anderson, 1989; Sikula, 1996; Wilson, Shulman, & Richert, 1987). Sometimes the term ‘‘best practices’’ is used and is based on empirical evidence
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of effectiveness and used by professional content area groups (Zemelman, Daniels, & Hyde, 1999). The novice-expert literature provides one construct example. Here studies contrast the differences between new and experienced teachers in the context of actual teaching (Borko, Bellamy, & Sanders, 1992). Novice-expert studies draw upon the research on expertise (Bereiter & Scardemalia, 1993) and characterize how teachers think, solve problems, and develop knowledge structures and how this development occurs over time (Berliner, 1988). One way to extract this thinking is to talk with experts as they solve problems. However, extracting the complexity of teaching out of teacher talk has been difficult and is not easily achieved (McIntyre & Hagger, 1993). Another construct that has had a major impact on teacher knowledge is the pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986) that teachers’ need not only to know the subjects they teach, but how one appropriately teaches this content. Categories of pedagogical content knowledge include useful representations of ideas, demonstrations, and examples. Other forms include knowledge of the different ways that learners learn this content and the range of conceptions and experiences students have with the content. A body of knowledge now exists that documents student misconceptions in key content areas, such as mathematics, science, reading, and writing (Ball, 1993; Bruer, 1993). Both pedagogical content knowledge and the wisdom of practice from Shulman (1987) straddle the formal knowledge perspective and the practical knowledge perspective, as both benefit from the findings from research as well as the experiences of teaching.
Practical Knowledge The second relationship of knowledge and practice, or knowledge-in-practice, is intertwined and is not based on applying a formal body of knowledge as suggested in the previous relationship. Here, practical knowledge consists of what teachers know based on their teaching experience (Fenstermacher, 1994). Knowledge is developed from teaching and reflection. Shulman (2004) viewed teaching as more complex than medicine, and he made his case by comparing the wisdom of practice in medicine and teaching. He characterized the wisdom of practice in medicine as a physician’s competence in problem formulation and hypothesis generation, as well as an extensive knowledge base. The complexity of teaching, meanwhile, consists of many students, numerous goals, multiple constituencies, and continual unpredictability. The challenge for teachers, according to Shulman (2004), is to address this complexity with a limited amount of time and energy.
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Craft knowledge is another construct that blends with Shulman’s wisdom of practice. The notion that teaching consists of human sensibilities, such as judgment and empathy, rather than a knowledge of rules. Grimmett and MacKinnon (1992) characterized craft knowledge as ‘‘teachers’ judgment in apprehending the events of practice from their own perspectivesy’’ (p. 387). Related to craft knowledge is the notion of personal practical knowledge, as exemplifyied by Elbaz’s (1983) study of one high school English teacher and Clandinin’s (1986) study of three elementary teachers. Each of these studies revealed the complexity of knowledge in practice as explicated in the teachers’ images and their personal metaphors and later on the value of teachers’ narratives (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). The ideas of reflectivity on teaching and during teaching (Scho¨n, 1983) have had considerable influence on teacher knowledge and how to develop this knowledge in teacher education programs.
Transformative Knowledge The third relationship of knowledge practice, or knowledge-of-practice, we have labeled as transformative knowledge, based on its overarching function of teachers critiquing schools in the areas of curriculum, teacher autonomy, democratic schooling, and social justice. Such critiques are the focus for action research involving systematic inquiry into teaching and the contexts of teaching (Carr & Kemmis, 1986). The goal here is the raising of questions and the discussion by practitioners of issues facing them and their students. The improvement of teacher practice can also be furthered by action research in which the findings help the teacher and teacher communities gain an understanding of learning outcomes, learner differences, teaching strategies, and appropriate assessment and instructional technology (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999a, b). Another construct is the transformation of one’s self and identity, as discussed by Bullough and Gitlin (1995), which includes school histories, personal metaphors, shadow studies, and ethnographies. The focus of transformative knowledge is an ongoing self-study of teacher identity in the context of teaching and schools. Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999a) cite this outcome as an ‘‘expanded view of practice’’ and awareness of the responsibility of being a teacher within a community, sometimes organized in teacher study groups or networks. Included in these methodologies are the use of teacher ‘‘talk’’ and the collaborative development of teacher knowledge within sustained conversations and commitments.
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Visualizing Teaching Our use of graphical representations continues the inquiry into teacher knowledge by using teachers’ models of ID as a lens to reveal their views of teaching. Teacher beliefs and teacher knowledge may be synonymous (Kagan, 1990), particularly for new teachers. This connection can be seen in the idea of teacher knowledge construed as personal practical knowledge (Richardson, 1996), although there have been attempts at distinguishing between beliefs and knowledge (Nespor, 1987). Graphical representations of teacher knowledge and teaching can take many forms, including models, images, and metaphors. Models provide an important tool for representing reasoning and physical processes, and attempts have been made to model the learner (Bruner, 1985) and the teacher (Berliner, 1986). The value of models, images, and metaphors is that they assist the teacher in articulating the teachers’ world, rather attempting to formulate this world in terms of rules and propositions.
Models Bruner (1985) surveys several models of the learner. The tabula rasa model begins with a person’s mind as a blank slate that records and accumulates experience. Another model characterizes the learner as a hypothesis generator and assets the value of a good theory. Yet another family of models are those in which humans use their minds to make sense of clutter and organize their experience. A constructivist model of the learner proposes stages in which growth is achieved through assimilating experience and accommodating the rules to experience. The novice-expert model of the learner favors any means by which one can move from knowing nothing about a particular domain to knowing a great deal. Such learning is accomplished by asking and modeling an expert and developing greater competence along some continuum of stages. Bruner insists that a model of the learner is necessary to improve the state of education, but he also argued that this model must vary to fit the nature of the learning task, the learning outcome, and learning situation itself. Having a variety of models, says Bruner, is a virtue because that choice of how to conceive learners is ultimately more helpful than proposing that one script fits all. Berliner’s (1986) model of the teacher provides a review of the noviceexpert approach as applied to teachers. He cites the value of such an approach as a starting point with novice teachers and that teaching expertise
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provides exemplary performances for newcomers to model. He argues that attempting to understand what makes a master teacher can be helpful for orienting cooperating teachers as they assist new teachers. Another value in studying expert teachers, according to Berliner, is that competence is valued by society and can influence educational policy. Specifically, Berliner identifies the necessity for expert teachers to possess subject matter knowledge and knowledge of organization and management of classrooms. Requiring both sets of knowledge, says Berliner, distinguishes teachers from other fields. Berliner (1988) adopts the model of human expertise of Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986) to characterize the development of teacher expertise across five stages. At the novice stage, new teachers seek out rules, recipes, and strategies to guide their actions. At the advanced beginner stage, the teacher uses contextual experience to clarify the use of rules and strategies. The third stage involves competence where the teacher makes conscious actions and reflects on these actions. The fourth stage is proficiency where intuition and experience guides decisions. Finally, in the fifth stage of expertise a teacher’s thinking and actions are automatic and fluid, and the teacher is fully comfortable and in control of the classroom. Images Images are a broad category, but include any visual device, physical or mental, that creates a representation of views of teaching. A variety of work on teacher knowledge has used images to explore teacher knowledge. Calderhead (1996) summarizes the use of simulations, think-aloud commentaries, teacher narratives, ethnography and case studies, concept mapping, metaphors, and repertory grids to study these visuals. This variety of techniques is necessary, according to Calderhead, to analyze teachers’ work. Calderhead and Robson (1991) documented images of preservice teachers who imagined what teaching would be like, influenced partly by their own experiences (e.g., experiences with teachers, testing, relatives who were teachers). In his case study of a first-year teacher, Bullough (1989) noted the evolving images as mother figure, disciplinarian, reaching out, instructional leader, and professional. From his work using images of teaching, Korthagen (1993) reports that they can be resistant to change and encourage the use of these visual presentations of classrooms for teachers’ selfexamination of their teaching. Metaphors A type of image is the metaphor which people use to frame their experiences. Teachers’ talk frequently consists of metaphors such as the flow of lessons or
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regarding students as ‘‘my kids’’ (Munby, 1986). Clandinin (1986) reported on the images or metaphors of elementary teachers, including ‘‘language is the key,’’ and the classroom as the home. Bullough (1991) documents several case studies in which teachers used metaphors to explain their teaching. Bullough and Gitlin’s (1995) chapter on personal metaphors profiled three teachers and their respective metaphors of bridge builder, guide, and expert. Teacher self-study groups may cite personal metaphors to report the discussions of their work. For example, one such group (Miller, East, Fitzgerald, Heston, & Veenstra, 2002) identified their best teaching in metaphors of a kaleidoscope, soil, Afghan construction, band conductor, and Yoda from the Star Wars movies. Metaphors allowed these teachers to encapsulate their views of teaching in ways that could be more easily talked about in shared professional stories.
Connecting Instructional Design to Teaching Instructional Design for Student Learning ID provides another example of developing both the formal knowledge for teacher education and professional development, and the practical knowledge experience in classroom teaching. We have depicted ID as a systematic tool to help all educators develop instruction and instructional products, but keeping learning in the forefront of teaching/design decisions (e.g., Shambaugh & Magliaro, 1997). Framed in this fashion, an ID course provides a reflective learning experience in which students clarify their beliefs while learning a process. Our intent in the course is not to persuade them to use a particular ID model, but to use the systematic features of ID to help teachers be clear about their teaching decisions and to grow as teachers through a continual re-examination of their beliefs and decisions (Shambaugh & Magliaro, 2006). Teacher candidates typically develop instruction through lesson plans, a technique commonly taught in methods courses. Over time new teachers become more experienced at developing coherent sets of lessons without detailed lesson plans. Their planning approaches become highly personalized, less systematic, and less evident on paper than those they may have learned in teacher education programs (Kennedy, 1994). One challenge for instructors of ID working with teachers has been to teach an ID process, while realizing that ID may be used quite differently, if at all in the classroom (see Edmonds, Branch, & Mukherjee, 1994). Learning about a generic process and then adapting that process to a complex setting (Larabee, 2000)
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is representative of the overall teaching challenge in teacher education – how to help learners transfer their learning from an academic setting to a real world setting. In the teaching of ID, graphical models are used to conceptually represent ID components, as well as depict a process to develop instruction. Models serve to deconstruct a systems view of important educational issues of instruction and suggest an orderly but specific set of activities. These activities tend to include analyzing the instructional need, designing of instruction to address this need, implementing the designed intervention, and evaluating its use. This systems approach helps instructional designers or teachers to examine the instructional problem in its entirety and design appropriate details. The premise behind using ID is that the individual components of the process help teachers develop instructionally sound interventions grounded in learning principles, which are in turn based on research. Moreover, the ID process provides a tool to ensure the coherency and appropriateness of decisions that determine learning outcomes, teaching, and assessment (Shambaugh & Magliaro, 2006). The visual connections between the components in these ID models imply an alignment of learning, teaching, and assessment decisions, as well as guidance on working through the decision-making process. Thus, ID’s systematic features keep learning issues in the forefront as teachers design, teach, and evaluate their intervention efforts (Smith & Ragan, 2005). ID models provide visual representations of this complex intellectual and problem-solving process (Nelson, Magliaro, & Sherman, 1988). Some models advocate a step-by-step approach to help newcomers learn ID (Dick et al., 2005), while others ‘‘may be quite dynamic, recursive and neverending’’ (Gustafson & Branch, 1997, p. 74) depending on their use (e.g., Morrison, Ross, & Kemp, 2004). Attempts to develop ID models for teachers have focused on how to more closely approximate teacher tasks (e.g., Gerlach & Ely, 1980; the ASSURE model from Smaldino, Russell, Heinich, & Molenda, 2005; Reiser & Dick, 1996). However, due to the very individualistic and personal nature of planning and teaching, the complexity of classrooms, and the multiple influences affecting their practice (Kennedy, 1994), as well as demands made on their time, it has proven difficult for teachers to adhere to these systematic processes in their daily practice. Models are persuasive because they provide a ready-made approach to follow, but teachers have resisted these goal-directed approaches, possibly because they may not match teachers’ beliefs about their abilities to influence student learning (Martin & Clemente, 1990).
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Instructional Design for Accountability Teachers tend to resist any process or innovation that appears to them as overly prescriptive and ill-suited to address changing classroom conditions (Snelbecker, 1988). Despite this resistance, ID can be connected to teacher education through the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) standards and the National Board core principles. The INTASC model core standards are meant to apply to teachers in all teaching regardless of content area or expertise. The standards ‘‘embody the kinds of knowledge, skills, and dispositions that teachers need to practice responsibly when they enter teaching and that prepare them for eventual success as National Board-certified teachers (National Board for Professional Teaching Standards) later in their career’’ (Council of Chief State School Officers, 1992). For example, Principle 3 of the INTASC standards addresses the need for teachers to understand how to teach diverse learners. In ID, one of the functions of a needs assessment in ID is to learn about one’s students. Principle 4 encourages teachers to use a variety of instructional strategies, another decision-point in most ID processes. Principle 9 advocates teachers to develop reflective practitioner habits that continually evaluate the effects of their choices and actions on others. The use of ID has the potential to help teachers to systematically reflect on how one develops ‘‘a learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation,’’ which is INTASC Principle 5. National Board Certification provides another connection between teaching and ID. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards was created in 1987 to acknowledge professional teachers. Teachers submit performance-demonstrating materials to be judged against the Board’s certification standards. All certifications are based on several core principles, one which advocates that ‘‘Teachers systematically think about their classroom practice and learn from experience’’ (National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, 2004). In our teaching of ID we frame it as a means to help teachers become better teachers through systematic development, teaching, and reflection. Our conceptual image of the teacher is that of a reflective practitioner (Clark & Yinger, 1987; Scho¨n, 1983). While ID can be regarded as a construct of developing formal teacher knowledge, ID as framed by us provides a tool to acknowledge practical knowledge and also provides a way to systematically review this personal knowledge, craft knowledge, and knowing-in-action. However, for ID to be effective for teachers, ID instruction must take into account the world of teachers. Branch (1994) provides conditions for ID to be
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considered by teachers: The goal for instruction should be to facilitate learner achievement as determined by the learner and the culture, which will influence the learner. People involved in the learning process should understand the complex relationships within instruction so as to support each other. ID is an appropriate response to the complexities of instruction. ID practices may be applicable at different levels of application and contexts. Teacher input should be included in the development of an ID model. Our strategy in ID instruction for teachers is to ask them to develop their own ID models. ID is best known for its models on how instruction should be developed. We believe that people can learn from these models, but what may be more productive in the long run is to encourage teachers to develop their own representations. In our view ID provides teachers with one tool to (a) develop instruction, (b) operationalize a reflective orientation, and (c) evaluate one’s teaching (Shambaugh & Magliaro, 2001). Teachers need to be able to instantiate their own design processes in order for their personal reflection and professional growth. Despite concerns over their ‘‘drawing’’ ability and a limited understanding of the formal field of ID, students, many of whom have been or who were teachers, have developed a wide variety of visual representations of the ID process in our ID courses over the past 10 years. How these teachers represented their views of teaching in these models is the main focus of our inquiry in this chapter.
METHODOLOGY Methodological Approaches Categorization and metaphor are human achievements that are difficult to study. Experimental studies can easily be confounded by the influence of other aspects of the human person, such as perception. Another research approach is empirical modeling in which human observations and actions are mathematically recorded, and regression is used to identify the input– output relationships. Such an approach is useful when very narrow expertise is required and when equations used to model teaching seem untrustworthy. A third approach is the use of analytical modeling in which human performance is compared to performance data. The goal is to minimize the differences between what humans do and what they should do based on an
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agreed-upon mental model. Of course, this approach assumes that the mental model of teachers could be agreed upon. A more useful approach has been the use of ‘‘think-alouds’’ to record what people say about what they do as they perform the task (Ericsson & Simon, 1993). The basis for Strauss and Shilony’s (1994) study of teachers’ models of children’s minds was based on how teachers speak about instruction. Limitations include that what is reported is distorted and biased partly on the person’s inability to verbalize how one is thinking as well as responding to the needs of the researcher. Teacher talk frequently includes the use of metaphors that characterize how teachers think about teaching (Munby, 1986). For example, teachers frequently use the word ‘‘flow’’ between activities or between lessons suggesting some form of motion. In our study, teachers identified many metaphors that were meant to denote an ID process but also, we believe, identified their views of teaching, of students, and their educational role. Verbal and written reports, according to Rouse and Morris (1986), may be useful in generating research questions for subsequent study. The use of interviews and surveys are often used after the task has been completed to study individual judgments and decisions (Gould & White, 1974).
Participants and Settings A total of 190 models from 13 deliveries of a master’s level ID course were collected from 1994 to 2001. Of this corpus of data, 123 ID models from students who were self-identified preservice or practicing teachers, or teachers who were transitioning into administration or educational support personnel, were culled for this study. The authors of this paper have taught this course, either as co-instructors or in ongoing collaboration at two institutions, since 1994. As a result of this collaboration, the instructional approach and course sequence described below were applied fairly equally across all courses taught. All 13 deliveries were taught at the master’s level at two doctoral-granting, land-grant institutions. The ID Course and Instructional Approach Our reflexive teaching approach views instructor and student as coparticipatory, meaning that although instructors and students have different roles, all participants can learn from each other (see Shambaugh & Magliaro, 1997, 2001 for a detailed description of this teaching approach). Through constant feedback, instructors and students design and serve as
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formative evaluators in a supportive and collegial way using in-class peer and out-of-class verbal and written feedback. Rather than depicting ID as a complex algorithm, rules, or procedures, which could not cover all contingencies of human learning and classroom realities, we advocate that teachers consider a range of possibilities that might responsively address the learning needs of their students (Shambaugh & Magliaro, 1997). We engage them in tasks in which they use ID components and processes, reflect on their appropriateness, and revise their draft projects based on this reflection and our feedback. The ID Model Task The ID course content consists of four general units: Getting Started, Analysis, Designing, and Evaluation (Shambaugh & Magliaro, 1997, 2001). The three latter units correspond with the conventional components considered in general ID instruction (e.g., needs assessment, goal/objective setting, assessment, instructional strategies, media, etc.). However, the ‘‘Getting Started’’ component is when the students begin to instantiate their held beliefs and procedures for learning and instruction by identifying key learning principles that support their teaching philosophy and their own ID model. And, while the course itself has evolved over the years, this task for students to develop personal ID models that would transfer to their own use has remained consistent. The actual assignment occurs across the entire semester. At the beginning of the semester, students are asked to represent their own preliminary design or planning process. This task serves two purposes: (1) to honor their present conceptions of the ID process, and (2) to provide a tangible representation of a tacit process, such as their current planning processes, that could be examined in a more open manner. The specific directions are: Depict on paper your own model for designing/planning instruction. A model is usually a visual representation – a picture, but you can be creative and try other approaches. The model should represent the important aspects of developing instruction and the relationships of these aspects to each other. Write a brief narrative explaining the model in terms of the important components of your model and the relationships between components.
As the initial prompt, we share widely used ID models that they would find in textbooks including Dick et al. (2005); Gagne´, Wager, Golas, and Keller (2005); Gerlach and Ely (1980); the ASSURE model from Smaldino et al. (2005); Morrison, et al. (2004); the Rapid Prototyping model from Tripp and Bichelmeyer (1990); the United States Air Force model (1975); and the Layers of Necessity model from Wedman and Tessmer (1990). We then
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engage them in a group activity in which they characterize the components and processes of their lesson planning, and invite them to think about how they would represent this process visually, via metaphor or some alternate representation to a novice. This preliminary ID Model and narrative are shared in the class. Throughout the semester, students are asked to compare conventional components and points of consideration with their own models. At the end of the semester, we give students the same set of directions and ask them to revise their models and the narratives that explain the various components, relationships among components, and design thinking processes that make the model usable in their own teaching practice. Data Sources and Analysis Our initial plans were to code just the type of mental model that each teacher constructed in order to articulate his/her representation for ID. However, during the analysis process we discovered that the teachers also indirectly shared with us their own views of teaching within this same representation. The data included 123 final ID models and narratives that the teachers submitted at the end of the semester (i.e., their ‘‘final’’ personal ID models). Teachers were identified by responses they made on profile cards distributed at the beginning of each course. Two copies of each model and narrative were made so that we could code the types of models separately using a category system derived inductively through reviewing the models and reading the literature on mental models (e.g., Gentner & Stevens, 1983; John-Steiner, 1997; Mayer, 1989). A recursive process of categorization and theme building was used (Spradley, 1980). Discussion and consensus building were used to create the categories. We then recoded all models for types of models again according to our finalized coding system. At this point we achieved 97% agreement on the categories. Again, we reviewed the specific models where there was disagreement and came to consensus. The category system for types of models is as follows: Artifact: a concrete object; e.g., a pyramid, a tea cup. Components: an abstract representation with components connected; e.g., intersecting rings, concentric circles. Human activity: a human thinking process or action; e.g., problem solving, creativity, reading. Organic: a natural or nature-related process; e.g., the waves of an ocean, a growing tree or flower, a rainbow.
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Flow chart: a traditional representation of boxes and arrows to depict component and direction of activity. To analyze the models for views of teaching, we again followed our earlier process. We reviewed the models looking for patterns of similarity, and we read the literature on views of teaching (e.g., Berliner & Calfee, 1996; Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999; Edmonds et al., 1994; Richardson, 2001). The resultant category system was based on synthesis of perspectives from the ID literature and the literature on teaching and teacher education. Designer-centered: the teacher maintained a stance of being outside the actual teaching of the product; i.e., creating the instructional event, but not having to implement it. Learner-centered: learners were identified as central to the model, and the primacy of learners was upheld in the narrative. Teacher-centered: explicit representation of teacher issues and the primacy of the teacher (and for the teacher) to make the decisions about design decisions and the enacted instruction. Co-centered: the interactions between the teacher and the students were central in the design and implementation decision-making, a more negotiated process. Models that also included the designer were categorized here. De-centered: the educational context drove the decision-making and implementation (e.g., expectations of parents, other teachers, principals, state learning standards, federal mandates). In both category systems defined above, the categories within each system were not mutually exclusive. That is, models sometimes depicted characteristics of two or more categories. For coding, models were labeled based on the primary or predominant features instantiated in the model. Frequency counts for each set of categories were conducted. A descriptive analysis of those counts was conducted.
FINDINGS Our findings are organized into two sections: types of models and views of teaching. Types of Models As stated earlier, types of models were coded into five categories: human activity, components, artifacts, organic artifact, and flow charts (see
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Table 2. Type of Model Human activity Components Artifacts Organic Flow charts Total
Frequency Counts for Types of Models. Frequency (% of total) 51 23 20 15 14
(42) (19) (16) (12) (11)
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Table 2). Out of the 123 models, 51 (42%) were categorized as human activity. Examples of human activity included playing basketball, training for running events, climbing stairs, designing a garden, hiking, juggling, kayaking, living in a neighborhood, solving problems, directing a stage play, swimming, and traveling. Teachers identified human activities, which they understood in order to represent ID components. For example, one teacher used a baseball diamond to arrange the various components in the order that a batter would run the bases after hitting the ball. Another teacher used juggling to represent ID, where the designer is the juggler and the various ID considerations are the objects to be juggled. To further drive the point home visually, the teacher drew the juggler on a balancing board while trying to keep all of the components in the air. Twenty-three (19%) of the models were categorized under the components category. Components were defined as any abstract representation including shapes, such as circles and rings, and ways of connecting these shapes, such as concentric circles. Teachers included a range of different components, often specific to their contexts, to illuminate their ID process. Component examples included circles, iconic shapes, layers, levels, musical notes, stages, and webs. Models in this category depicted the ID process with the various components organized into some abstract shape or set of shapes that were clearly interactive, with the ID process itself seen as a recursive intellectual activity. Many of these models fit Gustafson and Branch’s (1997) notion of a curvilinear composition that characterizes the way that ID is typically practiced. The students still tended to use arrows to depict the relationships between the model components, but often those arrows were bi-directional. Sometimes, these models included components that were visually overlapping to illustrate the connections between the ID considerations. Typical words in the accompanying narrative included ‘‘cycle,’’ ‘‘interaction,’’ ‘‘creative,’’ and ‘‘recursive.’’ Overall, teachers using
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components depicted ID holistically and fluid with no particular component taking precedence at all times. Compared with human activity models, in which the metaphoric activity provided the basis for representation, component models conceptually represented ID components similar to published ID models, but attempted to improve the flow chart representation of boxes and arrows with shapes more appropriate to their sense of the ID process. For example, the nesting of circles within circles communicated an interrelationship between ID activities. Twenty (16%) of the models were determined to be specific artifacts, concrete symbols that held significance for the teachers. Examples of these models included a bread machine, bridge, clock, cue ball, playground slide, pyramid, quilt, school building, speedway, train track, and umbrella. Here, the teachers used a metaphoric object to suggest what ID was, but the supporting features provided minimal guidance for how ID should be conducted. Fifteen (12%) were organic with 8 of the 15 being either trees or flowers. Other models included fish-eating-knowledge, heart, rainbow, tributary, and waves. Fourteen models (11%) were flow charts. Sometimes, the components were connected by arrows and/or lines in an ordered sequence. Similar to the Gustafson and Branch’s (1997) characterization of a ‘‘rectilinear row of boxes,’’ these models depicted a clear order of operations. Some of the models in this group featured branching and/or operations that were to be considered simultaneously. Another feature of models in this group was a hierarchy of activity. The teacher visually organized the steps so the intent was clear and certain steps were more important and required more attention, time, and effort than others. The words students used in the supporting narrative helped us to classify models into this category. Words such as ‘‘systematic,’’ ‘‘orderly,’’ ‘‘input,’’ ‘‘output,’’ and ‘‘linear’’ were characteristic of the descriptors used in the narratives accompanying these models. We found this to be quite interesting given that, in the literature, the predominant representation for the ID process is a flow chart. While the flow chart makes historical sense given the ID field, and it can transcend a range of audiences because it is intended to be context-free, we found it interesting that given the option, teachers preferred to use other representations for articulating a process that was meaningful for them. Views of Teaching Based on our category system, 87 of the 123 ID models (71%) revealed a view of teaching other than that of an instructional designer (i.e., a person
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Table 3. Frequency Counts for Views of Teaching. Type of Model Teacher-centered Designer-centered Co-centered Learner-centered De-centered Total
Frequency (% of Total) 47 36 18 16 6
(38) (29) (15) (13) (5)
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not intimately connected with the enactment of the instructional event). That is, designer-centered ID models, which in many respects represent the focus of the course, accounted for 36 models (29%). Teacher-centered ID models accounted for 47 models (38%). Co-centered ID models accounted for 18 models (15%). Learner-centered views of teaching accounted for 16 models (13%). De-centered ID models accounted for six models (5%) (see Table 3). Designer-Centered ID Models The purpose of the ID model task was to have teachers represent their own ID process, so one would have expected to see ID models closely approximate our sequence or one of the conventional models we introduced to students. However, this was not the case in that only 29% of the models followed a conventional ID flow-chart approach (see Fig. 1). The features common to ID models, including the traditional components of analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation (i.e., the so-called ADDIE model of ID) were only found in these representations. Teacher-Centered ID Model The largest number (n ¼ 48; 39%) of models representing this view of teaching were classified in this category. Teacher-centered views of teaching in students’ ID models directly represented the ID process in a way that made sense for them and used a metaphor that frequently resonated with their personal interests, such as cooking, sailing, reading, or gardening. Other examples of teacher-centered views included a creative spiral, a set of questions, tour guide, fast food preparer, problem solver, base runner, kite handler, and garden designer. In Fig. 2, a ‘‘continuous’’ view of teaching was depicted in the student’s ID model. The student’s narrative discussed three aspects of instruction design, which also denoted this teacher’s routine.
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Fig. 1.
Designer-Centered ID Model.
The first aspect is being knowledgeable about the subject matter, which enables the teacher to be flexible and creative and to adapt to different learning styles. A second aspect of the model is to set goals and objectives for each lesson, which ‘‘often generate from the [state] standards of learning.’’ A third aspect seen in the model was evaluation, and ‘‘as teachers, we need to know what works and what does not work. One way of doing this is by reflecting on what we do as a teacher in order to make our curriculum better. Better teachers make better students.’’ Co-Centered ID Models Co-centered ID models (n ¼ 17; 14%) included a mix of participants in the design process, including teacher–student, teacher–designer, teacher– student–designer, and designer–student. Reciprocity and collaboration are key themes in these models. In the example shown in Fig. 3, the student wrote that ‘‘collaboration through social interaction and positive communication builds a positive working environment among people,’’ and that the purpose of the model is to provide a comfortable working environment. The wavy line represents all of these interpersonal skills needed to create an atmosphere of support,’’ while ‘‘the outer circle represents a strong
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Teacher preparation Evaluation Access student’s knowledge
Teaching is a continuous cycle
Assessment from goals
Seeing students as individuals
Activities from objectives Plan towards Set goals and objectives
Fig. 2. Teacher-Centered ID Model. Communication Active listening
Interaction
Respect
Learning
Administration Goals Mission
Faculty
Staff
Acceptance
Inclusion Collaboration Support System
Fig. 3. Co-Centered ID Model.
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connection that bonds the three groups together.’’ Participants in this model include administration, faculty, and staff, and the arrows denote close ties between each group. The process of collaboration begins with a mission and supporting goals. Although not represented in the visual, the student’s narrative stated that an assessment of participants’ needs determines learner and environmental characteristics. In turn, these characteristics influence the choice of an instructional framework. An evaluation to determine learner achievement and program effectiveness was also specified. Learner-Centered ID Models Learner-centered views of teaching (n ¼ 16; 13%) represented learners as the principal focus of design efforts and included numerous learnerorientation metaphors, such as a tea cup, inviting atmosphere, hurdler, experiences, well-being, climbing a playground slide, and a school building. In one example (see Fig. 4), the student viewed ID as a swimming child – a ‘‘holistic student-centered approach. All of the pieces of ID work to keep the
Fig. 4.
Learner-Centered ID Model.
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student afloat.’’ She did not see a linear approach to the ID process, preferring to consider each student and each situation individually. Her point was that in order to meet student needs, she had to maintain a flexibility, yet a synergy, among the various issues she wanted to consider in her daily planning. Her role as teacher and designer was to ensure that everything flowed. De-Centered ID Models ‘‘De-centered’’ characterized models (n ¼ 6; 5%) revealed a dependence on client needs, institutional requirements, or state-imposed standards. In this category teachers were seen as a cue ball who ‘‘sink the right balls,’’ a dart thrower who attempted to hit the ‘‘state standards’’ bulls-eye, (see Fig. 5) a juggler, a railroad train on a track, and ‘‘driving through the neighborhood’’ (attempting to drive a straight line or shortest distance). An example of this reactive view of teaching from a special education teacher has arrows pointing to two different ways, ‘‘which is how I see the balancing act that I have to perform on a daily basis.’’ The arrows pointing to the left indicate demands she has no formal control over, such as curriculum, state standards, and individualized educational plans (IEP). The arrows pointing to the right, meanwhile, represent items she has some control over, such as finding
Fig. 5.
De-Centered ID Model.
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and addressing students’ strengths and weaknesses, interests, and selection of instructional materials. In the model and narrative she describes herself: ‘‘I am at the bottom (emphasis ours) of the model. I chose the juggler because I see myself juggling the weight of certain combinations of these demands on a daily basis.’’
LEARNING FROM THE TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVE What Questions about Teaching Guided the Research? Our primary aim in this research was to see how teachers’ personal models of ID also revealed their views of teaching. Originally, the research was based on a cognitive psychology, in terms of the veracity of teachers’ ID models in representing the ID process and how students were representing ID components and connections between components. Analyzing these models for ‘‘views of teaching’’ signaled an additional direction in our inquiry to better understand teachers.
How and Why Were the Questions and Perspectives Chosen? Our teaching of ID advocates its use as a systematic tool to develop instruction. Over 10 years of writing about ID pedagogy we have come to believe that a parallel attribute for ID is its capacity to help teachers examine their teaching. However, teacher use of ID has been minimal owing to several factors, including an unawareness of ID, the time demands of ID, and the inability of one ID model to address teachers’ individual needs. We chose to look more closely at the ID models of our students, many of whom were teachers, to better understand teachers and make adjustments in our teaching. These teaching adjustments involved our representation of the ID process and a better understanding of the contextual issues facing teachers.
What was Learned about Teaching, Teacher Thinking, Teacher Education, or Learning to Teach? The ID model task helped us to envision how ID can (a) contribute to teacher knowledge and expertise, and (b) understand individual teachers and their role in the educational process.
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Teacher Knowledge and Expertise The different perspectives of teacher knowledge were categorized at the beginning of this chapter as formal knowledge, practical knowledge, and transformative knowledge. These categories match and were meant to clarify Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s (1999a) labels of knowledge-for-practice, knowledge-in-practice, and knowledge-of-practice. To summarize, formal knowledge is that knowledge base used to develop competent teachers, while practical knowledge instantiates teachers in teaching, and transformative knowledge helps teachers to assume a more critical role within the context of schools. The value of ID is that the process, whether it is used or not for its original purpose, the development of instruction, becomes in a larger sense, a lens by which an explanation of teachers’ formal knowledge, practical knowledge, and transformative knowledge are possible (see Fig. 6). ID, as framed for teachers as systematic decision-making (Shambaugh & Magliaro, 2006), helps teachers to make clear decisions on learning outcomes, assessment, teaching, and technology. This systematic decisionmaking contributes to the development of formal knowledge in teachers; namely, a process for unpacking the complicated situation of the classroom. Here, needs assessment, a traditional component of ID, becomes another question for teachers, which can be made more relevant to their circumstances by asking the question: What do I know about the classroom? Such a question implies learning more about student differences, as well as content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, and an ecological
Fig. 6. Instructional Design as a Lens for Teacher Knowledge.
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understanding of the context of the classroom, school, school district, state, and federal priorities. Reframed in this fashion, systematic decision-making in teachers connects to the development of practical knowledge and a greater understanding of the facets of teaching, including classroom management, learning beliefs, preparedness and confidence, and reflection. ID activities, including the ID model task, prompt teachers to confront and make explicit their views on teaching. ID’s systematic features provide the teacher with a process to study and document one’s teaching, a feature of transformative knowledge. At the same time ID provides a foundation to ground a teacher’s development as a teacher in a blend of personal practical knowledge (e.g., learner differences at specific grade levels, school context, and state standards) and a personalized knowledge base (e.g., teaching models and strategies, learning theory, and subject matter understanding). Finally, such activities as studying one’s teaching and building a personal foundation for teaching contributes to the development of teacher voice (Hargreaves, 1996), and a greater sense of having a personal say in curriculum and schools. In a larger sense, the ID model task helped to remind us that the development of teacher expertise can be viewed as both (a) cognitive knowledge and (b) personal sensibilities and agency. As teachers’ decision-making skills can be characterized as novice, then by progressively more skilled categories (e.g., Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986), they develop a developmental awareness of the human sensibilities necessary to assist learner needs, but also the development and awareneness of their personal role, empowerment, and teacher voice in the educational system. Individual Teacher Knowledge The two research questions in this study asked how these models could be categorized in terms of model types and views of teaching. The different types of models (i.e., artifact, components, human activity, organic, and flow chart) revealed artificial representations of teachers’ models of ID, but which served to identify the tacit knowledge of individual teachers. It is unlikely that teachers (or any other newcomer to the process) could actually use their ID models to analyze, design, and evaluate instruction. However, these model types helped us to see how teachers see the process; for example, whether they viewed ID as a technical process or as a human activity. These model types were frequently characterized by a predominant metaphor. The metaphor would likely prove inadequate to actually conduct ID, but the metaphor does signal how ID initially makes sense to a teacher and provides an individualized learning path to assist that teacher in actually using ID.
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Analyzing the models for different views of teaching helped us to see teachers’ stances towards practice, such as their decision-making and their agency in teaching. Further inquiry on our part could study how metaphors might help us to see into the inner thought processes of designers and teachers (Coyne, 1995). The role of metaphor in communication and understanding has been acknowledged by linguists and philosophers, but has resisted formal approaches to characterize it as meaningful (Fauconnier & Turner, 2002). The teachers did succeed in depicting their models in terms of identifying the ID components important to them and visualizing the relationships between these components. However, the tacit knowledge that guides teacher decision-making and actions was not yet articulated in these representations. Procedures for using the models were not always clearly explained in the narratives accompanying each model, particularly for the nondesigner-centered models. Teachers’ actual understanding of these relationships was not always evident in either the visual or the narrative. The words used to describe the models were unique. Many teachers explored all of the nuances of the metaphor and how its various features fit their understanding of ID. The narratives varied in elaboration from a very superficial set of connections between the metaphor and the ID process to very detailed explanations. While no systematic analysis of why these descriptions varied was conducted, anecdotal evidence indicated variations were due to the degree to which the individual engaged in the ID model task in a more creative and playful manner, and the degree to which the individual was familiar with the metaphor.
What were the Strengths and Limitations of the Methodological Approach? One limitation with this study is the possible favoring of our representations of ID; that is, either our definition of ID with an emphasis on addressing the human side of ID and/or the ID model that we used to represent the course flow and curriculum (Shambaugh & Magliaro, 1997). The teachers’ versions were quite different from ours. Although they may have valued the inclusion of our model’s components, the components appeared in a unique fashion in each model. A second limitation was relying on the visual and written narrative for our interpretation of the models and assignment of categories without checking our interpretation and category matching with the teachers themselves. A third limitation of this research, and perhaps the most serious, was not describing in more detail the personal and professional
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contexts in which the participants led their lives. Students were categorized as teachers based on the simple distinctions outlined earlier. More detail about their contexts would be helpful in future work as it is these contexts that give rise to teacher voices (Hargreaves, 1996), and only partial representations of these voices may be depicted in these models. The development of a category system proved challenging, as we immediately realized the difficulties of developing a limited number of categories to adequately label model types or views of teaching. It is necessary, however, that when faced with this challenge researchers must start somewhere. Views of teaching are based on many experiences, including formal education, professional development, and actual classroom experience. It would be interesting to trace back from these representations the history of these teachers to better understand the numerous influences that gave rise to the models. One of the lessons we learned from analyzing these models is that we must do more work to document the histories of the teachers to gain a better understanding of the graphical views of teaching. In addition to employing a Learner Profile to help students in the ID course document what they know about their learners, we could prompt a more detailed Teacher Profile, which could include this contextual history. Within these histories one would likely note the various individual ways that teacher knowledge developed. It would be interesting to see how these histories provide some insight into the different ways that teacher knowledge has been characterized. We have conducted one case study comparing novice and expert teachers from a course (Shambaugh & Magliaro, 1996), but continuing such a study post-course would be valuable to see to what extent the course experience changed their teaching. Another next step would be to conduct a study analyzing the impact of the course on the students/teachers who have taken this course.
How has our Thinking Developed about Questions, Methodology, and Representation of Findings? This chapter has documented inquiry into teacher knowledge using images to reveal teachers’ views of teaching, rather than trying to formalize teacher knowledge in some manner. Our challenge is to support the development of these personalized approaches. In the short term, teacher education methods courses or ID courses might have teacher candidates design lessons using their own ID model, revising the model as a result of what they learn from teaching and reflecting on these lessons. For novices a procedural version
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may be necessary through a reflective cycle in which the model evolves as the teacher thinks about instruction. From lessons, the teacher candidate can use the ID process to develop instructional units. We have re-framed the ID process in terms of a cycle of decision-making (Shambaugh & Magliaro, 2006) involving decisions of learning outcomes, assessment, teaching, and technology. The model provides a working mechanism to guide teachers to design instruction responsive to the needs of their students and the agenda of the school and school system. Ongoing study of ID model development by teachers might help teacher educators to better understand the development of teachers’ skills in developing instruction but also in terms of teachers’ views of teaching, students, and their role in the educational process. We have explored some aspects of the implications of these models (Magliaro & Shambaugh, 2006). One implication is the value of instructors being critical of their representations of concepts or processes. Our study confirms Seel’s (2003) findings that learners do not always use the models given to them, but construct models that meet their specific needs. Our purpose with the ID model task was ostensibly to gain a better sense of how students understood the ID process. Over time the ID model task provides us with different ways of representing the ID process to newcomers. Consequently, we have become consumers of our students’ work and have learned about the ID process from our students. By being reflexive we gain not only a better understanding of the complexity of learning ID, but also information to use in course improvement. In other words, our ID pedagogy models for students the development of teacher knowledge. Another issue is to question the value of our representation in teaching a complex process, which cannot fully address different users and contextual issues. We are beginning to see that our ID model task helps learners in two ways (Markman, 1999). The first is that the model task gives students a process for thinking about and solving complex instructional problems in ways that are meaningful to them. Their ID models are context-specific and draw upon many examples of teaching experiences to solve a novel problem. Second, students gain a better understanding of our representation of the process to be learned. For most ID courses, this is the primary learning outcome. However, mastering a model of a complex process such as ID is not possible in a one-semester course. To use ID well requires that one have an extensive knowledge base across many situations and perhaps a repertoire of design thinking, which has not been well articulated, although the ID field has been moving toward the adoption of competencies. Students in the course do not have the knowledge and experience to use ID, despite their
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rich repertoire of practical knowledge. We have learned in this course that students may be experiencing difficulties in applying this knowledge to bear at the same time learning a new conceptual approach to designing responses to learning needs. As a pedagogical feature in our teaching, the personal ID model task was structured to encourage students to represent their own model of ID components, rather than having one imposed on them. In our examination of personal ID models, especially those constructed by teachers, we noticed that we also learned about teachers’ representations of their views of teaching. That is, personalized ID models, particularly for teachers, more closely ‘‘modeled’’ the individual teacher’s thinking (Elbaz, 1983), although they did not completely tell the story of their design thinking. And, while anecdotally the teachers reported that the models did afford them the opportunity to articulate the range of considerations for planning, and to help them better align their goals, instruction, assessment and so forth, at this point in their self-reflection, they had not developed the language or representation to fully investigate their work. The ID model task has surprised us in that an activity sometimes depicted as an overly prescriptive approach to instructional development provided us with a lens on how teachers viewed teaching. The resulting images and narrative could be thought of as what happens when we look through a kaleidoscope and each turn of the wrist produces a different image. What one sees in terms of the facets of teaching, then, depends on who is viewing and what one values and believes.
REFERENCES Ball, D. (1993). With an eye on the mathematical horizon: Dilemmas of teaching elementary school mathematics. Elementary School Journal, 93(4), 373–397. Bereiter, C., & Scardemalia, M. (1993). Surpassing ourselves: An inquiry into the nature and implications of expertise. Chicago: Open Court. Berliner, D. C. (1986). In pursuit of the expert pedagogue. Educational Researcher, 16(AugustSeptember), 5–13. Berliner, D. C. (1988). The development of expertise in pedagogy. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. New Orleans, LA. Berliner, D. C., & Calfee, R. C. (Eds) (1996). Handbook of educational psychology. New York: Macmillan. Borko, H., Bellamy, M. L., & Sanders, L. (1992). A cognitive analysis of patterns in science instruction by expert and novice teachers. In: T. Russell & H. Munby (Eds), Teachers and teaching: From classroom to reflection (pp. 49–70). London: Falmer Press.
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PART II: INTRODUCTION METHODOLOGY: HOW SHOULD I LOOK? As research on teaching has turned to close examination of the nature and development of teachers’ knowledge, it increasingly has employed methods that offer potential for unpacking tacit knowledge, revealing practical knowledge, and exploring the full body of professional knowledge that a teacher may possess. The methodologies illustrated in the various chapters of the book as a whole raise important issues surrounding these questions. In particular, the contrasting research strategies featured in Part II make even clearer the impact that methodology can have on what can be learned about teaching. In Chapter 5, McMillan and Price illustrate applications of three promising research strategies: explorations of historic teacher journals, study of preservice and experienced teachers’ written reflections on these journals as sources of information about their own teaching knowledge, and integration of historical accounts of teaching in their own reading of the journals. In Chapter 6, Brice, Nations Johnson, Cummings, and Summy illustrate the use of grade-level study groups and the practice of editing teaching videos to explore knowledge of teaching. In Chapter 7, Greene and Magliaro explore the impact of experience (both technology- and practice-based) through analysis of students’ reflections on teaching following those experiences. In Chapter 8, Lay, Pinnegar, Reed, Wheeler, and Wilkes use an analytic tool from positioning theory. In Chapter 9, Placier, Burgoyne, Cockrell, Welch, and Neville use Theatre of the Oppressed to unpack students’ knowledge of teaching. Each of these methodologies raises questions about how the researchers can best represent their results, an issue that is featured more prominently in Part III. These contrasting and complementary methods also raise issues about researchers’ moral obligations to act with integrity. Readers of the research play a role as well, in determining the value and veracity of research reports. Ultimately, all stakeholders need to become familiar with the affordances and constraints of various research methodologies, to avoid fragmentation of the field and misinterpretations of research methods and findings. 135
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A REPRESENTATIVE JOURNEY OF TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF SELF: A READERS’ THEATER Sally McMillan and Margaret A. Price ABSTRACT In this chapter, the authors analyze current pre-service teachers’ reflections on the journals written by teachers from the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. They explore what the interchange reveals about pre-service teachers’ conceptions of teaching and the learning-to-teach process. The analysis focuses on the commonalities and differences between these groups of teachers. Findings are presented in a readers’ theater format in which recurring themes and meaning-making are expressed by voices from the past and by those who would be teachers.
If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heartbeat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. (George Eliot, as seen in L’Engle, 2001, p. 122).
As teacher educators, we often wonder what kind of impact our programs have on the students we are preparing to be teachers. Our students come to us with very defined notions of what teaching is and what a teacher should do. Aligned with the culturally pervasive notion that teaching is a Learning from Research on Teaching: Perspective, Methodology, and Representation Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 11, 137–169 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1016/S1479-3687(05)11005-0
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particularly ‘‘natural’’ calling for women and that it is a simple matter for individuals with a strong content base (or a thorough teachers’ manual) to merely transmit chunks of de-contextualized knowledge to their students, some pre-service teachers see little need for pedagogical study. Others enter their professional classes with the expectation of receiving guaranteed instructional formulas or ‘‘recipes,’’ rather than constructing a practical and empowering balance of flexible, research-based strategies through opportunities for contextualized applications. Hoping to create ways in which to disrupt pre-service teachers often deeply entrenched misconceptions, some teacher educators commit to an almost continuous action research stance when working with their teacher education students. But is it truly possible to dispel students’ preconceptions with our curricula? Will extended field experiences push our teacher candidates from sitting in the student desk to the instructional arena? Are we ever able to provide evidence, which is compelling enough to challenge the ideological framework with which our students enter our programs? These questions are not new. Much has to do with those who would be teachers. Over 30 years ago, Dan Lortie (1975) conducted a sociological study of the schoolteacher. It remains the seminal work to which researchers defer when identifying individuals who come to teaching as a profession and how they got there. Lortie studied in depth the occupational characteristics and sociological circumstances that draw individuals to become teachers. After studying Lortie’s findings, readings of new and pre-service teachers, both past and current, pedagogical beliefs disrupt conventional notions regarding the relationship between time and progress. Time is transcended. Whether a 19th-century frontier schoolmarm or a 21st-century feminist, the profile which Lortie exposed in 1975 sheds light on personal orientations and life circumstances that lead individuals to teaching. Attractors to the profession, delineated by his study include: a personal need for continuous interaction with students, offering a service to society, the comfort zone of ‘‘school’’ or love of subject matter, material benefits of money, security and prestige, and time compatibility. The decision to teach comes through avenues of affective choices and external circumstance. Pleasant experiences in school, identifying with ‘‘good teachers,’’ parental role models as teachers, and identification by significant role models as a ‘‘natural teacher,’’ draw people to life in schools (Lortie, 1975). Meaning-making, which centers on insights such as Lortie’s (as well as our own) requires that we listen carefully to teachers’ voices, an almost counter cultural event. It requires a type of active listening to teachers’ lives, or at least to the ways in which they choose to represent those lives to both
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themselves and others. As qualitative researchers we of course bring our own representations of self to the table, as we seek to interact with the voices of teachers, both living and literary. Active listening also requires that we maintain a continual dialogue within ourselves, until our conversations, both internal and external, allow us to simultaneously construct a montage of individualized voices and a dynamic, open-ended image of community connections. Before sharing classroom teachers’ actual voices, however, we will first discuss the foundational theories behind our historical, ethnographic research, and literary analyses in a section entitled Theoretical mapping: Background and memory work. Due to the fact that much of our research will be communicated through a readers’ theater format, we will provide an additional theoretical section, Theater-retical frameworks: Scripting the chapter, which explores the ways in which performative ethnographies are especially well suited to open dialogic spaces and to embody qualitative research. Following these theoretical frameworks, we will explain the methodology enacted throughout our fieldwork, textual analyses, and performative constructions. This section, Methodological Journeys, will then open the way for a brief discussion and comparison of our current and 19thcentury teachers’ historical/cultural contexts. After this discussion, Act I, a multi-vocal arrangement of four thematic scenes, will unfold as an exploration of recurring themes and meaning-making within classroom teachers’ lives is expressed. Following this section we will discuss the implications of our research for teacher educators. These implications will then be further explored within our two-part conclusion, Journey Windings, which includes a brief Act II (entitled An interpersonal pedagogy) involving a continuation of our readers’ theater format and our own more conventional conclusive remarks. We offer this chapter, then, as a space from which to actively listen as voices new and old merge into diverse images and colorful patterns of teachers’ journeys. What can they teach us about our profession? What can they teach us about ourselves?
THEORETICAL MAPPING: BACKGROUND AND MEMORY WORK It is our inward journey that leads us through time—forward or back, seldom in a straight line, most often spiraling (Eudora Welty, 1984).
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History is not the representation of reality; it never has been. For the early Greeks, memory was not a means to situate events within a temporal framework but to understand the whole process of becoming (Petra Munro, 1998, p. 266).
As we listen carefully to the journey stories of teachers’ voices, both old and new, we wonder what they can teach us. To our minds it is both mystery and ‘‘memory work’’ of the highest order (McMillan-Tyler, 2001; Munro, 1998b). How has the image of those who would be teachers changed since the 19th century? What do they believe about what it means to teach? The body of knowledge concerning the influence of these beliefs and attitudes on the development of pre-service teachers’ knowledge is growing, however, it remains minimal in contrast to that of novice teachers. Attempts at addressing the preeminent beliefs and attitudes of pre-service teachers historically involved the administration of ‘‘attitude inventories’’ and statistical analyses to various groups of college students in different sequences of their teacher preparation programs (Richards, 1960; Jacobs, 1968). Terminology is unclear, with some authors interchangeably using terms such as preconceptions, attitudes, and beliefs. Pajares (1992) identified the ‘‘messy’’ nature of dealing with belief constructs of teacher candidates as a hindrance to research efforts in this area. In-depth study has been hampered by multiple definitions of the term ‘‘belief’’ and how such a term is applied to and conceptualized for application for teaching. Much of the literature on beliefs and attitudes of pre-service teachers deals with particular subject area (math, science, etc.) constructs and/or sub-constructs areas of beliefs (self-efficacy). Pajares (1992) maintains that the difficulty of establishing beginning teachers’ beliefs as a valuable research topic has come because researchers have defined beliefs in terms of their own agendas and seldom explored the possible interactions among belief sub-constructs or how they develop as professionals. Unless beginning teachers undergo training experiences which offset their individualistic and traditional experiences, the occupation will be staffed by people who have little concern with building a shared technical culture (p. 67).
He cautioned that the apprenticeship for teaching must inculcate an analytical and explicit view of pedagogical principles, otherwise leaving preservice teachers to the imitative devices that they observed as students. Therefore, attention to matters such as teachers’ identities and the need to disrupt teacher education students’ limiting cultural storylines, which are so deeply entrenched as a result of their own schooling experiences, is of importance to any involved with teacher education. Preparing pre-service teachers, listening for both their social and inner voices, is not only
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complicated because of the need to unearth and deconstruct schooling scripts, but also because such work necessitates that all involved grapple with the contradictory realities often maintained within individual and community identities. Post-structuralism acknowledges that identity involves a multiplicity of selves and a negotiation of contradictions, both known and unknown. In her life-history work with retired teachers, Munro (1998a) observes that: to be a woman is to lack authority, knowledge, and power. To be a teacher is to have authority, knowledge and power. Thus, to be a woman teacher is take what Maxine Greene (1995) calls a ‘fictitious self’ (p. 17).
If unity emerges within multiplicity and multiplicity with unity, then as teacher educators, we must be ready to observe and to grapple with patterns of paradox within both ourselves and our students. Reflecting the writings of Munro (1998a) and Greene (1995), our own research also indicates that identity formation is an engendered process. There is often a difference between conventional approaches to envisioning the world and women’s experiences. We found that women repeatedly used the metaphor of voice to depict their intellectual and ethical development and that the development of a sense of voice, mind, and self were intricately intertwined (McMillan-Tyler, 2001). The core of our interpretive work, then, has been a commitment to actively listen to both ourselves and to others. Such listening not only supplied our research content, but it also directed our research format, the ways in which we could best communicate so many teachers’ journeys.
THEATER-RETICAL FRAMEWORKS: SCRIPTING THE CHAPTER Performativity is ‘what happens when history/textuality sees itself in the mirror—and suddenly sees double; it is disorienting, [the] disruptive (Pollock, 1990, as seen in Denzin, 2003, p. 10).
Culling interview notes and forgotten texts, we experience a type of disorienting shock; what Pollock (1990) describes as ‘‘see[ing] double,’’ when our own life stories mirror those of past lives. Quite suddenly we are quickened, bursting with the life-giving possibilities that often emerge from creative dialogue. Researching teachers’ voices, then, is both a reciprocal and a participatory experience. Involving not only analysis and synthesis, but also cultural readings and inter- and intra-personal interactions, this research
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encapsulates a dynamic experience that demands an embodied mode of communication. Bubbling from the ‘‘pages’’ of many texts, teachers’ voices, including our own, are representative of life as performance. Reflecting Denzin (2003), our need to emphasize performative communication modes is clear; for he notes, ‘‘yif the world is a performance, not a text, then today we need a model of social science that is performative’’ (p. 10). While it is not our intention to create a transferable model (is that even possible?), it is our hope that a helpful, fluid performative framework will come alive within this chapter. Therefore, we have chosen to communicate the majority of our research (particularly the sounds of various teachers’ voices) through the active, narrative format of readers’ theater. By opening up spaces for teachers’ voices, it is our desire to aid reader-participants in the uncovering and the creation of new forms of political resistance and agency within teachers’ individual and community lives. Performance modes also expand the limited spaces, which are currently available for the exchange of teacher dialogue. The need for reshaping and increasing dialogic performance spaces is compounded when one realizes that entire educational histories, which center on specific content areas, have been written without the inclusion of even one classroom teacher’s representative voice. Due to the strong reliance of performative histories on both individualized and community voices, this type of academic marginalization makes such omissions all the more glaring. As Pinar (1993) notes, We are what we know. We are, however, also what we do not know. If what we know about ourselves – our history, our culture, our national identity – is deformed by absences, denials, incompleteness, then our identity – both as individuals and as Americans is fragmented (p. 61).
Matters of identity, then, are vital to explorations involving those questions most central to teachers’ and teacher educators’ lives. Emerging questions provide evidence of newly forming identities; performance modes make new identities ‘‘real’’ for participants by creating room for expressing their newly burgeoning sense of agency. By their very nature, performances break down the disempowering political walls that relegate teachers’ pedagogical voices to the ‘‘privacy,’’ or rather, to the seclusion of their individual classrooms; for it moves them toward a potentially public space. As Alexander (as seen in Denzin, 2003, p. 9) explains, ‘‘performance becomes public pedagogy when it uses the aesthetic, the performative, to foreground the intersection of politics, institutional sites, and embodied experience.’’ With each new reader, each new
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performance context, an ethnographic script produces a richer platform of knowledge standpoints. Reflecting Bahktin’s (1982) notions of multiple voices, a readers’ theater performance also opens space for a dynamic unity to emerge amongst a myriad of voices. Due to this reality, the performance format also serves as a potential catalyst for promoting democratic inclusion. Apart from the idea that the inclusion of multiple voices is necessary for democracy, the performative ethnography invites inclusive ways of knowing. It is an outside reader’s willingness to deconstruct the script, rather than a researcher/ author’s original interpretation of others’ lives that transforms the script into an exercise of both individual and community agency. The hierarchy of researcher and participant is therefore somewhat lessened, if not broken. This interconnection of participants’, researchers’, readers’, and listeners’ roles is the embodiment of social paradox. Reflecting early 20th-century theorist Anna Julia Cooper’s (1998) assertion that a democratic society’s strength must come from its attention to the voices of its weakest members, meaning-making within the context of performative ethnography incorporates the reality that through brokenness what is new and strong is potentially constructed. Reflecting this notion, Denzin (2003) writes ‘‘performativity derives its power and prerogative in the breaking and remaking of the very textual frameworks that give it meaning in the first place’’ (p. 9). It is the paradox of deconstruction, a potential mode for reenvisioning individual and social strength. Indeed, much like the imaginative documentary or historical novel, performative ethnographies embody – to an even greater degree – the potential for representative (once silent) voices to become a part of our cultural and therefore individual identities. Reminiscent of the ancient Greeks, Munro writes of ‘‘memory work,’’ which is the enactment of historical research for the purpose of seeking to ‘‘understand the whole process of becoming’’ (p. 267). When performative ethnography is coupled with such memory work, the likelihood that it will generate new spaces for democracy and transformation increases because the likelihood that participants’1 identities will also change is increased. As Munro (1998) explains, ‘‘history as an evocation of memory becomes our relationship to, and experiencing of, the identities made possible or impossible through historical narrative’’ (p. 267). The invitation for participation with performative voices sounds persuasively. However, before, accepting this call within our chapter’s context, we will first discuss the methodological happenings that shaped our research of those who would be teachers.
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METHODOLOGICAL JOURNEYS Temporality, as lived, has a narrative structure. We are born, mature, acquire an education, love, work, perhaps have children, grow old, and die. This temporality unfolds like a piece of music or a story (Mark Johnson, as see in Garrison, 1999, p. 143).
Drawing from our own experiences as graduate students in teacher education programs, we were perplexed by the consistency of what teaching still appears to be in the minds of those who would be teachers. It is, as Cuban (1993) identifies, a transfer of teachers’ knowledge of professional and personal beliefs into classroom practice that has changed little since the 1890s. Transformative experiences in our own classrooms led on parallel journeys to further exploration of the nature of teaching and learning. How is it, then, that we can have our pre-service teachers join with us on our journey? What experiences can we provide them that will cause them to question what is in the here and now? Both of us had long recognized our propensity for viewing life through a narrative lens. Therefore, it is often through personal narrative, both our own and the life stories of others, that our meaning-making is most relevant. Reminiscent of a recurring theme within Gerda Lerner’s (1993) The Creation of Feminist Consciousness, we had both sought to find familiar live histories, or other ‘‘shoulders to stand on,’’ through reading the lives of our foremothers, the personal narratives of the 19th- and early 20th-century teachers. Upon embarking on our roles as teacher educators, we were surprised to hear voices from the past echoing through the pronouncements of our current students. After interviewing numerous pre-service teachers on their preconceptions about teaching, the recursive themes that emerged continued to resonate with voices from our historical readings. The call to investigate this sociohistorical spiral was compelling. It would seem that, the more things change (educational reform, technology, standardized testing, etc.), the more they stay the same. Using ethnographic methods (personal student interviews, the authors’ journaling, student biographies, and their personal philosophies) coupled with the literary analysis of books and primary sources (both long familiar and newly discovered) we sought to bridge historical data with the preconceptions of undergraduate students in current teacher-education programs. While data were gleaned from unpublished manuscripts in the Southwest Archives, other information came from published books and manuscripts. We also synthesized graduate students’ explorations of autobiography and research of 19th-century teachers to document epiphanies
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they experienced during a course dealing with the cultural influences of identity within teaching. We, in turn, placed our own interpretations on these students’ responses through choices we made regarding their placement within a readers’ theater script. Confronting preconceptions of those who would be teachers is often a double-edged sword. One edge is keenly sharpened with at least 16 years of experience in the classroom as students. The other is dulled with lack of experiential knowledge of what to do as a teacher. It causes a great deal of cognitive dissonance within the pre-service teacher regarding her/his role as an educator. In an effort to painlessly reveal their true visions of what it means to be a teacher, the undergraduate students were asked to formulate a philosophy of education that would uncover what they believed about the following: the purpose(s) of education, the characteristics of an effective teacher, the ways students learn best, the significance of their subject area within students’ lives, and the stakeholders’ role within a school’s culture. Graduate students, who were enrolled in an education course centered on American literature and culture, were asked to research the 19th-century teachers and writers for the purposes of making autobiographical connections (or disconnections) between their own lives and those of the people they were researching. Once they had researched old documents, such as diaries and letters, within the Southwest Archives and library publications, the students compared their own life/teaching experiences with those of the 19th- (and early 20th-) century teachers they were exploring within an autobiographical piece. After collecting students’ work, previous research, and additional pieces (and excerpts of pieces) from historical manuscripts, we organized the first draft of our readers’ theater script by positioning current pre-service teachers’ voices around recurring themes and contradictory patterns. We then reread our historical material with the same themes and patterns in mind and placed the voices and descriptions of the 19th- and early 20th-century teachers’ experiences within categories, which were complementary to those of current teachers. We then used the titles of our emerging categories as the subtitles of the scenes and acts within our readers’ theater script. After culling the undergraduate educational philosophies and the graduate students’ autobiographical and primary source research projects for possible themes, we organized their voices into a readers’ theater. Both the complementary and the contradictory voices of the 19th and the early 20th centuries were also drawn from the pages of Polly Welts Kaufman (1984), Sandra Myers (1982), Schlissel, Ruiz, and Monk (1998), Bakken and Farrington (2001), Glenda Riley (1988, 1992), Joyce Kinkead (1992)
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and others. Arising from long forgotten voices and images, American teachers’ journeys were also guided by the research and theory of Lortie (1975), Price (1998), Grumet (1998), Munro (1998a), and McMillan-Tyler (2001).2
HISTORICAL CONTEXTS: PAST AND PRESENT Certainly, the feminization of teaching began in the 19th century with the expansion of ‘‘women’s work’’ into the professional realms. Kaufman (1985, p. xxi) notes, ‘‘as more women seized the opportunity to increase their life choices by acquiring secondary education, school districts began to realize the advantages of employing women rather than men as teachers.’’ Championed by the likes of Catharine Beecher and Horace Mann in the 1850s, this cultural and political shift was successful, in part, because of what it meant to American taxpayers. Women in the classroom required lower wages and endured poorer working conditions. They were also willing to carry generally difficult, if not impossible, task loads, which were acceptable to novices in the work world. Collins (2004) writes that in an 1830 report from Connecticut, only one out of forty schoolhouses within one county had any ventilation at all. ‘‘The average size of a building was 1812 feet by 712 feet high’’ (p. 109). Classrooms in the West often were in sod dugouts with little, if any furniture. The one room schoolhouse often housed upward of 20 students varying in age from 5 to 22. The teacher relied on parents sending books and resources that were of questionable use and adapted the curriculum to what was available in terms of pedagogical tools. The women teachers of the West withstood the lack of funding, lack of a proper schoolhouse, limited supplies, and very little encouragement, yet maintained the attitude that theirs’ was a noble profession. ‘‘I consider teaching an eternity job. Who can tell how far-reaching may be the ideals implanted in the heart and mind of a little child?’’ (Stratton, 1981, p. 170). The parallel with modern teaching conditions is remarkable, with overcrowded classrooms, underpaid professionals, scarce resources, funding difficulties and yet an unwavering attitude on the part of the teacher as to the nobility of the job. Teachers, leaving the profession at the rate of 50% within 5 years of entering, do so due to low salary, lack of respect, and credibility and limited mobility (Price, 1998). The dichotomous nature of the job finally supersedes the ‘‘missionary’’ mentality of wanting to make the world a better place through education. Though they still have the desire to
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work with students, they are no longer willing to accept the ‘‘sheer sentimentality’’ Grumet (1988) identifies as patterns of their own complicity. Acceptable to many 19th-century women was the role of what Grumet terms as ‘‘the good daughter’’ (a role that is still passed down to many present-day women by their foremothers). Under the authority of a male superintendent, it was the female teacher’s ‘‘duty’’ to keep her classroom under control.3 To do so, pleased the superintendent and signified that the teacher of this quiet, dutiful class was competent – regardless of her pedagogy. The emphasis on classroom control has not lessened. Indeed, from its genesis, classroom control has been a pivotal issue within American schooling. West Texas schools promote the voice of Harry Wong (Wong & Wong, 1998): ‘‘Effective teachers introduce rules, procedures, and routines on the very first day of school and continue to teach themy’’ (p. 141). ‘‘Students need to feel that someone is in control and responsible for their environment and not only sets limits but maintains them ‘‘(p. 151). Discipline is the single greatest concern of novices entering the classroom. Perpetuated from strong authoritative nature of their own classroom experiences (and some incidents they encountered as objects of disciplinary action) pre-service teachers feel they must maintain ‘‘order.’’ Order is one thing, but complete control? Few ever question the widely held assumption that one human being can control the thoughts and feelings of another. Desks might be aligned in straight rows, and quiet might be the rule of the day, but does outward behavior adequately reflect the inner workings of the mind and the heart? Does one ever really control another? Thus, our teachers’ voices suggest that the American penchant for ‘‘classroom control’’ is something of an illusion. In order to share this juxtaposition, as well as others, we share the majority of our research within a readers’ theater format.4
ACT I: ECHOES FROM PAST AND PRESENT Scene I: Control or Creativity? Classroom Discipline Narrator I:
Miss Mooar:
Miss Lydia Louise Mooar, a west Texas woman who began her teaching career in 1910, reminisces about how her own childhood teacher, Mr. Bastman, disciplined her rowdy little brother: ‘‘Mr. Bastman found out that John knew how to cut wood. Wood had to be stacked in a great pile and cut
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by the professor for the school. When John would misbehave, he would say, ‘‘To the woodpile, John.’ John would go out and chop wood’’ (Unpublished letters, Southwest Archives). A 21st-Century Student:5
Narrator II:
Miss Mooar:
A 21st-Century Teacher:
Today’s teacher does not have the luxury of being so resourceful at disciplining his or her students. The schools are set up with a standard procedure for every infraction of the rules that may occur. In my experience as a teacher starting the year, it was school policy for every district rule and its punishment to be read aloud to the students so that they would have a clear understanding of what needed to be done. It seems that this puts more stress on the teacher than is necessary. When Miss Mooar’s brother acted out in class, his punishment not only helped his teacher, but also benefited the entire school. Miss Mooar describes her first day of class. She was concerned that she needed to maintain control of her students from Day One, or else be in for a rough year. When checking roll, she had the opportunity to demonstrate her authority. ‘‘I hadn’t had time to check the list beforehand, so I just took it and read it off. Of course, the surnames were first, followed by the given names. Right in the very beginning I came to this little boy: ‘Bray, Owen?’ He got up and said, ‘Ee-haw, ee-haw!’ There I was with all those thirty or forty children sitting there – never had taught a school day in my life. I said, ‘Well, you’re the smartest little jackass I’ve ever seen. There isn’t a donkey in this prairie that can bray like you. I used to have a white donkey I rode to school, named Snowball, and she couldn’t bray like you can.’ I just complimented him; he [almost shrunk behind] his desk. I never had a bit [more] trouble with that class’’ (Unpublished letters, Southwestern Archives). The idea of maintaining control of your classroom from the first day is still very important. In all the classes that future teachers are required to teach, this point is
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stressed. Students learn the atmosphere of the classroom and the attitude of the teacher on the first day of school. They also start to gauge how much they will be able to get away with. Miss Mooar handled her situation beautifully; she neither overreacted, nor ignored the problem. Her response set the tone for the entire year. The illusion of control: Is it self-perpetuated because of students’ own experiences? Is it reinforced by a media that declares that there is a lack of discipline in our classrooms? Or is it just one of those deeply entrenched cultural myths? (Pause) Nineteenth-century teachers speak out. Voices echo from S.L. Myres’ (1982) Westering women and the frontier experience 1800–1915. Who has discipline problems? Why, I just heard that the results from the 1875 Kansas Board of Education Survey came back and over 58 percent of the respondents are satisfied with their discipline and only 15 percent admit to using the hickory stick! (a bit of throat clearing, followed by a tone belying pomp and circumstance) The esteemed voice of Margaret Fullery(Steele, 1992). ‘‘I called into the recitation room the boys who had been under my care. They were nearly all interesting, and have showed a chivalric feeling in their treatment of me. People talk of women not being able to govern boys; but I have always found it a very easy task. He must be a coarse boy, indeed, who, when addressed in resolute, yet gentle manner, by a lady, will not try to merit her esteem. These boys have always rivaled one another in respectful behavior. I spoke a few appropriate words to each, mentioning his peculiar errors and goods deeds, mingling some advice with more love, which will, I hope, make it remembered’’ (Cross, 1965, p. 111). What a speech! (eager for dirt, not sunshine) Well, I heard that some of the teachers were tyrants and got their come-uppance when the students got plumb tired of some of their tirades, burning the rubber ruler
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Brittany: Trey: Cami:
Narrator II: Clara:
The Gossip:
Narrator:
John Ise:
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they used to beat the children and then rolling the teacher in the snow! Why, Alice Lawrence said that when she was teaching in 1857 that it was the ‘‘big boys’’ that caused her the most trouble. She even took a geography book to one of her students when he was impudent! I wonder what our ‘‘new generation’’ teachers have to say? Contemporary Teachers speak out. Do you detect a bit of frustration? The thing that I would change about the profession of teaching is the way discipline is conducted. Pull out the old wooden board again. Just once, I want to observe a classroom where the teacher has some control? Spare the rod; spoil the child. You need to be stern and forceful with the students when you first meet them, until you establish respect. If you don’t build that respect, you kind of don’t have control of the class – ever. The 19th-century Voice of Clara Conron echoes in agreement: (with disgust) Bert shot Osie in the eye with a popgun, and then skipped out! ‘‘He is the most trying boy I ever knew’’ (Myres, 1982, p. 250). Discipline was not Clara’s forte. At 19, some of the boys she taught were older than she wasy.(chuckles) Wonder why she didn’t whip ‘em? Good teachers back then didn’t have any qualms about no nonsense discipline. They knew what was what. What was what? (Pause) Back in the 1870s John Ise’s school teacher wasn’t so sure. (Pause) A disobedient boy, a frontier schoolhouse, and 20 strokes of a rawhide laterywell (pause), listen a moment to his memory worky. ‘‘Again she raised the whip, but she happened to glance around the room, and saw faces that caused her to stop – faces of the older girls, some of whom were crying, wide-eyed in horror and anger at this exhibition of brutality. She hesitated a moment, poised the whip for another stroke, but those eyes
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were upon her. She laid the whip back on her desk, and ordered Danny to his seat.y The teacher stood by, but said not a word, defeated, not altogether by the stubborn will of this fearless boy, but by the rising standards of humanityy[which] had rendered her principles of school management obsolete. The frontier was becoming civilized’’ (Stratton, 1981, p. 123).
Scene II: Controlling Mythologies and a Teacher’s Influence:
Narrator I: Narrator II: Beecher:
The Gossip:
Narrator I:
Narrator II: Mary: Jim:
Teachers past and present embrace a belief in their power to influence, in their power to controly The Voice of a 19th-century Reformer, Catharine Beecher: Western Children are growing up without the benefit of either a practical or a moral education. We need 90,000 young women to teach in the West if the tides of barbarism are to be pushed back! (Jeffrey, 1998, pp. 20–21). (A do tell tone) Apparently, this illusion of control is integral to teachers’ self-perceptions – and to their pedagogy! With the help of Finklestein, Larry Cuban observes that between 1820 and 1880, teachers talked a great deal. Students recited passages from textbooks, worked at their desks on assignments, or listened to the teacher and classmates during the time set aside for instruction. Teachers assigned work, and expected uniformity from students both in behavior and in class work. So, what makes you think that you are going to be a good teacher? The 21st-century researcher inquired. I see myself as a light that can lead kids inward to find themselves. My desire to change these students is what will drive me to learn and enforce various strategies to effectively change them.
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Rhonda:
Liz:
Adrienne: Narrator I:
Narrator II:
Narrator I:
Fuller:
Narrator II: A Fried-: like voice Narrator I: 21st-Century Student: Gossip:
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Leading America’s future into tomorrow will be a challenge that I look forward to meeting, and an honor I will cherish. I believe that I have several good qualifications. I do have a passion for students. I want to see everyone succeed, and I want to work to achieve that endy. I am also able to make sure that students know that I am the one in charge of directing the classroom. I am a demanding person, and I know that I will set demanding but not unreachable goals for my students. Imposition is within; imposition is without. What do we do when external demands and systemic limitations demand too much? Will we perceive ourselves as good teachers then? Today’s pre-service and professional teachers complain of the pressure they feel ‘‘to teach the test,’’ a phrase that connotes pedagogy driven by the excessive drilling of de-contextualized facts, impositional curricula with little room for democratic classroom practices, and an even greater focus on control. Test scores, test scores, test scores; let’s emphasize the label; the label is what shows (with enthusiasm; a solemn, steady pause) The past echoes within our present. Listen to the voice of the once novice teacher, Margaret Fuller: ‘‘Women are now taught, at school, all that men are; they run over, superficially, even more studies, without really being taught anythingytheir reproduction is only for purposes of display’’ (Cross, 1965, p. 117). Robert Fried (2001), a 21st-century theorist queries: What do I want my students to remember a year from now? What about a subject’s depth? Aren’t we forgetting depth? What is the heart of your subject? Hey, Fried, do I hear Margaret Fuller in your voice? Or, are you, in hers? (distressed) But how can we teach like we think we should and still cover everything for the test? Oooh! (suggestive of ‘‘pshaw’’) Haven’t American schools always taught the test? Memorize a primer;
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drill for the state test. What’s the difference? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! (clears throat) Listen to some lines from the Iowa Course and Manual for the Upgraded Schools of 1878y ‘‘Begin with the senses, and never tell a child what he can be led to discover readily for himselfyProceed from the known to the unknown, from the particular to the general, from the concrete to the abstract, from the simple to the difficulty.’’ Well, not every line from that 1878 manual was so progressive! ‘‘Fasten every principle by frequent repetition.’’ Big deal! Old and new, new and old – a complex, mysterious mix. (Pause) Are you listening for experiential education? Alice Harmon’s examination paper at the Davenport [Iowa] Training School speaks volumes. ‘‘Activity is a law of childhoodyeducate the hand.’’ Doesn’t sound like the memorized primer/drill to me. Responsibility for students’ own learning, experiential education, and constructivism spiraling towards us from May 1884. New is in old; old is in new. For what are we listening? Dear Senator, state representative, and state department official, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. What? Message undeliverable? Well, I heard Palmer say – (interrupted) ‘‘Their words float somewhere in front of their faces, like the balloon speech in cartoons’’ (p. 11). Teacher (responding with desperation) So what is a teacher educator to do?
Scene III: The Dutiful Daughter Narrator I:
The subjective warrant (to become a teacher) comes closer to matching feminine teachers; they are also more likely to be the objects of moralistic concern than masculine ideals as defined by our society; it emphasizes qualities, which are more widely reinforced for girls than for boys.
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Narrator II:
Narrator I: Lortie:
Echoes of Myres:
Narrator II:
The Gossip:
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Lortie (1975) identified three themes that categorized the lives and works of female classroom teachers that were later synthesized by Grumet (1988): individualism, conservatism and presentism. That the women who pursued careers in teaching did so to separate themselves from the ‘‘cult of maternal nurturance’’ indicated a strong sense of individualism. That they accepted the way schools were configured indicated a sense of conservatism. And, the fact that they were generally left out of the administrative realm of the profession led to a sense of presentism that resulted in short-term goals for career advancement. The structure of schools fosters identification with teachers for girls more than for boys; girls encounter feminine models throughout the entire span of their schooling, whereas boys usually have few male teachers before the upper grades. Families are more likely to contain women who are or have been teachers. Girls are more frequently sent to undergraduate colleges oriented toward training teachers; they are also more likely to be the objects of moralistic concern. The pervasive parental voice: life choices and the dutiful daughter. ‘‘If it is true that independence norms are more frequently evoked for sons than for daughters, then parents intervene more in girls’ occupational choices than in boys’’’ (p. 48). Aside from the arts, teaching was about the only profession open to respectable women in the 19th century. Education was considered an extension of women’s traditional roles as child rearers and moral and cultural guardians. Catherine Beecher stressed that it was the job of mothers and teachers to instill character in children. It was to character that the ‘‘great business of education’’ was to be ‘‘almost exclusively committed.’’ When a summer program to become a teacher came to Colorado City, Miss Mooar used that opportunity to obtain her teacher’s license. Her father, however, did not want her to be a teacher – he preferred her to stay at
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home, and he soon set limits on her career. For instance, he told her that the only way he would give her permission to interview for a position in Roscoe would be if she let her mother accompany her to the interview. He believed that this would prevent them from hiring her. A Current Graduate Student’s Response: (slowly, thoughtfully) This is very reminiscent of my own experience and desire to become a teacher. After I announced to my parents that I was going to teach high school English during my sophomore year at undergraduate school, my father strongly expressed his disappointment and let me know that if I insisted on pursuing this career, he would no longer pay for my education. But, like Mr. Mooar, his plan did not work; Lydia Mooar got her first job as a teacher in Roscoe, and I took out loans and eventually became a teacher. The Gossip: The similarities between their experiences are remarkable. I am astounded that her life would have so much in common with the life of a woman who retired from teaching before her parents were even in school! Narrator I: That really is pretty remarky The Gossip: (interrupting) Shhh! She’s trying to talk! (stage whisper) That Current Graduate Student: The similarities between our situations, almost one hundred years apart, make me question the importance that daughters place on their fathers’ opinions. Why did Miss Mooar allow herself to be pulled out of teaching for a short time because her father called for her to come home? Why did I put off getting my certification until I was married and no longer accountable to my father? A father’s support or lack of support of his daughter seems to have an enormous influence on a daughter, regardless of her occupation. Narrator: Heartstrings pulled taut often turn the soul towards a father’s plans, a mother’s journey (pause) the family’s cally. I hear it in the voices of present day students. Aimee: My mother was a teacher. My aunt is a teacher. My grandmother was a teacher. It was always expected that I would go to college. It was just always there. I decided to
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be a teacher only after I got to college. Teaching just seemed like a natural progression in my family. I want to get married and have children. Until that time I wanted a job that would be rewarding, yet flexible. My ultimate duty will be to my family and teaching offers the time flexibility I will need to raise a family. In my household teaching was considered an honorable profession. I came to college thinking I would go to medical school. My parents really didn’t think it would ever happen, so they told me that it would be smart to get a teaching certificate as something to fall back on. Well, they were right. While I love science, I just didn’t have the grades. Now I can still play in the lab, but it’s with kids.
Scene IV: Summers off, and oh Yeah, enhancing the minds of the future Narrator II:
Lortie compared the socialization process of teaching to that of other professions and concluded that the way in which teachers are prepared and the induction process into teaching has minimal impact on what a person brings to the profession. His premise is that when entry into a profession is marginalized, such as through less than arduous preparation, limited skills and knowledge needed for entry, ease of entry into a program, that often ‘‘the attitudes, values, and orientations people bring with them continue to influence the conduct of work’’ (p. 56). He suggests here that unless teacher preparation programs are greatly enhanced, the beliefs which pre-service teachers bring with them from 16 years of informal observation in the classroom, are likely to govern how they develop as professionals. Sometimes this translates into a mythology of the Beach Bumy. In juxtaposition to a party attitude towards the profession are those who embrace the ‘‘missionary’’ mythology of teaching, which is highlighted by Lasley (1980). He stated that beliefs are not only formulated by personal experience, but are also fostered through
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representations in literature, media, and folklore; and often provide an idealistic picture of the rewards of teaching. Lortie (1975) and Schwartz (1987) defined the mythology as a view of protracted contact with young people, making a viable contribution to society, and a sense of pride in the profession. Sometimes the boundary lines between these two myths, that of the Beach Bum and that of the Missionary, are a bit blurred. Miss Lydia Louise Mooar, a woman from West Texas (pause pregnant with gossipy anticipation), began her teaching career in 1910 because she was bored with playing cards. Well, in 1846 Miss Arozina Perkins dreamed of teaching in the West. [I want to ‘‘devote my life] to the cause of education and truth and religion in the far west. Who knows what [I] might accomplish with the blessing of Heaven – at least the motive will be a sacred one, and may, like Abraham’s faith, be imputed for righteousness. Sometimes new voices echo old images. Current students report: Well, I want to contribute something important to society. I wanted to do something that allowed me to pass on some of the wisdom that I have acquired the hard way. I now have a desire to educate the world in order to better it. Well, OK, teachers of today! What is the best thing about teaching? Summers off, andyoh! enhancing the minds of the future. The best thing about teaching is knowing that you’re changing the future. The ability to influence kids who will someday change our world. Summers off; though summers are getting shorter, and shorter! (prompting students with a prim, encouraging tone) The one thing I know about the profession isy.
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It is going to be very rewarding. I want to help the students who have been told their entire lives that they cannot do something. I want to be that teacher that says: You can do anything you want to do, and I’m here to help you do it. Avis: I want to be able to look back at my career and know that I changed hundreds or thousands of livesy. John: I feel some type of calling in respect to teaching as a profession. I want to be a teacher; to be part of progress, or a part of a solution. I want to be a builder, not a building demolisher. The Gossip: I hear images new and old. Are they illusions or reality? Narrator II: (clears throat) Ah yesythe myth of control – those preconceived Notionsy 21st-Century Teacher Educator: Will they have the wherewithal to rise above disconcerting school experiences? Will they seek to embody a balance of the humility and self-confidence, the conviction and flexibility that are needful for creative praxis? What is necessary? (Pause) What is a teacher educator to do? Felix: Emily:
JOURNEY WINDINGS: CONCLUSIVE THOUGHTS AND SCRIPTED VOICES The question that educators need to ask is what gets in the way of the great journey – the journey of the self or soul. Education is a way of attending to and caring for that journey (Huebner, 1999, p. 405).
Lortie suggests that beginning teachers tend to negatively assess their preparation programs when confronted with the realities of the classroom. Their first professional experiences in the classroom are therefore viewed more as ‘‘on the job training’’ rather than an exercise of pedagogical strategies and methods they have been exposed to in education programs. Novice teachers ‘‘are forced to fall back upon individual recollections, which in turn are not displaced by new perspectives’’ (p. 70). Caine and Caine (1997) discovered that the process of changing teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning was a difficult, if not impossible task. As novices on
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the professional side of teaching, pre-service teachers are beginning their inquiry from a vantage point of what they have experienced apart from their teacher education courses; hence, what they know about classroom dynamics. What they know might often translate into ‘‘what I believe’’ about the job of teaching. Such research findings should not be surprising when one considers the high level of resistance that students often exhibit when deeply entrenched cultural storylines are challenged, or ‘‘disrupted.’’ Both Gilbert (1994) and Bruner (1986) emphasize that while immersing students in multiple new storylines increases the possibility that they will question, discard, adjust, or reshape limiting life scripts, such as misinformed notions of teaching, it also increases the probability that some will respond by holding onto old life scripts more tightly. Documentation such as this sets off a stream of our initial recurring questions: Can we, as teacher educators, dispel preconceptions with how we approach our curriculum? Will extended field experiences push our teacher candidates from sitting in the student desk to the instructional arena? Will we provide evidence, which is compelling enough to challenge the ideological frameworks with which our students enter our programs? There are no recipes; there are no formulas, so what is the teacher educator to do? A definitive answer cannot be easily or realistically grasped. However, in the midst of paradoxical research and contradictory voices, there is still much hope for the teacher educator. If it is likely that large numbers of pre-service teachers will never reshape misinformed thinking, it is also likely that some will. Seeking to create teaching environments that guide novice teachers toward grappling with multiple perspectives and diverse uncertainties offers a space from which we can at least work. As teacher educators we can begin this process by modeling flexibility, honoring each student’s story, and emphasizing the importance of the experiential. And it is through sharing his/her own narratives that teacher educators can provide insights into their professional journeys, thereby hopefully equipping students with the courage to locate their own guideposts along the road to becoming a teacher. As Clandinin and Connelly (1994) explain, People live stories, and in the telling of these stories, reaffirm them, modify them, and create new ones. Stories lived and told educate the self and others, including the young and those such as researchers who are new to their communities (p. 416).
In Daniel Taylor’s (1996) overlooked autobiography, The Healing Power of Stories: Creating Yourself Through the Stories of Your Life, Taylor describes
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how reading both the living and literary texts around him influenced who he came to be. He states that interaction with diverse life texts became ‘‘the grist for my mental grindings.’’ Taylor’s documentation implies that when introduced within ‘‘safe’’ environments, diverse storylines hold the potential to influence students’ lives due to the fact that they are both performative and relational in nature. Therefore, introducing multiple perspectives to our teacher education students involves much more than selecting ‘‘inclusive’’ curricula. Complementary to Taylor’s experiences, is the well-known research that Gilligan, Lyons, and Hanmer (1990) conducted with adolescent girls and their female teachers. Also emphasizing the power of cultural storylines to shape belief systems and self-perceptions, they suggest that when older women (in this case teachers) altered their lives and teaching in positive ways, the young women they taught often experienced the freedom to reshape and to voice stronger, healthier, more hopeful voices. Having disrupted their own limiting storylines, the teachers in Gilligan’s (et al.) study not only generated multiple perspectives through their content and pedagogy, but they also embodied select scripts within their daily living. Hope is present, and possibilities are large; yet contradictions abound. Little is certain. We know to provide students with opportunities to interact with multiple storylines, and we suspect that we must offer ourselves the same courtesy. Yet, what teacher educators are to do is not and cannot be enough. In terms of education, the performative – so rich because its very nature involves doing – is even more valuable because it holds the potential to open up new spaces for being. Listening to the many contradictory voices within our study, we are struck by a new, perhaps more helpful, journey question: What is a teacher educator to be? Well known for his unique scholarship regarding the identity and integrity of the teacher, Parker Palmer (1998) notes ‘‘good teaching requires selfknowledge: it is a secret hidden in plain sight’’ (p. 3). Palmer’s words resonate within the voices of the teachers to which we have listened. Often lying silent beneath the surface sounds and movements of teacher education classes – and sometimes from within the pages of our own notebooks – we hear the desire for individual affirmation, the kind of encouragement that allows the teacher to embrace an inner dialogue that says: Who I am is uniquely suited for the role of teacher. No matter how marginalized I feel within current school structures and systems, my students and I will somehow connect and thrive. As vulnerable as this inner dialogue may be, acknowledging it is key to gain strength as a teacher – whether novice or veteran. ‘‘In every story I have heard,’’ shares Palmer (1998), good teachers share one trait: a strong sense of personal identity infuses their work’’ (p. 10).
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Good teaching is a matter of identity.7 As both Taylor (1996) and Gilligan et al. (1990) imply, the inclusion of multiple voices, spaces made for the performative, and the embodiment of new, altered voices are likely to transform students’ lives because such practices embrace issues of relationship, which are, in fact, also issues of identity.8 It is in relationship with life texts that we are able to change. As Palmer (1998) comments: ‘‘Good teachers possess a capacity for connectedness. They are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves’’ (p. 11). While nothing is guaranteed, attention to self-knowledge is a hopeful practice because it increases the possibility that we, as teachers and teacher educators, will be able to disrupt misconceptions and make room for healthy storylines. Such habits also increase the likelihood that our students will be equipped to guide their future students in similar ways. This paradigm switch, this change of our core question from one exploring doing, to one exploring being, emerges not only from our interactions with contemporary scholar/theorists such as Palmer, but also from teachers’ voices, both past and present. Echoing Palmer’s concern for the role that integrity and identity play in teacher education, we also include the instructive voice of the 19th (and early 20th) century nature study advocate and educational theorist, Anna Comstock (1967). Once again, we listen to teachers voices; this time to draw some partially conclusive journeying thoughts.
ACT II: JOURNEY WINDINGS Scene I: An Interpersonal Pedagogy Narrator I:
Narrator II: Gossip:
True Confession: (Pause) the ‘‘how to’s’’ still plague us over the years. How to reach our students? How to disrupt limiting misconceptions among pre-service teachers? How to guide them towards their own effective, dynamic pedagogies? Yes, we are changing our core questionsyBut sometimes when you listen hard enough, the sound of how to be? is presenty. (clears throat nervously) Knowing yourselfythat’s important. Isn’t all of this self-knowledge talk narcissistic and impractical?
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Narrator II:
Narrator I:
Narrator I:
Narrator II:
Anna Comstock:
Gossip: Narrator I: Anna Comstock:
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Parker Palmer says: ‘‘Knowing my students and my subject depends heavily on self-Knowledge’’ – (flatly) So I’ve heard. (patiently, passionately) ‘‘When I do not know myself, I cannot know who my students are. I will see them through a glass darkly, in the shadows of my unexamined life – and when I cannot see them clearly, I cannot teach them well. When I do not know myself, I cannot know my subject – not at the deepest levels of embodied, personal meaning’’ (p. 2). Ah! Embodied knowing, performative knowing, knowledge emerging within identities formationy. It’s a self-knowing that is necessary – a self-knowing that is practical. Know yourself; teach your students’ to know themselves. Listen to the sounds of interconnection: heart, soul, mind, spirit, and body. Is it you I’m hearing? Or, is it I? ‘‘Taking responsibility’’ for our own learning, for our own identities involves caring for the self we are coming to know. Anna Comstock had a thing or two to say about obstacles within the journey – the ‘‘busyness’’ of the teacher’s life. How does the mad dash influence who we are? How does the weary worn ‘‘self’’ influence the identity of a classroom? (Pause; clearing throat) Mrs. Comstock? ‘‘During the many years I have been watching teachers in our public schools in their conscientious and ceaseless work; and so far as I can foretell, the fate that awaits them finally is either nerve exhaustion or nerve atrophy. The teacher must become either a neurasthenic or a clam’’ (1967, p. 3). A clam? A clam. ‘‘I have had conversations with hundreds of teachersyTheir nerves were at such tension that with one more thing to do they must fall apartySaturday’s are for catch up’’ [sic] (p. 3).
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Narrator II:
Narrator I:
Narrator II: Gossip:
Narrator II: Narrator I:
Jack:
Natalie:
Anna:
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Catch up? (didactic, yet impassioned) ‘‘Yes, catch up with more cares, more worries, more fatigue, but not with more growth, more strength, more vigor, and more courage for work. In my belief, there are two and only two occupations for Saturday afternoon and forenoon for a teacher. One is to be out-of-doors and the other is to lie in bed, and the first is the best’’ (p. 3). (Reflective tone) Identity formation emerging from within renewal and resty. Echoing from earlier pages we hear avenues for being. Increase awareness of the self: mind and body; heart and soul. We need activity that encourages reflection. (Pause) Increase awareness of the self through relationship with the inner voice, relationship with physical surroundings. Daily doldrums are disrupted. I hear another paradox – the sounds of activities that honor being. Well, I hear that Anna Comstock expected teachers and their students to stomp around the countryside taking nature notes! Activities that honor beingy. Listen to the voices of 21st-century teacher education students. There is more than one way to utilize the performative. There is more than one way to honor being. What else do their voices tell us? I like to think that people learn more and appreciate things more if they experience it for themselves rather than just reading about it. Nature journaling made me think about all of the things that we never recognize. The reading made me start paying more attention to nature itself; I notice myself watching the grass blow in the breezey. When I find myself doing this, I am much more relaxed. The pace of life in today’s world is so fast that we fail to slow down and consider what is occurring around us. Rarely are we mindful of our effect on the world or vice versa. So many young people do not understand their place and feel they have no role in what tomorrow will be. If
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students could discover how they influence and relate to their surroundings, they would feel more significant. Activity that honors beingy. In what ways are classrooms transformed? The voice of Anna Comstock: ‘‘To the teacher who turns to nature’s healing, naturestudy in the schoolroom is not a trouble; it is a sweet, fresh breath of air blown across the heat of radiators and the noisome odor of overcrowded small humanity. Even once a week, nature-study is a delighty. What does such a one find in her schoolroom instead of the terrors of discipline, the eternal watching and eternal nagging to keep pupils quiet and at worky? She finds health and strength without planning or going on a far voyage, she has found health and strength’’ (p. 3).
Scene II: Constructing a Third Way Narrator I:
Narrator II:
Gossip: Teacher Educator:
And why is knowledge of self – a self that has found health and strength – so important to the pedagogy of our preservice teachers? Present-day schooling structures are not friendly to education. Nationwide, our ‘‘education’’ policies are driven by a reductionist, mechanistic adherence to inappropriate testing measures. In our current environment, educators not only lack encouragement to think and practice critically, but they are also presented with formidable obstacles to overcome or to reshape if they choose to do so. Unable to practice freely, yet unwilling to reduce education to a test score, the journeying novice must devise a dynamic, flexible, ‘‘third way.’’ (suspiciously) A third way? Creative solutions, new ways of knowing, constructed within the fire of two seeming opposites.y A third way creates new possibilities, new life choices, from accepted
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yet destructive, dualisms. Limit your thinking within dichotomies such as: process vs. product, vocational vs. college preparatory classes, imposed curricular standards vs. a democratic classroom, etc. Must we embrace one or the other? (Pause) Just listen to Esther DeWaal. DeWaal ‘‘Today as I look around me I see a world in which there is not so much holding together as splitting apart. There is (1998, p. iii): increasing polarization.’’ Narrator I: We are belabored by fear. A fear that promotes false dichotomies, and makes the limiting cultural structures the ‘‘norm.’’ Teacher Listen to the voice of Parker Palmer. Educator: Palmer: By understanding our fear, ‘‘we [may] overcome the structures of disconnection with the power of selfknowledge’’ (p. 37). Gossip: Now that is the power of paradox! Teacher Now, listen to the voice of Esther DeWaaly. Educator: DeWaal: ‘‘For as we learn to live with paradox we have to admit that two realities may be equally true; we may be asked to hold together contrasting forcesy’’ Narrator II: A third and better way emerges. It is a call to creativity that teachers, both novices and veterans, must heed. (Pause) It starts with self-knowledge. Narrator I: For the novice 19th-century frontier teacher, Arozina Perkins, it starts with a dream. Arozina: ‘‘I dreamed that I had three eyes-one new one in my left cheek just below the othery I looked in the glass, and thought about having the lashes pulled out, and sewing it up. Then I shut my old ones, and found that the sight was far more perfect, everything around me appeared in its true light and lovely beyond expression thro’ my new orby I speculated much upon it, and finally concluded that this accounted for my seeing things differently from some people, or in other words my being visionary.’’ (From Polly Kaufman’s Women Teachers on the Frontier, 1984, p. 76). Narrator I: Arozina envisioned a ‘‘third’’ and better way of doing thingsy
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How will we lead our students to trade in wholly linear thinking and pedagogical recipes for more creative constructions? What will they hear when they listen to Arozina? Will they hear her committed, fragile-strong teaching stance? Will they listen for her mergence of doing and being? Narrator II: Esther DeWaal instructs us to listen with our hearts. DeWaal: ‘‘Listen. Listenywith intention, with love, ‘with the ear of the heart’ – that most lovely small phrase which suggests that we listen not cerebrally with the intellect, but with the whole of ourselves, our feelings, our emotions and imagination’’ (p. iii). And how does the teacher educator learn to be and to listen with the heart? Narrator I: But how is it, then, that we as teacher educators are to teach our pre-service teachers to listen with their hearts, to join us on our journey, to question what is in the here and now? Clandinin & ‘‘It is in the living and the telling of experience that we Connelly locate what represents our sense of our experience as (2000, p. 189): narrative inquirersywe understand that relationship is at the heart of thinking narratively. Relationship is key to what it is that narrative inquirers do.’’ Narrator II: Relationship is key to what teacher educators must do. Teacher Educator:
NOTES 1. By the use of the term ‘‘participants,’’ we are referring to all of those who are potentially involved with an ethnographic readers’ theater script (interviewed teachers, researchers, readers, listeners, etc.), rather than the more conventional meaning that attributes the role of a research ‘‘subject’’ to the term ‘‘participant.’’ 2. References to Sally McMillan-Tyler refer to one of this chapter’s authors, Sally McMillan. 3. The well-known ‘‘Cult of Domesticity,’’ which promoted the idea that ‘‘a woman’s place is in the home,’’ was shrewdly ‘‘reshaped’’ by many 19th-century reform women, who claimed that since they were ‘‘naturally’’ suited to purify the home, then they must also be suited to purify their surrounding cultures. Although it gradually became acceptable for women to teach and to speak in public, such changes did not, of course, occur without eliciting much social tension. In the 1830’s, abolitionist Maria Chapman penned the following poem within her journal: ‘‘The women have leaped from ‘their spheres.’ yThey’ve taken the notion to speak for themselves,
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And are wielding the tongue and pen; They’ve mounted the rostrum, the termagant elves! And—oh horrid—are talking to men!’’ (Collin, 2003, p. 166).
4. For aesthetic purposes we have included some lines within our readers’ theater that do not meet standardized writing conventions. In particular, sentence fragments will affront the grammatically inclined reader. 5. We would like to offer a special thanks to the graduate students from Teaching American Literature, who participated in the Texas Tech Southwest Archives research. Student researchers include: Robin Dufilho, Dayna Marshall, Heather Medley, Darnese Nicole,and Rebecca. 6. With the exception of Lydia Mooar, historical names shared by our graduate students, and a few of the 19th-century women’s names that we drew from texts, Arozina Perkins is one of the few among our ‘‘teacher’s voices’’ who bears her authentic, legal name. All contemporary students’ voices bear pseudonyms. We were particularly interested in using Arozina’s name because numerous researchers have benefited from the beautiful, detailed, visionary prose that she recorded in her diaries while traveling to and teaching in the West. We consider her to be one of the vast numbers of 19th-century American women writers who have been marginalized. 7. Parker Palmer’s definition of identity resonates with our own. He writes: ‘‘By identity, I mean an evolving nexus where all forces that constitute my life converge in the mystery of self: my genetic makeup, the nature of the man and woman who gave me life, the culture in which I was raised, people who have sustained me and people who have done me harm, the good and ill I have done to others and to myself, the experience of love and suffering – and much, much, more. In the midst of the complex field, identity is a moving intersection of the inner and outer forces that make me who I am, converging in the irreducible mystery of being human’’ (1998). 8. Referring to Maria Rilke’s poem, ‘‘Ah, not to be cut offy’’ Palmer speaks of it as an image that ‘‘offers us a mystic’s map of wholeness, where inner and outer reality flow seamlessly into each otheryendlessly co-creating us and the world we inhabit’’ (p. 5). He goes on to explain that ‘‘the inward quest for communion becomes a quest for outward relationship: at home in our souls, we become more at home with each other.’’ In addition to the implicit beauty and wisdom inherent in Palmer’s statements, his comments are also important because of what they imply about the interdependence of relationship with identity formation – a key connection that has emerged from this study. Once the role of identity is accepted as integral to lasting meaning making, and relationship (with self, texts, and others) is recognized as a catalyst for positively reshaping identities, it becomes clear as to why multivocal, performative activities are so potentially transformative.
REFERENCES Bahktin, M. (1982). In: M. Holquist & C. Emerson (Trans), The dialogic imagination: Four essays. (Translation). Austin: University of Texas Press. Bakken, G., & Farrington, B. (Eds) (2001). The gendered west. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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Caine, R. N., & Caine, G. (1997). Education on the edge of possibility. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (1994). Personal experience methods. In: N. K. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds), Handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Collins, G. (2004). America’s women, 400 years of dolls, drudges, helpmates, and heroines. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. Comstock, A. (1967). Handbook of nature study. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Cooper, A. J. (1998). The voice of Anna Julia Cooper. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Cross, B. (Ed.) (1965). The educated woman in America. New York: Teachers College Press. Cuban, L. (1993). How teachers taught: Constancy and change in American classrooms 1890–1990 (2nd ed). New York: Teachers College Press. Denzin, N. (2003). Performance ethnography: Critical pedagogy and the politics of culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. DeWaal, E. (1998). Living with contradictions: An introduction to Benedictine spirituality. Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse. Fried, R. (2001). The passionate teacher. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Garrison, J. (1999). Dewey and eros: Wisdom in the art of teaching. New York: Teachers College Press. Gilbert, P. (1994). And they lived happily ever after: Cultural storylines and the construction of gender. In: A. H. Dyson & C. Genishi (Eds), The need for story, cultural diversity in classroom and community. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Gilligan, C., Lyons, N., & Hanmer, T. J. (1990). Making connections. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Grumet, M. (1988). Bitter milk: Women and teaching. Boston, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. Huebner, D. E. (1999). Education and spirituality. In: V. Hillis (Ed.), The lure of transcendent: Collected essays by Dwayne E. Huebner (pp. 432–445). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Jacobs, E. B. (1968). Attitude change in teacher education: An inquiry into theroles of attitudes in changing teacher behavior. The Journal of Teacher Education, 19(4), 410–415. Jeffrey, J. (1998). Frontier women: ‘‘Civilizing’’ the West 1840–1880. New York: Hill and Wang. Kaufman, P. (1985). Women teachers on the frontier. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kinkead, J. (Ed.) (1992). A schoolmarm all my life: Personal narratives from frontier Utah. Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books. L’Engle, M. (2001). Walking on water: Reflections on faith and art. Colorado Springs: WaterBrook Press. Lerner, G. (1993). The creation of feminist consciousness: From the middle ages to the eighteenth century. New York: Oxford University Press. Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. McMillan-Tyler. (2001). Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s hope leslie(1826): Clues to a woman’s journey. UMI Dissertation. Louisiana State University.
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Munro, P. (1998a). Subject to fiction: Women teachers’ life history narratives and the cultural politics of resistance. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Munro, P. (1998b). Engendering curriculum history. In: W. F. Pinar (Ed.), Curriculum toward new identities (pp. 263–294). New York: Garland. Myres, S. L. (1982). Westering women and the frontier experience 1800–1915. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. Pajares, M. F. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up a messy construct. Review of Educational Research, 62(3), 307–332. Palmer, P. (1998). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Pinar, W. (1993). Notes on understanding curriculum as racial text. In: C. McCarthy & W. Crichlow (Eds), Race, identity, and representation in education (pp. 60–70). New York: Routledge. Pollock, D. (1990). Telling the told: Performing like a family. Oral History Review, 18, 1–36. Price, M. A. (1998). The beliefs and attitudes of preservice teachers during the initial teacher preparation course in secondary education: Case studies. Unpublished Dissertation. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University. Richards, R. (1960). Prospective students’ attitudes toward teaching. The Journal of Teacher Education, 9(3), 375–380. Riley, G. (1992). A place to grow: Women in the American West. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc. Schlissel, R., Ruiz, V., & Monk, J. (Eds) (1998). Western woman: Their land, their lives. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. Steele, J. (Ed.) (1992). The essential Maragaret Fuller. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Stratton, J. (1981). Pioneer women: Voices from the Kansas frontier. New York: Simon and Schuster. Taylor, D. (1996). The healing power of stories. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group. Welty, E. (1984). One writer’s beginnings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wong, H. K., & Wong, R. T. (1998). The first days of school: How to be an effective teacher. Mountain View, CA: Harry K. Wong Publications.
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BUILDING A SELF-REFLECTIVE COMMUNITY: TEACHER DEVELOPMENT WITH EXEMPLAR TEACHERS Lynn M. Brice, Lynn Nations Johnson, Katharine E. Cummings and Sarah Summy PREFACE This chapter is focused on a 3-year, privately funded project. Dean David England, the dean of our College of Education at Western Michigan University from 2000 to 2002, worked in collaboration with Elizabeth Binda, the chairperson of the board of directors for the Guido A. and Elizabeth H. Binda Foundation, to develop a project that would contribute in substantive ways to the improvement of teacher education. As a veteran K-12 teacher and teacher educator, Elizabeth Binda has long taken great interest in contributing to the profession where she has invested a good deal of her life. The result of David England’s collaboration with Elizabeth Binda was a 3-year funded project focused on the development of classroom vignettes to be used in our teacher education courses in The College of Education as well as in teacher-development efforts in surrounding districts. They envisioned a group of teachers who would work in collaboration with a group of teacher educators to develop a set of videotapes focused on classroom practice. Learning from Research on Teaching: Perspective, Methodology, and Representation Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 11, 171–206 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1016/S1479-3687(05)11006-2
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Professors in The College of Education were invited to apply. From the pool of applicants, five professors were selected. The K-12 public school teachers in southwest Michigan were also invited to apply. The group of five professors reviewed the K-12 teacher applications and selected a group of 12 teachers to participate in the project. A grant manager was hired who had teaching experience as well as a long-time staff affiliation with the College of Education, and one of the five professors was selected to be the project director.1 Once the team of project participants was identified, the five professors began to shape the plans for the project, and on June 25, 2001, the group of 18 participants came together for the first time in what became known as the Binda Exemplars of Excellence Project. This chapter is a description and analysis of the professional development process that emerged through the community we built together in the Binda Exemplars of Excellence Project.
INTRODUCTION As we have developed this chapter, we have purposefully turned our attention to the intersection between theory and practice, that intersection where theory and practice are one and the same. The distinction conventionally made between theory and practice often serves to separate teachers and academics, i.e. the idea that teachers practice teaching and academics make theory. We, of course, find such distinctions limiting, if not false. The focus of this chapter is our analysis of the complex, layered dynamics, and interactions of a group of teachers and teacher educators as we became a self-reflective community. Our role as professors in the Binda Project was multi-faceted in nature, requiring the regular intersection of theory and practice. As professors, we approached the project as colleagues and learners with the K-12 teachers who participated; we also drew upon our expertise as teachers and teacher educators in the process. We worked side by side with the teachers as we developed the vision of the project, chose video to edit, and ultimately, produced a video library. We also worked to facilitate the process for the teachers through shaping the experiences we would have as a group of colleagues. And lastly, we chronicled the project and studied the process as it emerged and evolved over time. As professor participants, we came to this project sharing a sociocultural perspective of knowledge and experience, one grounded in feminist theory. Together, these perspectives were the guiding framework that shaped the project. This framework also shaped our methodology, providing the lenses
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through which we retrospectively analyzed the development of the community identity and the reconstruction of individual teacher’s identities. In particular, we describe the changes and shifts among the teachers in terms of their own teaching identities. We describe the ways in which the vision for the project emerged and evolved over time, shifting in ways that were intimately related to individuals’ revelations about themselves as teachers. The shifting dynamics of our roles as collaborators, with both the teachers and professors guiding the collaborative process, are also an integral part of what we have included here. In what follows, we first describe the genesis of the project. We then describe our overarching sociocultural-feminist framework and introduce the central constructs of our analysis: identity and representation. We follow with an analysis of the complex dynamics of the group membership as the project evolved over time.
GENESIS OF THE BINDA EXEMPLARS OF EXCELLENCE PROJECT yWe must find ways to infuse into our teacher education curriculum more of the knowledge and skill and experience of expert public school teachers. The problem is we don’t have very good ways of doing it.y What we’ve always tried to do in teacher education is to solve that problem ‘‘out there.’’ What we’re trying to do with The Binda Project is bring as much of what’s ‘‘out there’ that’s really good to our students as possible and we’re using video tape as a means to that end. It will bring you, your classroom, your kids, your culture, and you physically to greater numbers of students than ever before. There are teachers in this room who every student in our program should see teach. How do you do that? They can’t see you teach every day, but they can see you teach in well-edited vignettes from your classroom that demonstrate why you’re an excellent teacher (Dean David England, excerpts from remarks delivered at the opening session of the Binda Exemplars of Excellence Project, Summer Institute, June 25, 2001).
Teacher education programs traditionally place candidates in a variety of classroom settings for observation prior to student teaching, with the hope that the field experiences will help introduce the candidates to the demands placed on teachers in the ‘‘real world’’ of the classroom. However, early field experiences for pre-service candidates are difficult to assess and sometimes involve teachers whose instructional choices reflect questionable classroom practice. The university-based teacher education faculty must rely on the candidate’s perceptions of their experiences in the field because it is impossible to closely supervise the multiple clinical sites. These difficulties are
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magnified in large teacher preparation programs like ours in which hundreds of candidates are placed in the field each semester. New technologies may suggest better ways to help future teachers observe and critique best practices and meet the challenges they will face in their future careers. The participating teachers in the Binda Exemplars of Excellence Project are highly successful teachers. These teachers were selected to videotape their teaching because they have worked as master teacher/consultants to the university’s teacher education programs for a number of years and have demonstrated the ability to productively organize and manage classrooms, increase student achievement, address the needs of diverse learners, and succeed with at-risk students. The participating teachers videotaped effective instructional strategies they use in their classrooms. The videotapes provided by these master teachers became the means to: add a dramatic, reality-based dimension to the preparation of teacher education students; enhance the work of teacher educators, both at our institution and beyond; provide a resource for new teachers during the first years of teaching; and serve as a resource to the master teacher’s less-experienced colleagues. The project was informed by discussions of early field experiences in Zeichner (1996) and Darling-Hammond (1999), and emphasized the importance of helping teacher education candidates move from college classrooms to public school classrooms in reflective and thoughtful ways. We strove to provide examples of particularly instructive moments in the K-12 classroom and couple those moments with teacher reflections. Traditionally, what pre-service teacher education candidates see of ‘‘best practice’’ is that it takes place: somewhat randomly during the limited hours future teachers have to observe; in classrooms where the quality of teaching varies; one teacher education student at a time; and without contextual understanding or analysis. Typically, classroom teachers do not have the time to prepare demonstration lessons or to ‘‘stage’’ scenarios in which they can naturally apply a particular approach. Teaching modules to college peers does provide preservice teachers with content experience, but not the experience of the dynamic school classroom they need. The points of application of best practice
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cannot always be predicted or staged. Candidates in practicum settings, then, typically observe a great deal of teaching, but have a limited opportunity to reflect with others about the observations (Black & Halliwell, 2000). Based on the knowledge that excellence in teacher education can occur only through the combined efforts of university faculty and practicing educators in the schools we serve, this project relied on the strong relationships our College of Education has established with its surrounding public schools. The master teachers in the project opened their classrooms as demonstration laboratories for large groups of candidates. By using videotaping to regularly, but unobtrusively, record classroom interaction, participating teachers captured significant volumes of day-to-day teaching and learning in their classrooms. The teacher education program affiliated with the Binda Exemplars of Excellence Project contributes significantly to the field of teaching by preparing over 1,400 teachers and other education professionals annually. Consequently, it is certain that some of the classroom experiences in which candidates observe and participate are more conducive to their development and understanding of high-quality practice than are other classrooms. Further complicating the issue of quality clinical practica are the candidates’ own developmental levels. The development of videotaped vignettes enabled the master teachers to contribute to a body of knowledge or selection of cases for the teacher education program. Through their selection and analysis of teaching and learning episodes in actual classroom settings, the participating teachers simultaneously provided large numbers of pre-service teachers (and their professors) with thoughtfully reflective insights into actual classroom interactions. In so doing, the participating teachers demonstrated the connections between theory and practice.
THE EMERGENT STRUCTURE OF THE 3-YEAR PROJECT The Binda Exemplars of Excellence Project extended over a period of 3 years, from 2001 to 2004. We designed the project around four components: week-long institutes, quarterly one-day institutes, individually organized small group study meetings, and individual teachers’ work. These varying configurations for working together and individually, and the content of each session largely emerged from the institutes that were held
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quarterly and were designed to facilitate the teacher participants in the long and arduous process of taping, editing, and producing the collection of teaching vignettes that were the impetus of the project. The Role of Institutes for Key Community-Building Processes The week-long institutes were held during two consecutive summers and were the central vehicle for developing a community among the 12 participating teachers, the university faculty, and the project manager. The institutes were critical opportunities in which the group was able to create a professional space for open and honest dialog, for exploration of teaching and learning, and for sustained moral support. As teacher educators, we were well aware of the necessity for building such a community. Thus, in the first week-long institute, we focused much of our time and energy toward becoming acquainted with each other, not simply as teachers, but as people. The first day of the institute was devoted to cultural introductions where the participants introduced themselves as cultural beings, including life experiences associated with race, gender, social class, and any other aspects of their lives that they felt would allow the group to know them better (see the section on Analysis for a detailed description and analysis of this process). A second activity of the same ilk, for example, focused on ‘‘seeing our students, seeing ourselves.’’ Led by one of the university faculty, the group engaged in discussion of curriculum theory and critical pedagogy. Through this activity, the teachers began to identify issues of diversity, equity, and social justice they believed were central to their own teaching practices and in their schools. The two activities described above illustrate a general tone that was carried throughout the entire project. A second focus of the first week-long institutes was to engage in discussion of theory and practice in order to bring the concepts and associated language to the forefront for several reasons. One reason was to establish an in-common core of ideas around which we would discuss teaching and learning. Second, as teacher educators, we sought to create a venue for generating what would become our core list of theories and practices we (the group) wanted to illustrate through the videotaped vignettes. We conducted a number of ‘‘mini-workshops,’’ which drew upon the expertise of the university faculty participants. These ‘‘mini-workshops,’’ included, for example: ‘‘Becoming a Teacher Educator,’’ which focused on illuminating the practice of teacher educators in order to highlight the need for and possible directions for the teaching vignettes.
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‘‘Special Education and Inclusion,’’ which focused on recent changes in the law and expectations for meeting the needs of all learners, with particular attention to at-risk students. ‘‘Analyzing Classroom Discourse,’’ which focused on action research techniques to identify and analyze the complex and nuanced dynamics of classroom interaction. A third focus, particularly in the institutes held during Year 1, was using and managing the technology of videotaping and editing. Few of the participants had experience with videotaping on the scale that the project required, and preparing for the labor-intensive work was critical. The institutes involved further ‘‘workshops’’ to learn to use digital video equipment, and to problem solve about steps in the technical process. Just as importantly, those professors with experience in classroom videotaping also knew it was critical to prepare the teachers about other aspects of taping one’s teaching. Several guest experts were invited to the institutes to work with the group in terms of conceptualizing what to videotape and why. These guests also helped the group think about the nature of ‘‘going public’’ with your teaching practice. Having a strong sense of the vulnerability and risk involved in such endeavors was essential to building and sustaining the community in order to support the teachers in this work. As we completed Year 1 and moved into Year 2 of the project, we moved toward the completion of videotaping and turned our attention more and more toward cataloging, episode selection, and active vignette editing. The teachers had the opportunity to raise questions and concerns about technology in each institute. Most importantly, they had the opportunity to work one on one with technology specialists and professional video editors. This one-on-one experience allowed each of the teachers to develop the necessary expertise to work with their equipment effectively, to be more astute in their videotaping opportunities, and to begin to select the videotapes they would develop as vignettes. As the project evolved, time was devoted in our institutes to teachers conceptualizing what episodes they would tape and what elements of teaching and learning they wanted to illustrate. A large part of this process centered on small group and whole group discussions about the cataloging topics we anticipated might emerge from our experience. The collective results that emerged from these discussions were recorded within each group and whole group discussions and were used to create the catalog database for the project. This discussion focus on cataloging elicited teacher thinking about the kinds of episodes that might be selected for vignettes and why. It allowed the teachers to focus with
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the university faculty, to build a loosely configured schema that was intended to assist the teachers as they taped selected episodes and began to actively edit the episodes into final vignettes.
The Role of Grade-Level Study Groups During our quarterly institutes, small group works had been scheduled periodically. These groups had been organized across grade levels. At the Fall 2002 Institute, the decision was made by the group to split into grade-level study groups. The teacher participants also decided that the grade-level study groups would need to meet more often. In response, a study group day was organized on campus each month. This allowed for easy access to editing equipment, classrooms were reserved, and a common meeting time for the whole group was included to allow for any whole group discussion and/or concerns that might arise. Each group of teachers worked consistently with a professor serving as a consultant and liaison to the larger group. During the year that followed, professors visited classrooms, participated in videotaping, reviewed selected videotapes, problem solved with the teachers about their vignette content, and offered their perspectives about the tapes in relation to teaching and learning concepts. In addition to the grade-level study groups, the teachers began to do focused study of their tapes, to catalog their tapes, and input this information to an online catalog database that we all had access to. Each of the grade-level study groups took on a life of its own as the year proceeded, and they began to address their concerns and needs differently and according to what worked best for the group members involved. For example, two of the groups decided that they wanted to include interviews with professors in some of their vignettes. Another group decided that they wanted to involve their principal in a vignette. Still another group invited the professor who was a member of their group into their classrooms to observe and assist with videotaping.
The Role of Individual Study and VideoTape Editing Each of the teachers videotaped actively throughout the remainder of Year 1 and throughout most of Year 2. From this abundance of videotaped instructions, the teachers extracted a series of focused and carefully selected classroom episodes. The teaching episodes, or vignettes, focus on how these teachers exemplify effective classroom-management techniques, provide
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instruction designed to address the needs of individual learners (especially of at-risk learners), and practice problem-solving skills as successful classroom teachers. During Years 2 and 3, the project continued to provide the teachers with both the training and technical assistance in videotaping and editing their tapes. Year 3 was devoted almost exclusively to the editing process, although there were two teachers who did continue to add videotape footage to their collection. Using the technical support and technology from the university, the participating teachers provided a minimum of three instructional vignettes selected and edited from many hours of taped classroom interaction. In addition to the instructional focal point suggested above, the participating teachers’ video contributions included at least one tape for each of the following objectives: to demonstrate how the master teacher implements and/or practices one or more effective classroom management and organizational strategies; to demonstrate how the master teacher addresses the needs of individual learners; and to demonstrate how the teacher authentically assesses students’ learning. Teachers who felt the need for additional support, worked one on one with a video editor as they developed their vignettes. Toward the middle of Year 3, the teachers began to submit their completed vignettes. For each of the three or more classroom vignettes the teachers selected, they developed reflective, analytical, and knowledge-based narrations within each vignette to guide the viewer. By year’s end, 40 vignettes had been developed for the Binda Exemplars of Excellence Classroom Video Library.
OVERARCHING THEORETICAL/PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORK As teachers, teacher educators, and researchers, we came to this project sharing a sociocultural perspective of knowledge and experience. Interwoven with that perspective is a grounding in feminist theory. These perspectives were interwoven to create an overarching framework that guided and shaped the work of the project. Within such a framework, we sought to foster a reflective, professional community among the group of participants; a community that honored experience, identity, and voice. This framework also became the grounding of our methodology, providing the lenses
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through which we retrospectively analyzed the flow and movement of the identity of individual teachers and the identity of the group as a community. We borrow the metaphor of nesting dolls from Annie Rogers (1993) (cited in Ely, Vinz, Downing, & Anzul, 1997, p. 232) to explain the interwoven and recursive layers of our framework. The particular practices of research I rely onyare drawn from an overlapping theoretical model much like Russian nesting dollsy. At the broadest level, I am guided by feminist epistemology and methodology; then, nested in that framework is the voicecentered, relational approach to research developed by the Harvard Project on Women’s Psychology and Girls’ Development; nested in that approach is the subjective model of writing for social scientists outlined by the sociologist Susan Krieger (1991); and, finally, nested with that subjective model is the last ‘doll,’ the philosophical poetics of Gaston Bachelard (1958/1969).
Like Rogers, we can describe our framework for the project through a nested set of perspectives and beliefs. This metaphor of nesting provides the means for us to describe the project as a layered and emergent process for revealing identities, representing what we know and do as teachers and teacher educators, and creating meaning from this work.
The Nesting Concept and the Development of the Binda Project The Outer Layer: Sociocultural Perspective As teachers, teacher educators, and researchers, the faculty participants came to the project sharing an overarching sociocultural perspective. At the broadest level, both our individual and our collective experiences and knowledge are co-constructions of our interactions with one another within the contexts of our lives. From a sociocultural perspective, identity is constructed in and through our interactions with others’ ideas and institutions. Interwoven with this perspective is a grounding in feminist theory. As educators and researchers, we believe that education is an endeavor to empower individuals, and, therefore, is a critical endeavor. Feminist theorists respect cultural, historical, and geographical differences. Particular attention is given to individuals’ ‘‘accounts of their lives in their own words [italics original], according to their own narratives’’ (Jones, 2000, p. 6). In planning the work of the project, we gave priority to the individual participants’ experiences as educators, their voice in defining the vision of the project, and their willingness to bare their identities to one another. The heart of the project was to make transparent (i.e. public) what is often opaque about a master teachers’ practice (i.e. private). In the end, the video vignettes would
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provide the venue for education students to see and hear exemplary teaching made transparent. However, it took a process that was guided and thought through to create the spaces in which the teachers felt both safe and then confident to share their teaching selves. Layer Two: Neo-Vygotskian Theory and Ethnography Nested in the overarching sociocultural-feminist framework was the merging of neo-Vygotskian theory and ethnography to form a parallel pedagogy methodology. The neo-constructivist influence drew into the project an understanding of learners and learning. The project focus required the group’s discussion to unveil what we believed is critical to those learning to teach. Our discussions necessarily returned continuously to this centering purpose. As a group, we also saw ourselves as learners. We all learned to use the technology to create the vignettes. But we also saw ourselves as students of teaching and learning. As coordinators of the project, we saw it as our task to create the spaces in which the whole group could bring ideas to the floor, and individuals would be respected and nurtured. Pedagogically, we drew from constructivist theories of learning; methodologically, we drew from ethnography. We adopted an ethnographic approach to not only foster the work of the project, but also to understand and describe it. Our focus was the observable patterns of interaction in the group’s work together, both in terms of process and outcome. We were attentive to the norms of behavior that emerged, the dialog generated, and the artifacts produced over time. We were also particularly attentive to creating spaces for dialog that would foster a strong sense of community. From an ethnographic perspective, ‘‘community’’ is the maturing of a group identity. Layer Three: Clinical Application Nested within the merged neo-constructivist-ethnographic frame is what we refer to as the clinical dimensions of the group’s work. For approximately 2 years, the teachers videotaped many of their class sessions. During the last half of Year 1 and throughout Years 2 and 3, the tasks of reviewing, selecting, cataloging, describing, editing, and articulating teaching vignettes was their labor-intensive work as well. The project professors met shortly after the conclusion of each meeting and began to prepare for the next. The plans for upcoming meetings emerged from the progress and the demonstrated needs that each completed session held. The challenge in this emergent process was the incessant newness that the project teachers had to address with each meeting. Just as they
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would begin to find a degree of comfort with a new facet of the project, a new and necessary facet would be introduced to allow for the project to proceed. Not only was this a challenge to the individual teachers, but it became a great challenge to the cohesiveness of the community. In summary, the nesting metaphor represents complex dynamics that embody the work of the group. The work was clinical but also reflexive, and focused on two critical areas: (1) defining and redefining the identity of the group and of the individuals in the group and (2) defining and redefining the vision of the project, i.e. what were we presenting, representing, and representing.
DATA COLLECTION The 12 teachers represented teachers from a range of grade levels and subject matters and were drawn from urban, suburban, and rural schools. All of the teachers were identified as excellent teachers, with experience ranging from 8 to 29 years. All of the participating teachers mentored intern and pre-intern teacher candidates for our institution’s education programs. As university faculty, we were selected by the dean to bring our experience and expertise in teacher education and professional development to the project. As the professor participants in the project, we planned the institutes and facilitated the teachers’ work. We chronicled the project, archiving institute agendas, notes kept by the teacher participants, project memos, budgets, and summary reports. All of the project institutes were videotaped and archived, as well as some of the group work meetings. Other artifacts, such as the teachers’ applications, e-mail correspondence, and workshop materials were also archived. Written reflective responses were collected routinely from all participants throughout the 3 years of the project. These responses asked participants to articulate their own experiences and learning, assess the progress they were making in their work, and assess the facilitation of the project. The documentation of the project described above provided the data for our analysis. The analysis is focused on the emergence and evolution of the professional community among the project participants. It addresses the complexity found in developing a group identity and reconstructing individual identities to present best practice through videotaped vignettes. The analysis process is reflexive and evolves in response to the lived realities encountered in the setting (LeCompte & Schensul, 1999). We adopted Denzin’s (1989) interpretive process for data analysis. Through chronicling and archiving
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the project over a 3-year period, we were able to capture the emergence and establishment of the professional community among the participants. As participant researchers, keeping notes and memos throughout the life of the project allowed us to generate over time the lens for our analysis of the process. We also adopted the integration of research constructs and literature articulated by Ely et al. (1997). Our initial literature review provided context and rationale for the work of the project. This initial review of literature was foundational. During the analysis process, this foundational literature is revisited, as well as new literature to inform the analysis. Continuing with Denzin’s process, data were then organized into categories of meaning, guided by constructs identified in studies of group communication, discourse processes, and teachers and teaching. Recurring patterns of identity development, discourse processes, and ideational evolution were identified in the analysis. Lastly, we describe these patterns in terms of their relationship to the evolution and maintenance of the professional community that emerged in and through the work of the Binda Exemplars of Excellence Project.
ANALYSIS The Development of Individual and Community Identities We understand identity to be a socially constructed sense of the self. Palmer (1998) defines identity as an ongoing, complex process of self-discovery. The construction of identity is not a solitary process but is situated in multiple and shifting contexts (Gergen, 1989). Identity is constructed in response to a sense of other; identity grows out of communally shared meanings that are deeply constitutive of who people believe they are (Shotter, 1989). Our analysis of the Binda Project revealed a simultaneous development of identity among the participants: (1) the evolution of individual teachers’ identities as educators and (2) the development of a group identity that fostered the building of a professional community. These two dimensions of identity were dialectic, formed and maintained in the spaces created for dialog. Fostering the Development of a Community Identity As the faculty facilitators, we made a deliberate effort to foster building a community in the first project institutes. Establishing a group identity was embedded in this effort, as we recognized that a group identity was essential to the work that lay ahead of us in the project. The participants came to see
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themselves as individuals invested in a collective endeavor that was innovative. To illustrate, here are representative comments from three teacher exemplars as they culminated the 3-year project: The Binda Project refreshed me. I feel like I dissected my teaching. It was also wonderful to work with, and get to know so many wonderful people working in education. Marty I can say that I learned so much and the development of the community of educators made this a truly rewarding experience and worth all the work. Melody What a wonderful process it was! The Binda Project really had me examine myself as a teacher. Not only in my techniques and strategies, but, most importantly, it made me take a closer look at myself as a teacher and the ‘‘heart of teaching.’’ It was a painful process to watch yourself teaching and seeing the students that you didn’t reach and knowing there wasn’t a take two or second chance for that student and that moment in the time of their life. It was also a celebration when the tapes captured something you didn’t plan, but it was just one of the best teachable moments. Most of all it made me proud to be someone who loves spending their day with children; I love what I am doing and I can’t imagine doing anything else. Thanks for the opportunity. Sandy
We began as a collection of individuals who shared a common purpose and had knowledge of collaboration. Initially, we saw ourselves as a group of teachers and teacher educators who shared the same values and goals. However, shared purpose and knowledge are not necessarily antecedents of a sense of cohesion. Cohesiveness is the social bridge that connects members of a group; groups must have a sense of ‘‘togetherness’’ and a willingness to belong (Cragan & Wright, 1991). It is the bond group members construct that protects the discursive boundaries through which they identify themselves as a group (Goffman, 1959), which increases as norms for interaction stabilize within the group (Cragan & Wright, 1991). Groups engage in different kinds of talks that are relational and important to the development of positive relationships among group members. Through formally planned and impromptu discussions in the institutes, participants engaged in dialog that fostered the development of cohesion among the group members, thus building community. As one teacher asserted: I keep thinking this is a lot of responsibility. And then we go to lunch and I come back in this room and there’s a lot of support and you’re not ‘‘home alone.’’ I think there’s a lot of reflection time that everyone is going to be doing, but there’s always hopefully the opportunity to go to an expert for help and support. PJ
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This was the kind of community tie that we sought to cultivate through the institute experiences. Using Cultural Introductions to Build a Community Identity. Hare asserts that ‘‘emergent creativity is work that is highly insightful and integrative. It often interprets what has been going on in a group and brings together in a meaningful way a series of experiences’’ (Hare, 1992, cited in Jarobe, 1999, p. 341). With this in mind, a variety of activities were included to foster this communal integration and interpretation. One such activity that dramatically influenced the integration and interpretation of our group identity was the use of cultural introductions. This particular approach to introductions was presented at the Multicultural Education Infusion Center Summer Institute (MEIC, 1994) and was adapted to our purposes in the Binda Project. Each member of the group was invited to share who they were as cultural beings. Culture was defined broadly for the group and included race, ethnicity, social class, gender, sexual orientation, primary and secondary languages, age, birthplace and growing up place(s), influential growing up experiences, education, family life, professional life, as well as other facets of each individual’s cultural experience that they saw as necessary to help us understand who they were and what they brought to the community we were building. The members of the group gathered in a circle. The facilitator introduced the concept of cultural introductions to the group: Now we’re going to move into the next segment of our time together today and it’s the beginning of us trying to accomplish a very important goal that we have. And that is, we have five days together to begin to build as solid a community as is possible in that short time frame. We want very much to develop increased camaraderie, understanding of one another as human beings, be as close to ‘‘on the same page,’’ if you will, with this project as we can be. That there would be feelings of trust and support, and that when we leave, and say our temporary good-byes, that we will leave feeling a tie and a connection to one another that will sustain us as we move through the coming years together. So it’s important to those of us who have been designing this week to build that community, because we know, just like you know, that people, human beings, whether they’re five or fifty-five, don’t learn, don’t grow together, don’t develop in the ways they would like to, unless they feel a part of the community that they’re connected to. With that in mind, we made the decision as we were planning for this week, to start our time together with cultural introductions. Rather than describe them, I’m going to share mine with you. And then we’ll invite you, as you feel so inclined, to introduce yourselves. Lynn NJ
Members of a group who share their personal histories share intimacies that foster a sense of affiliation and affection toward one another. Cohesion
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and coherence become a reality in experiences of this kind (Cragan & Wright, 1991). The cultural introductions were one avenue through which we introduced ourselves as persons, as cultural, biographical beings. This particular activity also became a space where the teacher participants shared their reasons for participating in the project and, in essence, asserted their professional identity and intent in applying and accepting their roles as members of our developing community: I applied for this project because I have had opportunity to work with interns a bit in the last six or seven years and really have enjoyed it. As Marty mentioned, it keeps you fresh, they bring in new ideas, and I enjoy sharing my ideas with them. And now I’m looking forward to the opportunity to expand that to other university students who might not encounter me every day. Kim I’ve been teaching for sixteen years and I am really happy to be a teacher. I’m real excited with some new developments about how to teach second languages and I’m really happy and the kids are catching on real quick. I’m real excited to be meeting here. For years I would say, ‘If they would just teach the teachers how to do dah-dah-dah-dah-dah. Well here’s my chance to put it on the line. Ronnie I’ve also gotten involved in this and I also have had interns. And after having talked with interns and exposing them to things that they said they had never seen before, they had only heard about them; like constantly coming in afraid of classroom management. They didn’t know what to do about it and thinking that’s what they needed before they got thrown into a classroom situation, I thought well, here we go, a perfect opportunity. Soy Melody I think in Vicksburg, although we have our problems, we have over the years had a lot of opportunities to have a lot of independence and to experiment on our own in teams or in pods or in whatnot. So I think that was one of the reasons that this project seemed interesting to me. I’m not sure that we necessarily bring the same kinds of experiences as other schools because over the years we have had a huge amount of autonomy in our own decision-making processes. I’m interested to see how that compares with other schools and share. Carol
Through the kinds of activities described above, community cohesion and coherence emerged among participants, and this fostered a strong sense of ‘‘we.’’ In essence, we began to interpret our experiences as a community and to feel the integrative impact of that community interpretation (Hare cited in Jarobe, 1999, p. 341). Later, within the same week of the Summer 2001 Institute, Mike shared his response to the first week. He remarked in one of his daily written
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evaluations: Dear God! Perhaps I have finally found a place to grow and share what I have evolved to professionally! The stories told, the nodding heads, the teary eyes y these people really seem to know teaching is about. They are teaching human beings not curriculums not state objectives, not district goals, but loving, happy, sad, defiant, compliant, L.D., ‘‘gifted,’’ living, breathing human beings with all the positives and all the negatives that entails. Few of my ‘‘home’’ colleagues understand, really understand, what I am about; these folks do. Mike
Propp (1999) asserts that members of a group who have increased knowledge of one another’s interaction styles and skills are less likely to experience process losses. They are also less likely to experience evaluation apprehension or suppress conflict. Mike’s open sharing serves to illustrate the willingness he felt to discuss his conflicts and challenges as a member of this community where our styles and skills had been shared through dialog and taped episodes of our teaching. Resolving Issues and Concerns Together to Build Community. Another episode serves to illustrate this development as well. In one of our discussions, the idea emerged that there would likely be criticism of the tape content and that some of the episodes should involve attempts and failures, not only our successes. Two key comments, one from a teacher participant and one from a professor participant, in this particular episode include: I’m an art teacher and I’m used to critique.y This is good and this is better and this is what you need to do differently. And I kind of came into this thinking,’’ ‘Okay, some of the things I do on tape are going to be good, and then some of the things some would say, ‘Don’t do that.’ ‘‘And then we had this discussion about how that’s not going to happen. But if these tapes are put in front of people to be discussed, it is going to happen. There is someone who is going to say well, that’s the situation, maybe doing thus and so would have been better. So I think we need to be aware of that. If we’re going to put our work on the line in front of people, good things and bad things are going to be said about it. It’s just part of the process of critique. That’s what we’re about. Cheryl And wouldn’t we want to have as a part of our work, not just messy details. These are really important parts of who we are.y I was gonna say when you said maybe have a day when you don’t think there’s anything particularly worth talking about or whatever, to me it’s doubly important on those days to talk it through or write it through, because I think that I learn more from my non-examples than from examples. When I’ve really done something that didn’t work, as I try to sort through, ‘‘What in the hell happened today.’’ That is very instructive.y Think about who might end up looking at some of these tapes, wanting to know your thought processesytalking through that could be more important for them than talking about ‘‘Here’s this great thing and it turned out perfectly.’’ Kathy
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This was a critical juncture in the development of our community identity and the trust and confidence that came with that. Teachers felt secure and able to expose their flaws as teachers, because they believed those difficult moments were critical to learning for themselves, and, therefore, would be good for teacher education students. The professor participants felt safe to offer insights because the teacher participants were receptive. The inclusion of such moments about the teachers’ practice reflects one dynamic of community among the group. To make public one’s failures and flaws leaves one very vulnerable. Teachers trusted the group members to understand and view their flawed teaching in the spirit of educating teacher candidates. They trusted that the critique from our group would be about editing to best address the needs of teacher candidates, as opposed to a critique about their teaching. In their collective and individual minds, their imperfection became purposeful. Shortly after this episode, another key step in our growth emerged where the meaning of ‘‘exemplar’’ in our community and in our individual identities became a reality. The name ‘‘exemplar’’ was given to the group by the dean who named the project. Even though we understood that each person came to the group with certain expertise, the concept ‘‘exemplar’’ was neither defined nor did we own it as our own until the end of the first week. One of the professor participants asserted: We’re really getting to the point of defining ourselves; we haven’t so far and couldn’t until we got here. And it’s interesting, because there are two things that this is about. I’m just noticing that we are bouncing back and forth on this thing. But it strikes me thatywell it’s a question, ‘‘Are these tapes examples of excellence or are you the exemplars of excellence?’’ and we’re going to build an incredible library of teachings and this becomes a powerful teaching tool where excellent teachers continue to struggle and talk about their successes and talk about their failures and talk about the days that are so mundane that ‘‘I just couldn’t see anything happen.’’ I mean it’s a really rich documentary, our version of ‘‘48 Hours.’’ Do you know what I’m saying. I don’t think the tapes have to be the exemplars of excellence. Lynn B.
There was a moment to digest what Lynn asserted, and then a realization rippled through the group. The group talked about the difference between identifying the teachers as the source of meaningful teaching we wanted to capture versus well-executed instruction. However, that moment also took a turn that might have divided the group. There was great a uptake in terms of defining the teachers as exemplars. Inadvertently, that definition excluded the professor participants. It was a moment in which the role of the university faculty was in tension. In the course of the discussion, Lynn added
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that the faculty participants were also exemplars in a different way. We were specifically chosen by the dean because we had particular expertise. To assert that we were exemplars of teacher education with pre-professional and professional teachers while working with practicing teachers was not only awkward, but also a risk. The teachers might have interpreted the assertion as a move to usurp something from them. It was critical to the group that we perceive one another as true colleagues. Yet, in that moment, the assertion might have been perceived as an attempt to impose an artificial hierarchy of expertise on the group. Fortunately, the idea that we were all exemplars was taken up in a positive way. The discussion continued with defining both the expertise of the teachers and clarifying the role of the professors. This was a significant development in three ways: (1) Individually, we clarified that the teacher participants were the exemplars as opposed to the teaching vignettes. Taking ownership of being the exemplars heightened individuals’ sense of participation. (2) It reaffirmed the role of the professor participants as experts without imposing a sense of hierarchy upon the teachers or the process. It clarified that our ‘‘behind the scenes’’ roles were critical to the success of the final products. (3) It forged a common identifier among the group that furthered the sense of ‘‘we-ness’’ without which much of the later work would have been hampered. Articulating and then owning the name ‘‘exemplar’’ was not an inconsequential moment. The moment for the group was actually celebrated. One of the participating professors came to a following institute day with T-shirts she had made for everyone that said, ‘‘We have seen the exemplars and they are us.’’ Cragan and Wright (1991) note that moments of celebration often mark a group’s acknowledgment to one another of their sanctioning a group identity. Naming is a powerful element of identity development. Friere (1992/1994) defined naming as praxis through which what is named is transformed. The name ‘‘exemplar’’ unfolded to the group as our defining metaphor and the definition of who we sought to represent through the vignettes. The ‘‘We are the Exemplars’’ episode illustrates a clear pattern of identity development that emerged in the analysis. Each turn in the process involved revealing more of the intimacies of one’s practice, while risk and vulnerability were also heightened. With each turn in the process, the teachers did reveal more of themselves and were willing to examine and re-examine their teaching. With each turn we, as professor participants, had to continually assess and negotiate how we balanced leading the process as facilitators with guiding the process as experienced colleagues. This developmental process
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then continued through other kinds of experiences that ‘‘the exemplars’’ had. It is important to note that close examination of the taped data for each of the subsequent institutes and study groups reveals that, without exception, throughout the 3-year period, the group membership referred to themselves as ‘‘the exemplars.’’ Clearly, this ‘‘identity moment’’ was well grounded among the group members. Just as the group identity was constructed and solidified, we also found that through the taping and editing processes, individual identities of the teachers were reconstructed. Fostering the Re-construction of Individual Professional Identities The Effects of the Selection Process on Professional Identity. The teachers came to the project having been identified as master teachers. They were selected as participants through an application process that included a recommendation from their respective building principals. They saw themselves as skilled teachers and were interested in contributing to teacher education in a different way. All were mentor teachers working with interns in our school/university partnership. They identified themselves, and were acknowledged as having expertise as teachers of children and experience working with teacher candidates. Thus, the selection process itself was a confirmation of their professional identities as excellent teachers. Videotaping, the Editorial Process, and Professional Identity Re-Construction. As teachers began identifying what to videotape, they began a process of unveiling their teacher-selves. What they chose to tape was not predetermined; it was emergent. Emergent creativity is work that is highly insightful and integrative. It often interprets what has been going on in a group and brings together in a meaningful way a series of experiences (Hare cited in Jarobe, 1991). The taping, reviewing, and editing processes provided spaces for finding those moments in their teaching that they believed were best practice. Initially, the videotaping process was an overwhelming prospect for the participating teachers. By way of illustration, let us describe a particular sequence of events. As the project teachers first began to videotape, they felt a great deal of anxiety about filming in their classrooms, the potential for it being intrusive for their students, and general insecurity about seeing themselves on tape. In response to these concerns, we developed a session that was focused on videotaping and self-identity. Those who facilitated this 2day session came with ample experience in classroom videotaping and analysis. The project teachers had the opportunity to listen, practice, discuss, and problem solve with the facilitators. As they concluded this day,
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their evaluations of the experience and how they were seeing themselves included these remarks: The project is much clearer now from a logistical view. I understand better how this filming will be critiqued, edited, and shown. There are such varied applications: for the practitioner, for the intern, for collegial input and for student self-analysisy Again, another day of thinking, thinking where do we go from here is the question that comes to mind. What will this all look like in the end. Perhaps it is safe to say that we have the goal and the vision, but we just don’t know what it will look like. I do know it will show some of the best teaching, because I also think that not only will [university] students learn about ‘good’ teaching, but they will also be excited about the calling they have for teaching and living with children. It will let pre-service teachers see what living with teaching is.
The teachers left with increased confidence and determined to move forward with their videotaping process. However, what emerged from this session was the necessity for a cataloging system that would allow them to maintain order within each set of tapes and across all 12 sets. The project professors then met to prepare for the next session, and necessarily prepared plans for a cataloging system. And so it went. People on the cusp of developing new expertise and understanding, only to be introduced to the next new idea or skill that they would need to incorporate in their growing repertoire. In making the decision of what to tape, the teachers had to step out of the day-to- day, in-the-moment activities of teaching and examining their own practices. This was a different kind of examination, one unfamiliar to most of the teachers. It was not the evaluation most experience in their careers in which they prove their ability and establish the quality of what they do, as two teachers asserted: Maybe that’s a part of the project. I said, man, I think I’m real excited about this, and at the same time then things keep coming, and I think to myself this is a heck of a lot of work and a heck of a lot of time and I don’t know if I’m really ready. This thing with the tapes is making us look at and examine ourselves, and examine our strengths and examine our weaknesses. Sandy But the fact that I choose to bother to continue to struggle, I think that’s a reallyythat really hit me. It’s not like we’re trying to prove to anybody that ‘‘Hey, look I can do X, Y, and Z.’’ No, I can take my dog and pony show on the road anytime I want, but the fact that I choose to try to keep getting better at what I do, that may be something that we all need to keep looking at. Carol
Part of their self-examination process was focused on a careful consideration of what was meant by best practice. They looked to definitions
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outside of themselves and then to the Binda group in an effort to define the term. This exchange is indicative of the discussions that surrounded this defining process: Lynn: Carol: Lynn:
Sarah:
Melody:
Sarah:
What we want on tape is the best stuff you’ve got. Unfortunately, I don’t figure that out until after it happens. Yes, exactly, it’s that back and forth that we’ve talked about. That’s why it can’t be, ‘‘Here’s the list of stuff we’re gonna tape, look for that.’’ It can’t be like that. And there are the non-examples we’ve talked about. Even though you are exemplars, there are non-example moments that are very powerful, so to hear your reflections about those would be very powerful for undergraduates. In fact, that’s important, because I know when I was looking at my tapes, I was looking at this one tape and I thought, ‘‘I’m thinking that I’m this teacher, that I don’t spout off to these kids all of the time, but gee I’m talking an awful lot. Why am I doing this? And I look at this activity that they’re doing and I’m thinking, you know I could have done this instead of what I did because of whereymore towards what I wanted to get from them, so it is almost critical to say what I could have been done differently or better. And I’ve got to mention that in my journal. That’s part of best practice when we say what could I have done better.
In one respect, this self-examination process was deeply introspective and personal. It was a creative process through which the teachers redefined their identities as teachers. As one of the professors described: I think it’s also so deeply personal. There’s the teacher knowledge base and there are common things that we know about teaching and learning and things that we want to share, but your best practice is your best practice, with those kids in that context in that moment. And you’re the one who can tell that it’s the best practice. We’ll end up having some common things, but I feel strongly after this week’s experience that you are the one who will decide what your best practice is and why. Lynn B.
At the same time, the process of viewing, choosing, and editing among the many hours of tape fostered moments of self-examination and self-discovery that moved between private and public moments. As Vygotsky discussed the
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learning process, he examined moments such as these by asserting that our learning emerges in cultural context through our social interactions, what he referred to as intrapsychological. He went on to assert that over time, as we engage in that cultural context, the learning becomes an individual function, what he referred to as interpsychological (Vygotsky, 1978). Such was the case here, as the members of our community engaged in multiple discussions and activities as a group, defining and redefining their community, and then they began to reconstruct their understanding of who they were as individual teachers, teacher educators, and as Binda exemplars. This stage of the process was an important shift for us as professor participants; at this point, we moved from facilitating the larger group tasks to supporting the teachers as they entered into new territory – deep self-reflection and going public with the intimacies of their teaching. It required letting go of more explicit direction of the process and ‘‘stepping aside’’ to open the space for the teachers to do the work of examining their own teaching on their own terms. It was a phase in the process where we now had to be comfortable with and open to the uncertainty of what would come next, because what came next was determined by each teacher’s individual process. Through redefining their teaching and identities, the teachers constructed a ‘‘life story.’’ Linde (1993) explains that life stories are neither linear nor ordered. An individual constructs a life story over time and through multiple tellings of salient moments. In the telling and retelling of their teachingselves through the process of producing the video segments, coherence, in the literary sense, was created; this held the story of individual teachers’ identities together. The construction of a life story is not an isolated, solo activity, but involves the interaction with and interpretation of others. Hauerwas (1981/1994) wrote that change or transformation is dependent upon learning the skills of interpretation to make sense of our own lives. In order to reinterpret our lives, both individually and collectively, ‘‘we need a story that not only provides the means to acknowledge our own blunders as part of our own story, but to see ourselves in a story where even our blunders are part of an ongoing grace, i.e. are forgiven and transformed for the greater good’’ (Hauerwas, 1994, p. 146). The outward task of the teachers was to create a series of vignettes that illustrated exemplary teaching – warts and all. The process engaged them in constructing a story that illuminated and assisted them to reconstruct their teaching identities through their Binda community experience. Professional Identity and ‘‘Going Public’’ in the Binda Community. The transformation of teachers’ identities continued and was most marked by
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their willingness to own the process, to allow the intimacies of their own teaching practice, to become public, and to articulate their developmental process publicly. During Years 1 and 2, their public telling was within the quarterly institute and monthly study group contexts. Most of the teachers actively participated in these processes. We observed the development in individual identities in our monthly study groups when teachers first brought their raw video to share and talk about what they should choose to edit. Initially, the small group sharing was a challenge for some; but ‘‘going public’’ within the Binda community became productive for most of the teachers. Here we gathered in small groups to view the raw tapes and talk about what we saw in each teacher’s tape: Working in small groups has been productive today; vision, insight, and practical ways we could use our documentation were manifest. I’d like to work like this again! Narrowing the footage down and aligning it with the outcomes was helpful and less arbitrary, less overwhelming. P.J. It was helpful to sit down with my group and look at all the things going on in the tape. We discussed it and came up with an overall group theme of ‘‘building a community of learners.’’ No Name Listed Today was very productive. It was most helpful having others view our tapes long with us to give us input and ideas for how to edit and how to use the segments.y I don’t feel we need to do anything different next time because this was great. Melody
During our discussions as a whole group about reviewing tapes, we focused on the idea that ‘‘outsiders’’ to the interaction on the tapes would be able to see what the teacher who taped might not see. That is, as the teachers being filmed, they potentially could become too ‘‘close’’ to see well. The need for people outside of their classroom worlds to see their tapes and assist them in their editorial decision making began to become a way of life in the Binda community. As one teacher participant put it: I think today was good – one more day of categorizing and then I feel we should start editing. I felt better when our professor was with us because she’s our customer – How can you use this? Would you use this? Ronnie
Hearing others describe their teaching and respond to their raw film footage in conversation was a risk most of the teacher participants were willing to take. The process of reviewing and commenting on one another’s
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tapes also led most of them to greater comfort and then to move beyond being comfortable to a place in which they could have that ‘‘out of body’’ experience and think with others about their teaching. These sessions, where film footage was shared and discussed, brought a clear shift in teacher identity for most of the teachers: yThe process of getting to know ourselves – seeing me, seeing you, seeing us – has really enhanced my appetite for learning in a community, my enjoyment and need for discourse to feed me both professionally and personally. Learning together.y It’s a good thing. Thanks. P.J. Today was helpful. I see more clearly the ties to the outcomes and how this will serve our department and the College of Education. I also see Judy and Marty connecting about early childhood education and learning/thinking together. It is time for this. Lynn N.J. Today was very helpful. For the first time I didn’t feel alone on this project. It was so helpful to get feedback and have conversation about the tapes. I feel that I have a focus now. I know what to look for. Marty It was helpful to be able to meet with a teacher at my level and view and discuss the tapes. We seem to be getting closer to deciding what it is we really want the tapes to show. I would like to meet with Marty next time and would then like to have a ‘‘What’s Next Plan.’’ Judy
Individual Teacher Identity and ‘‘Going Public’’ at National Conferences. Starting in Year 2 and increasing at a rapid pace in Year 3, the exemplars took the opportunity to present at national conferences about their experiences and growth as Binda exemplars. One such venue was the national Curriculum and Pedagogy Conference. Here, Dawn and P.J. spoke eloquently about their heightened experience in terms of examining their own practice, even though they were a teaching team at their school and often discussed what they did as teachers in that context. They spoke of becoming accustomed to such discussions with university faculty and their principal through their development as Binda exemplars. In addition, they spoke of their ability to stop and step back, an ability that was afforded by technology. They discussed the way that technology allowed them to view and think about their practice incrementally, both alone and with others. They saw this process as significant to what they learned about themselves and their practice. Later, Dawn commented on the impact ‘‘going public’’ at national conferences had on her development: I went to present at a national conference in California and another conference in Georgia. Through these experiences and the other experts that I was put into the group
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with, I began to have more confidence in myself and what I was doing. I think people can see this in the way I did my job, the way I communicate with other adults, and the way I pursue my passions that apply to my career. I am sad to see this project end and I will have to find ways to continue with what has already been started.
This illustrates a clear pattern in identity development as teachers learned to ‘‘go public’’ about their teaching. With each turn in the process that involved revealing more of the intimacies of their teaching, risk and vulnerability also were heightened. With each turn in the process, most of the teachers did reveal more of themselves and were willing to examine and reexamine their teaching. Through ‘‘going public,’’ those teachers who participated in the process re-constructed their identities. Sustaining the Community when the Development of Individual Identities Faltered The examination of one’s priorities and of one’s practice is neither easy nor comfortable. It takes acknowledging to one’s self the flaws and inconsistencies, and it is all the more difficult to allow them to be public, even with a sympathetic group. This was also a significant development in terms of both the individual and the community identities to fully acknowledge that ‘‘going public’’ also meant relinquishing authority to interpret one’s teaching first to others who are known, and eventually to unknown others. Part of the shift in identity was owning the vulnerability comfortably that happens with ‘‘going public.’’ In the end, not all of the teachers were willing to ‘‘go public’’ on a regular basis, and something was diminished in the identity of the group because of it. There was some procrastination and some discord over what they were supposed to be doing as well as some ‘‘work slowdowns.’’ Still we were able to sustain the work through quarterly institutes, monthly small group study sessions, and one-on-one support as the thrust of our work necessarily shifted from a group orientation to individual’s focusing on the development of their teaching vignettes in Years 2 and 3 (see the section on When Teachers Struggled to Move Forward with Representation for a more detailed discussion of the challenge with ‘‘going public’’ and the ways in which it impacted the identity re-construction process and final tape results of two teachers in the group). The Task at Hand: Is it Presentation or Representation? Interaction with each other and with the technology influenced the development of both the community and the teachers’ identities. The ability to stop and step back afforded by technology, the way that technology allowed them to view and think incrementally, alone and with others, was significant
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to what they learned about themselves and their practice. Simultaneous to the development of identity among the community members was the development of the task at hand, i.e. to develop teaching vignettes. The development of the teachers’ identities and the development of the task were interwoven and reflexive. As their identities evolved and the defining of the task emerged, what the vignettes would ultimately become unfolded. From the beginning of the project, the group shared a vision of creating a library of teaching vignettes. We saw the library as a resource to help future teachers learn to observe, to critique best practices, and to meet the challenges they will face in their future careers. While the group shared this vision, the vision itself did not determine what the actual work would be. What the teachers would present in their teaching episodes was not pre-determined. Thus, essential to the work of the group and to the success of the project was task development (Cragan & Wright, 1991) and ideational evolution (Hirokawa & Johnston, 1989). The objective task, the work of the group, and the structural characteristics of the task determine a set of functional requirements the group must overcome. A group presented with an open task is faced with the challenge of generating and developing a range of optional choices to reach the final decision. If such a task is novel to the group members, then they must also understand the task and the demands it places on them, as well as recognize the obstacles and barriers to successful task completion (Hirokawa & Salazar, 1999, p. 183).
The objective or literal work of the group was to use video technology to tape, review, and edit episodes of their teaching and classrooms. The literal task implied a set of procedures to complete. However, the literal task did not imply two critical dimensions of the work for the teachers: (1) how to go about enacting these implied procedures and (2) defining what they were representing in the vignettes of their teaching. Our analysis describes the emergence of the groups’ ideas about what the teaching vignettes should represent and how that vision evolved. Shifts in the teachers’ thinking as they moved from technical presentations to representations of their teaching through images and metaphors were evident in the project institute dialogs and in the study group meetings. Following the initial experiences, the faculty structured to create a space in which discussion and dialog were open, the work of the group turned to getting started with the task of videotaping. Early on in the project, the teachers’ focus for their videotaping was technically oriented. They imagined a library of vignettes that would illustrate techniques and teaching models applied well in the classroom. They assumed that inherent in the task was a pre-determined set of teaching topics to address. Classroom
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management techniques, instructional models, and teaching strategies, as well as assessment strategies were the standard tripartite they initially discussed. For example, Melody describes intern teachers she had mentored in the past: I’ve also gotten involved in this [The Binda Project] and I also have had interns. And after having talked with interns and exposing them to things that they said they had never seen before, they had only heard about them, like constantly coming in afraid of classroom management. They didn’t know what to do about it and thinking that’s what they needed [to see] before they got thrown into a classroom situation, I thought well, here we go, a perfect opportunity. Soy
Others discussed taping the applications of specific models, for example, Madeline Hunter’s ITIP lesson plan structures and management models like Harry Wong’s. Their focus was how to stage their taping and teaching to best present how they applied various techniques and strategies in their classrooms. Underlying this first idea was the assumption that what would be videotaped was a fairly straightforward, tangible exhibition of their teaching techniques. In the course of the discussions, a shift occurred that moved the group forward in terms of ideational evolution and task development. Underlying the initial discussions was the process of the group taking ownership of the task and redefining what the work was to be about. The beginning idea or vision of the work was articulated by Dean England on the first day the project members gathered: The Binda Project is a teacher’s project, it’s success or failure will be defined by the degree to which you can deliver the goods and make the kind of contribution that we are looking for. The idea is fairly simple. We’re going to make very heavy use of video tape and we’re going to ask you to work with us and the faculty facilitators to video tape a lot of instruction. It’s not our plan or intent that you video tape scripted instruction. It’s not our plan or intent that you video tape model lesson plans that you design for this project. What we want to see is as much of you as we can capture doing what on a day-to-day basis all of the excellent things that outstanding teachers do. Then we would like to work with you to edit from that abundance of tape what we’re calling vignettes, which through the lens that we’re going to try to help you sharpen during this week and during our [future] interaction with you, you [will] look back over that instruction and you’ll be looking for particular things. You’ll be looking for, in effect, teachable vignettes for the people who are to be taught, the future teachers. The end goal is that we will have a well-edited, integrated, knowledge-based library of vignettes that you will help us produce.
During the first week-long institute, the teachers’ thinking shifted. As the group discussed categories of moments to tape, they began to move from the initial ideas toward more open-ended ideas. They began to talk about scenarios that might arise, e.g. if they were going to tape a particular strategy,
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what they would want to show. Within these discussions, an important shift occurred as the teachers engaged the task. They moved from simply adopting the vision presented to them to molding and adapting it; thus, as a community they began to take ownership of the work. This was a significant dynamic in the evolution of the task (Cragan & Wright, 1991). Taking ownership was a way for the group to begin to redefine the task in ways that moved beyond the technical and in ways that worked for them philosophically and theoretically: Just a couple of things. I’m trying to go back to when I was in school and I was a first year teacher and all of those things that I couldn’t do, but I knew those good teachers were doing, but how do you get to that? You can’t just do XYZ and then you get it. I want to get some of that, I’m hoping, on a tape, that growth and how you get there. So I’m thinking like in my classroom, the development of the community, how do we develop that community? Can I get that on a tape when I am sharing a tape recorder? How do you talk with children and how do you really listen to childrenynot that teachers have all of the answers, that those kids know you care because of the listening that’s going on that’s part of the community building. The struggle that I still go through and the growth that I get by that struggle. I want that on tape. As I said yesterday, I want to see the metamorphosis of me, because I know I’ve gone through an extreme metamorphosis, because PJ will tell me that. ‘‘You’re so different from when you first started.’’ I want to get on tape the collegiality of this whole thing and how much better it is to go out there and find someone to work with and not to close your door. Dawn I started by saying that when I came Monday, I kind of had a clear vision. Well, then,y it got a little more confusing, but not confusing in a bad way. It made me stretch out a bit and see what more you can do with this. So I’m not really sure of what that end result is going to be. And that’s good. I don’t think we should know, or what the products going to be and where we’re going to go with it. But I also said that I hope in the midst of us all growing as teachers, we still don’t change the initial vision. Because I think also the initial vision is because we are working with pre-service teachers, the ultimate goal is for our students and that they can have excellence in their teachers. Sandy
With the teachers’ first efforts to tape their teaching and with subsequent discussions of their experiences, a second shift in the development of the task began to occur in December 2002. They talked about presenting an idea or a concept of teaching on tape, rather than discrete techniques. In the study/work session, we planned moments in which the teachers shared some of the teaching they had taped in order to think together about what they were presenting. What emerged in those discussions was a changed definition of the task. What they thought they were presenting on the tapes moved from reproducing techniques to presenting moments of teaching that might convey concepts (e.g. group dynamics, emergent literacy, negotiating with
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learners). For example, the first session where teachers brought raw film footage that they considered ‘‘vignette material’’ was an extremely challenging session for every member of the group. The teachers were organized into mixed grade groups, they each took turns having the members of their group review their tape segment, and then they discussed their thoughts about the potential for using the particular segment that they had all reviewed. Melody, a high school biology teacher, brought a segment in which her students were participating in a hands-on final exam where they were placed in the role of a forensic scientist and had to problem solve about a criminal investigation that would require biological evidence for the trial. What happened in Melody’s case is illustrative of what happened across the groups on that day. Her group reviewed her tape segment and then Melody began to talk about her thoughts related to using the segment as one of her vignettes. She struggled. First she talked about discrete moments in the tape related to interactions between students. She went on to talk about the biology content that was a part of the exam. What she was not able to describe was what she set out to do in this particular segment, i.e. to create a model for a unit that engages students in group work, inquiry, and content. But her model was not a ‘‘recipe’’ and what she shared was not a discrete set of steps to take. She wanted to share her vision, but what she ended up sharing was more a description or a timeline of the things that the students were doing in the segment. Those who were in her group had difficulty following what she was seeing, and, in fact, the members of the group saw the segment quite differently from her. The task for this particular study session was deliberate in its design, i.e. that we would view one another’s film segments together. The professors who designed the task were well aware that ‘‘outsiders’’ would see the segments differently from the teacher who ‘‘owned’’ them. However, this deliberate task did not move the group forward particularly well. Rather, the realization that their videotape segments were not as self-evident as the teachers assumed they would be was the instrumental element toward helping us to move forward in our thinking. The task had to be necessarily redefined at this point in time. The teachers would need to take ownership of their segments as well as identify clearly in their own minds and for others what concepts were distinctly portrayed in the tape episodes they intended to edit. In Melody’s case, what emerged is indicative of this step forward in our thinking. Small groups were reconfigured to group teachers by the grade level they were teaching. Melody was able to go on to identify the uniqueness
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of the methods she used to assess her students’ learning. She was able to identify her expertise in the integration of techniques to engage students in group inquiry. Eventually, the segment that she shared for the first time became one of her vignettes, which is focused on a criminal investigation biology unit that is clearly narrated, precise in its intent and definition, and still preserves the primary film footage from her classroom for observers to examine with her guidance as well as independently, if they so choose. The conceptual shift described above guided our efforts as the faculty facilitators to help the teachers make sense of the realizations that were occurring to them. The shift also led the teachers into a discussion of their teaching practices; these discussions began to move toward presenting concepts. The task was redefined as (1) making tangible on video what was opaque in terms of the teachers’ thinking processes, that is, their repertoire of methods designed to engage students in learning and (2) making tangible the ‘‘real time’’ of teachers interacting with students in classrooms. This conceptual shift led the teachers to redefine the task; they moved on from the idea that they would present the deliberate choices teachers make as a particular or specified kind of action. Instead, they would represent that teachers make their choices from a broad array of conceptual alternatives in their teaching repertoires (Clark & Peterson, 1986). When Teachers Struggled to Move Forward with Representation. It was at this point in our community and individual development processes that two of our teachers began to falter. Their participation in the small study groups had been strained. ‘‘Going public’’ had been uncomfortable. They were less active in the study groups than the other ten, and neither of the two had been willing to prepare to attend any conferences. They had expressed concern about knowing what to present, and the idea of representing their daily practice proved to be an enigma to them. Interestingly, a review of the data also reveals that these two teachers were the two who expressed apprehension early on with the cultural introductions, which they both referred to as ‘‘touchy-feely stuff.’’ By January 2003, the majority of teacher time with the project was spent in individual work and the group had made a conceptual shift to represent a variety of conceptual choices in their classrooms. There was nothing canned about the shift. It emerged from teachers working to represent the pedagogical and conceptual choices that were distinctive to their teaching. One of the two teachers persisted in clinging to the idea that she should present the tested and tried methods that had been marketed to teachers for years, that this should be the content of her vignettes. This was ultimately what she produced. Presenting techniques developed outside of herself was her focus,
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and this remained her focus throughout the remainder of the project. There was no attempt on her part to represent her distinctive pedagogical and conceptual choices. That she could not or did not want to participate in the close examination of her teaching remains an enigma. A number of opportunities were made available to share her perspective of her development and the reasons for her choices, but she opted to remain silent on both points. In one respect, the path this particular teacher chose to take is a matter of individual identity. At the same time, her choices are also a rejection of the re-definition of the Binda exemplar’s task, i.e. to represent what is distinctive and unique as opposed to presenting what has been created by others. She was successful in producing several vignettes that met the baseline criteria that were initially stipulated in the project, so technically she was successful. It is important to note that she did continue to be actively involved in the institutes, but her involvement in the study group sessions waned. The second teacher who also withdrew from the process once our task had been redefined to represent distinctiveness in our classrooms, has yet to complete his vignettes. He remained active in the institutes. He attended the study group sessions sporadically. Eventually, he completely withdrew from the production process. At this point in time, he has not completed any finished vignettes. Again, ample opportunity has been provided for him to share his concerns and perspectives, but he has chosen to remain silent about the reasons for his withdrawal from the production process. The change in the dynamics of the group had much to do with the redefinition of the task. An important dynamic in task development is the recurring patterns of tension and resolution that Bormann (1969) identified. Recurring moments of tension and resolution around the definition of the task propel a group to new and more intensive work as the task is redefined. Ten of the twelve teachers were genuinely propelled to new and more intensive work as we redefined our task, while one chose to remain with the original definition of our task and one withdrew from the production process altogether.
CONCLUDING REMARKS Building a Reflective Community through Professional Identity Re-Construction and Task Development The purpose of the Binda Project was to create a library of teaching vignettes that would further pre-service teachers’ learning to teach. In our
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analysis, we identified recurring patterns of interaction that reveal the deeply interwoven connections of individual identity re-construction and task development that shaped the evolution of the group as a reflective community of educators. In her recent study of teacher community in school settings, Little (2003) suggests that research ought to further address the specific aspects of teachers’ work that are illuminated through their interactions with one another. While the Binda Project was outside the school setting, our analysis of the group’s interactions furthers the research Little suggests through describing the ‘‘flow of interaction [that] show how teachers coconstruct representations of practicey’’ (p. 944). Merging Theory with Practice through Self-Examination and Reflection Self-examination was a creative process through which the teachers redefined their professional identities and the task of representing their practice. Through the entire process, teachers engaged in deeper levels of introspection that led them to ways of representing the artistry of their individual practices. The evolution of identity and the task illustrated in our analysis + (1995) described as a new episoffer further understanding of what Schon temology of practice that extends beyond traditional categories of teacher knowledge to include artistry and improvisation in teaching practices. Mesmer (1998) notes that professional education continues to reproduce the + separation of knowing and doing, and that ‘‘indeterminate zones’’ (Schon, 1995, cited in Mesmer, 1998) remain unrepresented in the research literature. Our analysis describes the process through which teachers came to a place in which they were able to articulate their teaching in ways that dissolved the separation of theory and practice. The teachers arrived at what Jackson (1968) described as uncovering the ‘‘hidden’’ side of teaching that illuminates the real competency in teachers’ work that is distinct among teachers. This unveiling helps us to better articulate a rejected distinction between theory and practice. In redefining their practice, the teachers revealed the reflexive nature of teaching, and as well as the in-the-moment decisions made in relation to the contexts of their classrooms. The distinction between theory and practice dissolved as they moved from technical definitions of their practice to represent, instead, that teachers make their choices from a broad array of conceptual alternatives in their teaching repertoires (Clark & Peterson, 1986). In other words, the teachers arrived at a place in which they were able to represent their teaching neither distinctly as practice or theory, but inseparably as both. They articulated the artistry of making curricular and pedagogical decisions from a
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theoretically grounded repertoire, represented in the edited images and metaphors of their teaching. Fostering Teacher Communities as Fluid, Evolving Entities Renewed interest in fostering teacher communities has generated new queries about their potency and complexity (Achinstein, 2002). Grossman, Wineburg, and Woolworth (2001) warn that ‘‘community’’ has lost its meaning in education, in part from over use and in part from a lack of clearly articulated features. They suggest research has not identified the dimensions of community that support the array of theoretical formulations about how community is supposed to function. Our descriptive analysis identified several important dynamics relevant to the development of a professional community. The initiation of the Binda Project brought together teachers and teacher educators who shared certain commitments to education and certain norms of behavior in a professional setting. However, what the group would become was not inherent in the project. In and through their interactions around the vision of a teaching library, the group negotiated who they were as a group, illustrated in moments like adopting the metaphor ‘‘exemplar.’’ The task was not predetermined either. Our analysis identified two related, parallel dynamics that influenced the construction of community: (1) development of a group identity in relation to the teachers’ individual identities and (2) task development in relation to introspection. The defining of the group as a professional community was manifested in the evolution of identity and task, in and through the teachers’ deep introspection of their teaching practices. The process of defining moved in recurring patterns of constructing and deconstructing their identities over time. Inseparably, as they redefined themselves as educators, the definition of the task moved to more sophisticated understandings of representation. The identity of the group was woven from these recurring patterns, and ultimately shaped how we defined ourselves as a professional community of educators. Thus, our analysis extends definitions of community (i.e. teacher community) that are based on identifying static features to understanding community as a fluid, evolutionary entity.
NOTES 1. For the duration of this chapter, we will refer to the K-12 public school teachers who participated in the Binda Project as ‘‘teacher participants’’ and ‘‘teachers.’’ We
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will refer to the university faculty who also participated as ‘‘professor participants’’ and ‘‘professors.’’
REFERENCES Achinstein, B. (2002). Conflict amid community: The micropolitics of teacher collaboration. Teachers College Record, 104(3), 421–455. Bachelard, G. (1958/1969). In: D. Russell (Trans.), The poetics of reverie. New York: Orion Press. Black, A. L., & Halliwell, G. (2000). Accessing practical knowledge: How? Why? Teaching and Teacher Education, 16, 103–115. Bormann, E. (1969). Discussion and group methods: Theory and practice. New York: Harper & Row. Clark, C., & Peterson, P. (1986). Teachers thought processes. In: M. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed.). New York: Macmillan Publishers. Cragan, J., & Wright, D. (1991). Communication in small group discussion: An integrated approach (3rd ed.). New York: West Publishing Company. Darling-Hammond, L. (1999). Educating teachers for the next century: Rethinking practice and policy. In: G. Griffin (Ed.), The education of teachers: 98th NSSE yearbook. Chicago: National Society for the Study of Education. Denzin, N. K. (1989). Interpretive interactionism. Newbury Park, California: Sage. Ely, M., Vinz, R., Downing, M., & Anzul, M. (1997). On writing qualitative research: Living by words. Washington, DC: Falmer Press. Friere, P. (1992/1994). In: R. Barr (Trans.), Pedagogy of hope: Reliving pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. Gergen, K. (1989). Warranting voice and the elaboration of the self. In: J. Schotter & K. Gergen (Eds), Texts of identity (pp. 133–151). London: Sage. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday. Grossman, P., Wineburg, S., & Woolworth, S. (2001). Towards a theory of teacher community. Teachers College Record, 103(6), 942–1012. Hare, P. A. (1992). Groups, teams, and social interaction: Theories and applications (p. 39). New York: Praeger. Hauerwas, D. (1994). Characters, narrative, and growth. In: R. Anderson, R. Cissna & R. Arnett (Eds), The reach of dialgoue: Confirmation, voice, and community. New Jersey: Hampton Press Inc. (Reprinted from Hauerwas, F. (1981). A community of character: Toward a constructivist Christian social ethic (pp. 145–151). Indiana: The University of Notredame Press.) Hirokawa, R. Y., & Johnston, D. D. (1989). Toward a general theory of group decision making: Development of an integrated model. Small Group Behavior, 20, 500–523. Hirokawa, R. Y., & Salazar, A. J. (1999). Task-group communication and decision-making performance. In: L. R. Frey (Ed.), The handbook of group communication theory and research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Jackson, P. (1968). Life in classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. Jarobe, S. (1999). Group communication and creativity processes. In: L. R. Frey (Ed.), The handbook of group communication theory and research. New York: Sage.
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Jones, S. (2000). Feminist theory and Christian theology: Cartographies of grace. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Krieger, S. (1991). Social science and the self: Personal essays on an art form. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. LeCompte, M., & Schensul, J. (1999). Designing and conducting ethnographic research. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. Linde, C. (1993). Life stories: The creation of coherence. New York: Oxford University Press. Little, J. L. (2003). Inside teacher community: Representations of classroom practice. Teachers College Record, 105(6), 913–945. Mesmer, H. A. (1998). Living with uncertainty: A postmodern look at constructing identity within the PDS. Teacher Education, 10(1), 35–44. Scho+ n, D. (1995). Knowing-in-action: The new scholarship requires a new epistemology. Change, 27(60), 27–34. Shotter, J. (1989). Social accountability and the social construction of ‘‘you.’’ In: J. Shotter & K. Gergen (Eds), Texts of identity. London: Sage. Palmer, P. (1998). The courage to teach. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Propp, K. (1999). Collective information processing in groups. In: L. R. Frey (Ed.), The handbook of group communication theory and research (pp. 225–250). New York: Sage. Rogers, A. G. (1993). Voice, play, and a practice of ordinary courage in girls’ and women’s lives. Harvard Educational Review, 63(3), 265–295. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original Work Published in 1930, 1933, 1935). Zeichner, K. (1996). Designing educative practicum experiences for prospective teachers. In: K. Zeichner, S. Melnick & M. L. Gomez (Eds), Currents of reform in preservice teacher education. New York: Teachers College Press.
PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ IMAGES OF TEACHING H. Carol Greene and Susan G. Magliaro ABSTRACT This research investigated the creative representations and written reflections of 74 pre-service teachers in two teacher education courses from two large public research universities. Using qualitative methodology, this study examined images of teaching in conjunction with written reflections as a measure of the developmental level of learning to teach. As the representations were analyzed, the very personal nature in which these representations were constructed became apparent, along with the importance of the students’ own past personal experiences. Moreover, sophistication of reflective comments also differed across groups. Differences between the two groups are discussed and implications for future research are offered.
INTRODUCTION From a very early age, children are surrounded by images of teachers and teaching. In addition to the range of media images, college students have spent at least 13 years in formal academic settings. During this ‘‘apprenticeship of observation’’ (Lortie, 1975), students begin to develop their personal Learning from Research on Teaching: Perspective, Methodology, and Representation Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 11, 207–234 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1016/S1479-3687(05)11007-4
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images of what a teacher is and does. These images help students to identify norms and evaluate excellence in teaching (Eisner, 1998). Moreover, students’ early experiences filter the curricula found in more formal academic learning later introduced in teacher education programs (Feiman-Nemser & Remillard, 1996; Putnam & Borko, 1997). For pre-service teachers, this filtering determines how their university experiences will be interpreted (Ross, Johnson, & Smith, 1991). As teacher educators, it is important for us to be aware of the beliefs and representations pre-service teachers have about teaching so that we can help them grow in their development as teachers (Bullough & Gitlin, 1995). One way to tap into held beliefs and representations is through artistic forms of expression (Cole & Knowles, 2000). By encouraging forms of expression other than text-based renderings, we can examine the tacit dimension of personal knowledge that eludes our verbal capacities (Polyani, 1967). In fact, many of the elements that comprise the craft of teaching are nonverbal (e.g., Kounin, 1970; Scho¨n, 1983). Polyani not only said that we know more than we can tell, but that we tell far less than we know. It is at this point in research that we employ qualitative methodologies that utilize data sources different from the traditional interviews or observations. Data sources that open ‘‘notebooks of the mind’’ (John-Steiner, 1997) or representations other than verbal reports or writings are accessed using artistic displays like paintings, mobiles, dioramas, and collages. It is through these artistic displays that we begin to answer the following questions: 1. How do pre-service teachers represent their images of teachers and teaching? 2. How do these images provide insight into the students’ developmental levels in learning to teach? 3. What else can we learn from these alternative representations of teachers and teaching? 4. What are the strengths and limitations of using artistic images in understanding the learning to teach process?
LITERATURE REVIEW The literatures that informed this study emanated from the research on learning to teach, as well as the literature on alternate qualitative methodologies that have been used to study learning to teach. After a very brief look at the key ideas from the research on learning to teach that inform this
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research, a discussion of the methodologies that have been used to study images of teaching is offered.
Learning to Teach A predominant perspective in the study of learning to teach frames this endeavor as a developmental process, one that is built upon throughout the years, and one that changes and evolves (e.g., Sprinthall, Reiman, & ThiesSprinthall, 1996). Across this time, teachers make sense of their personal experiences through interpretation and the creation of unique frameworks of knowledge (Resnick, 1991; Richardson, 1999). As such, learning to teach is cumulative in nature, in that teachers learn from past experiences and these experiences filter future learning in the process of learning to teach. The research under girding this perspective focuses either on career development phases (e.g., Fessler & Christensen, 1992) or information processing (e.g., Berliner, 1986; Clark & Yinger, 1987). These perspectives help us to understand the thoughts and actions of teachers as they move across a career trajectory. That is, as teachers progress through their careers, we have, for example, some handle on their concerns, the ways they analyze problems, and the types of professional development that will facilitate their efforts in the classroom. Complementing this cognitive approach is Grimmett and MacKinnon’s (1992) ‘‘craft model’’ – a practice-based model based on the daily experiences of working in classrooms with children, content, and the educational context. The research that underlies this perspective focuses more on teachers’ stories, narratives of experiences, and images of idealized situations, people, and actions. Arising from this research are more subjective accounts that are based on intuitions, feelings, and accumulated wisdom of practice. Given that personal experience is part of one’s entire development as a person, Lortie’s (1975) finding that people experience an ‘‘apprenticeship of observation’’ just by being students in a classroom, it is clear that we all begin our teacher preparation programs the day that we begin formal schooling. So strong, in fact, are these experiences that researchers (e.g., Zeichner, 1986, 1987) have found that early conceptualizations are tightly held and interact with teacher education programs. We have known for some time now that pre-service teachers do not typically develop new perspectives throughout the course of their teacher education programs (Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1981) unless they are confronted with their held beliefs (Tom, 1997). They typically enter pre-service
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education programs as idealistic, liberal, and humanistic, and they tend to see teaching as a mechanical transfer of information (Richardson, 1996). In spite of most university programs’ attempts to help prospective teachers learn to teach in ways that are fundamentally different from how they were themselves taught; most pre-service teachers leave the program with the same enduring beliefs with which they entered the program. Furthermore, these individual beliefs and characteristics tend to persist into the career of the practicing teacher. As Calderhead (1988) noted, becoming and staying a teacher involves complex changes and development not only in teaching behavior but also in cognition and emotion and these changes occur within powerful contexts. Calderhead and Robson (1991) suggested that the alternative to changing beliefs is to build on the beliefs that already exist. Pre-service teachers can be guided in building on their beliefs through the use of reflective practices (Houston & Warner, 2000). Reflection is undertaken not so much to revisit the past or to become aware of the metacognitive process one is experiencing, but rather to guide future action (Brubacher, Case, & Reagan, 1994). Kagan (1992) has told us that teaching remains ‘‘yrooted in personality and experience and that learning to teach requires a journey into the deepest recesses of one’s self-awareness, where failures, fears, and hopes are hidden’’ (p. 137). This journey requires reflection into what is considered of value and importance in our teaching. Learning how to teach is a deeply personal activity in which the teacher must consider his or her prior beliefs and reconcile them with the expectations of the university, the public school, the students, the parents, and ultimately, with him or herself. Research on reflective practice has indicated a range of impact based on the teacher’s developmental level and ways that reflection has been integrated into a given activity (Richardson & Placier, 2001). The general outcome from creating intentional examination of beliefs, thoughts, and actions has been positive for practicing teachers. For example, Grossman (1989) reported that empowered teachers blossomed in programs where this kind of deliberative exploration and reflection were encouraged. However, reflection has not been as successful an intervention with pre-service teachers, especially when the reflection was on academic course content alone. More promising is to have pre-service teachers reflect on field experiences, such as student teaching or activity within professional development schools (Merseth, 1996). That is, pre-service teachers need to develop some practical knowledge from a teacher’s perspective in order to be able to critically examine beliefs, approaches, and
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understandings (e.g., Russell, 1995). Without this shift to practice, preservice teachers may continue to ‘‘do school’’ and engage in reflection from the student perspective.
Images of Teaching Teacher development has been examined using a range of methodologies, both quantitative and qualitative (Sprinthall et al.,1996). For over two decades, qualitative methodologies and methods have emerged as valuable tools in understanding non-observable influences on teacher development such as beliefs, attitudes, and understandings (e.g., Bullough & Gitlin, 1995; Cole & Knowles, 2000; Connelly & Clandinin, 1988; Eisner, 1998). One tool linked with reflective practice is the use of imagery or metaphors to help individuals communicate deeply held constructions about their beliefs and expectations (Weber, Mitchell, & Nicholai, 1995). Image-making is a natural outcome of sense-making as individuals develop their personal identities (Wilson & Wilson, 1979). Eisner (1998) contends that our images are constructed from the images we encounter, and that we appropriate and modify those images. We then use our personal images for seeing, classifying, judging, and generalizing. Once we have created an image of excellent teaching, for example, that image becomes a prototype against which we rate ourselves and others. Imagery has been used by a number of teacher education researchers (e.g., Bullough, Knowles, & Crow, 1991; Elbaz, 1991; Munby, 1986) providing a window on teachers’ pedagogical knowledge, beliefs, and ideologies. Weber and Mitchell (1995) found that pre-service teachers’ images of teachers and teaching were often simplistic and superficial in terms of what the teachers did and how the students behaved. Murphy, Magliaro, Nienkark, Altieri, and Sawyers (1996) reported that pre-service elementary education teachers considered the wearing of a denim jumper to be a symbol of becoming a real teacher. Most recently, Galyean (2004) found that pictures drawn by pre-collegiate students matched what Mead reported in 1962 – that teachers are predominately white, middle-class women who stand in front of the class directing to children who are in desks lined in neat rows. In addition, when queried about their images of teachers, these pre-collegiate students all framed their discussion in terms of what ‘‘good teachers do.’’ And, for these students, the major things that good teachers do are to care about their students and be organized. Rarely did
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the notion that teachers needed to have content knowledge emerged in the discussions.
Summary Images of teachers and teaching provide strong filters for learning to teach in a teacher education program. Without being prompted by some tool to promote reflection on beliefs or understandings, pre-service teachers could travel through a program without ever having those beliefs or understandings challenged, expanded, or changed. Moreover, without some engagement in practice during this reflection, the pre-service teachers may not have begun to think from a teacher’s perspective leaving the reflection to merely be an academic activity. Once armed with some practical knowledge, imagery becomes a more productive tool for reflection and inquiry – not only for the pre-service teacher, but also for the researcher who is trying to better understand what it means to learn to teach.
METHODOLOGY Using qualitative methodology, this study examined the images pre-service teachers have of teaching and teachers as they first engage in their teacher preparation program. The research was guided by two questions: How do pre-service teachers represent their image of teaching? and What does this indicate about their developmental level of learning to teach? The data were analyzed initially based on these questions, then re-examined to address the questions of: What else can we learn from these alternative representations of teachers and teaching? and What are the strengths and limitations of using artistic images in understanding the learning to teach process?
Setting This study evolved from research conducted at two large public research institutions in the southeast United States across a 2-year time span. Both courses at the institutions were for pre-service teachers just beginning their teacher education programs. One course at University A was an undergraduate foundations course in educational psychology and the other course at University B was a general methods course in curriculum and instruction.
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Both courses are typically the first professional education course that all teacher education students take in their respective sequence of program requirements. The courses focus on learning theories, psychological perspectives, and their relationship to educational practice. They also focus on the practical applications of psychological perspectives and educational theory. Both courses also involved pre-service teachers at the very beginning of their teacher education programs in some kind of field experience component. University A used a ‘‘virtual field experience.’’ Students viewed three CD-ROM-based video case studies of teachers teaching in their classrooms and discussed key concepts and practices with practicing teachers via chat sessions. These CDs were ordered from Harris Video Casess based at Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City, Utah and are produced with the idea of promoting the integration of theory and research. They are video ethnographies of teachers teaching in their own classrooms. Underneath the video are tabs that provide literature-based comments, the teacher’s reflections or thoughts about the lesson, and usually a principal or an educational researcher’s thoughts. Clicking on the tabs provides the text to read the comments and clicking on a ‘‘speaker’’ button will open an audio recording of the comments. The CDs feature teachers using a variety of teaching models. The CDs chosen for use in this course included The Larry Beaudin Case (Harris, Beaudin, & Baker, 2000) focusing on instructional design and classroom management, The Brenda Beyal Case (Harris, Beyal, & Baker, 2000) focusing on information processing, and The Assessment Literacy Case focusing on assessment (Harris, Pinnegar, Rentz, & Baker, 2000). Each of these CDs were viewed and discussed in relation to the content of the curriculum being taught. At University B, students participated in a supervised practicum experience in a K-12 setting. In this practicum experience, the pre-service teachers, in groups of three, taught small groups of first-grade students twice a week, for seven and a half weeks. The pre-service teachers were responsible for the planning and teaching of their lessons for each of the 15 visits to the school. Since they were in groups of three, this meant that each pre-service teacher taught five times across the semester. The practicum experience was supervised by the instructor of the course, lesson plans were reviewed, feedback offered, and revisions required before the pre-service teachers implemented those lessons in the classroom. Each teaching episode was observed in part by the instructor of the course, as well as by the classroom teacher. Feedback and suggestions were offered to the pre-service teachers from both the classroom teacher and the instructor.
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Participants Seventy-four pre-service teachers ranging from sophomores to seniors participated in this study. Thirty-three students at University A participated in the spring, 2003 semester. The students ranged from sophomores to seniors and consisted of six males and 27 females. All students were enrolled in a program leading to teaching certification. They were not, of course, obligated to allow us to share their work through the research process. One of the total 34 students in the class declined based on her concern that her creation was too personal to share widely. Forty-one students at University B participated in the 2003–2004 academic year. The students in these courses ranged from sophomores to juniors and consisted of 4 males and 37 females. All of the University B students who were enrolled in the two course sections agreed to participate in the study.
Procedures Students from both universities participated in reflective activities throughout the semester. Four reflection papers were required during the semester wherein students were asked to focus on personal experiences related to the content being covered in the class. For example, in the first paper prior to a general discussion of characteristics of effective teaching, the students were asked to write a reflection paper outside of class about their favorite teachers, their favorite class, or about a teacher or class they did not enjoy as much as others. The reflection papers were then brought back into the discussion about effective teachers by discussing the practices or characteristics of teachers that made their classes more enjoyable or less so. The final reflection paper asked the students to step back and create an image of teaching based on the entire semester of study. Of the four reflection papers, only the final reflection paper was analyzed for this research. Specifically, the students were asked to design a creative representation of teaching or of themselves as teachers. They were also asked to write their final reflection paper by focusing on what they had learned about teaching during the course of the semester. This assignment is the initial step of a program requirement at both institutions for each pre-service teacher to develop a philosophy of teaching and learning for their portfolio. The only restriction placed on the students in developing their creation was that it was not meant to be a ‘‘paper.’’ It was meant to be a creative, artistic representation.
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DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS PROCEDURES The representations were created outside of class and were submitted to the instructor during the final class meeting of the semester. Each creative project was analyzed along with its accompanying reflection paper. Analysis of these data was based on qualitative methods using the constantcomparative method to determine patterns or themes in the representations and reflections (Glaser & Straus, 1967; Merriam, 1998). According to Merriam (1998), the ‘‘constant comparative method involves comparing one segment of data with another to determine similarities and differences. Data are grouped together on a similar dimension’’ (p. 18). To answer the first research question on the nature of the images, each creative project, along with its accompanying reflection paper, was analyzed. Domains of artifacts such as posters, collages, poems, etc. were first determined. Thematic categorical patterns within each domain were then discerned for each student and then across the group. While each representation might have been found to have features of multiple domains, the predominant domain is used in our illustrative examples for the purpose of our discussion. Categories within each domain are described with examples from the data. To answer the second question regarding students’ developmental level, a second level of analysis was conducted on the reflection papers that the preservice teachers submitted along with their images. Each reflection paper was read, and using Crotty’s Developmental Model of Reflections as a Cognitive Outcome Scale (Crotty & Allyn, 2001), see the appendix, each reflection was assigned a score that indicated the cognitive level of that reflection. The overall mean of the reflection scores for each class was then determined. After categories and themes of images had been determined and the students’ developmental levels of teaching had been analyzed through their reflections, the data were analyzed further to investigate the question of what else we may learn from having pre-service teachers create such images and reflections. In this level of analysis, a more holistic perspective was taken wherein the two participant groups were considered as larger wholes rather than as individual entities. Themes and patterns were located in the data and categorized according to the group. Finally, the fourth research question was answered through the researchers’ own reflections about what was learned through analysis of these data and what were the strengths and limitations of the research and the assignments themselves.
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FINDINGS Images of Teaching The representations were organized into one of the five domains of images of teaching. Those domains are: (1) representations of private personal experiences in school or childhood, (2) representations of personal struggles in choosing to teach, (3) representations of good teaching, (4) representations of personal professional growth, and (5) representations of passion for content specialty. The creative representations of teaching were varied in their style, type, and depth. Collages, posters, and poems were the creation type most frequently represented, followed by artwork of various forms. There were several paintings, models, and one pastel drawing. Two students wrote short stories about their struggles in school and of choosing to teach, and three students even wrote a song. As the representations were analyzed, the very personal nature in which these representations were constructed became apparent. Also evident was the importance of the students’ own past personal experiences and how they had played a part in forming their beliefs about good teaching, in determining their goals, and in developing the fears and concerns they have about teaching. These different elements were all rooted in personal experiences of some kind that the students considered to be either positive or negative in nature. For example, many of the students characterized good teaching based on what they remembered from their school days about teachers who were classified as clearly ‘‘good’’ teachers or clearly ‘‘bad’’ teachers. Their reflection papers supported their representation by talking about their artifact in more detail and by providing the context from which the artifact developed. The personal could not be parsed out of any of the representations. However, one domain does exist in this analysis that is more deeply rooted in the personal experience of the students. This is the domain referred to as ‘private personal experiences.’ This domain includes experiences that more directly impacted the psyche or the humanity of the student and was based more in a deep emotional reaction. Each domain is discussed and examples from the students’ works are shared to illustrate the themes within each domain. Representations of Private Personal Experiences in School or Childhood The general categories of private personal experience depicted how individual students were treated on an interpersonal plane – either positively or
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negatively. These images were largely represented by short stories or poems. These representations tended to be the most emotionally raw and were usually representative of some deeply felt emotion the pre-service teacher remembered experiencing. The majority of these very personal experiences were negative, although a few were more positive. On the positive side, the following student remembered an outstanding teacher in this way: I remembered back to one of my high school teachers, Mr. Bowman, and in my eyes, he was amazing. He taught me so much and I really attribute who I am today because of his encouragement and knowledge. Anyone can be a teacher, but it takes a special person to be a Mr. Bowman.
In contrast, here is one of many negative experiences described by the students: Throughout my elementary to high school years, I was made fun of because of how [different] I was and how I didn’t dress in certain types of clothing and how I had no friends. This is where I got to meet all the kids that were just like me. I got to become friends with the less social students, the lower class students and all the students that had a disability. We were all outcasts. Being talked down to by kids and embarrassed by teachers. God, just thinking back to it is so hard. I personally believe that these students are the types of people that have the largest hearts and the most drive to be someone when they are older. It just matters how this is pulled out of them. But, all our teachers just looked at us as throw-aways because we would never matter anyway, we could never achieve. I don’t want to ever see a student as not mattering or not good enough to waste my time on.
The writing process itself prompted deep emotion. That is, as students wrote their reflections and designed their creations by remembering personal experiences, some mentioned becoming angry, some mentioned becoming emotionally upset, and some became even more excited about entering the teaching field when they thought back to what their teachers had done for, or to, them. For example, one student seemed to get angrier and angrier as he wrote and finally remembered his teachers as ‘‘raw, undesirable bitches.’’ One student could vividly remember the embarrassment he felt early in his ninth grade year when he over-energetically raised his hand to answer a math question. His image of teaching was presented in the form of a short story about the good and the bad that teachers can do to students. His short story is based on the following experience he shared in his reflection paper. ‘‘Oh, so you think you know all about math, do ya, little rascal? Well why don’t you come up here to the board and show us what you know?’’ I can still hear the sarcastic tone in her voice. ‘‘Sure. No sweat.’’ ‘‘OK, hot shot, why don’t you solve this equation for the class?’’ I panicked. How can I solve an equation when we haven’t learned that yet? I had never seen anything like it! How can you divide 3.2 by a letter? ‘‘Er, I don’t know how to do this,’’ I squeaked. ‘‘Of course you don’t, you hot-shot little hoodlum.
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You don’t know much of anything. Why don’t you go sit down and shut up before you embarrass yourself more, mm-kay?’’ Go sit down. That’s what I did, quiet and defeated for the rest of the year. By the end of the year, I hated the teacher, I hated school, and I hated math. Wow, and I thought I was good in math.
Whether their experience was positive or negative, one constant remained. The students’ experiences affected their goals as a teacher or what they considered to be good teaching. They either wanted to be just like a teacher they had or they wanted to be nothing at all like a teacher they had known. Representations of Personal Struggles in Choosing to Teach Several of the students talked about the struggle they had in trying to decide if teaching was the career for them. These images most often were represented through collages that depicted the indecision they were feeling. Most of these collages consisted of words students cut out of magazines to represent their feelings. Words such as pressure, time, chaos, help, and question dominated the collages. Although most of these collages consisted of words, others chose pictures to demonstrate their indecision in their collage. Many of them expressed very typical concerns of new teachers – an immense workload, dealing with administrators and parents, being able to effectively work with special needs of children, and losing control of the class. A few of them had struggles a little more difficult to tackle. A few of the students discussed being concerned about the relative low status of teaching as a profession (Griffin, 1999). One student wrote of the disappointment his parents felt in him choosing to become a teacher: The last factor that stood in my way to becoming a teacher was the approval of my parents. They had always supported me in everything I had ever done. But, being typical parents, they wanted me to be a doctor or to be in some field where I could live comfortably. They bought me a set of medical encyclopedias before I was even toilet trained hoping it would give me encouragement to that career. It might seem silly to buy a kid a set of encyclopedias, but my dad’s intentions were very noble. He did not grow up in ideal circumstances. He never knew his father and his mother did not play a major role in his life. He lived with his grandparents in a lower class neighborhood. My mom’s situation was even worse. She grew up in Bethlehem and had to experience a full-fledged war. She would have to go to a neighbor’s house because they had a basement that would protect them from the Israeli air raids. Her family did not have much money, neither did any other Palestinian family. She lived in a two-room apartment with her parents and two siblings. My parents’ lives were unbelievably tough and they wanted me to have everything. When I finally told them I wanted to be a teacher, they said they were happy for me, but I could see their disappointment that I was entering a field that wouldn’t provide the wealth of a doctor or engineer. It makes me feel guilty and that guilt weighs heavy on me. I finally realized why I want to teach so much. I want to make a difference. I want kids to see no matter what hell they come from they can succeed.
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Some of the pre-service teachers related their struggle in deciding whether or not to stay in the major they had chosen. One of the pre-service teachers from the university with the supervised practicum found teaching to be a bit more difficult than she had expected. She related her experiences in the following reflection: This semester has not only been the most challenging academically, but also personally. I am glad it’s almost over but I am very disappointed in myself. There are many issues that have occurred this semester that I need to figure out. This class has challenged me and opened my eyes to the future. I have learned so much this semester about teaching, about myself, and about life. The majority of people I have talked to tell me that I’m taking the easy way out by becoming a teacher. I also felt that becoming a teacher couldn’t be that hard. I have learned that is a wrong assumption. I’ve also realized that teaching may not be the right choice for me. Even if I decide not to go into teaching this class has prepared me for the real world. I know that in order to be good at something, you have to give yourself time to grow.
Representations of Good Teaching The images of this domain typically reflected the characteristics of a good teacher or they represented the characteristics of effective teaching. These images were again dominated by collages. These collages tended to be very educationally themed. Pictures of books, clocks, pencils, apples, and students sitting in desks dominated these collages. The collages were explained as representing the multiple roles teachers must fill and the multiple demands and tasks they must balance to be a good teacher. Again, words were used in these collages, but the words chosen for these images tended to represent affective characteristics the students felt teachers must have such as nurturing, caring, patience, and respect. Two thematic categories of information cut across this data set. The students focused on characteristics of teachers that were related to the managerial aspects of teaching and to the affective dispositions of the teachers. This category of representations and reflections was again based in students’ personal experiences. Most of the pre-service teachers in the class with the video case studies field experience harkened back to classes they enjoyed or to teachers from whom they had learned a lot in their own childhood, while a minority of them related their ideas of effective teaching to what they had learned throughout the semester. However, the pre-service teachers who participated in the supervised practicum represented their idea of a good teacher based on what they had learned throughout their teaching experience rather than relating back to their own childhood memories. Unlike the private personal experience domain, in this domain, the students tended to emphasize the positive rather than the negative. Their images represented either those
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personal memories of enjoyable learning experiences as children or their learning experiences about learning to teach. For example: I want to be just like my sixth grade teacher. She was incredible. She always told us we could do whatever we wanted to do if we worked hard. But more than that, she helped us work hard. Sometimes kids just don’t know what to do. You know, you tell them to go work harder, but you have to tell them how to do that sometimes. She never let us fail. I want to be that special teacher. I want my students to look back and actually remember what I taught them, but more importantly, I want them to remember I was somebody they could trust.
Other students realized they had good teachers and classes they enjoyed, but wanted to understand what the teacher did to create that environment. After all, they were studying teaching and teachers. For example: As a student interested in teaching, I’ve been watchful of which teaching methods are effective and engaging, and I know what I, and others, have enjoyed, but now I’m wondering what the teacher specifically did to create that. How can I do that for my students? When I can answer that, then I’ll really know what a good teacher is.
And others based their ideas of what a good teacher is by experiencing what teachers shouldnot be: Many of my teachers weren’t making a difference. They were talking and giving tests, but they hardly knew who was in their room, much less what confused us. They only cared if we passed the state test so they threw information at us. They didn’t care if we really learned. I want my students to be more than a test score. I want to know who they are and how to help them. A good teacher knows her students and what they need.
Pre-service teachers who had participated in the supervised practicum experience at University B had a slightly more focused perspective on what being a good teacher meant. Their conceptions were less based in personal memories from their own childhoods, as well as less focused on the affective characteristics of good teachers. Instead, their images included a larger focus on the technical aspects of teaching including the ability of a teacher to plan well, to manage the classroom, to meet individual learning needs, to manage time, and to meet all of the necessary standards. Their reflections and conceptions of being a good teacher still maintained the personal component found throughout all the data, but this particular group had the added elements concerning the more technical and professional sides of being a teacher. In the following example, the student illustrates that time management was a problem for her and she learned how to manage her time as well as how important time management is for teachers. She learned about herself and about teaching.
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As a teacher and a student, I have grown at an increasing rate this semester. I have experienced, although not completely, how much time and devotion I will have to put into being a teacher. I have felt frustrated, busy, nervous, and scared. But even though I have experienced many negative emotions, at the same time I am excited, happy and enthusiastic about my career in teaching. At first, I was extremely overwhelmed by all the work that I had to complete to teach only one lesson. I was afraid I would never survive. However, as the semester progressed, I learned how important it is for teachers to manage their time and I learned to manage mine. I was able to spend less time preparing my lesson plan and more time finding new and creative activities to include in my lessons. This class forced me to end my procrastination problem because I found if I waited to the last minute, it reflected that in my teaching.
Many of the pre-service teachers from University B discussed the importance of planning in being a good teacher. For example: I always wondered why methods courses made people write so many lesson plans. It seemed so useless and time-consuming to me. Boy, was I wrong! I have learned how important it is to be prepared when you walk into that classroom! I can look back now and think of teachers that always seemed disorganized and see that it was probably lack of planning and preparation that made them that way. I do not want to be that teacher. I also learned that writing a lesson plan sure is different than teaching that same lesson plan to kids. I have really grown in the area of lesson planning. Going along with planning is my self-view of teaching. Experience has given me a lot more confidence and knowledge, making my view of myself being a teacher a lot more realistic.
Additionally, many of the pre-service teachers wrote about the importance of classroom management in being a good teacher. All of the students who wrote about classroom management being important in good teaching also wrote of their struggle in learning how to do this themselves. For example: Starting out as an inexperienced teacher was very hard. I did not know what was expected of me. I especially did not know how to handle a group of ten first graders! I didn’t know how to control behavior problems or use time management skills. I was very nervous and I really didn’t expect the students to learn anything from me at that point. On my first day, I didn’t get past the first page of the story I was reading to them before I started having behavior problems out of them. They would not pay attention and they would not listen to the story. I heard my partner say, ‘‘This is going to be a long hour.’’ I didn’t know what to do. I remember telling them ‘‘shh’’ or ‘‘be quiet’’ and ‘‘listen’’ over and over, but they did not pay me any attention. As the weeks passed, I started getting better at the job. I learned how to manage my group and I learned how to manage my time. I had to end up writing out my rules for the children to follow. If the rules were broken, they knew they weren’t going to get a sticker at the end of class. This calmed the students down. After they knew what was expected of them, they started listening and paying attention and learning. After I started seeing changes in their work, I started feeling like a teacher. I really learned how important it is to let kids know what to expect. Good teachers have to be very organized and be very clear in what they expect from their students.
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A few of the pre-service teachers mentioned the importance of being able to meet all the state standards in their teaching. This was the least frequently mentioned category, probably due to the fact that the students were only with the students 1 hour a day, twice a week and were teaching a language arts lesson each time. They do not have the whole perspective of trying to accomplish integration of all the curriculum into the course of a day and a year. They did; however, get a small taste of this. Following is a representative sample from the data: I learned that a good teacher has to form lessons around the [state standards], which can be hard sometimes. I never knew little kids had to learn so much in one year! I also never knew there were things like word study and writer’s workshop to specifically help you teach certain things. I feel a lot more confident now, but I know I have so much more to learn. I know it’s important for a good teacher to meet all the standards, but how can you actually get it all in? I always had trouble finishing my lesson on time. How will I do it when I have to teach everything? I also noticed that so many of the students had a wide range of abilities. I learned that good teachers need to adapt their lessons to them individually sometimes. But this makes it even harder to get everything done. How do teachers do it?
In summary, the personal could not be parsed out of their learning experiences or out of their conceptions of what it meant to be a good teacher. The following quote from a student sums up nicely the conceptions found in the data concerning the ability to be a good teacher: Looking back over this semester, it hit me how much I have learned. Through this class I have learned how to plan, create lesson plans, teach writer’s workshop and other language arts lessons, manage my time, and have begun to build my own discipline plan. It’s funny when I begin to think about what a good teacher is, that my teaching style has been greatly influenced not just by what I’ve learned this semester, but I have also been inspired by my favorite teachers.
Representations of Personal Professional Growth This domain was predominant in the course that included the supervised practicum experience. Of the 41 reflections and images analyzed from University B, 25 were grouped into this domain. Thirty-three reflections and images were analyzed from University A. Seven of them discussed their professional growth over the semester by discussing it as a part of what they learned about being a good teacher. It appears that the actual practice of teaching and application of the concepts studied in class increased the preservice teachers’ conceptions of their growth and development as teachers. These images were largely represented by paintings, drawings, or through symbolic representations. Of the images concerning professional growth, 18 of them were trees or flowers that the students chose to represent the
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growth they were experiencing. Eleven of them were paintings and drawings that represented going through a storm or from the dark to the light as they learned about teaching. All of those that represented a storm were students from the supervised practicum experience. The other 12 images were paintings, drawings, or posters that represented images of content they had learned from class or the field experience about being a teacher. In their reflections, some of the students spoke in general about what they learned about the teaching profession: I came into my field experience not knowing anything about teaching. I had had experiences with children before, but this was completely different. The spotlight was on me. At the beginning, I wondered how I was going to get my lessons across to the students. I looked at how some of them were writing and wondered how I was going to help them improve. It was flustering. I didn’t know what to teach them or how to teach them. I didn’t even know what to say to them. I thought a lot about how I would word things. I started off by reading my lesson plans and getting lost when I didn’t have it laid out in front of me, my finger pointing to the place I was at in it. As the time in the practicum continued, I was finding things getting easier. I got to know my students, so planning lessons for them came easier. I would be lying in bed thinking about the practicum and I would have a great idea for my next lesson basically just fall in my lap. I liked that now that I had had some experience, one of my stresses was mostly over. It was encouraging. My questions improved and I got a lot of student response. I began to learn the real meaning behind ‘‘expect the unexpected.’’ I can already see how much experience helps. My first lesson plan took me six hours to complete and I am happy to report that my last lesson took me three hours to complete. By my last lesson plan, I didn’t need to have my lesson plan in front of me. I didn’t even need to take it out. I knew what I was going to do and what I was going to say. I was able to make adjustments and modifications to my lesson. My students responded to my questions. I made great improvements throughout the semester. I miss my students. They will never know the impact they had on me. They helped me to grow as a teacher.
Again, the personal could not be parsed out of the pre-service teachers’ reflections about their professional growth. Many times, they related that their professional growth mirrored their personal growth as they learned about teaching. For example: I never knew all the preparation that went into teaching. Working with these first graders over the past few months allowed me to grow personally and professionally. I learned many things from the experience along with things I need to improve on. My practicum experience made me take notice of all the responsibility in store for me later on. I am not just a student who is observing a teacher and a group of students. I am the person who is in charge of those students. I always knew that a teacher’s job was very important and altered children’s lives, but I never knew how much the children would alter mine. The more I worked with them, the more I learned and the more attached I got. I learned from my students that I needed to adapt my lessons around them instead of sticking directly to it no matter how horrible it was going. I had days where I thought I had the best lesson
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ever and it bombed out. The children would understand it during guided practice, but then do something completely different in independent practice. That made me realize that I needed to reevaluate what I was doing and go about it a different way. I have never been the type of person that can think on my feet. I have learned how to get better at this. I’ve learned a lot about teaching and a lot about myself. I’ve learned that as I grow as a teacher, I learn more about myself and how to not only be a better teacher, but a better person.
Many of the pre-service teachers talked about their growth in planning for their students and in learning not only how to write a lesson plan, but also learning how to get their students to learn. For example: When we first started out, I was so intimidated. I didn’t think I would ever be able to write lesson plans or teach a group of students. Now, I can write my lesson plan in 30 minutes. At first, I had a problem with under planning. I would have a great lesson plan, but the kids would finish ahead of what I thought. Then, we were left with nothing to do. This was a horrible feeling! One valuable thing I learned was to over plan. I think that I have grown as a teacher through this experience. I am much more confident of myself now. I know now that I can do it. I was so unsure of myself before. The first time that I saw they were all learning something new, because of me, I felt so great!
Representations of Passion for Content Specialty Images for this domain were the fewest in number, but they were still very much based in the personal experiences of the pre-service teachers. Images were dominated by collages and posters that represented their field of study. In this domain, the categories lined up according to discipline. For example, from University A, there was a group of pre-service teachers in the field of agricultural education. These students chose their teaching career based on the love of the way in which they had been raised – on farms, raising cattle and learning the importance of agriculture to the world. These students felt very strongly about the importance of their field and shared a passion for wanting to share that with others. One student wrote, ‘‘This is what I truly want to share with people, my joy of our living environment.’’ Another student wrote about her concerns about being able to deal with high school students, but said: I am prepared to face anything in order to teach agriculture. I have had such good experiences with agriculture that I want others to have the same chance. I want to make it my goal to have my students so involved in agriculture that they continue in the field after they finish my class.
Agriculture students were not the only pre-service teachers devoted to their content specialty. This French student said: My goal for my students is not for them to master and use the French language throughout their lives, although I would love that. I want to create a spark for them into
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the understanding of other cultures, and the possibilities that are open to them in the world.
And finally, this ESL student who has worked with families from many cultures summed it all up very nicely: I have learned about the world by looking in the eyes of different people who cannot speak my language and only know a world that is foreign to me. I see how other people live, what they eat, and how they feel about life. They offer me a perspective that I would never have had unless they had come into my life. I always come away from teaching these people with more than I came in with. I want to give something back for everything that they have given me.
Reflection as an Indicator of the Developmental Level of Learning to Teach The Three Stage Developmental Model of Teacher Reflection (Crotty, 2001) was used to analyze the pre-service teachers’ reflective comments (see the appendix). This scale was designed for measuring the level of reflective comments made by teachers from pre-service through expert. Crotty developed this scale through the use of several pilot tests in order to test its reliability. The Developmental Model of Reflection as a Cognitive Outcome Scale measures reflection based on the six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy: knowledge, comprehension, analysis, application, synthesis, and evaluation (Bloom, 1956). For the purposes of this research, only the section of the scale pertaining to pre-service teachers was used. Each reflection paper was read and assigned a score that depicted the cognitive level of reflection according to the Crotty scale. Each level is assigned a number, one through six, with one being the lowest level of the cognitive outcome scale and six being the highest level of the scale. So, for example, if a student’s score was a four, that would indicate the student’s reflective capacity was determined to be at the application level. If a student’s response represented components of two different levels, for example, comprehension and analysis, a score of 2.5 would have been assigned indicating the student fell in between the two levels of the scale. Analysis revealed that the pre-service teachers who had participated in the supervised practicum experience had reflection scores that ranged all along the scale from the application level to the evaluation level, with the mean score of the students falling within the synthesis level. The mean score of this group was 5.2. The pre-service teachers who had participated in the CD-ROM-based alternative field experience had reflection scores that fell within the entire range of the scale from the knowledge level to the evaluation level. The mean score
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of the pre-service teachers from the alternative field experience fell within the analysis level, with a mean score of 3.5. Our findings support the literature synthesized by Richardson and Placier (2001) in that the value of reflection is enhanced by the level of individual teacher’s practical knowledge. In our study, those students who had direct experience in practical settings were able to reach deeper levels of reflection about teaching, teachers, and themselves as teachers. And, while the virtual experience did provide concrete examples of practice with practitioners available for reflection, the students were not in situ, thus not truly experiencing the events that could prompt conceptual change. That is, it appears that the students in the supervised practicum experience attained a higher level of cognitive performance in learning about teaching.
What Else Did We Learn through Studying these Alternative Representations? As individual data were analyzed and categorized thematically, a difference between the two groups of participants began to emerge in both the images they created and in their reflective capacities as well. This research did not set out initially to compare the two groups of participants. In fact, the second group of participants at University B was chosen due to their similarity to the participants at University A in regard to their stage in their respective teacher education programs, as well as in the type of course in which they were enrolled. However, as the data were aggregated, differences between the two groups became noticeable. Although all of the images and reflections were rooted in personal thoughts and experiences, the pre-service teachers from University B created images and wrote reflections that were less based in totally personal experiences from their own childhood school experiences than the pre-service teachers at University A. Instead, they represented and reflected upon what they had learned about becoming a teacher through a more professional lens – a lens that was more professionally based, but personal nonetheless. As mentioned earlier, the theme of personal professional growth dominated these pre-service teachers’ images. During the analysis process, it became very clear that these pre-service teachers were largely reflecting upon their practicum experience. These images and reflections revealed to us that what these students learned could not have been discovered through traditional paper and pencil type tests. Had traditional representations of knowledge been the only
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measures used in these courses, we would have obviously determined what both groups had learned about the learning theories, classroom management strategies, and educational perspectives traditionally taught in both courses. It is doubtful we would have seen much difference between the groups using those traditional measures. What these alternative representations showed us was the impact and significance that differing learning experiences had on them as they continued to learn about teaching. It appears that the supervised practicum in which the pre-service teachers had to actively apply their new knowledge and skills in a real-life setting played a major role in their development of learning to teach, hence it also played a large role in their images and reflections. These alternative representations allowed us, as teacher educators, to tap into learning experiences of these young teachers that may have gone unnoticed. Instead of more traditional assignments that let the students know what we think is important for them to have learned, this assignment asked the pre-service teachers what they thought was important about what they had learned. This assignment allowed us to tap into their learning experiences and into their minds. As John-Steiner (1997) noted about the study of visual imagery: It is the representation of knowledge in the form of structures in motion; it is the study of relationships of these forms and structures; it is the flow of images as pictures, diagrams, explanatory models, orchestrated paintings of immense ideas, and simple gestures; it is work with schemes and structures of the mind. (p. 109)
Strengths and Limitations of Using Artistic Imagery and Reflection in Teacher Education Allowing the pre-service teachers to represent their thoughts, struggles, fears, and successes through visual imagery coupled with reflection provided them an avenue to share their learning through an alternative route. It provided them an opportunity to think and perform in non-traditional ways, thus exposing them to the experience of alternative assessments such as those we, as teacher educators, frequently urge them to consider in their own instruction one day. As John-Steiner (1997) noted, creating visual imagery helps to shape thought. This was evident when the images were paired with the reflections. Students often wrote of the powerful experience of creating their image and how the representation helped them develop their final reflective piece. Alone, neither product would have offered us the
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insight into the thoughts and learning experiences of these pre-service teachers that the coupling of the two provided.
STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE FINDINGS Two major limitations to our study point to the corpus of data that was examined, and the unanticipated emergence of contrasting groups. First, it is possible that more in-depth information about the pre-service teachers’ developmental levels of learning to teach could have been ascertained had we analyzed all four reflection papers over the course of the semester. Growth throughout the semester may have been noted and it could have been possible to determine the specific learning experiences that created such growth. In terms of our contrasting groups, while many of the characteristics of the students and the courses from both universities were similar, differences existed as well. Both groups of students were at the beginning of their teacher preparation programs, but, obviously, they were part of different programs offering them different experiences prior to and during these class sessions. The most notable difference between the two groups is the field experience component. University A provided a technology-supported field experience via CD-ROM case analysis, while University B offered a supervised practicum experience in a local elementary school setting. It appears from the findings of this research that the ‘‘live’’ field experience may have yielded pre-service teachers at a developmentally higher level of learning to teach who were more able to articulate their beliefs about teaching in more professionally related terms than those pre-service teachers who did not have the ‘‘live’’ experience. However, the differences noted in our findings between the two groups of students could be related to a number of issues our research did not address. The groups of students could have been very different in their academic abilities, one group could have had more or less experience with children outside the classroom setting, or we could have had a group of students who tended to think more along the lines of what they had learned than the other group might have. Although this research did not investigate the role the supervised practicum played or did not play in the development of these preservice teachers, it does raise some interesting questions about the importance of practicum placements, as well as about the viability of completely technology-driven experiences.
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Our findings do not indicate an ‘‘answer’’ one way or another to this dilemma, but they do raise issues to consider. Can technology replace the lived experience in the classroom? If it is possible for technology to replace a traditional practicum experience, how do we do this most effectively to realize that potential? What possibilities exist for a mix of technology-supported field experiences and traditional practicum placements? What is the optimal mix of these experiences? Further research should explore these issues.
Summary This investigation extends the research on the importance of imagery as a tool to understand the development of a teacher perspective (e.g., Bullough & Gitlin, 1995; Cole & Knowles, 2000; Eisner, 1998) and how those images instantiate pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teachers and teaching. Moreover, it illustrates the importance of early experiences in schools and how these experiences shape and guide the career trajectories of pre-service teachers. Although some experiences were much more deeply rooted in a personal and emotional nature than others, all of the students based their images of teaching on their own personal experiences as students.
CONCLUSION This reflective and creative assignment allowed the pre-service teachers to explore their experiences and to relate them to what they were learning in their teacher education course. They began to see teaching and education through a teacher’s lens while drawing on their personal student experiences, thus, building on prior beliefs as Calderhead and Robson (1991) have suggested is important in teacher education. Creating these images seems to provide students with the impetus to dig deeper into their thoughts and beliefs, as creative projects often do. The reflections allow the students to articulate the meaning behind their image and they also seem to allow many of the students to crystallize their ideas and collect their thoughts, as writing often does. The two tasks combined provide a powerful tool for the students to think about teaching as well as for the instructor to understand the students and to help them grow as teachers. Of particular note is the propensity for these students to view thes complexities of teaching and being a teacher in a very dualist manner (Baxter
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Magolda, 1992). That is, in constructing these artifacts, the students depicted good teaching in terms of teachers who were either good or bad, actions that were either good or bad, activities that were either good or bad. Now, while the task itself may have prompted that response, it is not certain. However, what is certain is that these students are still in the process of creating their own categories and are not yet able to clearly detect a good teacher, a teaching life, or a program in terms of gradations of black or white. Future research should follow the students over time to assess their development of a teaching philosophy and life. Of special interest would be those critical incidents that prompt or accelerate a major move for the teacher.
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Putnam, R. T., & Borko, H. (1997). Teacher learning: Implications of new views of cognition. In: B. J. Biddle, T. L. Good & I. F. Goodson (Eds), International Handbook of teachers and teaching, Part II (pp. 1223–1296). Boston, MA: Kluwer. Resnick, L. B. (1991). Shared cognition: Thinking as social practice. In: L. B. Resnick, J. M. Levine & S. D. Teasley (Eds), Perspectives on socially shared cognition (pp. 1–20). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Richardson, V. (1996). The role of attitude and beliefs in learning to teach. In: J. Sikula (Ed.), Handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 102–119). New York: Macmillan. Richardson, V. (1999). Teacher education and the construction of meaning. In: G. A. Griffin (Ed.), The education of teachers: The ninety-eighth yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education (pp. 145–166). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Richardson, V., & Placier, P. (2001). Teacher change. In: V. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook for research on teaching. (4th ed., pp. 905–947). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Ross, D. D., Johnson, M., & Smith, W. (1991). Developing a professional teacher at the University of Florida. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago. Russell, T. (1995). Returning to the physics classroom to re-think how one learns to teach physics. In: T. Russell & F. Korthagen (Eds), Teachers who teach teachers (pp. 95–112). London: Falmer Press. Scho¨n, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books. Sprinthall, N. A., Reiman, A. J., & Thies-Sprinthall, L. (1996). Teacher professional development. In: J. Sikula (Ed.), Handbook of research on teacher education (2nd ed., pp. 666–703). New York: Macmillan. Tom, A. R. (1997). Redesigning teacher education. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Weber, S., & Mitchell, C. (1995). That’s funny, you don’t look like a teacher! Interrogating images and identity in popular culture. London: Falmer. Weber, S., Mitchell, C., & Nicholai, V. (1995). Drawing ourselves into teaching: Studying the images that shape and distort teacher education. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco. Wilson, B., & Wilson, M. (1979). Children’s story drawings: Reinventing worlds. School Arts, 78(8), 6–11. Zeichner, K. (1986). Individual and institutional influences on the development of teacher perspectives. In: J. Raths & L. Katz (Eds), Advances in teacher education (Vol. 2, pp. 135–163). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Zeichner, K. (1987). The ecology of field experience: Toward an understanding of the role of field experiences in teacher development. In: M. Haberman & J. M. Backus (Eds), Advances in teacher education (Vol. 3, pp. 94–117). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Zeichner, K. M., & Tabachnick, B. R. (1981). Are the effects of university teacher education washed out by school experience? Journal of Teacher Education, 3(3), 7–11.
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APPENDIX. THREE STAGE DEVELOPMENTAL MODEL OF TEACHER REFLECTION (Crotty, 2001)
A BEGINNER REFLECTIVE PRACTITIONER (cognitive level) Knowledge Comprehension
Application Analysis Synthesis Evaluation
1. Briefly describes the relevance of the evidence or artifact 2. Demonstrates an understanding of student development and relevant instructional plans 3. Connects college coursework concepts with practical classroom applications 4. Shows evidence of taking a teacher’s perspective 5. Establishes short-term goals based upon perceived strengths and weaknesses 6. Includes an awareness of their own professional development as a teacher
AN INTERMEDIATE REFLECTIVE PRACTITIONER
Knowledge Comprehension Application
Analysis
1. Supports and clarifies new understanding with evidence 2. Examines and recommends varied instructional strategies as a result of assessing student needs 3. Demonstrates an awareness of teaching and learning theory through classroom application examples 4. Shows ability to take multiple perspectives (teachers’, parents’, students’, and principals’)
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Synthesis
5. Establishes professional goals for teaching and learning 6. Includes references to feedback from other professionals (colleagues) about their own teaching
Evaluation
AN EXPERT REFLECTIVE PRACTITIONER
Knowledge Comprehension
Application Analysis
Synthesis Evaluation
1. Supports insight, creativity, and understanding with evidence and artifacts 2. Demonstrates an in-depth understanding of pedagogical theory, subject matter and student development and uses correct terminology throughout 3. Assists or mentors other teachers 4. Includes multiple perspectives (personal, professional, political, and philosophical) of individuals and society 5. Establishes long-term goals and commitment to profession 6. Includes instances of giving and getting feedback from colleagues
THE POSITIONING OF PRESERVICE TEACHER CANDIDATES ENTERING TEACHER EDUCATION Celina Dulude Lay, Stefinee Pinnegar, Meridith Reed, Emily Young Wheeler and Courtney Wilkes ABSTRACT As teacher educators, we know that preservice teachers come into teaching with idealistic visions of both teaching and their own identity as a teacher. Students’ sense that they are or could be teachers is an important aspect of their decision to become teachers. If who they become as teachers must emerge from who they are as people, teacher educators ought to be interested in how students position themselves in their role and identity as teachers when they enter teacher education programs. This paper explores what preservice teachers’ initial applications to teacher education programs reveal about how preservice teachers position themselves as teachers.
PERSPECTIVES ON TEACHER IDENTITY Much of the recent debate in teacher education has focused on the role of teacher education in the development of teachers. Currently most of the Learning from Research on Teaching: Perspective, Methodology, and Representation Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 11, 235–252 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1016/S1479-3687(05)11008-6
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argument has focused on the efficacy of teacher education in that development (see, for example, Darling-Hammond & Youngs, 2002). A generally unstated but underlying assumption of teacher education programs is that teacher education moves teachers from the position of student to teacher and supports them in developing a teacher identity. While it is generally assumed that identity is not a unitary trait, which once arrived at, stays static across the life of a human (Erickson, 1980; MacIntyre, 1997), research in teacher development has formalized such study as a study of teaching roles. MacIntyre argues against such a static representation of identity. He asserts that regardless of profession or experience, identity changes from one time to the next and that it is the identity narrative that holds together the conception of self. Such a narrative, he argues, coherently connects the roles a person has assumed in the past with those taken on in the present and an individual can project that narrative into the future. Bateson (2001), in her study of women’s lives, demonstrates a similar idea for articulating the ways in which individuals compose their lives by reconciling and combining the roles they have assumed across their life. Her metaphor for this process is the piecing of a quilt. This metaphor of identity brings together the various roles and identities of a person’s life, yet those roles continue to retain their individual character ready to be taken up again in the life of a person. Markus and Nurius (1986) articulate these roles as cognitive conceptions of the range of possibility. Both Bateson and MacIntyre in their discussion of the reconciliation of roles into a coherent identity acknowledge that society has an impact on this process. Erickson argues, in fact, that society shapes the way identity is resolved through the way in which the various conflicts from which it emerges are played out in the life of the person. Harre´ and van Langenhoven (1998) propose that while identity might be the unifying description, we give in a narrative we construct about our life, it actually emerges moment to moment from the ways in which we position ourselves in the experiences we have. As van Langenhoven and Harre´ (1998) suggest: ‘‘The act of positioning thus refers to the assignment of fluid ‘parts’ or ‘roles’ to speakers in the discursive construction of personal stories that make a person’s actions intelligible and relatively determinate as social acts’’ (p. 17). In other words, when we give an account of ourselves, we position ourselves as particular kinds of people assuming particular traits and acting in particular ways. This is a fluid rather than a static process. Such positioning is therefore impacted both by the positions offered and those a person chooses to take up. In positioning themselves in particular roles, individuals
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reveal their assumptions about the role, their understanding of the available plots for such an identity, and their understanding about themselves in relationship to that role. In their discursive practices, people also reveal the illocutionary force that underlies their discourse about themselves in relationship to the position and storyline they are asserting. From research on teacher education, we make some assumptions about how preservice teachers position themselves as they come into teaching. Brookhart and Freeman’s (1992) extensive review of research on the characteristics of preservice teachers reveals a description of how teacher educators usually position preservice teacher candidates in their programs. They argue that preservice teachers are white females whose socio-economic status is generally lower than that of other university students. They suggest that preservice teachers are more altruistic, are more likely to not only have tutoring experiences but to have worked with special student populations and often decided to become teachers at an early age. However, they suggest that teacher educators should be wary of assuming that this is the narrative of all teacher education candidates since research also indicates variability depending on the population from which a particular university draws its student body. They believe that qualitative studies of entering teacher education candidates would provide a more nuanced description. Such a description would be more helpful to teacher educators in preparing teachers. What they argue is, in fact, that preservice teachers bring to teaching a variety of identity narratives and that the characteristics of the program as well as the background of the student both contribute to the development of the preservice teacher as a teacher. One of the things we know in teacher education is that who students become as teachers must emerge from who they are as people (Bullough & Gitlin, 1995). Students’ sense that they are or could be teachers is an important aspect of their decision to become teachers. As teacher educators, we know that preservice teachers come into teaching with idealistic visions of both teaching and their own identity as a teacher. If who they become as teachers must emerge from who they are as people, it should be of interest to teacher educators how students position themselves in their role and identity as teacher when they enter the program. In this work, we were interested in the initial conceptions preservice teachers had of teaching and learning as well as of teachers and students. We were also interested in the storyline they presented of themselves as teachers and the decision path that had led them to teaching. Our purpose in the study was to examine how students entering teacher education positioned themselves as teachers. First, we describe the study, then the methodological
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process, explaining why we chose to study the questions using positioning theory and how we adapted positioning theory to our data using a triad of positioning, storyline, and illocutionary force. Next, we present our findings, specifically what our study reveals about teacher thinking. Finally, in our conclusion we address the strengths and limitations of using positioning theory as a methodological approach, suggest further applications for positioning theory as a methodological tool, and discuss implications of our findings on teacher educators, programs, and teachers at all stages of development.
THE STUDY This study is part of a larger research effort that attempts to examine how preservice teachers position themselves across their movement in identity from student to teacher: at the beginning of the program, during early field experiences, at student teaching, and in the profession. The particular study we discuss here focused on an analysis of how potential secondary preservice English teachers position themselves in application narratives as they enter a teacher education program. This next section explains our methodological process: how we chose our data sample, how we used the triad to analyze the data, and how we documented our own understanding of the data.
METHODOLOGICAL PROCESS Data Selection The data sample for this study was 10 individually structured autobiographical narratives that were applications for a teacher education program at a large, private religiously sponsored institution. These 10 applications were randomly drawn from a sample of 500 application letters. The application letters had been sorted alphabetically by letter. The researchers pulled applications from letters at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the alphabet. The only limiting factor on which applications were drawn was whether or not the application file included the preservice teachers’ reflections that were added during their early field experiences. The researchers wanted to be able in a follow-up study to examine how these candidates positioned themselves in their early field experiences and the relationship between the initial and later positioning.
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The application asked students to provide autobiographical responses to a series of five questions. The questions asked students to articulate their decision to become a teacher, to describe their experiences as teachers or leaders, to present a description of one of their best teachers and one of their worst, and finally, to describe the characteristics of teenagers. Since the university is a private religiously funded institution and students in this study were all members of that religion, they freely referred to spiritual matters in their autobiographical statements, matters such as prayer, spiritual guidance, mission experiences, or church service. (Preservice teachers at secular colleges and university may not reflect as freely on these topics.)
The Triad While this was a qualitative research project, the researchers used a particular analytic tool developed by Harre´ and van Langenhoven, which allowed for a targeted socio-linguistic analysis of the data. The triad utilized for analysis was an examination of the position inherent in the preservice teachers’ statements, the storyline implicit in the statement, and the illocutionary force of the statement. The position refers to the parts or roles that the person assigns to the self and others. The storyline is the plot of the story implicit in the positioning. The illocutionary force is the social force behind the statement. Illocutionary force is the quality of the action inherent in what is said. For example, a declarative illocutionary force is evident when the queen says, ‘‘I knight you Sir John Lennon.’’ The statement itself brings into existence a knighthood. An assertive illocutionary force is evident in the statement ‘‘I am in charge here.’’ The speaker asserts dominance or ‘‘being in charge,’’ yet that may or may not be the resulting situation. (Perlocutionary force is the name of what actually happens after the statement.) In the analysis, two researchers and three research assistants considered each sentence in the narrative assigning a position, storyline, and illocutionary force to each statement. One researcher and one assistant were paired together and negotiated the analysis until both reached consensus on their interpretation of each sentence. The research team met regularly to consider interpretations of the data as it proceeded. The team presented a summary of initial findings. The third research assistant was then assigned to two tasks. The first was to provide a story summary of each application focusing
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on the story of the decision to become a teacher, the story of good (and bad) teaching or teachers, the story of the applicants’ conception of teaching, and the story of teenage learners. The two researchers individually considered the storylines constructed in relationship to the original narratives and reached consensus on the authenticity of each storyline in relationship to the original data it came from. Then the third research assistant extracted all sentences from the application in which the applicant stated their relationship to teaching. Such sentences referred to the applicant as ‘‘I’’ and placed the applicant in relationship to being a teacher. Examples of such statements are ‘‘I hope to be a teacher someday,’’ ‘‘I believe I might be a good teacher,’’ ‘‘I’m committed to teaching,’’ etc. The two researchers and the third research assistant then individually considered the illocutionary force behind each statement. Our use of positioning theory is unique in two ways. First, while other research has used positioning theory to analyze text and discourse, the level of analysis in such studies deals with an over arching assignment of positioning across large chunks of data such as whole newspaper stories (Harre´ & van Langenhoven, 1998). Second, other studies that use positioning theory usually blend text, spoken conversation, and life events simultaneously in exploring positioning (Bullough & Draper, 2004). In contrast, our study uses text and involves a micro-analysis embedded in documents and absent from events or action by the participants. In this way, it allows us to engage in a targeted discourse analysis of the emergence of identity in the development of teacher candidates.
Interactions of Researchers and Data Positioning theory is a tool for analyzing discourse. In this study, the discourse is not immediate or verbal, but pulled from a file and in written form. The words are frozen in time and the speaker cannot clarify a statement, add an example, or reiterate a point. The researchers, on the other hand, can. Because of this, and also because the sentence-level analysis revealed frequent shifts in positioning, the researchers felt that journaling was key to capturing their own interactions with the narratives. The journals in many cases made patterns in positioning, storyline, and illocutionary force apparent. For example, as one researcher noted: In the first paper we analyzed, the girl changed from ‘‘I’’ to ‘‘we’’ at several points in the paper. Although I was aware the girl did it, I hadn’t paid much attention to it. [The research assistant] then asked, ‘‘Why is she using ‘we’ here but not here?’’ We then went
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back to the text and realized that her use of ‘‘we’’ occurred whenever she was making a point that she wanted to shore up. Somehow just using ‘‘I’’ would not have enough power. What we realized is that her use of ‘‘we’’ showed us how tentative she was about herself: calling on other sources of authority for her most important assertions about teaching.
In another example, another researcher reviewed notes of a sentenceby-sentence analysis of an application and noticed a pattern of flip-flopping position. This helped reveal why the researcher had felt mixed feelings about the applicant’s positioning. Again, PS uses an ‘‘I felt’’ showing her personal action and a ‘‘she caught me on fire’’ describing the action of the teacher. I like this because she is not passive, being fed, and also not doing it (the learning) herself — this is in clear contrast to the other life sketches. Both student and teacher are strong charactersy. Now, PS begins to tell a defining-moment story but then omits what happened and only connects the story to herself with trite, distant statements. I can only assume she thinks we wouldn’t understand. Or, that it isn’t that important? Or, is this a ‘‘sacred’’ story? If so, she positions me as the reader, unworthy to hear it. That would be OK, but she omits so much and the use of cliche´s at this point makes me not believe her sincerity.
Thus journaling helped the researchers check their work and notice patterns that may have otherwise gone unnoticed in a data analysis process that required so much attention to detail.
FINDINGS The results of this analysis are presented in terms of the positions initial preservice English teachers placed themselves in, the storylines of teaching they constructed, and the illocutionary force present in their applications. Positioning Through analysis of the statements made in the autobiographical responses, some interesting positioning was revealed. First, all candidates attempted to position themselves as unique. Second, the way they positioned themselves as learners revealed interesting things about the disconnect in the role of teacher and learner in their educational plotlines. Finally, their positioning of teacher educators revealed the sparse nature of that role in the thinking of students applying to teacher education. As the students attempted in their accounts to position themselves as unique from others applying, their attempts usually made them ‘‘look’’ like
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all the other applicants in teacher education. Their evidence of how different they were revealed them to be alike. Their accounts often included a typical early decision to teach, emphasized how much they loved English, loved school, and described a strong desire to help others. Each of these statements was offered as if it would make them stand out, since in their schooling history, these attributes usually were different from their fellow students. For example, in AD’s account of her enthusiasm for learning, she believes her position to be unusual when it is actually very typical of preservice teachers. She says, ‘‘I used to dread the weekends. The leisure of Sunday afternoons stretched on and on until we were finally sent to bed and left to anticipate the morning that would bring another glorious week of school. Strange maybe, but somehow I always felt alive and peacefully at home in the classroom.’’ With the words, ‘‘Strange, maybe,’’ AD positions herself as unusual from other students when this kind of account is actually very typical of preservice teachers. A second finding significant to the researchers is that the applicants rarely provided a role for teachers in their own learning. They position themselves as independent learners with teachers who were ‘‘inspiring’’ but without any clear connection between their learning and particular actions of the teacher. For example, BM says, ‘‘Other extracurricular activities I was involved in helped me learn leadership skills necessary for teaching.’’ By positioning themselves as leaders and good students ‘‘by nature,’’ they leave little room to show how teachers helped them either learn to lead or in learning. Completely absent was any mention of their teachers continuing to learn and grow in their role as teachers. Often, their reflections on past teachers described how other students learned from these teachers but when it came to their own learning, they did it themselves. Only one student identified a role for teacher educators, saying, ‘‘I am very interested in taking this course so I can actually taste for myself a little of what it will be likey.’’ Significantly, this student has already ‘‘declared’’ herself a teacher (see section on illocutionary force in findings), not positioning a teacher educator as the person to make that decision but conveying that in her mind, she has already filled the position of a teacher. BW positions herself differently than other applicants, recognizing that there may be things to learn about teaching in teacher education. In the application, we invited students to take up the role of teacher. We assumed that preservice students applied to be teachers because they imagined the teaching role as a possible or probable self that they might take on (Oyserman & Markus, 1990). By positioning themselves in that role, they revealed the influence of others on their conception of teaching. Some
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pointed to the influence of teachers, others, career placement tests, yet the storyline that surrounds this positioning reveals very different conceptions of what positioning themselves as teachers meant. For example, consider these accounts of how two candidates were influenced by teachers in positioning themselves in the role of teacher. GB describes that some favorite childhood memories were in her grandfather’s L.A. classroom, imitating him as she pretended to teach her little brothers and sisters. Similarly, GL was also influenced by a teacher. This teacher dramatically changed her ability to understand literature and write about it. While both of these accounts have sacred over-tones, there is a richer and more complex understanding of teaching as a life commitment and experience in the story of GB taking on the role of teaching instantiated through the life of her grandfather. This is captured in her statement, ‘‘I have always pictured myself a teacher and would imitate my English-teaching grandfather.’’ GL’s conception of the role is not shallow as revealed in the following statement but it is different from the generational commitment expressed by GB. ‘‘I realize now that the excitement I felt during my literary discovery in high school must have been as equally exciting for the teachers who were watching – and guiding – that discovery.’’ Another example of similar reasons for positioning oneself as a teacher involves two different responses to career placement tests. Two applicants, BC and BW, tell of taking a career placement test. BC uses the results of the career placement test to argue that she has made the right decision to be a teacher even though she says, ‘‘despite all of this help, I still didn’t know what I wanted to bey.’’ Across her document, she appears to be convincing herself that she made the right decision. In contrast, BW took career placement tests – ‘‘for three daysyslaved answering questions about what I liked and didn’t like’’ – but when the results suggest she should be a lawyer or social worker she rejects them, asserting she wants to be a teacher. This positions her strongly. What is evident here is that when preservice teachers position themselves in the role of teacher, the backgrounds to their choice and their understandings of the meaning of the role have implications for teacher educators attempting to prepare them as teachers.
Storylines As we invited applicants to describe their best and worst teachers and looked at their storylines for good teachers and bad teachers, we found the following commonalities across all 10.
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The storyline of a good teacher included these elements: to inspire, to live righteous lives, to sacrifice, to help students in learning as well as in their personal lives, to serve, to use a variety of teaching methods, to be challenging and interesting, to be patient, and to love students. It is of significance to us that not just a few but all of the applicants listed service, sacrifice, and living righteous lives as essential qualities of a good teacher. This decided moral tone, and the added requirement of loving students, makes us wonder what kinds of sacred and moral undertones to teacher candidates’ storylines are never addressed and respected in teacher education. In the setting of our study, at a religious university, the applicants may feel safe to reveal it but in a professional environment or at another institution this storyline may not have a place. The characteristics of a bad teacher are in direct contrast to the storyline of a good teacher. All 10 applicants listed these three common traits in a bad teacher: apathy, poor treatment of students, and hate. Apathy directly opposes inspiring and helping. Poor treatment of students directly opposes service. And hatred (of teaching and students) directly opposes love. At this point in preservice teachers lives, it is never apparent to them how someone who at one point had in mind living the storyline of becoming a good teacher, could ever actually live a storyline opposite to that. Yet, it is interesting that these three characteristics of bad teachers are a collapse of the good teacher storyline. This is reminiscent of Oyserman and Markus’s (1990) desired possible selves and feared possible selves that they could become. This finding raises the important question of how we as teacher educators help teachers retain and live out their good teacher storyline and become their desired rather than feared possible self.
Illocutionary Force In this study, the teacher educators intentionally positioned the preservice teachers in a particular way. We involved them in what Harre´ and van Langenhoven (1998) label as accountive self-positioning. By this they mean, a person is required by an external authority to position himself or herself. In applying for admittance to a teacher education program, the students are required to position themselves as seeking admittance to the program. The illocutionary forces embedded in such positioning are fairly clear. The teacher educator retains the power to ‘‘declare’’ whether the student is a teacher education candidate or not.
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The illocutionary force behind the admission acceptance statements from teacher education is ‘‘declarative.’’ It operates in the same way as a minister who declares a couple married. Once the minister says, ‘‘I now pronounce you man and wife’’ the couple are now in fact man and wife – the words make it so. The teacher educators’ response to the students’ application has the power to ‘‘declare’’ the student a ‘‘preservice English teacher.’’ In contrast, the student applying to be a ‘‘preservice English teacher’’ is positioned to use assertive or informative illocutionary force. They are positioned to ‘‘assert’’ or ‘‘inform’’ the institutional representatives why they should be selected. As a result, as researchers we would expect the most likely illocutionary force behind the students’ statements to be either ‘‘assertive’’ or ‘‘informative.’’ Of course, we would not expect a uniform and consistent use of only one type of illocutionary force across the entire application document. However, we would expect that the individual statements in their document positioning them in relationship to the role of teacher would have an assertive or informative illocutionary force. Across the documents, a variety of types of illocutionary force were displayed. We specifically isolated just those statements employing a ‘‘be’’ verb that show a state of being. The verb ‘‘to be’’ works somewhat like an equal sign, so that a statement such as ‘‘I am already an experienced teacher’’ looks like ‘‘I ¼teacher.’’ And indeed, when we simply identified the statements that positioned the applicant in relationship to the role of teacher employing a ‘‘be’’ verb or synonym (we will call these positioning statements), we found that all 10 applicants had at least one sentence in which the illocutionary force was assertive. We found only one or two instances of informative illocutionary force in these positioning statements, although informative illocutionary force was regularly evident in the surrounding supporting statements. We had expected to see a lot of assertive illocutionary force and some informative illocutionary force in these isolated statements. What was of most interest was the existence of other forms of illocutionary force in those positioning statements such as concessive, commissive, and declarative illocutionary force. An example of declarative illocutionary force is found in this positioning statement by BW. ‘‘I have had many experiences in my life that have helped me to become a good teacher.’’ This student has declared herself a teacher and has rejected the role of ‘‘applicant’’ regardless of institutional response. Significantly, this candidate’s positioning statements were most often either declarative or assertive and she had clearly positioned herself as a teacher regardless of the decision we made about her. She is also
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the only candidate who identified a role for teacher education in her preparation for teaching (see the section in findings on positioning). When the illocutionary force of a statement was declarative, the statements contained the simplicity and power of this candidate’s statement. Positioning statements animated by commissive illocutionary force reveal the range of commitment students have for becoming teachers. Some research has argued that those who feel called to teach are more likely to endure and develop as teachers than those who do not feel this calling (Stokes, 1995). Yet, these positioning statements reveal not only a range of commitment, but also a range of the conceptual understanding of the role of teaching that underlies that commitment. Consider the following two examples: GL: ‘‘I want to teach English and open up the world of literature to my students, sharing in their journey and help guide them on their way.’’ PS: ‘‘I am considering the field of teaching because I have a passion for the English language that I want to share with students just as the knowledge, enthusiasm, and passion was shared with me.’’
Both have commissive elements, but PS’s is embedded in ‘‘I am considering the field’’ and in her somewhat superficial image of ‘‘sharing’’ as teaching. GL, in contrast, begins from a stronger commitment to teach, ‘‘I want to teach,’’ and positions herself as a support to students in their journey to understand, revealing a deeper understanding of teaching on her part. The applications of these two provide even stronger evidence of this conceptual difference in their understandings of what it will mean to commit to teaching. When statements with commissive illocutionary force are coupled with statements animated by concessive illocutionary force (I guess maybe I will be a teacher), the sense that the candidate is committed to the role of teaching is weakened. Commissive illocutionary force becomes valuable for understanding how preservice teachers are positioning themselves when it is linked with other statements that are assertive and informative. When such linking occurs, the commitment is stronger when it is surrounded and supported by statements animated by assertive and informative illocutionary force. Ironically, the least powerful kind of illocutionary force that could be used in an applicant statement and the one that positions teacher education with the least power is concessive illocutionary force. However, the positioning behind such concessive statements is much more varied. A concessive statement is not a prophecy. Using concessive illocutionary force does
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not mean the applicants will ultimately be poor teachers or even dislike teaching and leave the field prematurely. A concessive statement simply reveals a wavering of commitment, or that the applicant’s heart may not be in teaching. Essentially, the candidate is saying, ‘‘I guess I’ll be a teacher,’’ which implies that like declarative illocutionary force, they rather than the institution are making the choice. To see the variability in concessive illocutionary force, consider these three contrasting positioning statements, which are all animated by a concessive illocutionary force. BC: Though I still think it would be fun to be a mouse, I want to be a teacher even more. HE: Obviously, I have never been a teacher before, but I have a pretty good hunch that the role would fit me well. GB: When the decision finally came to choose a major and a career, I realized that one might as well do what one loves.
Although concessive illocutionary force animates each of these three examples, the background narrative about each of these candidates’ applications strengthens the contrasts evident in the illocutionary force in their statements. BC’s statement positions teachers as mouse-like (weak and not powerful). Furthermore, in her discussion on why she chose teaching, she focused on external avenues for making this decision such as aptitude and career placement tests and external spiritual direction (a source other than personal prayer). Like BW, the student who ‘‘declared’’ herself a teacher and thus rejected the position of needing to ask someone else if she could be one, this student also rejects the application process. However, by framing her application around her childhood desire to be a mouse, she reveals how little she respects or cares about the application or the teacher educators behind the application process. In fact, her entire examination of her decision to become a teacher positions teachers and teacher educators as less powerful than mice. There is a sense that while she ‘‘chose’’ to be a teacher rather than a ‘‘mouse’’ she does not want to be a teacher and being a teacher is indeed being a mouse. In the second example, the applicant spends most of her description of her decision to teach focusing on her love of English as a subject and her desire to spend her life reading and writing and ‘‘talk(ing) with other people about the things I read and write.’’ In conceding to be a teacher, she envisions herself spending her life discussing the literary greats with peers. Her concession to be a teacher is very different than BC’s and not so filled with disappointment about the choice but reveals she may find it difficult to teach
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English to students who may not read well and even if they do have little desire to talk about the texts she assigns. In the third example, this applicant spends much of the section on her description of why she chose teaching discussing her experiences in her grandfather’s high school English classroom and the hours she spent modeling his English teaching practices with her brothers, sisters, and friends. She has a realistic understanding of her choice expressed in the statement, ‘‘Teaching has always been a dream of mine, even though some might classify the long hours, unappreciated efforts, and often disappointments as nightmarish.’’ An applicant whose positioning contains a concessive illocutionary force like the third example should probably not cause much concern since the concessive positioning would probably have little impact on how this student responds to teacher education. Her realistic statements of the difficulties of being a teacher suggest a balanced view of what becoming a teacher requires. A concessive statement like the second example from HE, though not unexpected among secondary preservice teachers, caused more concern. Secondary teacher educators are already very aware that they have in their classroom preservice teachers who have primarily a content rather than person commitment to teaching. Indeed, the literature shows that secondary preservice teachers often choose teaching because they want to spend their lives studying a particular content area. In our discussion of HE’s background, her surrounding statements reveal that she has a narrow range of positions for students to take up in her future English classroom. That is, she feels they will almost all want to read, write about, and discuss great literature without much effort on her part. Further, her own commitment to the content probably indicates that, for her, learning to teach English is merely a matter of learning English. These two issues should be fundamentally and personally addressed in the teacher education of a preservice teacher with this profile of concessive illocutionary force in order not to prepare additional teachers who are positioned to misunderstand, blame, and reject students. It is the first example that is most troubling. Indeed, there were at least three other applicants whose statements were similarly concessive and dismissive. Unless such candidates are supported in questioning their own conception of the moral basis and commitment of their decision to teach, we wonder how they will be successful and productive humans in the role of teacher. The first two examples suggest that teacher education, which does not embrace and explore the moral dimensions of the teaching act and the
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responsibility and commitment teachers have to the well being of students will leave us with disappointed, dismissive, and discouraged teachers. Currently in teacher education coursework, most of the dimensions behind the concessive illocutionary force positioning statements are simply ignored.
CONCLUSION Implications What these findings reveal is that some students come to teacher education having already declared themselves teachers, having a deep and complex understanding of the role of a teacher and with powerful storylines to guide them in future development. Others may be more tentative about taking on the teaching role, have less complex ideas about that role, and have shallower plotlines for the role. None of this is news to teacher educators. What is news is a consideration of what it means to teacher education when the illocutionary force behind a student’s positioning of themselves as a teacher is concessive – ‘‘I guess I’ll be a teacher.’’ How does what we do in our programs move this student from conceding that they could be a teacher to declaring themselves teachers? In addition, the past research in teacher education has described preservice teachers as having unrealistic optimism about their ability to teach (Weinstein, 1989). In our findings, our strongest declarative teacher was more open to learning from teacher education than others who concede that they might be teachers. If this is true, this surely connects to research that shows that some teacher education students view what is offered in teacher education as not worth learning or enacting in their own teaching. It also suggests that addressing concerns raised by illocutionary force, initial positioning, and plotlines for becoming a teacher may be a better way to enlist preservice teachers in learning what teacher education has to offer. Another concern is the way in which the plot line for bad teaching is merely a collapse of the plotline for good teaching, which may suggest that supporting teacher development may be more about reviving earlier storylines guiding teaching than it is about changing beliefs. Finally, our work revealed to teacher educators, yet again, the deep moral values which are embedded in the positioning of oneself as a teacher and in the plotline of good teaching. We wonder where in teacher education, student teaching, or even experience as a teacher are preservice and inservice teachers allowed to stand in the kind of place where they can reveal or
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explore these deep moral images and commitments that animate their identity as teachers.
Positioning Theory as a Methodological Tool Positioning theory functions on the basic assumptions of social construction of self and identity as a fluid, constant reshaping of roles moment to moment in the living of our lives. Using it to explore teaching identity is powerful since the relationship between preservice teachers and teacher educators is definitely a situation where people construct each other and are constantly negotiating position. As a tool of analysis, Bullough and Draper (2004) have used positioning to explore how student teachers make sense of relationships in difficult supervisory experiences and in our study we have seen the way in which an understanding of individual students’ positioning, plotlines, and illocutionary force as they enter teaching provide teacher educators with important information that could guide the development of these students as teachers. As a methodological tool for exploring discourse, positioning theory allows researchers to engage in sociolinguistic analysis with minimum linguistic training. Such analysis of text reveals its contradictions and complexities. At the micro-level, it provides rich detail and structure allowing for focus in exploring complex texts and issues. It also allows researchers (see Bullough & Draper, 2004) to integrate several kinds of data in the analysis of teaching and teacher education – experience, reflection, events, documents. A major drawback in using this tool is the complication of using speech to represent action when indeed they are not exactly the same. However, when positioning theory is used to integrate various kinds of data that include events and experience, then the data provide additional support for the interpretation of the discourse. Further, it allows researchers to treat events as discourse, enabling more complex interpretations of behavior. In this study, we have had to structure our analysis in ways that make up for this disadvantage. We have attempted to use consensus and triangulation of data to overcome this disadvantage. As in all research, there are issues of interpretation. Here, the issue raised is whether the context and the questions positioned the responders rather than the responders positioning themselves. The sentence level analysis and journaling employed in this study have helped us combat our own constant concern about this issue. As we make assertions about individuals’
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positioning, illocutionary force or plotlines, we seek confirmatory evidence elsewhere in their texts and in contrasting them to others who say similar things but position themselves differently, use different illocutionary force and imply different plotlines. Positioning theory as a tool of analysis holds potential to examine aspects of teacher education that have only had very surface investigations in the past, such as the relationship between university supervisors, student teachers and teacher educators, or the power relationships that underlie secondary education politics at the university. It also holds promise of providing a way to follow the identity development of teacher education candidates as they move from the role of student to teacher and the variability and range of this development. It allows a more nuanced examination of the development of an individual teacher, which can then have implications for teacher education generally. Our own work using positioning theory has raised for us many questions about how teacher educators and teacher education programs support the development of new teachers. We wonder how we work with preservice teachers whose positioning of themselves as teachers is animated by concession. Since that implies that while they are fairly certain that of course they could be a teacher, their heart is not in it. We wonder how we build on the rich definitions of teaching that many candidates bring in order to enrich the conceptions of classmates whose definitions of teaching and the role of teacher are shallow and uni-dimensional. Ultimately, this exploration has left us to wonder about how as teacher educators we support our students in animating the deeply moral images of good teaching that they bring with them. We puzzle even more deeply about how one helps those living the plotlines of ‘‘bad’’ teachers to reanimate those plotlines in ways that allow practicing teachers to reposition themselves as the good teachers they initially desired to be.
REFERENCES Bateson, M. C. (2001). Composing a life. New York: Grove/Atlantic, Inc. Brookhart, S. M., & Freeman, D. J. (1992). Characteristics of entering teacher candidates. Review of Educational Research, 62(1), 37–60. Bullough, R. V., & Draper, R. J. (2004). Making sense of a failed triad: Mentors, university supervisors, and positioning theory. Journal of Teacher Education, 55(5), 407–420. Bullough, R. V., & Gitlin, A. (1995). Becoming a student of teaching: Methodologies for exploring self and school context. New York: Garland, Publishing.
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Darling-Hammond, L., & Youngs, P. (2002). Defining ‘‘highly qualified teachers’’: What does ‘‘scientifically based research’’ actually tell us. Educational Researcher, 31(1), 13–25. Erickson, E. H. (1980). Identity and the life cycle. New York: Norton. Harre´, R., & van Langenhoven, L. (1998). Positioning theory: Moral contexts of professional action. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, Inc. MacIntyre, A. (1997). The virtues, the unity of a human life, and the concept of a tradition. In: L. P. Hinchman & S. K. Hinchman (Eds), Memory, identity, community: The idea of narrative in the human sciences (pp. 241–263). Albany: State University of New York Press. Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41, 954–969. Oyserman, D., & Markus, H. (1990). Possible selves in balance: Implications for delinquency. Journal of Social Issues, 46(2), 141–157. Stokes, D. (1995). Called to teach. Unpublished dissertation. University of Utah. van Langenhoven, L., & Harre´, R. (1998). Positioning and personhood. In: R. Harre´ & L. van Langenhoven (Eds), Positioning theory: Moral contexts of professional action. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, Inc. Weinstein, C. S. (1989). Teacher education students’ preconceptions of teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 40(2), 53–60.
LEARNING TO TEACH WITH THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED Peggy Placier, Suzanne Burgoyne, Karen Cockrell, Sharon Welch and Helen Neville ABSTRACT In this account of a study of a Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) intervention in a preservice teacher classroom, the authors explore an alternative way of learning to teach, as well as the dynamics of interdisciplinary collaboration between Theater and Education. Measures of racial and political attitudes did not demonstrate any change in the preservice teachers; however, several limitations made these findings inconclusive. Observations and journal entries suggested that interactive theater may be a promising way to make beliefs about teaching and learning visible, and therefore accessible for critical reflection.
This chapter explores the possibilities of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO), a form of interactive theater, as a way of learning about teaching and/or assessing knowledge of teaching. As we will explain in more detail later, our initial study of TO in teacher education framed TO as an intervention in a mixed methods quasi-experimental study of preservice teachers’ attitudes toward cultural diversity. Despite disappointing quantitative findings of the pre-post design, from the qualitative findings we realized that we had Learning from Research on Teaching: Perspective, Methodology, and Representation Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 11, 253–280 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1016/S1479-3687(05)11009-8
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learned something important, both about our students and about our own teaching. First we will introduce readers to TO and summarize the previous research on drama in education (DIE). Next we will discuss our study of TO in a teacher education classroom, responding to the questions the editors addressed to all of the authors in this volume. Finally, we will recommend research that could further investigate claims for the learning effects of TO. There have been few empirical studies in this realm, despite enthusiastic claims by academic advocates and practitioners that students ‘‘learn best from experience,’’ and that drama, as a form of experience, is a powerful learning tool.
THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED (Oppression) is that process within a society that destroys life, inhibits life, makes growth, joy, celebration, family life, intellectual and spiritual life, physical life impossibley. Oppression is in every society, somewhere in its fabric, a malignant power that must be destroyed (O’Gorman, 1988, p. 98).
According to Brazilian theater educator and activist Augusto Boal (1985), theater is essentially political, as are most human activities. Theater’s tradition of monologue, directed from stage to audience, serves to silence and oppress popular audiences. Boal argues for theatrical forms that break down the separation between stage and audience to such an extent that space between actor/stage and spectator ceases to exist. The spectator becomes spect-actor, as audience members are invited on stage to demonstrate ways of resolving problems portrayed by the actors. Eliminating the distance between stage and audience stimulates audience members to imagine change, practice change, reflect on action, and thus become empowered to generate change in their communities (Boal, 1985). Image Theater and Forum Theater are two among many TO forms that Boal developed for exploring oppression on both analytic and sensory levels. In Image Theater, participants silently arrange themselves into a ‘‘sculpture’’ portraying an oppressive event or relationship and, on a prearranged signal, change their sculpture into progressively less oppressive portrayals. After the final image, spectators are invited to join the Image Theater participants in dialogue and analysis of the movement from oppression toward non-oppression. In Forum Theater, actors create and present short scenes that represent problems within a community. Spect-actors participate by calling ‘‘stop,’’ replacing an actor, and attempting to turn the scene toward a solution. At the conclusion of the scene,
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actors and spect-actors join in dialogue and debate around the solutions and their outcomes. What are the claims for TO? Advocates say that TO allows participants to collectively explore and try out possible solutions to conflicts. Through TO, participants can observe connections between individual and community concerns; they can also understand community as the genesis for social and political norms. Given these possibilities, popular theater could serve as a useful tool for helping people develop alternative resolutions to social problems, providing a means for developing and testing ideas in an environment of support and safety. Within the discipline of Theater, the existing literature on TO consists primarily of Augusto Boal’s books on the theory and practice of TO (e.g., Boal, 1992). TO practitioners have also published case studies, ideological analyses, and interviews with Boal, such as those that appear in Schutzman and Cohen-Cruz (1994) and in a special issue of Contemporary Theater Review devoted to TO (Special issue on Theatre of the Oppressed, 1995). A book-length theoretical analysis by a TO practitioner has been published in French (Guerre, 1998). As we will discuss later, the field of theater education does not have a strong research tradition, and some theater educators are guarded about or even antagonistic toward research as a means of justifying the value of their discipline. In education, there have been few studies of TO, most of them very exploratory and not tightly designed. Blanco’s (2000) dissertation study on the use of TO for health education with farm workers refers to participants’ remarks and quotes at length from TO pieces developed by participants. Somewhat similar to our study in design, if not in its setting or participants, a masters thesis by Negri-Pool (2004) examines the effects of TO activities on a small group of adult Latina women in a bilingual early childhood teacher education program. In journals and a focus group interview, the researcher identified themes consistent with her theoretical focus on identity development: a changing understanding of oppression, a feeling of unity with other oppressed peoples, a developing sense of empowerment, and a change in group identification. In another teacher education study, Kaye and Ragusa (1998) report on their use of TO ‘‘to analyze complex social issues,’’ especially multiculturalism (p. 2); however, their paper provides neither assessment nor a thorough analysis of the impact of their techniques. Vierk (1997) applied TO as a means of stimulating critical thinking and creativity in her composition courses, but her teacher-research study lacks methodological rigor. Brown and Gillespie (1999) argue for the effectiveness of TO in a higher education setting, in this case as a means of assisting faculty and
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administrators to ‘‘hone our skills, courage, and collective responses to resist the sources of our moral distress’’ (p. 39); their argument is supported only through anecdotal examples. Carlebach and Singer (1998) state that students found using TO in service-learning projects ‘‘empowering’’ (p. 197), but offer no supporting evidence other than reference to ad hoc student comments and course evaluations. As of this writing, studies have not undertaken indepth research on participants’ learning and development through TO. Our ongoing research program is attempting to fill this gap.
DRAMA IN EDUCATION: LEARNING CLAIMS In this volume, authors are presenting various ways of learning from research on teaching. Therefore, although this was not one of Boal’s interests, we will consider TO as a way of learning and/or assessing learning, in this case learning about teaching. One way of looking at drama is as a form of experiential learning. Experiential learning is ‘‘the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience’’(Kolb, 1984, p. 38). Many learning theorists and educational philosophers have made claims about the value of experience as a catalyst for learning, for both children and adults. Dewey (1938) is well known for his belief in the value of learning from structured experience integrated with the social life of the community. Psychologists, Piaget (1954) and Rogers (1961), also made links between ‘‘learning’’ and ‘‘doing.’’ Experiential learning encompasses a wide array of activities, from service learning or work experience in the community, to simulation games, to outdoor adventures (Kraft & Kielsmeier, 1995; Lempert, 1996). The form most relevant to our research is ‘‘role playing,’’ in which students act out a brief scene based on experience, history, or fiction. Role playing is often mentioned as a classroom practice in the education literature. However, claims for the efficacy of role playing have not been rigorously supported. For example, Booth (1986) claims that role-playing allows participants an opportunity to try something out in a safe setting. True enough, but what do they learn from the experience? There are a number of other terms in use for theater methods as pedagogy: creative dramatics, DIE, educational drama, process drama, theater in education (TIE), etc. (Wagner, 1998, pp. 3–4). In this context, the term ‘‘drama’’ refers to performance work, improvisation, and role-play, usually done by students. These methods have been used, primarily in K-12 schools, throughout the twentieth century, gaining more support after World War II. Great Britain, under the influence of such theorist/practitioners as Brian
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Way, Dorothy Heathcote, and Gavin Bolton, seems to have developed a more firmly established movement than the US (Courtney, 1989, pp. 23–24; Wagner, 1998, p. 11). In the US, DIE seems not to have been taken as seriously, especially in the context of accountability reforms in which only certain knowledge ‘‘counts.’’ Best (1996) observes that the very factor that makes drama so powerful, its ability to engage the emotions, is also ‘‘the main reason why drama is dismissed as educationally irrelevant: that is, drama is regarded as merely a bit of fun, catharsis, and relaxation from serious learning, because it is assumed to be merely a matter of feeling’’ (p. 12). Gressler (2002) suggests that the basis for negative reactions to theater, ‘‘especially in education, stems from a very long tradition of prejudice against the art form’’ (p. 2). Nevertheless, there are a number of claims about learning through DIE. For instance, O’Neill and Lambert (1982) define educational drama as a mode of learning. Through the pupils’ active identification with imagined roles and situations in drama, they can learn to explore issues, events, and relationships. In drama, children draw on their knowledge and experience of the real world in order to create a make-believe world (p. 11).
Advocates of educational drama claim outcomes such as development of: social skills; feelings of empathy or self-esteem; cognitive skills, including critical thinking and problem-solving; and enhanced understanding of the subject matter presented through the drama experience (O’Neill & Lambert, 1982, pp. 13–16; see also Wagner, 1999). More recent arguments for the significance of educational drama draw on cognitive psychology and constructivist theories of learning, citing theorists such as Vygotsky, Bruner, and Gardner (e.g., Gressler, 2002; Wagner, 1998). Wagner, for instance, points out that constructivist theory represents a shift from behaviorism to ‘‘putting the significance of meaning back into the center of human psychology’’ (p. 16). She argues that Drama works powerfully because the bodies of the participants are stimulated as well as the mindsy. As students participate in educational drama, they are stimulated in imagined situations to respond with their whole beings. Because their previous stasis is disturbed, their whole organisms are aroused. Their bodies as well as their minds need to give shape to their experience and to this changing vision of the world. Learning comes as students give form to experience, as they construct meaning (1998, pp. 16–17).
Similarly, Gressler (2002) draws on active learning theory and observes that theater education ‘‘disallows passivity’’ and ‘‘follows the active-based, experiential learning patterns proposed by Kolb and others’’ (p. 79). Arnold (1998) proposes that ‘‘it is timely for research in Drama and Education and
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the arts to claim unique experiences in exploring the dynamics between affect and cognition’’ (p. 111), and refers to psychodynamic pedagogical theory, arguing that ‘‘effective pedagogy is enhanced by a context in which there is an engagement between thinking and feeling, at personal, interpersonal, and intrapersonal levels’’ (p. 115). These claims for the affective or psychological impacts of educational drama can be linked to clinical psychology, a field in which drama has been used for many years. Jacob Moreno (1944) is credited as the founder of psychodrama (Emunah, 1994). Moreno took role-play used in individual client therapy and brought it into use as a form of group therapy. Experiential exercises reportedly increase clients’ feelings of competence (WernerWilson, 2001). The realities of everyday life can be brought into the setting, with imagination creating a dual consciousness (Landy, 1986). Finally, some writers claim that drama develops human relations, skills, ethical values, and attitudes (e.g., Somers, 1996; Hume & Wells, 1999). The title of Wagner’s (1999) text, Building Moral Communities Through Educational Drama, is indicative of this goal. Emunah (1994) supports bringing drama into the classroom, because it can be used to teach creativity, communication, and empathy. Our study of TO in teacher education was based primarily on such claims. Teacher educators have been particularly interested in developing empathy for culturally diverse students and families among preservice teachers. According to Wilson (1998), the effectiveness of social action theater as a diversity education model is based on the following assumptions, articulated by the Northeast Wisconsin Alliance for Continuing Education (1994): People are fundamentally good and will relate to one another in positive, accepting, and caring ways if ignorance, fear, insecurity, lack of experience with persons different from themselves, and lack of opportunity for positive interactions do not stand in the way. Direct interaction in a supportive learning environment leads to mutual empathy and insight into the experiences of others, more honest and comfortable communication, and the development of caring relationships. The most effective learning experience is that which enables people to recognize and reflect on the assumptions and beliefs that underlie habits of thought, behavior, and attitudes. Learning to be tolerant is a relational process. People understand why they relate to others as they do, as they become self-aware. People come to know themselves in and through relationships with others (as quoted in Wilson, 1998, p. 28).
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Theater experiences may also change behaviors. For example, peer theater was used at SUNY-Albany to deliver social norms messages about drinking. The intent of the theater production was to reduce binge drinking and other high-risk behavior related to alcohol. A comparison of freshman seminar sections that were assigned either to the peer-theater production or to a lecture on alcohol and its effects showed that the interactive theater intervention caused greater positive changes in participants. Significant decreases in frequency of drinking and in driving after alcohol consumption were self-reported. There was also an increase in the number of students who thought that their peers, rather than bingeing, were consuming alcohol once a week or less (Cimini, Page, & Trujillo, 2002).
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND THEATER: TWO DIFFERENT CULTURES? Until the late twentieth century, however, few studies investigated assertions about the benefits of educational drama (Jackson, 1996). There are reasons for this dearth of research. As we have learned through our collaborative research, our study represents the intersection of two disciplinary cultures: one (Theater) alien to or skeptical of the value of empirical research, the other (Education) awash in studies of all sorts, making competing knowledge claims. As in many cross-cultural relationships, we have found that there is a danger of stereotyping or oversimplifying the other. There is also a power issue here, with some Theater people expressing deep misgivings about the dominance of ‘‘scientific methods’’ in academe. If the Education culture has embraced this orientation, the Theater culture asks, is it because research is beneficial or because empirical research enhances a discipline’s political legitimacy and financial support? Because our research approach was shaped by this cross-cultural encounter, and because most readers of this volume will be familiar with the research (sub) cultures of Education, some explanation of the culture of Theater is warranted. Our reading of the literature shows that within Theater education there are at least two perspectives on research. One perspective advises avoidance of empirical research, based on a binary opposition between the arts/humanities and the sciences. At least until recently there was a lofty conviction that no justification of the arts and the arts in education was either necessary or appropriate, indeed that the very idea of such justification was blasphemous, and any demand for it an expression of philistinism (Best, 1996, p. 4)
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According to Taylor (1996), the nature of theater – ephemeral, physical, active – ‘‘may be one reason why the drama educator has been reluctant to write and may account for the dearth of drama practitioners who are acknowledged leaders in art education.’’ He adds that ‘‘Drama educators may have unwittingly contributed to a distrust of research given their own valueladen prejudices about what researchers do and the meaningful application of research in practice’’ (p. x). Among the ‘‘value-laden prejudices’’ to which Taylor refers is the long-standing tension in academe between the humanities and arts, on one hand, and the sciences on the other, as postulated in C.P. Snow’s ‘‘two cultures.’’ Arts practitioners and scientists, according to this perspective, have opposing worldviews; artists espouse subjectivity and regard scientists’ insistence on objectivity with suspicion. Gressler (2002) proposes that theater teachers ‘‘experience first hand and daily the educational gains made by their students and have felt little need to justify such personal successes to anyone’’ (p. 4). Jackson (1996) argues that research into educational drama ‘‘has been not just minimal, but actually resistedy. There has also been a FEAR OF RESEARCH’’ (p. 35). Within this perspective, ‘‘research,’’ especially in the current political context, means ‘‘positivism.’’ Wagner (1999) points out that Because a great many of the political leaders who control funding for education and those within the educational establishment who control budgets are enmeshed in a positivist belief system, those of us who advocate for educational drama find ourselves citing empirical research as a rhetorical ploy (p. 232).
Taylor (1996) concurs: ‘‘As the arts struggle to remain on the curriculum, as they continue to be relegated to the marginalized peripheryy. Arts education learns to play the game of scientism’’ (p. 1). ‘‘Within this doctrine,’’ Taylor complains, ‘‘advocacy statements only have legitimacy if they are presented in terms that the empiricists understandy. The arts, located often as they are within metaphysical and contradictory realities, are betrayed when their proponents demand fixed truths and appeal for neo-positivist research’’ (p. 12). For example, Best (1996) has argued that ‘‘research in drama and the arts must be as rigorously objective as it is in any other discipline’’ (p. 21), in order to enhance its credibility. Other arguments against research on DIE stem from the apprehension that theater might be appropriated by educators as just one more ‘‘method’’ in their pedagogical toolkits. Critics such as Abbs (1994) and Hornbrook (1998) argue that drama should not be used as a learning method across the curriculum, but is valuable within its own disciplinary field – as an art. Hornbook, for instance, proposes that constructivist approaches to education
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lead either to ‘‘moral relativism’’ or to the imposition of teachers’ values on their students. Placing the study, criticism, and performance of theater solely within its own subject field, Hornbrook believes, would enhance, not demean, the educational power of theater. He contends that ‘‘drama occupies a place at the very centre of the way in which we make sense of ourselves and order our lives’’ (p. 141). In the case of TO, Hornbook predicts, ‘‘In the densely textured political ethnography of a post-imperial liberal democracy with long-standing theatrical conventions of its ownyBoal’s techniques could easily lead to over-simplification and to the reinforcement of the stereotypical position-taking of its exponents’’ (p. 48). A contrasting perspective in theater education is that some kind of pedagogical research may be worthwhile. Fear of some modes of research may be an understandable response of drama educators, because ‘‘scientific methods’’ have not been a traditional part of their training. Until quite recently, research methods in theatrical fields have been drawn solely from the humanities (e.g., history, literary theory and criticism, text analysis). Theater researchers have been struggling to establish the legitimacy of their field in an academic landscape dominated by historians and professors of literature. Consistent with the disciplinary cultural perspective, however, Burgoyne (p.c.) argues that the epistemology underpinning qualitative methods, which seek to understand how people give meaning to their experiences, is more compatible with the worldview of artists/humanists than the positivistic worldview underpinning much quantitative research. As Taylor (1996) observes, ‘‘Research designyis a political statement which identifies what is and is not cherished by the researcher’’ (p. 17). Some theater educators are beginning to discover a way to conduct research on their pedagogical approaches without compromising their worldview or values. According to Jackson (1996), With the developments in Ethnographic and Action Research in education, there are emerging some challenging methodological frameworks within which to conduct that research and which could be adapted profitably to educational theater (p. 35).
The majority of the recent books in educational drama, therefore, call for more qualitative research, because qualitative methods seem better suited to investigating the kinds of questions the researchers want to pose. For example, Wagner (1998) argues that empirical studies too often ‘‘only answer the quantitative query, ‘Did the participants learn anything?’ They do not address the larger and messier questions of ‘how’ and ‘why.’’’(p. 232). Qualitative researchers, in contrast, hope to ‘‘interpret experience in search of meaning rather thanyin search of a generalizeable law’’ (p. 234).
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Another argument for the value of qualitative research in theater education arises from the complexity of the drama experience and its impact on the learner. Catterall and Darby (1996) point out that ‘‘Elliot Eisner, Howard Gardner, and Dennie Palmer Wolf have argued convincingly that assessing students’ learning in the arts has been resistant to traditional empirical methodologies based on psychometric models’’ (p. 148). Traditional methods of assessment may not be able to capture the ‘‘multidimensional benefits of drama’’ (p. 154).
DRAMA IN EDUCATION: EVIDENCE In spite of artistic wariness, a number of empirical studies of educational drama have been done. The results of quantitative studies have been inconsistent and inconclusive (Wagner, 1998). Conard (1998), commenting on her own meta-analysis and that of Kardash and Wright (1987), observed that Both meta-analyses are limited by the paucity of empirical studies to support claims of creative drama advocates, the failure of researchers to document characteristics of measuring instruments, such as reliability and validity, and the possible practice by editors and reviewers of using statistical significance as a criterion for selecting manuscriptsy. If drama educators are to make a case for drama by measuring its effects on other skills, they must become more sophisticated. Sloppy studies may have characterized the field twenty years ago, but now researchers need more (pp. 210–211).
Are the inconsistent and inconclusive findings a result of poor research or of the difficulty (some might say impossibility) of measuring the effects of drama? Finally, theater education research is often conducted within the traditions of action-research, teacher-research, or self-study research, which diverge from the standards applied to much academic research. According to Taylor (1998), the primary audience may not be the research community but researcher/practitioners themselves: Who are the beneficiaries of reflective practitioner research? And the obvious answer must be that it is the participants in the research endeavor: the teachers, the students, the mentors. Whereas action research accounts are used to teach others, reflective-practitioner research teaches us. While there may be a wider audience, it is not a condition of the design that such will occury, But this does not mean that the design lacks sophistication or rigor (p. 228).
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Nevertheless, researchers in most studies of TO have done little to establish the credibility or rigor of their studies, even within the terms of these newer research traditions.
DESIGN AND METHODS Like Kaye and Ragusa (1998) and Negri-Pool (2004), we were interested in the effects of TO on preservice teachers’ attitudes toward cultural diversity in the context of one teacher education classroom. The course curriculum includes themes of reflection, inquiry, professional ethics, and diversity that are, rhetorically, central to the teacher education program at our university. However, through course evaluations and written comments, students have voiced objections to the course’s focus on diversity and multicultural theory. They have difficulty understanding racial or ethnic identities, and most have limited experience with others different from themselves. This situation is not unique; there are countless studies of preservice teacher ‘‘resistance’’ to multicultural education in the teacher education literature. Our research questions were: Can a TO intervention in a teacher education class change preservice teachers’ attitudes toward cultural diversity? If so, how and why? Our project was an attempt to develop a small scale but well-designed pilot research project that would also contribute to the limited knowledge based on TO in education. Our research team included members invested in differing research traditions – ethnography, grounded theory, psychological measurement, critical theory, self-study of teaching – but with a shared commitment to the purposes of our study. We chose a mixed methods quasi-experimental design that could accommodate everyone’s research interests.
Setting and Participants The project involved collaboration between two classes in different disciplines – Education and Theater – at a public research university. The two instructors, both white female tenured faculty members, had many years of experience in their fields. The theater professor also played the role of researcher in the study, while the education professor was a participant and reflective observer of her class. The rest of the ethnically diverse research team included professors and graduate students from education, theater, educational psychology, and religious studies.
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In fall 2000, 16 teacher preparation students enrolled in the teacher education course, Inquiry into Schools, Community, and Society. Eleven of these students agreed (volunteered) to participate in the study. The course is required for all students in the teacher education program, but this was the first time it had been offered in the fall semester, to accommodate a few students who could not take it in the usual sequence. These students were not fully representative of the total teacher education population, because only two of them were majoring in elementary education. However, they did represent a range of secondary education fields. All the students except one were white. In the same semester, the other professor was teaching a new course, Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) in the Theater Department. The students (both graduate and undergraduate) in this class represented a wider range of age and life experience. They were engaged both as peer instructors, teaching TO to the education students, and as study participants. Twelve of the 15 Theater students volunteered to participate in the study. However, this chapter focuses on data from the Education students. Four class sessions in the teacher education class (75 min each) were devoted to learning and practice of TO: (1) Introduction to TO through practice exercises; (2) Image Theater performances by small groups; (3) Introduction to Forum Theater, including a performance by the Theater students; (4) Forum Theater performances by small groups. In addition to class time, the Image and Forum Theater groups, made up of both Education and Theater students, met outside of class to develop and rehearse their performances. Data Collection The quantitative component of the study employed a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design, using two instruments, the Color Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (CoBRAS) (Neville, H.A., Lilly, R.L., Duran, G., Lee, R.M., & Browne, L., 2000) and the Social Dominance Orientation Scale (SDOS) (Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., Stallworth, L.M., & Malle, B.F., 1994). The CoBRAS measures three factors relevant to teacher attitudes toward racial diversity in classrooms: Unawareness of Racial Privilege, Institutional Discrimination, and Blatant Racial Issues. For these two measures, students in both classes combined served as the experimental group (n ¼ 23), and a comparison group matched on gender, race, and major (theater or education) served as the control group. We also administered a Guided Inquiry (GI) survey to participating students in the two classes, to measure the circumstances promoting and
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hindering the development of oppression awareness among the participants. The GI included four topics: whether thoughts or understandings of oppression changed since taking the class; what changes, if any, had been made; if changes had been made, what was most important in stimulating them; and anything about the class that hindered learning about oppression. We collected qualitative data in the forms of: (1) Student journals: Students wrote entries throughout the semester on their reactions to readings, curricular themes, group projects, TO projects, panel presentations, and field experiences. They were encouraged to record their reactions accurately and honestly, and were provided assurances that they would not be penalized, through grading, for doing so. (2) Image Theater observations: The Image Theater performances took place in the teacher education classroom. At least three members of the research team (two faculty and one graduate student) observed these sessions and recorded field notes. (3) Forum Theater observations: The Forum Theater pieces were performed in a small theater located in the Theater department. Four faculty members and one graduate student observed each of the performances and recorded their observations in field note form. We also videotaped the scenes, but most of the Education students did not give us permission to use the videotapes in our study, which made analysis of the tapes impossible. (4) Researcher reflections and communication: During the course of the semester the researchers recorded their thoughts, responses and ideas about the TO project. We archived email notes and memoranda exchanged among the research team members. Data Analysis In keeping with the generally held view that meanings and additional questions emerge as the study progresses (Glaser, 1992), ongoing analysis of the qualitative data influenced the scope and direction of succeeding data collection efforts. We did not apply a specific theoretical lens to our analysis; rather, we allowed our emergent theoretical constructs to ‘‘bubble-up’’ as the data unfolded through the analytic process. Following Lincoln’s and Guba’s (1985) advice for trustworthiness of research findings, we (1) used multiple data sources and member checks; (2) used thick description to present our findings; and (3) maintained a detailed research record.
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First, we examined the education students’ journals, the Image and Forum Theater field notes, and the teacher education instructor’s reflective journal notes. We next examined our secondary data, including the student demographic surveys and research team members’ electronic e-mail notes and written memoranda. As we read each data set, we noted conceptual labels on the page margins and wrote memos that captured analytic ideas and questions. We used the constant comparative method (Strauss, 1987) to find connections among the data, to understand the conditions and circumstances of the connected (categorized) data, and to construct meaning from them. As individual members of the research team, we wrote frequent memos; as collaborative researchers, we met weekly to discuss our memos, data collected, analytic processes, and necessary adjustments in our research procedures. The process of open coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) resulted in descriptive themes that guided our analytic procedures. We labeled categories of student outcomes in the journals as: (1) objections, (2) conceptual challenges, (3) discovering pathways, (4) recognizing applications, and (5) clarifying beliefs.
Findings The results of the CoBRAS and SDOS showed no significant change in participants’ attitudes in relation to the comparison group. In retrospect, we probably should not have expected dramatic change, even from such a potentially powerful intervention. Previous research in teacher education and professional development suggests that attitudinal change is particularly difficult to bring about through a short-term experience. For example, Sleeter (1992) found that even after 14 full days of professional development on cultural diversity during a school year, practicing teachers did not change their fundamental beliefs. On the GI, a large majority (84%) said that their understanding of oppression had changed to some degree; however, the researcher who completed this analysis combined Education and Theater student findings in order to have a more robust sample. The Theater students were exposed to far more explicit instruction on the concept of oppression as the theoretical foundation of TO. Still, these findings meant that at least some of the Education students had developed a new awareness of oppression. The qualitative data from the observations, journals, and teacher educator reflections, revealed unanticipated findings. In this chapter, we will concentrate on the findings on learning about teaching. From these findings, we concluded that TO has potential for making tacit knowledge and implicit beliefs about
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teaching among preservice teachers visible. Once they are visible, they are accessible for reflection and discussion, and ideally, development and change.
Learning about Teaching: Observations Our argument in this chapter is that, rather than (or perhaps in addition to, depending on what larger studies may show) being an attitude-changing intervention, TO may make current knowledge and beliefs about education visible. Field notes from the Image and Forum Theater performances suggested that TO was an alternative assessment of sorts, an indicator of both preservice teacher development and effects of the teacher education program. At the first meeting of the teacher education class, the instructor promised that more details on the TO project would be forthcoming. Over the next few class sessions, the class had some uncomfortable discussions about other assignments for the class, in which two complaints surfaced: (1) the amount of work, especially written work, required for the class, and (2) the practical value of the course. Rather than reading about and discussing issues in the ethics, politics and culture of schooling, some students said they would rather be learning ‘‘how to teach’’ or ‘‘what works’’ in schools. A couple of students were particularly vocal about this. It did not bode well for the TO intervention. In the third week of class, the Theater professor and several students from her class came to introduce TO. Rather than delivering a lecture or presentation on the topic, they plunged the class into simple acting games (see Boal, 1992) that required movement, spontaneity, and some level of risktaking in front of peers. For example, small groups of students created a ‘‘machine,’’ with each one becoming a moving part complete with sound effects. The students seemed to enjoy the activities, but at the next class the instructor heard complaints that TO was a poor use of time and just another indication of the impractical content of the course. When the time came to set up outside of class rehearsal times for Image Theater with the Theater class, scheduling was an ordeal, because of the complexities of both groups’ schedules. There was also resistance among some preservice teachers to meeting outside of class at all; they interpreted this demand as unreasonable. Their response was an intriguing indication of ideas about teaching – would they expect their own future students to interpret ‘‘homework’’ in a similar way? The groups met outside of class to design their Image Theater pieces, and then presented them in class. A thought-provoking paradox arose during the presentations. Many of the education students initially stated in their
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journals a personal preference for traditional, teacher-centered pedagogy. Yet their images of ‘‘oppressive’’ classrooms showed an authoritarian teacher and rigidly controlled students sitting in rows. When they transformed the images to represent ‘‘non-oppressive’’ classrooms, they created scenes with teachers facilitating individual or small group activities in an open, collaborative classroom structure. This paradox led us to speculate that the teacher preparation students had appropriated the ideal of collaborative pedagogy dominant in their teacher education curriculum, but had not had enough experience with it themselves to come to value it as an approach to their own learning. The observers pointed out this paradox, but there was too little time to discuss it. At the next class period, rather than debriefing the Image Theater experience, which might have led to more understanding of the paradox, complaints about TO again came up. Journal entries showed that a number of people, not the majority but the same critical, vocal minority, saw no value in TO and urged the instructor to cancel the project. The instructor was feeling that the project, rather than improving the students’ perspectives on the class, was making them even more negative. When the theater professor and her students visited to introduce Forum Theater, she took a more persuasive approach. She talked briefly about TO, its history, and her beliefs about its value. She argued that TO was a way to practice or play out difficult situations before actually having to face them in the classroom. The Theater students had prepared a classroom scene in which a teacher was being harassed by a Tayloristic, administrative ‘‘efficiency expert’’ while at the same time the children in her class were behaving horribly. At first, the preservice teachers hesitated, but then jumped in to play the teacher’s role as spect-actors. They were obviously frustrated at not being able to ‘‘control’’ the children, which the theater students made virtually impossible. It was very entertaining. However, the amount of time the Theater students wanted to allocate to outside of class rehearsals to develop and rehearse more Forum Theater performances was anathema to many of the teacher education students. The plan had been for groups to meet and rehearse at least twice. Some groups met only once, at least one group without all the members present. The Forum Theater performances took place in a little theater, an authentic setting for drama that took the education students out of their usual context and into someone else’s realm. The rest of the class, the researchers, and a few others who responded to an e-mail announcement of the performances, served as the audience and potential spect-actors. Thanks to the Theater students, the performances were effectively staged. The scenes
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focused on four serious teacher dilemmas that actually represented the intentions of the course better than any textbook or classroom discussion. Dilemma 1: In this scene, a principal ordered the teacher to administer a standardized test to his students. Each student, however, had some reason for either objecting to or struggling with the test. One was depressed, put his head down on the desk, and did nothing. Another could not speak English or read the test. Another had a learning problem. An African American student adamantly objected to the culturally biased content of the test. The principal would not listen to the teacher’s concerns. Finally, the teacher (the most nonconformist and politically critical student in the class) threw up his hands and said, ‘‘We’re not doing this!’’ This scene was a microcosm of teacher worries about individual student diversity in the context of standardization and accountability. While the audience applauded his decision, what would be the consequences of such resistance in the ‘‘real world’’ of teaching? Dilemma 2: A student informed the teacher that she had been sexually abused by her father, a member of the school board. This scene delved into the obligations of teachers, principals, and counselors to the child regardless of the power position of the parent. The actors and spect-actors tried out several possible solutions. What neither the preservice teachers nor their theater student collaborators knew was that this situation required the teacher to be a ‘‘mandatory reporter’’ under state law. This scenario pointed out an obvious gap in the curriculum. However, just because an action is legally required does not mean that it is unnecessary for people to consider their ethical obligations. If the actors had known more about the applicable law, the scene would ironically have been less valuable as an example of ethical reasoning. Dilemma 3: A teacher announces that the class will be taking a field trip to the zoo’s groundhog exhibit, to celebrate Groundhog Day (which in this scenario has been elevated to a major holiday). However, students immediately began to raise their hands, citing various objections to their participation. One said that Groundhog Day, i.e. worshiping groundhogs, was in conflict with her religious beliefs. Another reported that her parents would not allow her to attend because her grandmother was killed by a groundhog, and it would be too traumatic. Another child’s parents were animal rights activists who objected to caging animals in zoos. And so it went, until only one student, who did believe in Groundhog Day, would be able to go on the field trip. In this comically exaggerated situation, the teacher had to decide whether to conform to the school and community tradition of celebrating Groundhog Day, or to cancel the trip (leaving at least one student very disappointed). This scene was relevant to situations in local school districts
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in which there had been parental objections to Halloween and Christmas celebrations. While there was a questionable implication in the scene that such parental objections are ludicrous, they are nevertheless a real part of today’s teaching context. Dilemma 4: In this scene, a class debated whether to include the Mark Twain classic, Huckleberry Finn, as a reading assignment. This debate was not hypothetical, because some schools have removed the book because of racist (though historically accurate) language (e.g., repeated use of the term ‘‘nigger’’ by white characters). Others have argued that this constitutes censorship of a valuable piece of American literature from which students can learn a great deal about the history of slavery, and about Huck’s individual ethical decisions in conditions in which the law allowed oppression of other human beings. In this scene, an Education student who had objected to what he perceived as the ‘‘political correctness’’ of multiculturalism spoke out in defense of Huckleberry Finn. He seemed to define censorship of the book as one of the irrational excesses of multiculturalists. Therefore, TO gave him a way to voice his position. While she had her doubts about the value of TO as a learning experience, given her students’ apparent lack of commitment, after seeing the performances the teacher educator felt that she had been justified in ‘‘coercing’’ them to participate. She observed evidence of students’ knowledge of four of the most difficult conditions of teaching today, knowledge of the ethical dimensions of those conditions, and developing beliefs about the teacher’s obligations to her/his students. However, while the experiences had made her students’ knowledge and beliefs about teaching visible, a severe limitation on the study was the time available to debrief the experiences, to make firmer connections between teacher education, teaching practice, and TO. The project was designed as an ‘‘add-on’’ to the existing curriculum, rather than as an alternative curriculum or way of learning about teaching. Therefore, the education instructor missed an opportunity to set aside the planned curriculum to take advantage of the learning opportunities afforded by TO. Of course, given the students’ initial negative reactions to TO, she was probably avoiding spending (‘‘wasting’’) more time on the topic.
Learning about Teaching: Student Journals While attitudes as measured on the instruments did not change, we did find evidence that among a majority of education students, responses to TO activities appeared to shift during the semester from extremely negative to
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positive. While there are limitations of relying on student journals alone as evidence of learning, the data from the journals corroborated the findings from the observations. The most important factor impacting students’ reactions seemed to be the perceived practical value of TO as a way to learn about teaching. Early in the semester, students complained that TO was irrelevant to their educational and career goals. However, during the process of preparing and presenting their Forum Theater projects, students made connections between TO and teachers’ work. Even those students who did not enjoy the Forum Theater project gained an appreciation for the practical value of TO. In their journal entries, students described factors contributing to their initial, negative views of TO: (1) Discomfort. The education students expressed a fear of ‘‘acting.’’ Theater was outside of their area of expertise or comfort. This attitude was ironic, considering that one of the researchers has published a book on teaching as performance (Timpson & Burgoyne, 2002). Tess wrote, ‘‘I felt very uncomfortable in these activities. I have never felt very outgoing and these activities put me out of my skin.’’ Some students believed they were being forced to participate in something they found fearful or distasteful. Despite having experience before an audience as a music performer, one student exhibited extremely negative reactions to TO throughout the semester. In terms of conceptions of teaching, the students seemed to argue that a teacher should not force students to do something that makes them uncomfortable. The instructor missed an opportunity to discuss with them whether they truly believed that a good teacher should make sure that all learning experiences are comfortable and do not require students to explore a new social realm. Students said they were initially ‘‘confused’’ about the TO projects and their relevance to the course content. This confusion made them anxious. While a few students noted the relationship between acting before an audience and teaching a class, they did not understand the relevance of TO to the course until the end of the project. An implicit belief about teaching here is that teachers should make the guidelines and purposes for all assignments very clear to students, so that they do not experience unnecessary anxiety. (2) Pedagogical Beliefs. Students discussed their preference for traditional instruction methods in terms of their need for structure and clarity. They appeared to place a high value on efficiency, claiming to prefer
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traditional, direct transmission methods of instruction – reading, lecture, discussion – to more time-consuming experiential approaches. Again, this demand for traditional methods contradicts many of the espoused aims of the teacher education program, to promote student-centered, active learning. Many initially viewed TO activities as ‘‘a waste of time,’’ in two senses. One sense was that classroom time should be spent in knowledge transmission. Another sense was that students particularly objected to spending time outside of class to work with the theater students. Jan described a rehearsal as ‘‘sacrifice(ing) precious time.’’ As already mentioned, they seemed to believe that learning should not extend too far beyond the scheduled classroom hours. Again, the instructor should have facilitated some dialogue about this belief. (3) Social Beliefs. Some students reacted negatively to the term ‘oppression,’ finding the concept irrelevant to their lives or understandings of schools and society. As Ron put it, ‘‘I don’t really know why we were doing theatre of the oppressed. I don’t feel oppressed. I don’t really think teachers are oppressed and I don’t think most students are oppressed either. I guess this method might be very effective in dealing with severely oppressive situations, but I still don’t understand how that would relate to us and why we would be learning about it in our class.’’ In other journal excerpts, the limited cross-cultural experience of these education students was reflected in rather naı¨ ve understandings of culture and community, ambivalence about inclusion of diverse others, and, in some instances, harsh judgment about those who differ from the mainstream. In sum, students demonstrated a narrow understanding of oppression. They certainly did not want to define teaching and schools as ‘‘oppressive.’’ Making connections between TO and the ‘‘real world’’ of teachers’ work enabled students to discover value in TO. A few students made connections during the introductory session of Image Theater; for the majority, the Forum Theater project proved to be the turning point. For example, Valerie, who ‘‘didn’t see the point’’ of Image Theater, said of Forum Theater that she ‘‘actually viewed it as a tool for learning.’’ Many of the students’ journal entries echoed claims about learning in the drama education literature we reviewed earlier in the chapter. Students discussed Forum Theater as a means of learning about teaching and a possible method for use in teaching practice. A number of journal responses discussed Forum Theater as an effective means of learning problem-solving, suggesting that the scenarios presented realistic depictions of situations teachers face. Josh explained that ‘‘being
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able to look at the situation from the outside’’ provided helpful objectivity for analyzing the situation critically, considering alternate solutions, and evaluating solutions proposed by others. The process ‘‘made me open my mind to other possible solutions,’’ and ‘‘gain experience in dealing with’’ classroom problems related to diversity. Alicia noted that TO promotes empathy, observing that Forum Theater ‘‘gives us that sense of being in the situationy. I honestly felt the frustration that I know teachers feel on a daily basis!’’ In comparing Forum Theater to more traditional methods of learning problem solving, Nancy observed, ‘‘I do feel that Forum Theater may be a more effective way to generate solutions than simple discussion. By actually ‘trying them out’ through Forum Theater, we got a much better idea of how the situation might actually play out.’’ Some discussed specific lessons learned from each Forum Theater scenario, such as transforming a problem into a ‘‘teachable moment.’’ For Valerie, ‘‘allowing us to ‘sub-in’ for the protagonist gave us the opportunity to apply what we’ve learned. In doing this, it also prepared us for the unexpected. This exercise made us question our decisions as well as our values.’’ Some students said they would consider using TO in their own teaching. For instance, Valerie said, ‘‘I can easily see myself using this strategy (Forum Theater) in my classroom. As an English teacher, I could have my students act out a particular story or scene and then have people ‘sub-in’ and act out the way in which they would have handled the situation. This will develop critical thinking skills.’’ Even some who, as students, said they preferred traditional instructional methods saw potential value in using TO in their future teaching. Ron said of Image Theater, ‘‘I guess this exercise was good in that it caused us to express ourselves in a way that we are not used to. One of our biggest challenges that we face as teachers is to adapt our teaching skills and strategies to the needs of our students and theater may be one way some students can really relate to the material.’’ Even Sarah, who responded to Image Theater with the flat statement, ‘‘I hated the theater project and every aspect of it,’’ considered the possibility of using Forum Theater as a teacher, noting, ‘‘I think that a Forum Theater type format could actually be used effectively within my classroom as a means to deal with issues of intolerance and lack of perspective.’’ Others wrote about a more general awareness of oppression or the significance of diversity and power issues in the classroom. For instance, Tracey observed, ‘‘when we were asked to create a situation that was oppressive culturally, I did not know the results would be so far reaching and prevalent in modern day education. The Forum Theater really opened my eyes to the phenomenon of several types of cultural bias in the classroom.’’ In contrast
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to findings from the CoBRAS, in their journals the teacher education students exhibited a growing awareness of diversity within schools. With that awareness was a dawning recognition of the influence of community and culture upon students’ academic lives and the need to account for culture in teaching practices. Students began to shift from a naı¨ ve to a more complex understanding of culture. For example, Tracey indicated that course activities ‘‘increase(d) my awareness that culture is not just race, but also family structure and disability and several other components.’’ Students also expanded their thinking about teachers’ responsibilities to teach all students. Like Carlie, a number of students voiced the belief that teachers ‘‘need to understand students, community and culture.’’ According to Jill, ya teacher needs to teach how they know, but alter the teaching approaches to meet the needs and beliefs of the community and the culture of the community. I first thought that this was wrong. That no matter what or who is being taught there is a good way to do it that is accepted by everyone. Then I remembered that we do not live in a perfect society where everyone accepts everything and are open-minded. Teachers must adapt teaching methods and reach all students.
While Jill unfortunately believes that a ‘‘perfect society’’ would not be pluralistic, at least her case demonstrates that the course achieved one of its major objectives – to focus preservice teachers’ attention on the importance of social contexts outside of the classroom.
DISCUSSION The editors asked the authors of each chapter to address the question: How has your thinking developed about the questions to be addressed, the methodology to be used in addressing them, and the ways that your findings can be represented? We began with the question of whether TO could change preservice teacher attitudes toward cultural diversity. The study did not demonstrate that TO was an effective intervention, based on the premise of changing measurable attitudes toward race and social dominance. Given previous research on professional development and attitude change (Sleeter, 1992), that was perhaps a weak premise from the start. Alternatively, we may have needed better controls or different measures to capture the learning that did, based on other evidence, occur during the project. For example, based on evidence from the journals, a measure of beliefs and knowledge about teaching might have substantiated the effects of TO. Therefore, one recommendation would be to repeat the same pre-post study design, but with different controls and/or measures.
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However, we did find evidence of change in the qualitative component of the study. It is impossible to say how much of the change in perspective we have reported could be attributed to TO, how much to other course activities and readings, or even how much could be due to the desire to gain the instructor’s approval as final grading time approached. Needless to say, our study is not conclusive. But it does lend support to the claims that students learn through theater experiences, particularly through TO. Claims of the drama education literature that our TO project tends to support are an increase in empathy for others, understanding of the complexity of professional practice in a pluralistic society, problem-solving skills, and moral or ethical reasoning. Unexpectedly, we found that TO was very useful to the education instructor as a way of making conceptions of teaching visible, as a kind of alternative assessment. An alternative research question, therefore, might be: What does participation in TO reveal about conceptions of teaching for diversity? However, we failed to build sufficient time into the structure of the class for debriefing, for making meaning of the students’ experiences and the researchers’ observations and for connecting the students’ insights with formal knowledge from the curriculum. Observations of TO and student journals did reveal that most preservice teachers in this group believed that: The most effective, efficient teaching is direct instruction. The curriculum should include only knowledge immediately and obviously applicable in the classroom. Another recommended extension of this study would be to examine these beliefs in more depth, especially because they contradict many of the supposed aims of the teacher education program. Professional educators in any field might try TO as a way to make beliefs about professional work visible. If we had had student permission to use the videotapes of their performances, we could have used them for further debriefing on these topics, or to stimulate reflection in future classes. Two other beliefs revealed in the context of the project, though not necessarily connected with TO, were: Classroom time is learning time, at least for college students; it is unreasonable to be expected to learn outside the classroom. It interferes with one’s ‘‘real life.’’ Teachers should never make their students confused or uncomfortable; when teachers see these reactions, they should change what they are doing. Given more time, these beliefs could have been the topics for discussion, reflective writing, and further inquiry. However, the conditions that made
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them visible were probably logistical problems with the context of the project that we would not wish to repeat. Each Forum Theater piece was analogous to a case study. A future study could compare analysis of text case studies with dramatized cases in which solutions to teacher dilemmas can be enacted or ‘‘tried out.’’ The preservice teachers seem to have gone from extremely skeptical to extremely trusting that the dilemmas in the Forum Theater were ‘‘realistic.’’ Involvement of inservice teachers in the project would be ideal, in terms of creating ‘‘realistic’’ problem situations. However, the exaggeration, humor, and emotional impact facilitated by involvement of the theater students were also valuable. In our continuing research, we are further probing this emotional effect of TO. In her study of Latina teacher education students, Negri-Pool (2004) found that her participants, also, were initially uncomfortable with TO techniques, but became very positive by the end. She cites multicultural education expert Geneva Gay as employing clinical psychological concepts in her discussion of identity development. According to Negri-Pool, Gay discusses the necessity for a cathartic experience to move an individual from one level of awareness to the next. TO can be the cathartic experience that provides the environment and impetus for change. TO brings the realities of oppression to the surface. Gay also identifies a state of disequilibrium that can facilitate the movement out of a consciousness that denies racism and oppression. Experiences with Image and Forum Theaters can facilitate such disequilibrium (p. 71).
However, the preservice teachers’ initial discomfort and fear with ‘‘acting’’ was probably a factor in their refusal to give permission for us to use the videotapes of their performances, and this limited our data analysis and our ability to use the videotapes as an alternative way to represent our findings. When we designed the study, we did not realize that student motivation would play a major role in the project, nor did we set out to test the validity of a particular theory of motivation. Nonetheless, having examined a variety of motivational models after completing our qualitative analysis, we can suggest that our findings are consistent with expectancy value theory. According to Svinicki’s (1999) account of expectancy value theory, a learner’s motivation is a function of the likely success at the task (expectancy) and the value a learner places on that task (value). Both components must be present in some degree for the learner to be motivated. Instructors can intervene to help raise student expectancy for success or to increase the value of the task for that learner (p. 20).
At the start of the study, the preservice teachers did not in some cases expect that they would ‘‘succeed’’ at TO, or that it would have much practical value. The theater professor’s attempt at persuasion before the Forum Theater session
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did not seem to increase their motivation. It was not until they were actually compelled to participate in the Forum Theater scenes, and did so successfully, that they saw the value of this curricular intervention. Not that we would argue for the value of compulsion in classrooms – there are more positive ways to motivate subsequent groups of preservice teachers to participate. At this point, however, our work has taken another direction. Our campus is participating in a 3-year program organized by The American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) and the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL). We are part of a cluster of institutions focused on the Scholarship of Multicultural Teaching and Learning (Multicultural SOTL) headed by the University of Michigan. A major focus of our cluster is on investigating the uses of interactive theater for faculty development. Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) houses a multicultural interactive theater program, and researchers on cluster campuses are studying the effectiveness of their methods. In this case, rather than participants creating their own scenarios, we are using a script provided by CRLT. In a pilot study for the SOTL project, we again used both quantitative and qualitative methods to explore the impact of the interactive theater performance on participants’ multicultural awareness. As a result of our findings, we modified our quantitative research design to use the performance as a ‘‘diagnostic tool.’’ We will investigate what factors (years of teaching, multicultural training experiences, self-rated multicultural teaching competencies) contribute to higher levels of multicultural teaching knowledge and skills, as measured by conceptualization of the issues raised in the interactive theater scenario. In the pilot study, we also identified key dimensions worthy of further qualitative investigation, that echo the findings of our Theater-Education study: (1) Reflection: Responses suggested that the performance elicits big ideas about teaching and brings them up for reflection. (2) Resistance: Responses help to explain faculty resistance to student-centered, diversityfocused teaching in higher education. Although numerous studies have examined student resistance to multiculturalism, much less work has been done on faculty reactions. (3) Emotion: Respondents had intense emotional reactions to the performance. Respondents also commented that the performance was memorable, which could be an advantage for studying longterm effects. The pilot focus group analysis suggests that interactive theater can help faculty learn about teaching, or at least make them think about teaching. We will be conducting more focus groups with workshop participants in 2005 and 2006 to explore these dimensions further.
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When we planned our original TO project with the Theater and Education classes, we were aware that we were engaging in interdisciplinary research. What we failed to take into account was that our work was by its interdisciplinary nature also an experience in multiculturalism. Ironically, our efforts to foster multicultural awareness in preservice teachers were hindered by the cultural differences between our disciplines. But the outcomes were still informative enough to warrant further study. If we attempt another study of collaboration between classes in the two disciplines, we would need to address the cultural differences from the outset. Nonetheless, students and researchers from both cultures learned from the experience, showing once again that diversity enhances education. Our continuing, productive collaboration is evidence of the excitement of such cross-cultural work.
REFERENCES Abbs, P. (1994). The educational imperative: A defense of socratic and aesthetic learning. London: Falmer. Arnold, R. (1998). The drama in research & articulating dynamics – A unique theater. In: J. Saxon & C. Miller (Eds), Drama and theatre in education: The research of practice, the practice of research (pp. 110–131). Victoria, BC, Canada: Idea. Best, D. (1996). Research in drama and the arts in education: The objective necessity – Proving it. In: J. Somers (Ed.), Drama and theater in education: Contemporary research (pp. 4–23). North York, Ontario: Captus. Blanco, J. F. (2000). Theatre of the oppressed and health education with farm workers: A primary research project. Ph.D. Dissertation. Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL. Boal, A. (1985). In: C. A. McBride & M. L. McBride (Trans.), The theatre of the oppressed. New York: TCG. Boal, A. (1992). Games for actors and non-actors. New York: Routledge. Booth, M. (1986). Empathy in history: From definition to assessment. Eastleigh, England: SREB. Brown, K. H., & Gillespie, D. (1999). Responding to moral distress in the university: Augusto Boal’s theatre of the oppressed. Change, pp. 35–39. Carlebach, S. W., & Singer, J. A. (1998). Applying service-learning to the problem of prejudice: A psychology and theater course. In: R. G. Bringle & D. K. Duffy (Eds), With service in mind: Concepts and models for service-learning in psychology (pp. 190–200). Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education. Catterall, J. S., & Darby, J. T. (1996). Cognition, community, and assessment: Toward integrated inquiry on drama in education. In: J. Somers (Ed.), Drama and theatre in education: Contemporary research (pp. 148–158). North York, Ontario: Captus. Cimini, M. D., Page, J. C., & Trujillo, D. (2002). Using peer theater to deliver social norms information: The middle earth players program. The report on social norms (Vol. 2(1), ]8). Little Falls, NJ: PaperClip Communications, Inc. Conard, F. (1998). Meta-analysis of the effectiveness of creative drama. In: B. J. Wagner (Ed.), Educational drama and language arts: What research shows (pp. 199–211). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
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Courtney, R. (1989). Play, drama and thought: The intellectual background to dramatic education (4th ed., rev). Toronto: Simon & Pierre. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan. Emunah, R. (1994). Acting for real: Drama therapy process, technique, and performance. New York: Brunner/Mazel Publishers. Glaser, B. G. (1992). Basics of grounded theory analysis: Emergence vs. forcing. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press. Gressler, T. H. (2002). Theatre as the essential liberal art in the American university. Studies in theatre arts (Vol. 16). Lewiston: Edwin Mellon. Guerre, Y. (1998). Le The´Otre-forum: Pour une pedagogie de la citoyennete´. In: J. Beillerot & M. Gault (Eds), Collection Savoir et Formation. Paris: Editions L’Harmatton. Hornbrook, D. (1998). Education and dramatic art (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Hume, K., & Wells, G. (1999). Making lives meaningful: Extending perspectives through roleplay. In: B. J. Wagner (Ed.), Building moral communities through educational drama (pp. 63–87). Stamford, CT: Ablex. Jackson, A. (1996). Researching drama and theatre in education: Notes and queries. In: J. Somers (Ed.), Drama and theatre in education: Contemporary research (pp. 34–42). North York, Ontario: Captus. Kardash, C. A. M., & Wright, L. (1987). Does creative drama benefit elementary school students: A meta-analysis. Youth Theatre Journal, 1(3), 11–18. Kaye, C., & Ragusa, G. (1998). Boal’s mirror: Reflections for teacher education. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 419787. Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Kraft, R. J., & Kielsmeier, J. (1995). Experiential earning in schools and higher education. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt. Landy, R. (1986). Drama therapy: Concepts and practices. Springfield, IL: C. C. Thomas. Lempert, D. S. (1996). Escape from the Ivory Tower: Student adventures in democratic experiential education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Moreno, J. L. (1944). Sociodrama: A method for analysis of social conflicts. New York: Beacon House. Negri-Pool, L. L. (2004). Theatre of the oppressed: Un camino hacia poder y desarrollo de las Latinas. Unpublished Master’s Thesis. Pacific Oaks College, Pasadena, CA. Neville, H. A., Lilly, R. L., Duran, G., Browne, R. M., & Browne, L. (2000). Construction and initial validation of the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (CoBRAS). Journal of Counseling Psychology, 47(1), 59–70. Northeast Wisconsin Alliance for Continuing Education. (1994). NEWACE training manual: NEWACE social action theatre on campus training project. Oshkosh, WI: Author. O’Gorman, N. (1988). The education of the oppressed child in a democracy. In: G. W. Albee, J. M. Joffe & L. A. Dusenbury (Eds), Prevention, powerlessness, and politics: Readings on social change (pp. 97–105). Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. O’Neill, C., & Lambert, A. (1982). Drama structures: A practical handbook for teachers. London: Hutchinson. Piaget, J. (1954). In: M. Cook (Trans.), The construction of reality in the child. New York: Basic Books. Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., Stallworth, L. M., & Malle, B. F. (1994). Social dominance orientation: A personality variable predicting social and political attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 741–763.
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Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist’s view of psychotherapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Schutzman, M., & Cohen-Cruz, J. (1994). Playing boal: Theatre, therapy, activism. New York: Routledge. Sleeter, C. E. (1992). Keepers of the American dream: A study of staff development and multicultural education. London: Falmer Press. Somers, J. (1996). Drama and theatre in education: Contemporary research. North York, Ontario: Captus. Special issue on Theatre of the Oppressed. (1995). Contemporary Theatre Review, 3(1). Strauss, A. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists. New York: Cambridge University Press. Strauss, A. L., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Svinicki, M. D. (1999). New directions in learning and motivation. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 80, 5–27. Taylor, P. (1996). Introduction: Rebellion, reflective turning and arts education research. In: P. Taylor (Ed.), Researching drama and arts education: Paradigms and possibilities (pp. 1–21). London: Falmer Press. Taylor, P. (1998). Reflective practitioner research. In: B. J. Wagner (Ed.), Educational drama and language arts: What research shows (pp. 212–230). Portsmouth NH: Heinemann. Timpson, W. M., & Burgoyne, S. (2002). Teaching and performing: Ideas for energizing your classroom (2nd ed.). Madison, WI: Atwood Publishing. Vierk, J. M. (1997). The use of pedagogy and theatre of the oppressed and interactive theatre exercises in the community college composition classroom. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University of Nebraska. Wagner, B. J. (1998). Rationale and definitions. In: B. J. Wagner (Ed.), Educational drama and language arts: What research shows (pp. 1–15). Portsmouth NH: Heinemann. Wagner, B. J. (1999). Attitudes, behavior, and moral reasoning. In: B. J. Wagner (Ed.), Building moral communities through educational drama (pp. 137–156). Stamford CT: Ablex. Werner-Wilson, R. J. (2001). Experiential exercises in MFT training: Gender, power, and diversity. Contemporary Family Therapy, 23(2), 221–229. Wilson, J. B. (1998). Diversity training with a dramatic flair. CUPA-HR Journal, 49(1–2), 60–67.
PART III: INTRODUCTION REPRESENTATION: HOW DO I SHOW WHAT I SAW? Whatever the sources of their information and the methods used to collect and analyze data, researchers need to make good decisions about how to represent their findings clearly to help others understand what their research reveals about teaching, teacher thinking, or teacher education. A reading of journals in the field reveals quite a variety of strategies for representation, as well as the flourishing of arts-based research, multimedia cases, and other interesting experiments in representation of findings. Readers of this book have already encountered several experiments in representation from narrative boxes, teacher-edited videotapes, readers’ theatre, and drawings. Part III offers selections that in some ways resolve and in other ways raise issues surrounding representation. In Chapter 10, Schonmann presents the challenge of representing what she learns from drama, a visual form. In Chapter 11, Huber and Clandinin present a multi-layered example of ways to represent findings from living alongside teaching. In Chapter 12, Chan and Harris present another strategy for representing visually complex accounts of teaching. Finally, in Chapter 13, Freidus, Feldman, Sgouros, and Wiles-Kettenmann offer a representation of findings from a multi-vocal study. In each case, the authors have answered the representation question with a linear, text-based solution. Yet, the larger field of research on teacher education continues to grapple with issues concerning how to represent findings and what are the boundaries of acceptability. More than any other, the area of representation of research findings raises questions about when and what is research.
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THEATRICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF TEACHING AS PERFORMANCE Shifra Schonmann PROLOGUE It was Jaques, the court fool, who expressed in his famous speech ‘‘All the World’s a Stage’’ that: All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players, They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven agesy Shakespeare then enumerates them, from the infant puking in the nurse’s arms, up to the last scene of all, old age, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. What strikes me most, in the context of learning from literature something new on teaching, is the second age, which describes the reluctant schoolboy: Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like a snail Unwillingly to school ‘‘As You Like It’’ by William Shakespeare ‘‘All the World’s a Stage’’ (Act 2, Scene 7). Learning from Research on Teaching: Perspective, Methodology, and Representation Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 11, 283–311 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1016/S1479-3687(05)11010-4
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I wonder how it is that this boy has been creeping like a snail unwillingly to school for more than 400 years. How is it that the more schools change, the more they stay the same, in the sense that we have not overcome that phenomenon manifested by children who, centuries later, are still unwilling to go to school? Bearing in mind that ‘‘schools’’ in Shakespeare’s time were different from those of today, and so were the teachers and their training, if training existed in those days. And yet, the truth of such a description is still echoing with us. One must wonder, is it a kind of curse that lies upon our shoulders as educators that there are still so many children that ‘‘creeping like a snail unwillingly to school?’’ The point that I wish to make is that we must be constantly aware of Shakespeare’s ‘‘whining school-boy’’, employ our pedagogy in the framework of its power, and be very humble while preaching our ideas, hoping to find the right way to bring a smile to the faces of our children. It is in this context that I wish to suggest a theatrical framework for teacher training, that is to say – theatrical representations of teaching as performance. Based on assumptions about teaching as a form of art (a performing event), and about theater as an art form that serves the human need to know the world through an immediate experience, I argue for a close association between theater and possible ‘‘chaotic’’ constructs in teacher training. The questions which interested me were: How can theatrical representations of teaching result in new modes of knowing in teacher education? What is the nature of the experience that one should undergo to produce such knowledge? In this work I set out to explore ways of using theatrical concepts such as catharsis, improvisation, and conventions in order to stimulate cognitive emotions that can play a significant role in teacher education. It will be claimed that the notion of catharsis, improvisation, and conventions when used in the context of teacher education leads to the notion of inner structure of theatrical knowledge in use. When examining ways of teacher training, the thought frequently goes to find ways to deal with curriculum, learning and study skills, understanding and appreciation, i.e. all these powerful components that are needed to construct a fund of meaningful knowledge that teachers should have at their command. However, the center of attention of this work focuses upon a thought that can serve as infrastructure to the above-mentioned components. That is to say, this is a search to find ways to structure a knowledge that will have the power to lead the students to find their own ‘‘signature’’ as teachers, and find ways to deal with the emotions and the chaotic situations that might arise in lives in schools.
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METHODOLOGICAL NOTES This work represents a blending of two kinds of knowledge; the systematic knowledge I have gained through reading the relevant literature and through various experiences in conducting controlled studies; in addition, there is the personal practical knowledge I have gained through directing theatrical activities in teacher’s training programs at various universities and colleges. The chapter provides a conceptual and analytical account of the essential features of what it takes to characterize theatrical representations of teaching as performance. Even though it not meant to attain operational competence in theatrical genres (such as Playback Theater and Forum Theater) when adjusting their logic and techniques to teacher education, it includes examples of these theatrical representations in use. Basically, the study offers concept interpretation inquiry that attempts to provide an adequate understanding of the possible uses of theatrical concepts such as catharsis, improvisation, and conventions. In the following sections of this inquiry I would first explain the meaning of the theatrical concepts, and the theatrical semiotic world (the binary versus the triadic approach to dramatic performance), and only then I shall propose interpretations while adapting them to the educational field. My main intention is to try to capture the complexity and the richness of the concepts, their important aspects, and thus to inquire what role they can play in the pedagogy of teachers’ education. In examining the practical role that the theatrical representation may have on a student-teacher, I have elaborated on my own work, giving examples to illustrate the basic line of thought I have tried to develop. But here we meet the danger of what Connelly and Clandinin (1991, p. 142) have called ‘‘the Hollywood plot’’, the plot where everything works out well in the end. It is a danger of smoothing the examples. To prevent this, I have tried to give a broad description of the experience under discussion and to be as exact as possible when describing events. The questions that emerge from my study remind one of the questions that result from studies that attempt to ‘‘ventilate’’ educational thinking and educational practice with concepts from another area of knowledge. On what grounds can the results of this study be said to be valid knowledge? How can the procedures of the theatrical representation be justified in relation to the assumption articulated in the theoretical framework? At this point it would be instructive to turn to the plan of the chapter and see how the ideas evolve:
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I would first explain the theatrical framework for representations of teaching as performance. Then, I shall clarify three basic theatrical concepts: catharsis, improvisation, and conventions as examples for developing the notion of theatrical ways of knowing. This part will be followed by one that shows how the application of the above concepts can help us to understand chaotic situations and how a student-teacher can learn to deal with them. The fourth section suggests a binary approach in contrast to a triadic approach to teacher training, both of which are related to theatrical behavior. This section includes a few views to illustrate how such approaches are perceived through the students’ eyes. The epilogue will conclude with an expanded look of the idea of theatrical ways of knowing in teacher training, examining its dangers and its strengths.
PART 1: THEATRICAL FRAMEWORK The importance of using a theatrical framework (concepts, terms, and techniques) for creating teacher-training constructs is embedded in the ability of theatrical ideas to address teacher training as a dynamic process, and through this emphasis directs us toward possibilities of change in patterns of relationships between instructors and their students, as trainees. The hope is that if we teach our students in the ways we preach, then the students will not only be able to use the new constructs in their own work but they will be intrigued to do so. ‘‘Drama’’ in the context of teacher training refers to those events which are parallel to forms of drama in the theater in the sense that they involve the participants in the event in highly stimulating situations. By definition, drama is a series of unexpected and surprising events occurring in social situations in which people experience some confrontation or struggle. The sources of the dramatic approach to teacher training are embedded in the dramatic approach to life. The sources of the dramatic approach to life situations can be found in the works of modern theoreticians in the fields of psychology and sociology. Among the most prominent are Freud (1910), Mead (1934), Goffman (1959), Lyman and Scott (1975), Turner (1976), and Harre (1979). For Freud and Mead, the mind and soul are perceived as the site where dramatic processes take place. According to Lyman and Scott (1975), the dramatic orientation elaborated on in Freud’s work is apparent in almost every aspect of his theory. Some of his terms such as the Oedipus complex,
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the Electra complex, and Catharsis are derived from traditions in Greek tragedy. In Goffman’s (1959) work we find that the main issue in a person’s life deals with the self. Every person represents himself in his daily life so that he can achieve most of what he wishes. Every person carries a persona that aims at presenting the self according to the specific situation that he encounters. Goffman explains that ‘‘being in role’’ is the basis for any social situation that he may meet. There is no doubt that making sense out of life situations cannot be reduced only to metaphors provided by the theater; however, examining the self, the society and the way in which institutions work from a theatrical perspective, provides theoreticians with a fresh understanding of people and their world. Using the theatrical framework in teacher training is, in fact, expanding the range of thinking about new possibilities in this field. I have already used a theatrical framework in a few works (Schonmann, 1995a, b, 1997, 2000); among them is the study with Ben-Peretz and Schonmann (2000) Behind Closed Doors. What we tried to achieve was the use of the language of drama and theater in order to expand the range of tools for conducting a social analysis of the professional lives of teachers and for understanding events in teachers’ lounges. This time, I am trying to take the theatrical thinking one step further by using the theatrical ideas not only as a tool but also as a construct on which to build a possible approach for teacher training which accepts a close association between theater and possible legitimate ‘‘chaotic’’ experiences in teacher training. It is based on the notion of teaching as a performing art (Sarason, 1999). The idea of teaching as a performing event has been gaining more and more attention since the mid-1980s. Its origins can be traced from John Dewey (1934) at the beginning of the twentieth century through Elliot Eisner (1998, 2002) and Maxine Greene (1995, 2001) in our own times. There are a few who have already tried to define teaching as a performing event (among them are Dawe, 1984; Pineau, 1994; Harrison-Pepper, 1991; Heck & Williams, 1984; Hopkins & Long, 1981; Smith, 1979; Sarason, 1999). The performance metaphor, however, is problematic and it dwells on assumptions about the purpose of education; one of them could be the following suggestion: Perceiving teaching as a performing event is to say that teaching is a mode of communication based on the premise that all the participants have to develop skills of interaction. There are different types of performances: political, religious, and artistic, to mention only a few. Different from one another as they may be, their common denominator is their feature of ‘‘public display’’. All performances involve communication with an
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audience, and in all performances, the human being is both producer and product. Each performance has some components that cannot recur and cannot be imitated. Teaching as performance is the embodiment of the communicative function of the event. Furthermore, based on Beckerman’s (1990) ideas, a performing event is perceived as containing three basic forms of action that sometimes may overlap: The first one is the show – it refers mainly to the glitter of the event, the exposure, and the glory. The second is presentation – this has a double meaning: to present as an act of giving, and to present as an act of being. The emphasis here is on the direct connection between the giver and the receiver of the ‘‘present’’ that is being made here and now. The third form is the performance – it emphasizes doing, the way one does the things. Although Beckerman’s ideas are based on the art of theater, rather than pedagogical situations, they are equally applicable; they indicate three types of awareness for shaping our modes of knowing in teaching: being, giving, and doing. This requires a comprehensive understanding that includes attention to what Brophy calls: propositional knowledge (what to do) procedural knowledge (how to do it), and conditional knowledge (when and why to do it) (Brophy, 2002, p. 25). The three theatrical concepts discussed below, were chosen to serve as initial building blocks for possible variation of knowing teaching as a performing event ready to encounter chaotic situations, surprise, and ambiguity. Emphasizing the being, giving, and doing components in teacher training is to link the teaching to the art at large.
PART 2: ANALYZING THEATRICAL CONCEPTS WITH REGARD TO TEACHER’S TRAINING Catharsis Catharsis is a difficult concept to grasp in dramatic literature. The term appears originally in Chapter 6 of Aristotle’s Poetics, where it is associated with pity and fear and is clearly related to the effect or end purpose of the tragedy’s affective power. Vaughn (1978) clarifies that the difficulty in interpreting ‘‘catharsis’’ is due in part to the problem of translation, and each of the many theories of catharsis is based upon a particular translation of the key passage of 10 Greek words in the original (pp. 26–27). The wellknown way of understanding catharsis is based on the ‘‘purgation’’ theory.
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This theory suggests that tragedy arouses emotion of pity and fear in the spectators and then purges or eliminates these emotions. One of the many other interpretations of catharsis is ‘‘clarification’’, a concept that does not deny the emotional power of tragedy but sees this power in the incidents of the plot itself. In other words, through the selecting and ordering processes of art, the incidents of the play are made clear in terms of ‘‘probability’’ and ‘‘necessity’’ and this clarity of action is the source of tragic pleasure (Vaughn, p. 27). Boyce (1987) argues that there is a therapeutic and educational benefit of catharsis (p. 156). If catharsis is to be therapeutic and educational, then it must be an experience that is genuinely felt as well as intelligently understood. Excitement is stirred up within the spectators causing them to release a flood of emotions. This venting of one’s feelings is not harmful to the spectators; on the contrary, it serves their emotional balance of power. Catharsis is perceived as supporting one’s emotional life by helping a person to function better outside the walls of the theater. Using the concept of catharsis in teacher training is to suggest that catharsis is needed to understand the teacher as an individual as well as the structure of the social behavior of teachers, their relationships, and the themes that concern them. Teachers’ feelings of anger, frustration, fear, and pity in the complex situations in which they are involved, have to find a legitimate outlet. Catharsis is a therapeutic and a social need, which is aimed at releasing emotions within the working place. Catharsis is a constructive channel of release. It relieves the social friction in teachers’ lives; it is a profound process essential to teachers as an individual, as well as a working group. In our present society, emotion is still equated with irrationality and disorder especially in institutional spheres such as work and schools (Scheff, 1979). Twenty-five years have passed since Scheff analyzed this phenomenon but it still remains almost unchanged. The opportunity ‘‘to let off steam’’ in the training process should give the students-teachers a ‘‘safety-net’’ for their frustrations and it can strengthen the feeling that they are not alone in their work but belong to a defined community of educators. The topics of most importance to the majority of teachers based on the study I was involved in covering (Ben-Peretz & Schonmann, 2000) were mostly related to discipline and issues of coping with covering of subject matter. Solutions to these matters, even if known to some extent theoretically, usually do not work. These problems engender feelings of frustration and a sense of helplessness. Teachers do not feel that they are masters of their profession, therefore, the opportunity to undergo a process of regulated catharsis is a therapeutic option we need to introduce into the teacher-training process.
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Accepting the idea of catharsis is, in fact, admitting some chaotic elements into our approach to training. How should one deal with an unexpected outburst? How can one confront a chaotic atmosphere, and yet, gain a higher order of understanding of the role of the teachers? What is the best way of doing this? Although there are not yet definite scholarly answers to these types of questions, the following discussed concept of improvisation might shed some light on these questions. Improvisation Improvisation is a term to describe the unplanned situation within which we adjust ourselves to others through a series of activities. Common uses of the notion of improvisation are connected with composing something with no previous preparation, or creating something temporarily. In the theater the meaning of improvisation is far more complicated. In the literature one can find a vast range of definitions. Styan (1975) for instance, defines it concisely: ‘‘Improvisation is making drama without the help of a script’’. McGregor, Tate, and Robinson (1977) define improvisation as an activity, which has an open end. Polsky (1980) warns that improvisation without planning leads to chaos while overplanning ‘‘can kill’’ spontaneity and freshness. The concept of the cognitive foundation in the process of improvisation has been very important via Bolton’s (1983, 1992) works, which combine in a dialectic way of working within the two extremes in improvisation: spontaneity and self-control. The term ‘‘pedagogical improvisation’’ has been used by Donmoyer (1983) who claimed: ‘‘Instruction, like life, cannot always be planned’’. Although Donmoyer is drawing on a theory of improvisation in the arts to analyze classroom events, he is clearly concentrating on providing opportunities to develop students’ ability to apply knowledge in order to solve real life problems. In this respect, he is using improvisation as a tool for teaching life skills. The use that I draw for pedagogic improvisation in the context of the pedagogy of teachers is not only as a tool, but rather as an internal mode of behavior that stresses the interrelated nature of drama and pedagogy. I have built the idea of pedagogic improvisation on elements which complement each other (Schonmann, 1995b). Out of the extensive discourse in the literature, I have chosen the following features which describe improvisation as personal reaction to stimulation and as cognitive control of spontaneity. It is an 1. Activity developing from raw ideas. 2. Activity which involves spontaneity and an open ending.
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3. Activity to respond to change and to express transformation. 4. An activity which develops according to the ways in which the situation is interpreted by the participants. I suggest understanding ‘‘pedagogic improvisation’’ as a dialectic process that has a spontaneous component, which is essentially creative, as well as a planned cognitive component. By emphasizing the above range of potential opportunities embodied in improvisation, one can accept the idea that the improvisation process serves not only students, but their teachers as well (Spolin, 1973). Teachers should allow themselves the liberty to experiment with new activities, although by so doing they run the risk at failure, uncertainty, and/or chaos. Defining improvisation as constructed upon two central conceptions, spontaneity, and self-control, is meaningful inasmuch as it has to do with learning and developing modes of knowing. An Example Sarah, one of my drama/theater student-teachers, entered the seminar room in a state of near-hysteria: ‘‘I am about to quit! I can’t stand these children any more. What do they think? That I have to entertain them? I am a drama teacher, yes, but I am not a circus clown’’. Noa, sitting at the far end of the room, then remarked cynically that teachers who let themselves be treated like clowns deserve this attitude. There was an immediate reaction by all the other students, and a kind of collective catharsis (Ben-Peretz & Schonmann, 2000) flashed through the room. Susie, raising her voice trying to overcome the others, declared: ‘‘From now on, as I said yesterday in the teachers’ lounge, I won’t even try to look for alternative teaching methods. I will simply lecture all the time! The method of chalk and talk is all that they (the children) deserve since they take advantage of any liberty I give them....’’ A heated discussion on teaching methods erupted and then reached at its peak. I let them blow off steam, their voices were loud, they inflamed each other with conflicting opinions, and the equilibrium of the class climate was broken. At this point I entered the heated discussion not by speaking but by putting on my head a Napoleon-style hat, which I had been making from a piece of newspaper while they were arguing. Taking risk, I stood in front of the class but said nothing. They looked at me. I still said nothing. They waited. The strong winds died down. They were curious. Then I wrote on the board: France 1812. Dana responded immediately by trying to build an impression of her being there, in France 1812 telling her fellow-students about her problems with the two kids she taught privately. On the wings of the students’ curiosity and their desire to cooperate, an improvisational
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process began. Very soon they began to argue about the idea of discipline – an issue of great importance to the vast majority of teachers at all levels of experience. They maintained that most teachers do not feel they are masters of their own professional fate. The developing situation strengthened the view of the students not as solitary individuals, lonely in their practice in classrooms, but as members of a vital community who share a common language. The explanation for the above learning situation could be that the students were going through a process of improvisational dramatic dialog in which access to knowledge and producing a new way of knowing were achieved in a way different from that of traditional epistemology, which claims that knowledge itself is more important than all the processes leading to its creation. Dialogic knowledge, as I perceive it, is a play of moments of understanding, conditioned not by categorical logic of real, true, and justified knowledge, but rather by the dynamics formed between the participants. Experiencing a dramatic dialog is an experience with a creative process in which the circumstances are constructed while the improvisational process proceeds. It is a chaotic way of letting things go. Usually, in our life, we fear chaos; we see it as losing control but, ironic as it may sound, the improvisational process is a critical one by which our knowledge is constructed renewed or revived. Distancing their immediate problems to another place and time within a framework of a theatrical representation enables the students to flow with their ideas. Improvisation is a crucial element in constructing a new pedagogical knowledge embedded in the nature of theatrical art, and therefore, might remain as an integral part of the student–teachers’ pedagogical concepts throughout their professional life. It is to influence their ways of thinking and behaving. The idea here is that using the mode of pedagogical improvisation as a main element in constructing a lasting theatrical mode of knowing creates a tough challenge to the education of our teachers. From this aspect, improvisation includes a dialectic process that contains elements of chaos, a process composed of paradoxes that create a new order (Gleick, 1988; Wertheimer & Zinga, 1998). However, the possibility of accepting chaos, uncertainty, and ambiguity must lean upon some understandings which are considered in the framework of thoughts of this study as conventions. Conventions While catharsis is associated with emotions and with moral values, conventions do not necessarily have emotional or value connotations, though
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they may not always be free of them. Conventions, in a dramatic framework, express the readiness to name and accept a certain phenomenon and thus one can act accordingly (Ben-Peretz & Schonmann, 2000). Conventions are based upon the behaviors and manners dictated in advance that have been absorbed by the audience of a specific culture (Rap, 1973, p. 121). The central convention in theater could be, ‘‘An agreement to pretend’’. Accordingly, both the audience and the artists in the theater are willing to accept as a convention the fact that one must refer, for example, to an artificial sign as though it is a natural sign. A white actor therefore, playing Othello, who is ‘‘stained’’ all over with black make-up, must be treated as black without us ever questioning his dark complexion. In theater, unlike real life, one can break the rules of nature and turn them into conventions. Thus, one can hang a cardboard picture on a wall and claim it is the sun. However, it is impossible to ‘‘break’’ the rules that refer to the interaction codes of behavior among people, because these as practiced in their everyday lives are the rules practiced on the stage (Schonmann, 1995b, p. 92). This perception should be the basis for accepting conventions. How can this understanding contribute to building teacher training constructs? There exists a general agreement and a basic understanding that a school is a social institution with responsibility for everything that occurs within its grounds. Teachers should be trained to become an integral part of the working environment of the educational institute. They should be encouraged to try to change the routine at schools and be able to offer reasonable alternatives. Let us take, for example, the length of a standard 50-min period for a lesson, or the physical structure of a class, or the ‘‘lesson–recess–lesson–recess’’ pattern of school timetable. If instead of accepting all these as rules that we have to follow, we could train our students to look upon them not as a ‘‘given’’ but as conventions that are ‘‘person-made decisions’’ that should be examined in the context of every educational institution anew, we would then be able to build a culture of a specific school according to different perceptions of what is education. Training our students to examine the conventional framework teaches them, in fact, to be actively involved in changing school life. Conventions are therefore related to a collective understanding created by teachers among themselves. Conventions address questions of manners and ‘‘rules’’ that should be taken in their broadest sense to construct fresh conditions in life in schools, which might then result in them becoming pleasant places to work in. But how should the training should be conducted to achieve such a fresh look? Thus I turn again to the idea of theatrical representations of teaching as performance to develop some of the above ideas.
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PART 3: APPLICATION OF THEATRICAL CONCEPTS IN REPRESENTATIONS OF TEACHING AS PERFORMANCE – HELPING TEACHERS TO DEAL WITH CHAOTIC SITUATIONS There are voices, such as Benson and Hunter (1993), that claim that it is inappropriate to apply chaos theory to teaching and teacher education primarily because of the inherent difficulties of applying methods and criteria developed for the physical sciences to nonphysical phenomena, such as human behaviors. On the other hand, there are others, such as Guess and Sailor (1993), who point out that the chaos theory is applicable to the study of human behavior and challenges new direction to intervention practices. What would we call a ‘‘chaotic situation’’ in teaching? Naturally the thought goes to those uncontrolled situations in which the teacher loses the power over the class and thus the lesson is regarded as a failure. This would be a narrow viewpoint which does not reveal the complexity and the richness of the concept and its potential to serve as a building-stone in expanding the possibilities in the teacher’s work. The term ‘‘chaotic’’ needs clarification. Chaos theories are affiliated with postmodern epistemology which reflects a reciprocal engagement of subject and environment. They can enhance understanding of modes of knowing and practicing in teaching in the sense that they enable new narratives as new attractors and they enable progress toward a higher order of the professional self. Thus, new knowledge can be created as a tool to guide student-teachers’ with a meaningful and coherent sequence of studies. Designed carefully, such studies can help preservice students as well as in-service teachers understanding their professional role and to better their communication skills.
Setting the Scene Two examples offer theatrical representation of a unique and rewarding way in teacher training. One example is the use of Playback Theater, and the other is the use of Forum Theater. I have chosen to elaborate on examples from my own practical experience with my students at Haifa University; the occurrences took place at a teaching seminar in which I try to help my students to construct their own identity as teachers. A seminar, which is a search for the ways to structure a knowledge that will have the power to lead the students to find their own
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‘‘signature’’ as teachers, and to find ways to deal with the emotions and the chaotic situations that might arise in the schools where they will be teaching. The Use of Playback Theater to Demonstrate Recognizing Complexity of Situations and Change without Simple Solutions Sachar, an Arab student of mine, said: Take me for example; I want to be a drama-theater teacher but, as I can see it, as a drama teacher in an Arab school in my village I will face so many ethical problems. If I want to deal with a play that involves sex issues, for example, I just can’t. Our society is still very traditional. If one of the characters in the play is a prostitute, it means that I am not free to produce this play, nor to work on it even in class exercises. So here is my problem: My artistic choices do not meet the demands of my society. I also face an ethical problem; shall I try to go against the stream at the risk being thrown out of my job? Or do I risk raising controversial issues, and no one knows how they will develop? Or shall I choose to go with the stream and ‘‘let sleeping dogs die’’? I am, after all, a product of my traditional society’s education, and as you see, it is not so bady
What Sachar was really struggling with, was the issue of borders: Sociocultural borders. She raised doubts about her ability to bring about a change in her society. She believed she should open up the children’s minds and spirits to controversial issues such as substance abuse, sexual prejudice or bullying/school violence, love, and sex, and to help the youngsters overcome some of the difficulties that she herself faced when she was a school child. She did manage to cross the borders in her own personal life, but could she take the responsibility and decide that when ethics do not meet aesthetics she would know what are the best choices to be taken? Her chaotic thoughts paralyzed her ability to arrive at any decision and as a result she was not able to act. Can we train her to reach a calmer and more decisive frame of mind? Can we help her to build a higher order out of her conflicting-chaotic notions? Here can enter the method of using Playback Theater. The Method of Using Playback Theater Playback Theater is a unique form of improvised theater, usually presented by a team of professional actors. A conductor, who provides the opportunity for the audience to share their stories and experiences, leads the performance. The actors then reenact stories, using a variety of improvisational forms (Schonmann, 2001). Jonathan Fox and the original Playback
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Theater Company founded Playback Theater in 1975 in New York. Since then, Playback Theater idea has inspired many people to become involved in theater and has reached hundreds of locations. The groups usually call themselves after their town, such as Melbourne Playback Theater or Ko¨ln Playback Theater. This form of drama is used in educational, therapeutic, social change, and arts settings, either as a performance with a company of trained actors and a defined audience or as a group event led by an individual, in which case participants become actors as well as narrators for each other (Schonmann, 2001). This form of theater, used with my students, is based on them listening to the narrator’s (one of the students) story; they then ‘‘play back’’ what they hear as the essence of the tale. Their enactment may be realistic or symbolic. The conductor, the leader of the course, (in our case, it is me) helps to structure the story for the actor-students by asking questions of the storyteller. In Sachar’s case, I asked her to talk about her village. I asked her to describe the principal of the school, she then had to talk about an incident that already happened, in which she was confused and felt she was swimming against the current. Then the students in the class asked her questions about her own feelings and about the pupils she encountered. When I felt that there was a rich bank of ‘‘data’’ with which to begin with the performance, I turned to the essence of the Playback experience knowing that it is not a frightening solitary therapy but one in which we can confront ourselves through critical consciousness (Fox, 1994). The mechanism of Playback Theater is a dramatic process, whereby individuals are guided to tell stories from their lives. Designated performers reenact these stories until the narrator is satisfied that the essence of the story has been captured. In Sachar’s case, she had to choose who (from the class) she wanted to play – herself, the principal, a parent she had encountered, and two of her pupils. Each of them has a name and a detailed authentic description already conveyed by Sachar in the process of telling her story and the questions that followed. The theatrical principle in which the narrator is encouraged to make choices regarding the story (to accept the story, to ‘‘repair’’ it, or to see it ‘‘transformed’’ by new choices), is the important principle which I consider as the mechanism for establishing order out of chaotic experiences. By displaying and interpreting her story simultaneously (by her fellow-students) we are creating a key for inquiry into ambiguity creating a reflection mode of representation that maintains a kind of distance from the objects under discussion, and yet, maintains direct involvement with it. Salas argued that: ‘‘Playback Theater’s earthy simplicity and directness make it accessible to almost anyone. The work can have immediate
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relevance to people of all levels of education’’ (Salas, 1993, p. 146). It is a dramatic form which can provide a vehicle to step out of oneself, like a theatrical piece of Brechtian alienation, to look at what that self is doing. This idea, I suggest, might be used in teachers training as a way of simultaneously presenting the students’ authentic stories: it concerns thoughts and feelings. The ‘‘student as a source’’ tells her/his story, then the ‘‘students as players’’ present the story via their own interpretation and via filters of art, filters, through which the ‘‘data’’ in the story are viewed by them. The resulting performance leads to crucial questions, which lie at the core of this method: Can Playback Theater provide an appropriate construct for Sachar’s questions and uncertainties? I asked her if the playback of her story enables her to accord meaning to her experience. She answered: I think I can’t decide to stand against my own society. I know what I need to do but I know now that I would not be able to do it at this point in my effort to build my career. Maybe, when I have more experience as a teacher, I will dare to do this.
On one hand, the focus lies on repeated acting versions of the same story. On the other, it converges on the same story while different kinds of information come in all the time until they make sense of the experience presented and the ‘‘source’’ (in our case, Sachar), is satisfied with the presented version. When the ‘‘source’’ thinks that the presented work is coherent and compatible with the experience that she/he has had, then the sensemaking is completed. This kind of reflection may be helpful in advancing our understanding and in searching for meaning into our training processes. The mechanism of Playback Theater enables one to penetrate the complexity of the problem by showing the ‘‘heart’’ of it. The theatrical form of presenting, analyzing, and finding meaning has the potential for making the meaning substantially clearer and emotionally more touching. By theatrically representing ‘‘an issue’’, we give moments as though they were live experiences in which all the layers are there: the facts, the deeds, the thoughts, and the emotions. In looking at the student’s reactions to the playback experience I found that most of them maintained that it was an inspiring process. To mention only a few: ‘‘Telling my story gave me the confidence that the group was supporting me’’; or, ‘‘I was agitated when I was sitting there watching my story being ‘tortured’ and mis-interpreted. But then, when Maya made a visual image of a grave, I suddenly felt that she was right. It was so moving to see yourself dead. But then the cast did not leave me there and they made an effort to take me out of the grave. I cried. I felt relieved. I knew that the
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catharsis I had will change my attitude to myself and the way I perceive my teaching’’; or: ‘‘I felt that the actors said things that I wanted to say but did not dare’’; or: ‘‘I had never realized that being a teacher was actually my dream come true’’. It can be concluded that the process of relating to a real life experience that is then reenacted by the others can be a useful model for a new perspective on the complexity of the process of teachers training. We cannot predict the effects of the playback, but we can be certain that the students are deeply involved in the told-then-acted experience. Thus, process of teaching is based on the tension between ‘‘static’’ (routine) and the ‘‘dynamic’’ (the unexpected). This dramatic tension is the mechanism which operates the process of teachers behaving. Understanding this mechanism might elevate teaching as a performance event to a degree of an art, or at least to recognize some artistic qualities in the teaching. I have begun to think about the ambivalence and ambiguity at work as a legitimate component of teacher training as being supported by Playback Theater, i.e. as a representation construct of teaching as performance.
The Use of Forum Theater to Demonstrate – From Chaos to Coherence Continuing the line of thought of Playback Theater we can look into Tanya’s (one of my student-teachers) ideas. Take, for example, she said, ‘‘the play ‘They Will Come Tomorrow’’’ (an original Israeli play written by Nathan Shacham, in the 1950s, only 2 years after the Jewish state was established). They Will Come Tomorrow is a play about moral conduct in war. It deals with the soldiers’ moral decisions when they find themselves stuck on a hill in the Galilee. There are seven mines there. The sapper was killed, the map was lost and the soldiers who would give their lives for each other in battle became almost paralyzed, they could not move because of their fear of the mines. Their moral dilemma was whether or not to tell the next platoon that would come tomorrow to relieve them, that there were still mines on the hill. Meanwhile, down below in the wadi, they saw an old Arab with a donkey; they called him to come: ‘‘Talhon, Talhon’’, hoping he would be blown up and there would be one or two mines fewer in that field. This play is included in the list of plays to be taught in schools. I chose to analyze it with my student-teachers, using it as a test case to learn how to deal with problems of teaching a realistic play with strong political connotations.
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Tanya thought that since there were scenes that included a heartless attitude toward the Arabs, it should not be discussed in classes where Arab and Jewish pupils study together. Contrary to her view, I thought that this play was a ‘‘must’’ and that there should not be any taboo on any issues. The voices of the students were different in their attitudes, nuances, and basic arguments, until we faced a clash between the ethics and the aesthetics in our own seminar, as I asked my students to prepare a lesson plan of how they wanted to teach the play. In the first meeting of our seminar all went well. In the second, when I looked around I saw Renin, an Arab student from the Galilee, with tears running down her cheeks. I approached her gently and asked if she did not feel well. She said, ‘‘No, I am fine, but I can’t stop my tears. On that hill there was my grandfather’s house. My father used to tell me the story when I was a child, and it still hurts so much’’. ‘‘Would you like us to stop dealing with the play?’’ I asked and she replied without hesitation: ‘‘No! Of course not, we have to talk about it. It happened more than 50 years ago. We are now equal citizens in Israel, we should be able to look into the eyes of history and see our own situation now’’. But then, a ‘‘battle cry’’ came from an unexpected side of the class. It came from Hanna, a Jewish student from a settlement in Samaria who said it was not fair of me to allow Renin to raise her voice because she was crying. She, Hanna, wanted to say that as a religious girl who was born in Samaria surrounded by Arabs not letting her cross the roads safely, she had to be protected by Israeli soldiers everyday when she comes to the University. ‘‘All this is happening now, not fifty or sixty years ago’’, she asserted. Her eyes were dry but her voice was trembling. The air in the class was charged with electricity. What actually was at stake here were the ethical considerations that one should take versus aesthetic choices of what is suitable to be taught and how. The world of fiction became fact. Goodman (1978) argued that ‘‘Fiction operates in actual worlds in much the same way as nonfiction’’(p. 104). We encountered this truth. I had opened the way to competing criteria, knowing that the conflicting truths could not be reconciled. Here can enter the method of using Forum Theater.
The Method of Using Forum Theater Forum Theater was developed by the Brazilian theater director Augusto Boal during the 1970s. In an effort to transform theater from the
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‘‘monolog’’ of traditional performance into a ‘‘dialog’’ between audience and stage, he shaped an innovative form in which he gave the audience the chance to take a key role in the performance. Boal transforms the observer from a passive being, a recipient, into becoming the main actor in the drama. Forum Theater is an improvisational and interactive form of theater, which creates space for an open and friendly work environment. It provokes understanding, learning, and expresses a need for a better world. Boal’s inspiration is strongly influenced by the liberation pedagogy of the Brazilian educationist Paulo Freire. Unlike conventional theater, in which the audience passively observes the events on stage, Forum Theater gives the audience the opportunity of being involved in the fiction and it can influence the course of the performance by active participation. The audience enters the world of the play by positioning themselves as ‘‘spect-actors’’ who can bring about change in the play based on their own interpretation of the events. However, the ‘‘spect-actor’’ cannot impose his/her will on the play in an illogical manner. Rather, she/he has to find logical ways to relate to the issues presented in the play. I found this negotiating of meaning a most powerful active process of exchanging ideas through which the spect-actor sought by his actions to comprehend the problem at stake. Forum Theater valued the learning process as much as it valued final results. Thus, in this form of theater, the play does not remain merely within the realm of pleasure: it has moved into one of individual responsibility and effort. Forum Theater, as Boal notes, ‘‘is the theater of the first person plural’’ (Boal, 1995). When we see other’s images or hear their story, we as members of the group may color that story and the characters in the light of our own experience. Boal’s main idea was to learn another kind of behavior ‘‘if it will help me out of my oppression.’’ Thus the basis of this theatrical representation is the idea that the spect-actor could try various options but, in the end it is up to him/her to decide. The idea of Forum Theater using an interactive form of inquiry, which creates space for an open and friendly work environment, fascinated me and I tried to use it in my search for theatrical representations of teaching as performance. In the case of Tanya and the play of They Will Come Tomorrow, in the midst of the hot debate that was threatening to blow up the lesson, I suggested that we try to examine the conflicting truths via Forum Theater. From our other experiences they already knew the format, and a group of five began to enact the scene in which Tanya tells her story, Renin is trying
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to hide her tears and, in the middle, the old Arab is trying to encourage his donkey to walk. Again, as in the previous representation, the teacher was the conductor. I began to activate the drama by hissing at the donkey to run. Then, one student positioned himself as the donkey and he was blown up by the mine. Renin began to cry loudly, Nathan, another student, took the spect-actor’s role and tried to comfort her but then another bomb was heard and another one. The drama in class expanded into so many different directions, but this time, contrary to the initial discussion the chaotic atmosphere was now limited to the stage, while the rest of the students had to control their reactions. Those who wanted to transform the reality on stage and to take a stand had to participate as spect-actors. The complexity of the situation grew and the impact on the students increased. There was no compromise but there was a movement from chaos to coherence. Since Forum Theater values the learning process as much as it does final results, it opens a door to a process of real involvement, including an exchange of ideas and feelings. At last, some satisfaction is reached from gaining an understanding and meaning from the process. What is important is not exactly a perfect solution but there is a process of criticizing, observing, and trying to find meaning in each of the presented solutions. The preference for and selection of a specific play, or specific instructional strategies should obey the inner feelings and understanding of each of the individual student-teachers. However, as teacher educators, we have to understand that the curriculum ‘‘is a mind-alerting device’’ as Eisner claims (1985, p. 34), and when we define the contents that constitute the curriculum, ‘‘we also define the kind of mental skills we choose to cultivate’’ (ibid.).
PART 4: A BINARY APPROACH IN CONTRAST TO A TRIADIC APPROACH TO TEACHER TRAINING The metaphor ‘‘All the World’s a Stage’’, with which I opened this chapter, stems originally from the world of Plato and his expression ‘‘Theatrum Mundi’’. Later the church fathers used the phrase and it passed through the generations until Shakespeare made it unforgettable in his monumental formulation of the sentence: ‘‘All the World’s a Stage’’. The idea of the double perspective of theatricality and realism is wonderfully expressed in a play by Pedro Calderon (a Spanish playwright from
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the seventeenth century; 1600–1681) Teatro de Mundo Fe Grand (The Big Theater of the World). It facilitates the understanding that theater is not in the everyday domain but in the domain of an extra-daily dimension (Read, 1993), yet its roots are planted in everyday life. It is interesting to note that leading sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and philosophers such as Freud, Mead, Goffman, and Harre, mentioned above, used theatricality as the basis for explanations imprinted in real life behavior, whereas, theater artists such as Eugenio Barba, Augosto Boal and artists from the Theater of Workers decided to search for experiences in real life situations in order to create a meta-theater. This paradox was pointed out by David George (1986) who made the differentiation between the binary and triadic approach in theatrical behavior and his observation was intellectual stimulation for my attempts to construct a triadic approach to teacher training as opposed to what we might call the binary approach in teacher training (Schonmann, 1998).
The Binary Approach The binary approach would be any kind of teacher training that can be explained in association with Goffman’s role theory (Goffman, 1959, 1974), which means that when the individual presents himself and his activity in work situations, ‘‘he carries out a role’’. Goffman made a simple comparison between John Smith as a plumber and John Gielgud as Hamlet. According to this comparison the two Johns are individuals who perform their role which is their profession. Each of them is performing a different role in his professional domain. Referring now to the context of teaching, on the question: ‘‘how to learn the role of the teacher’’ there is no single answer (Floden & Buchmann, 1990). Doyle, for example (Doyle, 1990, pp. 5–6), proposed five different approaches to teacher training: the good employee, the junior professor, the fully functioning person, the innovator, and the reflective professional. Each approach reflects a different complexity, yet in each the question of role definition is raised. Different ways of teacher training move in a pendulumlike movement between the pole that puts emphasize on the person in the training process while the other stress the role. The personal orientation reminds us that learning to teach is a ‘‘transformative process, not just a matter of acquiring new knowledge and skills’’(Feiman-Nemser, 1990, p. 227). The emphasis on the role stress practice which, in any profession, ‘‘requires the processing of technical and scientific knowledge for use in a
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context that is rapidly changing and uncertain’’ (Richert, 1990, p. 525). The role-person axis is a binary approach, according to which during the process of training the individual trainee, specializes in a number of teaching skills in different contents and sets of inter-personal relations, while becoming a teacher at the end of the process. This binary approach which consists of the person and the role that she/he has to act out, gets a richer construct with Grimmett and Mackinnon’s (1992) claim that craft knowledge is analogous to the case of the role of the teacher and the activity of teaching (ibid., p. 389). ‘‘Craft knowledge concerns itself both with teacher representations of the declarative knowledge contained in subject matter content and with the teachers’ tacit instantiations of procedural ways of dealing rigorously and supportively with learners’’ (ibid., p. 393). The perception of teaching as a craft leans on differentiations made by Collingwood (1938) as early as 1938, who claimed that craft always deals with the differentiations between means and goals. The goals are presented at the beginning of the process and then one starts to think about the means to achieve them. On this basis Kohl (1988) referred to the definition of the craft of teaching, stating that: ‘‘The craft of teaching has a number of aspects. It relates to the organization of content and the structuring of space and time so that student learning will be fostered.... But most centrally the craft of teaching requires what can be called teaching sensibility. This sensibility develops over a career of teaching and has to be with knowing how to help students focus their energy on learning and growth’’ (p. 57). It is in this context that I suggest the notion that teacher training according to the binary approach is directed toward achieving craft knowledge. In essence it is an approach which accentuates person and role, while the role is designed as a function of living the life of particular teachers through forms of vicarious experience (Grimmett & Mackinnon, 1992, p. 396).
The Triadic Approach It is possible to enrich the binary approach through introducing a third component: the character – and thus develop a triadic approach which depends on three components: the person, the role, and the character. I claimed earlier that teacher training through the binary (person-role) approach is directed to regard teaching as a craft; in accordance with this line of thought I wish to claim that teacher training according to the triadic approach is directed toward regarding the teaching as an art. This idea is based on the model of theatrical behavior presented by David George (1986)
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in which the theatrical representation consists of three components: The person (e.g. John Gielgud), the professional role (e.g. the actor), and the character (e.g. Hamlet). The perception of teacher training when linked to the triadic theatrical behavior places prominence on the character and so enables a change in the conceptual viewpoint toward teacher training. Accordingly, the development of character is essentially a claim to realize the creative part impressed in the person which is potentially also to be found in the role that the teacher plays. In this way, teacher training can sharpen the artistic qualities of the profession because of the idea that each of the students has to be capable of developing a ‘‘Hamlet’’ or ‘‘Antigone’’ or ‘‘Peer Gynt’’ of his/her own. Each student has to develop the character of the nature of the teaching that she/he wants to display. The process of the training according to the triadic approach is a process of constant development which is formed in the tension created in the overlapping parts between person, role, and character. This is a process which touches the very understanding that teaching is a profession in which representation is central and some degree of tension, concentration and energy are necessary to invest in each new teaching situation. It is the artistic component connected with the way the teacher chooses to design the character he/she wishes to represent in his/her teaching style that enables one to develop a deeper dimension, a creative one, in the teaching profession. John Gielgud’s Hamlet was quite different from Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet. Moreover, this is what we should expect. Teacher training in this context demands the cultivation of a ‘‘Hamlet’’ within each teacher. There are overlapping parts between the character, the role, and the person. One who acts as Othello will be called upon to create a ‘‘character’’ which, in terms of a model of theatrical behavior, he will be called to take power from the self – the ‘‘person’’ and from the ‘‘role’’ – acting resources to find overlapping emotional points in order to project the character as best as he can. The triadic approach is thought to enable the student to express himself through different characters on which he chooses to work during the process of his training. The process of building a ‘‘character’’ demands an aesthetic distance between ‘‘person’’ (the self) and ‘‘role’’ (the formal task) and in this distance a reflective process takes place which enables the theatrical representations of teaching as performance to be enacted. It should be clear that there is a need to encourage differentiation in the processes of training in order to enable self-realization of each of the trainees. This approach might be dangerous in the sense of admitting doubts, ambiguity, and uncertainty; and it might even lead to turmoil. Yet, the very essence of the
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training processes occurs in the artistic sphere; the aesthetic distance mechanism is the safe-guard while the student-teacher is working on building a character for his teaching, the danger of turmoil is controlled. Based on George (1986) I will explain this idea with the help of two Western theories of acting. One reflects the basic model according to which the actor disappears into the character which he represents; he has no separate identity of the role, that is to say he has no identity of his own. This is the ‘‘fusion’’ model. The second theory reflects a fundamentally different model according to which the actor exists in a quite separate world from the character he represents. The actor always acts, represents the character but does not disappear within it. This is the ‘‘fission’’ model. The binary model is directly linked to the ‘‘fusion’’ model. The triadic model is directly linked to the ‘‘fission’’ model. Hamlet, the character is not totally assimilated in John Gielgud, the actor, because if this were so how would it be possible to compare different performances of Hamlet? The very possibility of separation enables acceptance of the concept of performance as this is an expression of an artistic design of a role. John Gielgud can act Hamlet many times, but Hamlet will never be his profession, argues George (ibid.). Every actor invests some part of himself in the character, and thereby overlapping fields between person, role, and character are formed. John Gielgud himself acted a host of characters apart from Hamlet, but his personal life was not through Hamlet, or Othello, or any other imaginary character. My point is that each teacher invests part of his- herself in the role of teaching but should not lose his/her identity in the roles that she/he enacts. Examples An example of the ‘‘fusion’’ model would be Merlin’s story (in one of the playback sessions) when she told the class that her being a teacher had a definite influence on her life at home with her children, her husband, and even with friends. She said: ‘‘I feel that I need to be in control. I feel that the way I want to control my pupils at school is the way I actually behave at home. I want my own children to do exactly what I ask them. I want my husband to do things that I ask him to do and if they don’t fulfill my expectations I become angry. That’s a bad attitude, I know, but it is as if I am afraid of losing my control in the class and I have projected it into my private life. Even my friends tell me from time to time ‘Hey, Merlin, watch out: you are not in school now!’ I am only at the beginning of my profession. My identification with my role as a teacher has a great influence on my life. Everybody knows immediately from the way I speak that I am a teacher. I get lost in my role and I don’t like it’’.
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Manal, when telling her story in the playback session, said that she was well aware of the fact that her being a teacher, in fact, a preservice teacher, influences the way she thinks and behaves: ‘‘It is hard for me to separate between who I am in school and between who I am at home. My husband tells me all the time ‘I am not your pupil, Manal’. Somehow I am always giving instructions. Even my voice is louder. It is exhausting’’. It is clear that Merlin and Manal express the notion of the binary approach to teaching in which the self merges with the role. The danger of getting lost in the role is almost palpable. As another student put it: ‘‘I am not me any more.’’ To prevent this danger or, at least, to minimize it I proposed the triadic approach to teaching. The third component in the training – the character – should enable the preservice teachers as well as the in-service teachers to distance the self from the role by embodying different characters in their role (the role of a teacher). Then they can realize the creative powers they have. And instead of ‘‘fusion’’ they can be linked to the ‘‘fission’’ model. An example of that would be Ron’s story. In one of the playback sessions, he told the class that he noticed that he uses his hands very often when he speaks in class. He explained it as a kind of a need to show confidence to his pupils. He said: ‘‘I know that I can answer my pupils’ questions without all those gestures, but with them I feel I am a different persona. I can better express myself. But when I give a lecture, on the other hand, I prefer to play only with my voice. I then become another persona. I am always trying to find new images that I want to convey. I enjoy this and I think my pupils also like it. One day I forgot to whistle when I wanted quiet in the class. And they demanded the whistling. They loved the cowboy character that I present when I want them to behave’’. We could hardly stop Ron’s stories. It seemed that intuitively he created different characters and enjoyed himself. As opposed to Ron’s professional behavior that he was trying to develop in such a playful way, Debbie said that she changes character according to the class she is teaching: ‘‘To each class I take another ‘mask’’’. In one class I pretend to be very severe. I treat them as if I were a policeman, but in another class I am acting the mother. Does it make any sense to you? One of the students asked her: ‘‘How can you do that?’’ And she answered: ‘‘I am working on myself. I even sometimes wonder what would happen if I were to exchange the ‘masks’ between the classes’’. I saw the opportunity then to expand on the idea of ‘‘wearing a mask’’ in our work and developed it with the idea of creating different characters. This would enable the creative powers to grow.
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These examples serve as illustrative frameworks for the theoretical binary–triadic approaches to teacher education and link them to the broad sense of theatrical modes of knowing, as applied in the following epilogue.
EPILOGUE: THEATRICAL MODES OF KNOWING ‘‘Theatrical modes of knowing’’ are ways of using theatrical perceptions to stimulate cognitive emotions (a term coined by Scheffler, 1977), and to define a kind of pedagogic behavior, which allows the uncertainty, the doubt, and the chaotic possibility to occur. I consider theatrical modes of knowing as inner structures of knowledge in use, such as: catharsis, improvisation, and conventions developed above. In theater, the thought is present and must communicate with the audience. In theater, we are in the sphere of doing things. Hence, following Eisner’s (1985) ideas about aesthetic modes of knowing, I can conclude that the theatrical mode of knowing is the embodiment of thought into actions.
It is a hermeneutic activity and not a technical one. It is a creative mode of knowing and not prescriptive. It is not looking for truth but for meaning. It does not deal with identification and categorization of known objects but with unpredictable essences that, as yet, have no identification.
Most studies describe and document the work of the teachers in the classroom compared with the actor’s work in the theater (for example, Grumet, 1978; Bolton, 1984; Rubin, 1985; Verriour, 1994). However, I reject the conventional attitude of viewing the teacher as an actor. A theatrical mode of knowing is not a metaphor; rather it is a realization of a metaphor. Realization of the theater metaphor is much more than simply thinking of one thing (pedagogy) in terms of another (theater). Realization of the theater metaphor establishes a basic attitude toward pedagogy as enactment, toward teaching as performance. The use of a metaphor permits a passage from one concept to another, while the realization of the metaphor permits action within the new world of concepts. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, we are not the first to say that teaching is a performing art; not enough, however, has been written about it, and even less is written about the relevance of theatrical thinking to the education of teachers as a whole. Regarding challenges in teacher learning and development, it is of value to internalize the idea of theatrical modes of knowing and to understand what its core, pivotal power is. The challenge in
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developing mindful and creative teachers lies not only in teaching them to know their subject matter and to find ways of conveying this adequately to the students, but another challenge lies in developing the notion that practical and theoretical frameworks which teachers use should be complementary and affect each other. In fact, one cannot operate well without the other. Understanding the nature and the significance of theatrical modes of knowing in relation to teachers’ education activities could advance the professional growth of the teachers and the chance to have an impact on teachers’ education in the various disciplines; by doing so there might also be a possibility of having an impact of changing the culture of schools. The hope is that if we really train our students in the ways we preach, then they will not only be able to use the new constructs in their own work but they will be intrigued to do so. Approaching the pedagogy of teacher education as performance requires attention: on the one hand, there are takenfor-granted realities and, on the other, it requires awareness of and consideration for complex situations, outbursts of feelings, and ambiguity. This way may, at times, seem overwhelming and for some even impossible because of their lack of knowledge in the theatrical world. But such a danger can be overcome by an adequate training process if we really want to experience a new sense of order in our teachers’ professional knowledge and practice. The dangers of being confused, losing control and failing to reach meaning of some theatrical representations are there at the heart of the method but we should go beyond the known and the expected ways – to transformative ways of learning how to teach. The danger of introducing such a change is that it can lead to chaos. Yet, higher levels of understanding can be reached. Training student-teacher to find his/her own voice as a teacher, to leave his/her own signature on the educational map is not just another way of training but it is an ideological stand. In another context William Doll (1986, p. 15) said that: ‘‘Any curriculum which emphasizes the active and the reflective – the only way to achieve internality – must by nature run the risk of disequilibrium’’. Theatrical representations of teaching as performance (such as Playback theater and Forum theater) are active and reflective forms of learning by experiencing which risk such disequilibrium. This is the danger and this is the strength. I have tried, so far, to build a theatrical way to think about teacher education and gave a few examples of how to approach it in practical teacher training. The role of teachers is to intervene and influence the child’s development. This intervention entails use of knowledge (Whitehead, 1916/ 1967). Accessible and applicable knowledge is apparently a primary component of thinking. Adapting a theatrical viewpoint, one could say that the
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process of intervening permits one to be on the edge of chaos in the pedagogical process and demands active communication from all the participants, students as well as teachers. If we remember Shakespeare’s reluctant school-boy who has been going to school like a snail for more than 400 years, then in our pedagogical teaching we might look for possible ways to ease the circumstances, we should try to continue developing the notion of theatrical representations of teaching as performance. And if the circumstances are difficult to find or to cope with, we have only to recall the words of one of the wittiest playwrights who ever lived, George Bernard Shaw, who pointed out: People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, And, if they can’t find them, make them (George Bernard Shaw ‘‘Mrs. Warren’s Profession’’, 1883, Act 2).
REFERENCES Beckerman, B. (1990). Theatrical presentation. New York: Routledge. Ben-Peretz, M., & Schonmann, S. (2000). Behind closed doors: Teachers and the role of the teachers’ lounge. New York: SUNY Press. Benson, G. D., & Hunter, W. J. (1993). Chaos theory: No strange attractor in teacher education. Action in Teacher Education, 14(4), 61–67. Boal, A. (1995). In: A. Jackson (Trans.), The rainbow of desire. London: Routledge. Bolton, G. M. (1983). The activity of dramatic playing. In: C. Day & L. J. Norman (Eds), Issues in educational drama (pp. 49–63). London: Falmer Press. Bolton, G. M. (1984). Drama as education: An argument for placing drama at the center of the curriculum. London: Longman Group. Bolton, G. M. (1992). New perspectives on classroom drama. Hemel Hempstead, UK: Simon & Schuster Education. Boyce, N. S. (1987). Welcome to the theatre. Chicago: Nelson-Hall. Brophy, J. (2002). Teaching: Educational practices series-1. Brussels, Belgium: The International Academy of Education. Collingwood, R. G. (1938). The principles of arts. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1991). Narrative inquiry: Storied experience. In: E. C. Short (Ed.), Forms of curriculum inquiry (pp. 121–153). New York: SUNY Press. Dawe, H. A. (1984). Teaching: A performing art. Phi Delta Kappa, 66(3), 548–552. Dewey, J. (1934/1980). Art as experience. New York: Perigee Books. Doll, W. E., Jr. (1986). Prigogine: A new sense or order, a new curriculum. Theory into Practice, 25(1), 10–16.
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Donmoyer, R. (1983). Pedagogical improvisation. Educational Leadership, 40(4), 39–43. Doyle, W. (1990). Themes in teacher education research. In: W. R. Houston, M. Haberman & J. Sikula (Eds), Handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 3–24). New York: Macmillan. Eisner, E. W. (1985). Aesthetic modes of knowing. In: E. W. Eisner (Ed.), Learning and teaching – the ways of knowing. Eighty-fourth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education (Part II, pp. 23–36). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Eisner, E. W. (1998). The kind of schools we need. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Eisner, E. W. (2002). The arts and the creation of mind. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Feiman-Nemser, S. (1990). Teacher preparation: Structural and conceptual alternatives. In: W. R. Houston, M. Haberman & J. Sikula (Eds), Handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 212–233). New York: Macmillan. Floden, R. E., & Buchmann, M. (1990). Philosophical inquiry in teacher education. In: W. R. Houston, M. Haberman & J. Sikula (Eds), Handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 42–58). New York: Macmillan. Fox, J. (1994). Acts of service: Spontaneity, commitment, tradition in the nonscripted theatre. New York: Tusitala Publishing. Freud, S. (1910). Five lectures on psychoanalysis. London: Hogarth. George, D. E. R. (1986). Letter to a poor actor. New Theatre Quarterly, 2(8), 352–363. Gleick, J. (1988). Chaos: Making a new science. New York: Penguin. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday Anchor. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. New York: Harper & Row. Goodman, N. (1978). Ways of worldmaking. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing. Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Greene, M. (2001). Variations on a blue guitar. New York: Teachers College Press. Grimmett, P., & Mackinnon, M. A. (1992). Craft knowledge and the education of teachers. In: G. Grant (Ed.), Review of research in education (Vol. 18, pp. 385–456). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association (Chapter 9). Grumet, M. R. (1978). Curriculum as theatre: Merely players. Curriculum Inquiry, 8, 37–64. Guess, D., & Sailor, W. (1993). Chaos theory and the study of human behavior: Implications for special education and development disabilities. Journal of Special Education, 27(1), 16–34. Harre, R. (1979). Social being: A theory for social psychology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Harrison-Pepper, S. (1991). Dramas of persuasion: Utilizing performance in the classroom. Excellence in College Teaching, 2, 115–127. Heck, S., & Williams, C. R. (1984). The complex roles of the teacher. New York: Teachers College Press. Hopkins, M. F., & Long, B. W. (1981). Performance as knowing and knowing as performance. Central State Speech Journal, 32, 237. Kohl, H. R. (1988). Growing minds: On becoming a teacher. New York: Harper & Row. Lyman, S. M., & Scott, M. B. (1975). The drama of social reality. New York: Oxford University Press. McGregor, L., Tate, M., & Robinson, R. (1977). Learning through drama. London: Heinemann. Mead, G. A. (1934). Mind, self and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pineau, E. L. (1994). Teaching is performance: Reconceptualizing a problematic metaphor. American Educational Research Journal, 31(1), 3–25. Polsky, M. E. (1980). Let’s improvise. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
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Rap, U. (1973). Sociology and theatre. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University (in Hebrew). Read, H. (1993). Education through art. London: Faber & Faber. Richert, A. H. (1990). Teaching teachers to reflect: A consideration of program structure. Curriculum Studies, 22, 509–527. Rubin, J. L. (1985). Artistry in teaching. New York: Random House. Salas, J. (1993). Culture and community: Playback theatre. The Drama Review, 2, 15–25. Sarason, S. B. (1999). Teaching as a performing art. New York: Teachers College Press. Scheff, T. J. (1979). Catharsis in healing, ritual, and drama. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Scheffler, I. (1977). In praise of the cognitive emotions. Teacher College Record, 79(2), 171–186. Schonmann, S. (1995a). Cognitive drama: A tool for cultural assimilation. Journal of Arts and Learning, 12(1), 72–86. Schonmann, S. (1995b). Theatre of the classroom. Tel Aviv: Cherikover (in Hebrew). Schonmann, S. (1997). Scene and improvisation: Principles for curriculum planning. Collaborative Inquiry in a Post Modern Era: A Cat’s Cradle, 3(1), 35–61. Schonmann, S. (1998). The binary approach versus triadic approach in teacher training. In: M. Silberstein, M. Ben-Peretz & S. Ziv (Eds), Reflection in teaching (pp. 158–174). Tel Aviv: MOFET (in Hebrew). Schonmann, S. (2000). Playing peace: School performance as an aesthetic mode of knowing. Contemporary Theatre Review, 10(2), 45–60. Schonmann, S. (2001). Beyond readers theatre: A perspective on research in aesthetic inquiry. Arts and Learning Research Journal, 17(1), 132–154. Smith, R. (1979). Is teaching really a performing art? Contemporary Education, 51, 31–35. Spolin, V. (1973). Improvisation for the theatre. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Styan, J. L. (1975). Drama, stage and audience. London: Cambridge University Press. Turner, V. (1976). Dramas, fields and metaphors. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Vaughn, J. A. (1978). Drama a to z. New York: Frederick Unger. Verriour, P. (1994). In role: Teaching and learning dramatically. Markham, Ontario: Pippin Publishing. Wertheimer, R., & Zinga, M. (1998). Applying chaos theory to school reform. Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy, 8(2), 101–114. Whitehead, A. N. (1916/1967). The aims of education (Essay entitled The Aims of Education. Originally published in 1916). New York: Macmillan.
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LIVING IN TENSION: NEGOTIATING A CURRICULUM OF LIVES ON THE PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE LANDSCAPE Janice Huber and D. Jean Clandinin ABSTRACT Drawing on a view of children’s and teachers’ identities as stories to live by, the authors use one field text, taken from a year-long narrative inquiry, to show how children’s and teachers’ stories to live by interact with milieu and subject matter in classroom curriculum making. Tensions around negotiating a curriculum of lives are identified as children’s stories bump against teachers’ stories. Three children’s stories to live by are represented through a set of images in found poetry. We return to the curriculum-making moment with wonders about each child’s evolving stories to live by in relation with the particular subject matter. We outline four methodological dilemmas and ethical dilemmas encountered in studying multiple participants’ experiences nested within social, cultural and institutional narratives. This chapter comes out of a research project1 exploring the meeting of children’s and teachers’ lives in schools. One of the places that lives meet in Learning from Research on Teaching: Perspective, Methodology, and Representation Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 11, 313–336 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1016/S1479-3687(05)11011-6
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schools is in curriculum making.2 Our view of curriculum-making comes out of the work of Clandinin and Connelly who suggest that curriculum ‘‘might be viewed as an account of teachers’ and children’s lives together in schools and classrooms. . . [In this view of curriculum making] the teacher is seen as an integral part of the curricular processyin which teacher, learners, subject matter and milieu are in dynamic interaction’’ (1992, p. 392). This draws our attention to the centrality of lives in the negotiation of curriculum making. We share their ‘‘vision of curriculum as a course of life’’ (p. 393). As we played with this idea of curriculum as a course of life, we began to imagine how curriculum could be seen as a curriculum of life, perhaps a curriculum of lives.3 Thinking in this way, of course, makes the composition of life identities, ‘‘stories to live by’’ (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999) central in the process of curriculum making. For the most part, we have focussed on teachers’ and administrators’ stories to live by. Stories to live by is a term that allows us to ‘‘understand how knowledge, context and identity are linked and can be understood narratively’’ (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999, p. 4). For Connelly and Clandinin the term, stories to live by is ‘‘given meaning by the narrative understandings of knowledge and context’’ (p. 4). For teachers and administrators, stories to live by are ‘‘shaped by such matters as secret teacher stories, sacred stories of schooling, and teachers’ cover stories’’ (p. 4). In this chapter we maintain a focus on teachers’ stories to live by but also develop understandings of children as developing and living out their own shifting and multiple stories to live by, stories shaped by their knowledge and context. In this view we draw attention to the narrative life compositions of children, a view that allows us to see children as also shaped by, and shaping, their contexts. Other researchers (Bach, 1998; Huber, Huber, & Clandinin, 2004; Huber, Murphy, & Clandinin, 2003; Murphy, 2004) are also involved in exploring children’s stories to live by. By shifting focus to include children even as we continued to focus on teachers, we looked at the meeting of teachers’ and children’s stories to live by. Attending to the lives of children and teachers, dual starting points for understanding curriculum, allowed us to see each curricular situation from multiple-vantage points. In this way, we could study the meeting of teachers’ and children’s life identities within curriculum making. One way of thinking about this is that teachers and children, together in classrooms, are negotiating their stories to live by as they engage in curriculum making. Through a year-long narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) in a year 3-4 classroom at City Heights School,4 we attended to the children’s and teachers’ lives as curriculum was negotiated. For us, a curriculum of
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lives is, of necessity, a curriculum of diversity.5 In this study, we attended to our lives as teacher researchers and to children’s lives as we tried to negotiate a curriculum of lives. In this chapter we begin with a field note, one moment of curriculum making where we sensed the possibility of negotiating a curriculum of lives. As we tried to make sense of who we and the children were in that negotiation we identified tensions around the difficulties of making a curriculum attentive to the children’s diverse lives. We draw on the narratives of experience of three children to give a sense of the children’s lives that were brought to that moment and to raise wonders about their experiences in that moment. Puzzled by our inability to live the story that we were starting to tell of trying to negotiate a curriculum of lives in the classroom, we attended to the professional knowledge landscape (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995) and to the stories that were shaping that landscape, stories with plotlines of ‘‘productive days of high-quality learning’’, of achievement as measured by test scores, of schools as ranked against one another by achievement and of curriculum as mandated outcomes measured by achievement test scores. The tensions represented by the complexity of negotiating a curriculum of lives raise ethical dilemmas about how we, as teacher educators and researchers, live alongside teachers and children.6
EXPLORING A MOMENT OF CURRICULUM MAKING We worked in the year 3-4 classroom for a school year. We had, at year’s end, a great many field texts (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), pages of field notes, conversation transcripts, artifacts of student work, planning documents and school documents. When we began to analyze our field texts to understand the curriculum making in the classroom, we took different approaches, pulling on different threads that would allow us to understand teachers’ and children’s stories to live by. For purposes of this chapter, we read our field texts with the intention of looking for, and identifying, moments where there was the possibility of making a curriculum of lives. For us, such moments needed to be moments where we could attend to teachers, learners, subject matter and milieu in dynamic interaction and where our teacher researchers’ stories to live by and some children’s stories to live by were visible. For us these stories were most visible when marked by tension, that is, by the bumping places between stories. We selected the following
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moment, because it was filled with tension both in the living of the moment as described in our field texts and in our interpretation of this field text as we unpacked the moment to understand the stories to live by. It is a moment that allows us to make problematic the complexity and difficulty in negotiating a curriculum of lives on current professional knowledge landscapes7 (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995). Attending to children’s and teachers’ lives is particularly difficult when the stories of school currently shaping the professional knowledge landscape are so strongly shaped by plotlines of standardized assessment and accountability. We begin with a field note where a particular topic in the social studies subject matter area is being lived out both in and out of the classroom. We arrived at the school around 8:30 a.m.y By this time the children were arriving. They were very excited. The bus was to leave at 9:00 a.m. for the Fort museum... As we drove up to the Fort the first thing we and the children saw were a group of teepees just outside the wooden Fort wall. The children were excited and some of them told stories of having been in family teepees. Others asked questions of how they were made. Some noticed the decorations and lacing. When the children asked if they could go inside we said we were sure that at some point in the morning we would be visiting them. When the bus dropped us off inside the Fort we were met by June and George. They were going to work with us in the three activities – games, beading and bannock making. George spoke first in a large room where there were two fires going. He explained that the children needed to raise their hands to speak, one person at a time. He was the leader and they were to follow. He wanted to talk first about the fur trade. He asked what they knew. The teacher explained that they were just coming to the fur trade. She said they had been doing research on the Woodland and Plains Cree lifestyles. George got the kids to line up and we went to look at pelts in the trading room (very cold). He explained and asked a few questions about the process. He used Damien and Dustin in a bit of a role play, casting them in the role of Natives bringing furs in to trade. He used Sam as a regular trader with whom he had long traded. As Jean listened with her arms around Brittney and Corina and Van to help keep them warm, she realized that many of the children’s ancestors would have been the ‘Natives’ to whom George was referring. He seemed to have the sense of the fur trade as progress and settlement and he did not ask the children what sense they made of ity It was very cold in the room and the children were moving about. George had some trouble with thisy We then went up to the factor’s8 house which was heated. George had the children guess how many people lived in the huge house, there were five. The children got to ask a few questions about the objects on the walls, etc. They were very curious about the rest of the house and had many more questions but George took us back to the first room where he had the children sit in groups. When we moved to the cook house we were divided into groups. Jean went outside with one group to play a game with sticks and a leather ball which George described as double ball, the teacher went with the bannock making group and Janice went with the beading groupy When Jean’s group got to the bannock making activity George explained how to wrap the bannock dough around the sticks. He did not ask the children about bannock but many of them were telling Jean that they knew how to make bannock
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with their grandmas. Earlier Shawna, Darwin’s mom, said she did not know how to make bannock, she does not like to cook but that her mom made bannock and she loved ity George did not pick up on any of that. As he slapped the dough on the stick, Lui asked if he could wash his hands. George said, ‘No.’ Shawna and Jean helped the children wrap the dough and then they began to cook it on the firesy There were problems with the cooking, the sticks catching fire and the dough burningy At one point, Lui asked George a question, calling him Craig. George stopped him and said, ‘That is the third time you called me Craig. Learn that my name is George.’ Lui was startled by the harshness of the reprimand and Jean intervened and said that Lui was new to our school and was learning a lot of namesy. We got back to the school after 1:00 p.m. Janice and Jean went to get the lunch food for the children. When they got to the office Shawna was there and they talked about the field trip because the school secretary asked how we enjoyed it. We all said that we thought that George and June had not been good. Jean wondered what Shawna, who is of Aboriginal heritage, thought about the way the fur trade was explained. Shawna said that she, too, had been troubled by the field trip. (Notes to file, November 19)
We begin with this moment of curriculum making as it is a moment that raises questions about how children and teachers negotiate a curriculum of diverse lives. In this moment, we see the meeting of the lives of the year 3-4 children, their teacher’s life, the lives of two teacher researchers, the life of a mother and the lives of two teachers at the local Fort museum. In this moment these lives first met at school, then at the museum and, again, back at school. Curriculum is at the heart of the meeting (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988). As we unpack this moment we attend to tension and uncertainty in the making of a curriculum of lives. The explicit subject matter of the museum teachers was connected to the mandated curriculum focus on the early history of Aboriginal people, currently being taught in the year 3-4 classroom. The children arrived at the Fort in the midst of a unit with this focus. As we experienced the curriculum at the Fort there was a continuity of topic between the mandated unit being taught in the classroom and the Fort teachers’ interpretation of the mandated curriculum. George checked this out with the classroom teacher and she described where the class was in relation to the mandated curriculum. The way we observed the unit being taught at the Fort was coherent with what we knew the end of year standardized provincial achievement tests would measure. In the classroom we had observed the unit being taught through inquiry approaches. In both our living and telling of the moment we felt tensions. The first tension emerged around the museum teacher’s use of the term ‘‘Native’’. George seemed to assume the children would know nothing about what he seemed to see as an exotic aspect of Native life. His view of Native life as exotic Other seemed congruent with the message that many read in the
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curriculum guide. In this moment Jean realized that George was referring to the ancestors of many of the children. While she experienced tension she did not speak. Jean also noticed that George’s subject matter plotline was Eurocentric in its description of progress and settlement. And, while she felt tension about how that plotline was positioning the children, she again, did not speak. Another tension surrounded the children’s expression of curiosity, an expression that fit with the inquiry that was part of their in-classroom curriculum making. George, as teacher, did not welcome the children’s questioning. Still another tension emerged through George’s lack of attention to allowing the children to bring their knowledge to the bannock making. As Shawna and Jean moved with the children going to bannock making, Shawna, Darwin’s mother, and Jean visibly expressed their tensions when they tried to start a conversation about Shawna’s knowing of bannock making. Shawna tried to bring her life to the curriculum being made as she talked about liking bannock and memories of her mother making bannock. Shawna worked alongside Jean to try to interrupt the story that George was telling of bannock making. In the moment of bannock making Jean and Shawna both knew that some of the children’s lives carry memories of bannock. They wanted this knowing to be the starting point of the activity. What Shawna and Jean attempted in this moment was to shift the curriculum being made at the Fort to a curriculum more coherent with the inquiry and life focus of the in-classroom curriculum making. The children joined in trying to shift the curriculum as they storied their knowledge of bannock making in the context of their home lives. George did not seem to listen. Jean felt the tension as George ignored their attempts to reshape the curriculum he was living. There was another tension as Lui asked to live out a home story of washing his hands before he handled food and was told he could not. Still another tension emerged when Lui called George by an incorrect name. Jean intervened at this point and shared a bit of Lui’s story. George did not respond. Back at the school, in conversation with Shawna, Shawna revealed her concern with the content of the field trip as well as the lack of respect George showed the children. Jean and Janice shared similar concerns. However, later in the day we learned that our and Shawna’s lack of enthusiasm created tension for the classroom teacher who was asked by someone in the office ‘‘if we liked anything’’ about the field trip. As we attended to this moment in our unpacking we became aware of the continuities, discontinuities and silences in the meeting of the children’s and our lives with the mandated curriculum as it found expression in George’s
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practices. We see the continuity between the mandated curriculum and the Fort curriculum, the unquestioned cultural narrative, the story of teacher as expert and the story of the children as received knowers. We see the discontinuity in the tensions we felt but did not express. The silence in the field text is pervasive in our silence about the cultural narrative, about who the children are in relation to the cultural narrative, about the museum teacher’s lack of respect for the children’s and Shawna’s knowing and of the museum teacher’s lack of respect for the children’s inquiries. As we returned to the school we were filled with questions of what had happened, perplexed at how a situation filled with such possibility unfolded as it did. Like the teepees situated just outside the Fort walls that we and the children wanted to visit but were not allowed to, we felt our trip to the Fort had left our lives and the children’s lives outside the curriculum making that happened there. As we worked through our perplexity we wondered how we could re-imagine this field trip as more attentive to the lives of the children, ourselves as teachers and the subject matter being taught. In order to do this we need to say something about the lives of the children.
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE LIVES THAT MET IN THIS CURRICULUM-MAKING MOMENT? In the moment at the Fort there were 28 children’s lives which were not being attended to as the curriculum was being made. In the months we lived together in the classroom we had, as both teachers and researchers, tried to be attentive to the children’s lives, at least as their lives became visible to us. We imagine there were at least some times, with some children, when we were able to engage in this way. As we think about our in-classroom curriculum making we know that what happens there is part of a complex unfolding narrative in which children’s and teacher’s stories are intermingled with subject matter and situated within a nested set of narrative contexts. From this intermingled set of stories we pulled the threads of three children’s narratives of experience, Corina, Van and Brittney. We selected these children because of the ways that the children were positioned historically in relation to this particular subject matter, Corina a child of mixed First Nations heritage, Van a child newly arrived in Canada and Brittney whose parents are of European heritage. We realize as we do this we are pulling one thread of many from each of the children’s lives by focusing on their historical relationship with this subject matter. We could have selected
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other threads as a way to choose children. We also realize that the thread of how they were positioned historically may make no difference to how they experienced that particular subject matter. We returned to our field texts of these three children. By weaving together fragments of stories emerging across our field notes, we created a set of images of each of their lives as we came to know them in the classroom.9 Our images move across time from late August until the late November field trip day we describe above. Because the field texts we use are our field notes, we realize that we, as teacher researchers, have already composed interpretations of each of the children. Field notes are already interpretive texts and, by working with field notes to pull forward the set of images, we have created another layer of interpretation. The process we used to compose the set of images draws loosely on the ideas of composing found poetry developed by Richardson (2002) and Butler-Kisber (2001). Both Richardson and Butler-Kisber work from interview and conversation transcripts, as they ‘‘find’’ participants’ words and phrases and pull them into new interpretive texts they call ‘‘found poetry’’. In this chapter we draw on our own research words, words we used to create our field notes. Working across months of field notes, we ‘‘find’’ our own words and use them to create these images, images we represent in found poetry. There is a double layer of interpretation that differs from what Richardson and Butler-Kisber suggested. In these interpretations we show who we are, the lives we brought to this moment of curriculum making. Corina first day Ryley and Sylvia arrive Corina with them last June not sure if returning took Corina to staff room to get food she’s not feeling well has a scrape on her leg fell on the way to school doesn’t want a band aid her stomach hurts she is hungry shared reading cozy corner Rachel on one side
Living in Tension Corina on other bodies close to Jean’s time ran into phys. ed. wanted to keep reading talked about home reading often reads with friend looking after her likes to read books about people reading is easier than it used to be Corina responds to Your Own Best Secret Place (Baylor, 1991) wrote about dad’s bedroom and closet likes to go there when sad or lonely Ryley’s mom Sylvia holding Corina mother figure in Corina’s life big bag of shoes lost and found in affluent school ‘‘take a pair if you need to’’ should also ask parents ‘‘make sure it’s okay’’ Corina said pair fit perfectly about four centimetres too short picture day fancy clothes Corina leads Janice into coat room didn’t want to have her picture taken composing sentences as a group teacher writes on overhead children copy teacher references Aboriginal children Damien, Ryley, Corina note what they know about Aboriginal modes of travel in long ago seems to be having difficulty finishing homework and bringing back to school showing dream catcher made by her mom
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JANICE HUBER AND D. JEAN CLANDININ given to Corina as a gift keeps in dad’s bedroom Amazing Grace at start of assembly Corina wonders why that song Taron thinks it’s a church song Corina continues to wonder why it’s being played up on third floor, open space making dioramas Corina wants help making a buffalo work together cutting a design gluing furry fabric Corina helps organize for spelling seems to like doing talks while doing work on scrapbooks sees dad on week ends sometimes goes to where he lives he comes to where she stays doesn’t live with either mom or dad misses both of them can hardly wait for week ends and holidays
Our lives first met with Corina on the first day of school. What we want to draw forward from this set of images are the multiple storylines that weave across her life – storylines of living between places, races and relationships; a storyline of transiency; a storyline of figuring things out for herself; a storyline of a search for connections; a storyline of being a relationship maker; a storyline of loving to learn of others’ lives; a storyline of wanting to fit in; a storyline of being seen as Aboriginal by her teacher; a storyline of quietly questioning; a storyline of following others; and a storyline of loving her parents.
Brittney early November two new girls
Living in Tension join classroom Brittney is one from house down the street a protective house for women and children with mom left a northern place in year 4 another girl child classmate expresses happiness about two new girls two new friends writing response ‘‘if only all the hands that reach could touch’’ tracing paper hand helping cut out group work another girl from Somalia playing with her paper and real hand laying on top of one another do they match? Brittney watching tells girl she’s dirty silence keeps looking girl looks down Brittney says, ‘‘It’s your finger nails, can’t be clean if they’re dirty.’’ talk about jewellery assembly to share ‘‘if only all the hands that reach could touch’’ before going expresses fear doesn’t need to practice can already read it well really happy asked to share
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Living in Tension later, peace candle talk about research permission letters seemed keen to tell stories wants to be involved blows out candle
The story we first knew of Brittney is one told to us by the principal: Brittney arrived at the protective house with her mom from her northern school and home in early November. It was a plotline of other children in this school, the school was a place connected with this protective house, a temporary refuge. What we want to draw forward from this set of images are the multiple storylines that weave across her life – a storyline of locating herself in mainstream girl child pop culture; a storyline of making friends and not wanting to leave; a storyline of learning to be strong as she and her mother composed new lives; a storyline of awakening to her whiteness in relation with classmates; a storyline of being a good student; and a storyline of finding her place, both in the classroom and in the world. Van early September new to Canada in year 4 response to poem ‘‘Cherish Me’’ writing self descriptions whole class talk about differences appearance cultural backgrounds classmate, first language also Chinese translates English – Chinese Chinese – English describes hair ‘‘like a shining black horse’’ wrote in English seems familiar with numbers characters words
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JANICE HUBER AND D. JEAN CLANDININ other children hear Chinese gather round all speak Chinese help translate in cozy corner math addition questions months of the year says months alone out loud smiles in gym body movement life cycle of seed close to classmate talking in Chinese laughing new boy from Hungary here five days teacher explains like Van speaks another language learning English discuss with teacher possibility for learning English alphabet books drawing pictures copying letters teacher asked for volunteers to work with Van classmate volunteered showed him books Van and classmate in cozy corner working on something different from others
Living in Tension Van’s group Van and classmate talk in Chinese others talk in English shift between English and Chinese comfortable conversation Van and mom alongside school in cold wind tried to talk hard communicate actions facial expressions understood cold outside science area with classmate read books together repeated word after Janice leaned toward her to listen carefully to her pronunciations classmate’s book about Chinese New Year she and Van could share read he smiled moved closer to her writing classmate and Van talking about friends Van’s response friends because speak his language doing research classmate drew pictures help Van understand dental nurse concerned needs to see dentist as soon as possible
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Van arrived in the classroom in early September, a new immigrant from China, a non-English speaker. What we want to draw forward from this set of images are the multiple storylines that weave across his life – a storyline of trying to figure out who he is in this new place; a storyline of learning that not speaking English excluded him from participation; a storyline of being seen by his teacher as being a second language learner; a storyline of friendship shaped as others come alongside him in language, group work and play; a storyline of wanting to be included; a storyline of persistence in finding a place; a storyline of playfulness as he laughs, smiles and keeps trying to engage with others; and a storyline of being part of a family, together, trying to figure out how to belong in this new society and language.
RETURNING TO THE MOMENT OF CURRICULUM MAKING In the above images as we told of the lives of three children we reawakened to the complexity of what it might mean to negotiate a curriculum of lives. As we turn our attention back to the moment and try to imagine the negotiation among 28 children’s lives we see that the possibilities are both limitless and enormously challenging. We return to this moment not with answers but with a set of wonders about the place of each child’s evolving stories to live by in relation with the particular subject matter in the negotiation of a curriculum of lives. What do we see, for example, when Corina, a child living a storyline of moving between races, places and relationships meets the language of ‘‘Native’’ and an image of exotic Other? What do we see when Brittney, a child living a storyline of awakening to herself in a multicultural world meets the language of ‘‘Native’’ and an image of exotic Other? What do we see when Van, a child living a storyline of finding a place in a new country and language meets the language of ‘‘Native’’ and an image of exotic Other? What do we see, for example, when Corina, a child living a storyline of being seen as Aboriginal meets the Eurocentric plotline of the fur trade as progress and settlement? What do we see when Brittney, a child living a storyline of mainstream girl child pop culture meets the Eurocentric plotline of the fur trade as progress and settlement? What do we see as Van, a child seen as being a second language learner meets the Eurocentric plotline of the fur trade as progress and settlement?
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What do we see, for example, when Corina, a child living a storyline of questioning, meets the plotline of teacher as expert and as not having questions welcomed? What do we see when Brittney, a child living a storyline of good student meets the plotline of teacher as expert and as not having questions welcomed? What do we see when Van, a child living a storyline of wanting to be included meets the plotline of teacher as expert and as not having questions welcomed? What do we see, for example, when Corina, a child living a storyline of searching for connections meets the plotline of students as having no knowledge about the subject matter of bannock making? What do we see when Brittney, a child living a storyline of finding her place, both in the classroom and in the world, meets the plotline of having no knowledge about the subject matter of bannock making? What do we see when Van, a child living a storyline of friendship, meets the plotline of having no knowledge about the subject matter of bannock making? What do we see, for example, when Corina, a child living a storyline of loving her parents meets a plotline of a teacher not valuing one of the other children’s home stories? What do we see, when Brittney, a child living a storyline of learning to be strong meets a plotline of a teacher not valuing one of the other children’s home stories? What do we see, when Van, a child living a storyline of being part of a family, together, trying to figure out how to belong in this new society and language meets a plotline of a teacher not valuing one of the other children’s home stories? This puzzling through of the meeting of stories to live by with subject matter in curriculum making makes us more thoughtful about our inability, in the moment of living, to respond to these tensions in order to shift the curriculum making from George’s personal practical knowledge (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988) as expressed in his interpretation of the mandated curriculum to the kinds of curriculum making we had been trying to enact in the classroom where inquiry and lives intermingled.
The Storied Professional Knowledge Landscape One way to understand our puzzle was to shift our attention to the place on the landscape where this moment of curriculum making happened. Using a metaphor of a ‘‘professional knowledge landscape’’ (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995) as a nested set of contexts helped us see that there were different places in which curriculum making happens. Clandinin and Connelly wrote,
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A landscape metaphoryallows us to talk about space, place, and time. Furthermore, it has a sense of expansiveness and the possibility of being filled with diverse people, things, and events in different relationships. (p. 4)
They described the landscape as composed of two fundamentally different places, the in-classroom place and the out-of-classroom place. For the most part in our year-long narrative inquiry we attended to the in-classroom place on the City Heights School landscape. Within that place on the landscape we studied the curriculum making and tried to be attentive to the intermingling of the teacher’s, our’s and the children’s lives with the subject matter (Clandinin & Connelly, 1992; Connelly & Clandinin, 1988). But in the moment we selected in this chapter we moved to an out-of-classroom place, a place where the mandated curriculum came more directly from the provincial mandated documents. The plotline of curriculum as mandated outcomes was the dominant plotline. In other places Clandinin and Connelly (1996) wrote that the professional knowledge landscape is a storied landscape, a landscape where school stories and stories of school are shaped by not only the stories of teachers and teacher’s stories but also by what is sent down a metaphorical conduit from theory and policy to practice. As we thought about the plotlines shaping the out-of-classroom place at City Heights School at the time of this moment of curriculum making, much of the policy sent down the conduit had plotlines of achievement as measured by test scores, of curriculum as mandated outcomes, of schools as measured and ranked by achievement test scores. As we returned to trying to make sense of what happened at the Fort museum we saw that the children, the teacher and we were positioned within those stories. So, too, were the museum teachers. Positioned as they were in this out-of-classroom place they taught the subject matter in the way they knew the children would be tested in the end of year achievement testing. For example, the children would be tested on their knowledge of Native lifestyles before European influence and on how the fur traders and settlers brought change to Native people’s lifestyles. George, in his presentation at the Fort, used the bannock making, the beading activity and the games to give the children an understanding of the Native lifestyles before the fur traders arrived. He showed them in the role play around the trading of pelts how the fur trade influenced the lives of Native people by making what had been life sustaining in clothing, shelter and food into a commodity to be traded for money or goods. Furthermore, he showed the children how, by harnessing the Natives and their lifestyles to produce furs, the fur traders, particularly the factor, grew wealthy. By the real-life artifacts, role-playing
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and activities all situated within a Fort replica, the children had a chance to ‘‘walk back in time’’ and experience this social studies subject matter. With this learning simulation the children would be well prepared to answer test questions about the Native lifestyles and how the fur trade had influenced the lives of both the Europeans and Native peoples. The strength of the plotline of mandated curriculum measured by achievement tests reverberated through the school. When we and Shawna raised questions about what was learned on the field trip to the Fort, tension arose. Our focus on negotiating a curriculum of lives was in conflict with the plotlines shaping the out-of-classroom place. The teacher found herself caught between these two conflicting curriculum plotlines.
METHODOLOGICAL DILEMMAS AS NARRATIVE INQUIRERS As narrative inquirers our intentions are to understand the experiences of participants. As narrative inquirers into classroom curriculum situations we are trying to understand multiple participants’ experiences nested within institutional narratives. Our intent is to understand the teachers’ narratives of experience as well as different learners’ narratives of experiences as they intersect and interact with particular subject matters within particular classroom, school and cultural narratives (milieux). Confronted with this complex set of nested, interacting, fluid and changing narratives, we, as narrative inquirers, face particular methodological dilemmas. One set of dilemmas revolve around the need to attend first and foremost to the living out of these complex narratives of experience, narratives that are being composed over time, in a series of places and with both personal and social dimensions. Narratives of experience are both lived and told, that is, people both live out stories of experience and tell stories of those experiences. In studying curricular moments, much is in the living rather than in the telling. This first set of dilemmas shaped our inquiry at City Heights through our desires to live as intimately as we could alongside the classroom teacher, children and families. The continuity of our physical presence in the classroom, in the school, on the playground and at evening events in the school as well as at events in the community or at events connected with children’s lives deepened our understanding of the experiences being lived through by the teacher, children and families.
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A second set of dilemmas revolve around the need to compose field texts that allow us to slow down curriculum moments so we can attend to this complexity. The field texts we composed in this inquiry included extensive field notes of our participation in the classroom, tape-recorded research conversations with eight children and four mothers, as well as the collection of school artifacts and copies of some of the children’s work. Working with multiple kinds of field texts helped us to slow down the curriculum moments as we inquired into them by situating them within a three-dimensional narrative inquiry space described by Clandinin and Connelly (2000). Our terms are personal and social (interaction); past, present, and future (continuity); combined with the notion of place (situation). This set of terms creates a metaphorical three-dimensional narrative inquiry space, with temporality along one dimension, the personal and social along a second dimension, and place along the third. Using this set of terms, any particular inquiry is defined by this three-dimensional space: studies have temporal dimensions and address temporal matters; they focus on the personal and the social in a balance appropriate to the inquiry; and they occur in specific places or sequences of places. (p. 50)
A third set of methodological dilemmas revolve around our need to not cover over our vulnerabilities as researchers. As we engage in relational narrative inquiry with teachers, children and families, our narratives of experience intersect and interact with the narratives of experience of the teacher, the children and families as well as with the particular subject matter plotlines and classroom, school and cultural narratives. We learned to attend to our own felt tensions as we lived alongside the teacher, children and families and we tried to give a sense of these tensions as we composed field notes of particular moments of experiences. Attending to our felt tensions helped to keep us from positioning ourselves as fixing, as smoothing over or out, the complex, moment by moment interactions among the meeting of lives (teachers’, children’s and families’) with subject matter and in particular milieux. A fourth set of methodological dilemmas revolve around the need to find representational forms that both portray the relational aspects of narratives of experience at the same time as they portray the fluid, changing sense of narratives of experience. Arts-based forms of representation such as found poetry and sketched-in nuggets of plotlines are two of the forms we turned to in this chapter in our attempts to capture the imaginations of readers and to invite them in. As we noted earlier, the particular arts-based forms we created are highly interpretive and need to be read as interpretive texts composed to evoke and highlight particular interpretations.
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ETHICAL DILEMMAS AS TEACHER EDUCATORS AND RESEARCHERS Writing this chapter has meant for both of us many moments of self-facing: self-facing as we storied our practices as teacher educators and researchers. As we have come to make sense of the complexity of making a curriculum of lives, we realize that this kind of work carries with it an enormous responsibility. What, for example, does becoming aware of the possibilities of negotiating a curriculum of lives mean for a classroom teacher? As she lives out this negotiation, she lives it out on a professional knowledge landscape shaped by a story of school of ‘‘productive days of high-quality learning’’ that will be measured by end of year achievement tests on pre-specified curricular outcomes. Everything in her teaching world and everything in the children’s school experience, at least as seen as important by government policy makers, is reduced to their performance on these tests in the dominant plotline. What, for example, does becoming aware of the possibilities of negotiating a curriculum of lives mean for a pre-service teacher? As she awakens to what is possible in an educative experience for her and future children, youth and families with whom she works, what happens when she enters onto a professional knowledge landscape and tries to make a curriculum of lives where the dominant plotline will determine success by student test scores? As researchers working alongside the children and teacher at City Heights and as teacher educators working with pre-service teachers, we need to ask ourselves what is our responsibility? How do we continue to be alongside these teachers as their storylines bump up against the dominant plotline of today’s professional knowledge landscapes? What do we owe to children such as Corina, Van, and Brittney? How do we continue to live alongside those three children from our places as university professors? As university professors who live lives as teacher educators, curriculum theorists and researchers we can choose to distance ourselves from these lives. We can choose to comment on the practices of teachers, the rankings of schools, and the quality of assessment measures. Or we can choose to position ourselves alongside the teachers who choose to take on the task of negotiating a curriculum of lives. The question we need to ask ourselves as we compose our lives is who we are in this metaphoric parade and what is our responsibility to the people, the pre-service teachers, teachers and children, who choose to dance alongside us. This question is one we keep before us, a question we live by, as we continue to engage in composing our own lives as teacher educators, curriculum theorists and researchers.
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NOTES 1. The names of the school, children, museum teachers and mothers are pseudonyms. 2. For example, Paley’s (1979, 1990, 1995) inquiries into life in the kindergarten classrooms she shares with children attend to who she is and who she is becoming as a white teacher in relation with African American children and to ways, such as story playing, in which children’s lives in dynamic interaction with her life, shape the curriculum made in the classroom. Oyler (1996) also sees children’s lives and experiences as part of curriculum making as she explores ways in which children and a teacher share authority in a classroom context. Others, such as Hermes (2002) and Ollerenshaw and Lyons (2002) explore ways in which lives can also become silent in curriculum making. Calkins and Harwayne (1991) see memoir as a space in curriculum making where children can explore the stories of their lives. 3. In the 1980s, working with Dewey’s (1938) theory of experience – continuity, interaction and situation – Connelly and Clandinin (1988) brought their understandings of teachers’ knowledge as embodied, temporal, relational, moral, emotional, contextual and shaped and reshaped in present situations by past experience and future plans to a narrative exploration of ‘‘curriculum as experience’’. As Connelly and Clandinin linked curriculum with experience they wanted to understand not only what teachers and children did as they engaged with curriculum materials and outcomes but also what teachers and children experienced through their interactions. 4. We negotiated entry to City Heights School alongside a teacher and 28 year 3-4 children. We worked in the classroom as teacher researchers over the course of one school year. Janice worked in the classroom on a 0.5 basis and Jean worked in the classroom on a 0.1 basis. In this narrative inquiry our field texts consisted of daily activities, both in and out of the classroom, transcripts of research conversations with mothers and children and artifacts of life in the classroom. At times we helped to plan learning activities, facilitated learning and engaged in individual and small group activities. 5. We were more interested in narrative understandings of identity making in curriculum making. As we thought about diversity we did not begin with a formalistic category of diversity based on culture, economics, religions, languages, abilities, sexual orientations or family structures. 6. In her exploration of ways in which students and teachers are nested knowers, Lyons (1990) raises questions of the ethical dilemmas teachers experience. While Lyons does not explore ways in which teacher researchers and teacher educators might also experience tensions as nested knowers, her conceptualization helps us to think through who we are, as teacher educators and researchers, in relation with the teacher and children with whom we engaged in inquiry and in relation with practicing and pre-service teachers. 7. Professional knowledge landscape (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995) is a term designed to conceptualize contexts as narrative constructions. Clandinin and Connelly used a landscape metaphor to draw attention to the relational, temporal and shifting nature of school contexts.
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8. A factor was the term given to the person who served as a kind of on-site superintendent of the fur-trading forts built across Western Canada. 9. Mary Catherine Bateson (2000) helps us think about the way we chose to represent this research text. She wrote that, ‘‘stories of individuals and their relationships through time offer another way of looking, but we need ways to tell these stories that are interwoven and recursive, that escape from the linearity of print to incite new metaphors’’ (p. 247).
ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors wish to acknowledge the support of a research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to D. Jean Clandinin and F. Michael Connelly.
REFERENCES Bach, H. (1998). A visual narrative concerning curriculum, girls, photography etc. Edmonton: Qual Institute Press. Bateson, M. C. (2000). Full circles, overlapping lives: Culture and generation in transition. New York: Random House. Baylor, B. (1991). Your own best secret place. New York: Antheneum. Butler-Kisber, L. (2001). Whispering angels: Revisiting dissertation with a new lens. Journal of Critical Inquiry into Curriculum and Instruction, 2(3), 34–37. Calkins, L. M., & Harwayne, S. (1991). Living between the lines. Toronto: Irwin Publishing. Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (1992). Teacher as curriculum maker. In: P. Jackson (Ed.), The American educational research association handbook of research on curriculum (pp. 363–401). New York: MacMillan. Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (1995). Teachers professional knowledge landscapes. New York: Teachers College Press. Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (1996). Teachers’ professional knowledge landscapes: Teacher stories, stories of teachers, school stories, stories of school. Educational Researcher, 25(3), 24–30. Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1988). Teachers as curriculum planners: Narratives of experience. New York: Teachers College Press. Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1999). Shaping a professional identity: Stories of educational practice. New York: Teachers College Press. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc. Hermes, M. (2002). Teaching in support of native culture: Two White science teachers. Paper shared at the Curriculum Inquiry conference on Experiential Approaches to Multiculturalism in
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Education, Centre for Teacher Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, May. Huber, M., Huber, J., & Clandinin, D. J. (2004). Moments of tension: Resistance as expressions of narrative coherence in stories to live by. Reflective Practice, 5(2), 181–198. Huber, J., Murphy, S., & Clandinin, D. J. (2003). Creating communities of cultural imagination: Negotiating a curriculum of diversity. Curriculum Inquiry, 33(4), 343–362. Lyons, N. (1990). Dilemmas of knowing: Ethical and epistemological dimensions of teachers’ work and development. Harvard Educational Review, 60(2), 159–180. Murphy, S. (2004). Understanding children’s knowledge: A narrative inquiry into school experiences. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta. Ollerenshaw, J., & Lyons, D. (2002). ‘Make that relationship’: A professor and a pre-service teacher’s story about relationship building and culturally responsive teaching. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, April. Oyler, C. (1996). Making room for students: Sharing teacher authority in room 104. New York: Teachers College Press. Paley, V. G. (1979). White teacher. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Paley, V. G. (1990). The boy who would be a helicopter: The uses of storytelling in the classroom. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Paley, V. G. (1995). Kwanza and me: A teacher’s story. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Richardson, L. (2002). Writing sociology. Cultural Studies – Critical Methodologies, 2(3), 414–422.
VIDEO ETHNOGRAPHY AND TEACHERS’ COGNITIVE ACTIVITIES Peter Y. K. Chan and R. Carl Harris ABSTRACT This study examined teachers’ cognitive development when interacting with video ethnography. It used grounded theory to discover embedded meanings and relationships that emerge from descriptive data collected from six teachers. Findings revealed (a) the categories of cognitive activities when using video ethnography, (b) the influence of experience and beliefs on these activities, (c) the scaffold that video ethnography provides, and (d) teachers’ progression in a cognitive development process through interaction with video ethnography. The study has implications in improving technology use in teacher development, production of multimedia cases, and research on case-based pedagogy and other related areas.
In recent years, video ethnography, and multimedia cases in general, have attracted much attention in teacher education. As pedagogies for professional development of teachers, these technology-based interventions are enriched forms of the case method. Traditional teacher education presents
Learning from Research on Teaching: Perspective, Methodology, and Representation Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 11, 337–375 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1016/S1479-3687(05)11012-8
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learners with abstract and generalized formal research findings. In contrast, cases are renditions of authentic, concrete teaching episodes (Bruner, 1986). As a form of multimedia case, video ethnography has the potential to further expand the traditional text-based cases for use in teacher development. As a research method, video ethnography culminates a participant observer’s experiential study of teaching and learning as it unfolds in a live classroom. The resulting multimedia case becomes the ethnographer’s qualitative account systematized according to outstanding themes and subthemes. It is supported by multiple perspectives of the observed, concerned constituents, and related professional literature. Its purpose is to improve understanding by presenting practice juxtaposing with theory. Articles published on such cases (e.g., Harris, Pinnegar, & Teemant, 2005) have proposed numerous advantages that may be divided into three areas: authenticity, constructivist learning, and theory application. The authenticity argument suggests that teachers can better relate to the content of video ethnography because it provides opportunity for direct observation of classroom happenings without being in the classroom. Its realistic content engages more of the five senses, allowing greater cognitive freedom for interpreting case content. In providing visual and auditory cues, video ethnography helps teacher-learners develop pattern recognition skills (Bransford, Franks, Vie, & Sherwood, 1989). Like authors of written cases, the authors of video ethnographies direct the case foci by selectively taping and editing them. However, the moving pictures of video allow users to have more autonomy to construct the meaning of what they see and to choose their specific points of attention (Harris et al., 2005). The moving pictures also give higher face validity, which is the level of realism that people feel when they interact with a case (Richardson & Kile, 1999). In other words, the more realistic a case seems, the greater its face validity (Kent, Herbert, & McNergney, 1995). This is an important concept in teacher development, because teachers generally find it easier to relate to and become emotionally involved in true vignettes than in decontextualized instructional materials. The visual images may also facilitate memory retention (Clark & Paivio, 1991), expand perspectives, and inspire creativity (Bliss & Mazur, 1996). Beginning teachers who see good teaching in action become more aware of the different perspectives and approaches to teaching (Hughes, Packard & Pearson, 2000). Another argument for video ethnographies is that they provide a constructivist-learning environment with rich, realistic, and multi-layered record of the living classroom, provoking a deeper reflection-on-action
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(Bliss & Mazur, 1996; Desberg & Fisher, 1996; Harris et al., 2005; Richardson & Kile, 1999; Risko & Kinzer, 1997). The use of digital video, for example, gives users the ability to pause the action, take time to reflect, or revisit a segment instantly. Cases can allow viewers freedom to select different video footages to watch and different commentaries that provide ways to understand how underlying concepts and procedures for problem solving play out in real life. Some internet-based cases permit users to discuss related issues over a great distance and also may provide a large library of support resources (Bliss & Mazur, 1996). Others permit users to create their own cases (Harris et al., 2005). Therefore, video ethnographies provide cognitive space and tools that can push reflection while allowing individually constructed learning. Research has repeatedly stressed difficulties in trying to promote teacher change because teaching is a complex, ill-structured domain of knowledge that is difficult to convey (Richardson & Placier, 2001). Much of expertteachers’ knowledge is tacit. As Carter (1990) stated, ‘‘Simply telling novices what experts know will not produce expertise.’’ As many believe, ‘‘Wisdom can’t be told’’ (Bransford et al., 1989). Developing the wisdom of classroom practice requires real-world illustration of abstract concepts (Spiro et al., 1988). Many believe that multimedia cases give users the opportunity to see theory in action. In examining the use of video ethnography for teaching reading, Harris et al. (2005) observed: Such authentic cases provide opportunities for the development of praxis, because they bring together both teaching action and space for reflection. Both the observed and the observer are given voices in the process of capturing and analyzing the important happenings of the community. HVE (Hypermedia Video Ethnography) case studies can juxtapose theory against actual classroom practice, in the moment of practice, without requiring that pre-service teachers to be in actual classroom setting. Pre-service teachers, therefore, have the cognitive space to analytically examine authentic teaching practice and given time to reflect on practice with other students. Such authenticity allows preservice teachers myriad opportunities to reveal, construct, and reconstruct their knowledge about teaching and its practice with simultaneous access to both theory and practice (p. 9).
Hence, researchers have argued for the use of video ethnographies for the study of teacher development. They have the potential to facilitate acquisition of complex, ill-structured knowledge needed for classroom teaching by providing authentic rendition of knowledge in multiple situations (Spiro et al., 1988).
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STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM However, there is lack of understanding on how video ethnography may impact the thinking of teachers. Richardson and Kile (1999) pointed out that much of the literature on multimedia cases is speculative and even promotional. Few systematic studies have demonstrated how they work in the minds of their beholders – teachers (Merseth, 1999). If teachers’ cognitive complexity is influenced through interaction with video ethnographies, then the use of these kinds of cases may hold important promise in promoting teacher change, because research shows that increasing teachers’ cognitive complexity leads to competence in handling difficult tasks (McKibbin & Joyce, 1981). Therefore, prominent scholars in teacher education, for example, Richardson and Kile (1999) and Shulman (2001) have called for research that can illuminate on the relationship between multimedia cases and teachers’ cognitive development.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY In response to this noted deficiency in understanding how video ethnography relate to teacher thinking, the current study explores the cognitive activities of six teachers during and immediately after their interaction with video ethnography. As Carter (1990) indicates, ‘‘Learning-to-teach questions might well be unanswerable at a global level. What is needed, instead, are frameworks that focus more explicitly on what is learned and that specify more fully how that knowledge is acquired’’ (p. 293). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore how video ethnography relates to the thinking of a small sample of practicing teachers. Through observations and interviews, theoretical propositions are developed to describe how teachers think about their own pedagogy as they respond to video ethnography.
QUESTIONS The overarching question for this study is: What is the nature of teachers’ cognitive activities when interacting with video ethnography? In exploring this question, four specific questions guide the study: 1. What cognitive activities are revealed in teachers’ thinking through their use of a video ethnography?
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2. What patterns emerge from examining participants’ cognitive activities? 3. What theories of cognitive development in relation to video ethnography can be generated by cross-case analysis? 4. How might these theories guide future professional development research for teachers?
DEFINING VIDEO ETHNOGRAPHY Video Ethnography as a Type of Multimedia Cases Video ethnography is the genre of multimedia case examined in this study. Developed by Harris and others, its present form evolved through a long process of exploration from filmstrip to VHS tape, laserdisc, and HyperCard, and to its current multimedia authoring tools (Harris, Tompkins, Goodman, Chan, & Baker, 2002). These cases are developed by adherence to four design principles: authenticity, problem representation, multiple perspectives, and theory and practice (Harris et al., 2005). Following is an introduction of these principles. 1. The authenticity principle. The authenticity principle emphasizes use of an ethnographic approach in capturing and presenting ‘‘real human interaction based on participants’ observation’’ (Harris, 2000). It conveys a sense of video ve´rite´ that reveals the bare strengths and weaknesses of a living classroom, and gives viewers the cognitive space to reveal and reformulate their own constructs of teaching and learning (Harris et al., 2005). Thus the name ethnography is adopted to emphasize the instructional approach. 2. The problem-representation principle. The problem-representation principle emphasizes problem representation rather than problem solution, allowing users the freedom to formulate their own problem statement and solution paths from the raw data, and thus supporting the development of their cognitive complexity, which is needed for dynamic classrooms (Harris et al., 2005). 3. The multiple perspectives principle. The multiple perspectives principle guides the development of multiple voices commenting on the seen and unseen actions of the video vignettes, allowing users to peel off layers of meaning embedded in the complex reality. 4. The juxtaposing theory and practice principle. The juxtaposing theory and practice principle enables case-users to develop both theoretical understanding of context and contextual reference of theory (Harris et al.,
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2005). Some or all of these principles may be manifested in other forms of multimedia cases, but they are the blueprint of video ethnography. Therefore, understanding video ethnography and how teacher-users react to them enhances understanding of multimedia cases in general. Structure of Video Ethnography This study used a video ethnography – The Jean Turner Case (Harris, Turner, & Baker, 2001) – as the target object of investigation. It captures a master teacher, Jean Turner, working with fourth grade students in a morning of balanced literacy. A CD-ROM that typifies the video ethnography interface will be introduced in this section using much of Harris, Pinnegar, and Teemant’s (2005) work in introducing a similar title. Fig. 1 shows the video ethnography’s basic interface. On the top left are the four study buttons representing four studies of the key components of this balanced literacy lesson: (1) morning of balanced literacy, (2) writing, (3) reading, and (4) management and motivation. On the top right are the nine probe buttons, which ‘‘represent examples of concepts that develop the theme of the study’’ (Harris et al., 2005, p. 150). In other words, each of the four studies brings forth a different set of nine probes. When teachers explore these studies, ‘‘they select a study button, and are immediately presented with the labeled probes, which contain video clips illustrating the probe and the larger focus of the studyy.Typically one of the probes in the study also allows the user to view all clips in sequence’’ (Harris et al., 2005, p. 151). In addition to the video, each probe also contains four perspectives or commentaries from constituents related to that particular probe: (a) literacy specialist, (b) professional literature quote, (c) Jean Turner – the case teacher, and (d) another teacher. ‘‘These perspectives can be both read and heard. The power of juxtaposition in the close proximity of time and space the various interpretations from the respective points of view while grounding all interpretations in a common, living classroom episode is unlimited in drawing forth questions and insights from pre-service [and in-service] teachers’’ (Harris et al., 2005, p. 152). The buttons for additional features, located below the study buttons, launch enhancing features such as custom studies by video ethnography users, text library from various perspectives, related internet links, production support credits, and tutorial. In this research, participating teachers interacted with the first study – morning of balanced literacy, which contains nine probes: (a) independent spelling, (b) modeled writing, (c) writing workshop, (d) comprehension
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Fig. 1.
Video Ethnography Interface.
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study, (e) independent reading, (f) literature discussion, (g) guided reading, (h) shared reading, and (i) all clips in sequence. The research limited its scope to this study so that in-depth examination of the large amount of qualitative data may be possible.
DATA COLLECTION STAGES The data collection process was divided into three stages to inquire into participants’ thinking before, during, and after their interaction with a video ethnography CD-ROM. It took place individually with each participant so as to avoid cross contamination. All participants’ verbal responses were recorded on a tape recorder and transcribed later. Stage 1: Before Interaction with the Case The purpose of the first stage was to acquire basic understanding of the participants’ biographic information and beliefs about effective teaching generally and literacy teaching specifically. Participants’ beliefs were assessed because beliefs have an interactive relationship with teachers’ practice and learning. As Richardson (1996) points out, ‘‘Beliefs are thought to drive actions; however, experiences and reflection on action may lead to changes in and/or additions to beliefs’’ (p. 104). Such relationship can have strong influence on what and how teachers learn. Thus, the following verbal questions were posted to each participant to assess her beliefs: What are characteristics of effective classroom teaching and why? What are effective ways of teaching literacy and why? Once the teachers had given their answers, they were asked, ‘‘Anything else?’’
This same follow-up question was used throughout the study to prompt participants to express their opinions further. It was repeated until they gave a definite ‘‘no’’ answer. Stage 2: During Interaction with the Case Stage 2 comprised the major portion of the data-collection process. It included think-aloud and self-reports stimulated by video clips and
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commentaries. Think-aloud means to verbalize one’s thinking during a certain activity (Patton, 2001). This technique was used to monitor the participants’ concurrent cognitive activities during their viewing of a video clip by asking them to say whatever came to their minds while they were watching the video. Because this technique might be initially awkward for the participants, they were asked to practice with a different video ethnography CD that had a similar interface but different content until they became at ease with the process. Participants were then asked to think aloud while they watched each of the nine video probes in the study. Keep in mind that participants were involved in the study separately in different schools or rooms so they did not distract or influence one another. When each video clip ended, the first author asked the participant, ‘‘What is going on here?’’ and ‘‘What are some of your insights inspired by this clip?’’ The purpose of these questions was to provoke open-ended responses to the video. As in other parts of the study, he asked, ‘‘Anything else?’’ or ‘‘Is there anything else that you want to share with me?’’ to encourage them to share more. These steps were repeated following the initial three video probes until they became familiar with the process. Then he turned over the control of the tape recorder to them so that they could record their own think-aloud and video reactions. The next step was to study the perspectives/commentaries. The first author told them that the perspectives were from a literacy specialist, the case teacher, professional literature, and another teacher and that the text is literal transcription of the audio. For the first two probes, he asked them to study all perspectives so that they could get a good sense of what they were. For the rest of the probes, they were asked to choose at least two perspectives. After each probe, they went through the same ‘‘insights’’ questioning sequence. This whole process was audio recorded except when the teachers were listening to the perspectives. After repeating the same method from Probes 1 – 3, the first author asked them if they felt comfortable with the learning process. When they did, they continued without further promptings. Stage 3: After Interaction with Case The last stage was debriefing, which took place immediately after each participant finished reacting to the ninth probe. Debriefing gave them an opportunity to express their feeling concerning the overall experience. Each one of them commented on learning strategy, contents, technology, and anything else they wanted to express about the study.
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PARTICIPANTS This study used a purposeful sampling (Patton, 2001) of six teachers stratified by their years of teaching to explore probable relationship between teachers’ seniority and their cognitive activities when using video ethnography. Two teachers came from each of the three strata, represented by the three teachers’ career cycles: survival (first year), adjustment (second to fourth year), and mature (fifth year up) (Burden, 1980). As the study used a video ethnography of a fourth grade balanced literacy class, participants of the study found it to be most relevant because they were also fourth grade teachers. Selected teachers had no training in balanced literacy, thus, avoided influence from prior knowledge of this area. To recruit these teachers, letters were sent to all fourth grade teachers in nearby schools. The six teachers who participated in the study were the first qualifying teachers who responded. Pseudonyms were used in the report to represent these teachers.
ANALYSIS The analysis used grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) as the guiding method in its search for embedded meanings and relationships emerging from the data. This approach helped fulfill the purpose of discovering teachers’ cognitive patterns when using video ethnography and developing theoretical propositions of cognitive development and video ethnography. The analyzing process began with a deduction–induction/deduction– deduction process in analyzing participants’ verbal responses to the CD. More specifically, it (a) formulated a preliminary framework based on existing literature, (b) engaged in a two-way process of analyzing the data and establishing the coding criteria, and (c) recapitulated the recurring patterns in individual participant cases. Then, (d) a cross-case analysis of all participants generated the theoretical propositions. Each of these steps is elaborated below. Formulating an Analytical Framework Based on the Literature The first step was to construct an analytical framework. Authors of literature on information processing argue that human cognition ‘‘is conceptualized as representing a linear continuum from the less complex to great amounts of cognitive complexity’’ (Sprinthall, Reiman, & Thies-Sprinthall,
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1996, p. 672). As teachers construct meaning from experience, they progress through stages of cognition. The higher stages are more complex and are characterized by increased ability in discerning and categorizing new information, reflecting through meta-cognitive activities or by examining external stimuli, and problem solving in novel situations. Thus, the initial framework consists of the following three elements.
Noticing Noticing refers to the awareness of an observed teaching and learning situation in relationship to educational theories and principles (Carter et al., 1988). Effective teachers can recognize layers of meaning implied in classroom activities and make higher level interpretations and explanations of practice during these observations, which lead to a more complex view of the classroom. On the other hand, novices tend to be attracted by appearances and behaviors without the ability to discern the underlying principles. As Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000) explain, ‘‘One dimension of acquiring greater competence appears to be the increased ability to segment the perceptual field (learning how to see). Research on expertise suggests the importance of providing students with learning experiences that specifically enhance their abilities to recognize meaningful patterns of information’’ (p. 36). The depth of a teacher’s noticing indicates one aspect of his or her cognitive complexity and is a prerequisite for reflection (Mewborn & Wilson, 1999). Thus, learning to see and being able to connect observed detail with underlying principles rather than merely responding to the surface structure is an indication of greater cognitive complexity.
Reflecting The need for teachers to be reflective practitioners was elaborated by Scho¨n (1983), but its theoretical foundation goes back to Dewey (1933). A reflective practitioner is one who reflects in action and reflects on action (Scho¨n, 1983). As teachers become more reflective, they become more flexible in their thinking about the ill-structured reality of the classrooms. Reflection is also a process, which allows for the expression of tacit knowledge learned from experience (Richardson & Placier, 2001). It reveals teachers’ beliefs, which are their ‘‘dispositions to act’’ (Raths, 2001). Teachers’ ability to reflect grows as part of their cognitive development ‘‘from authority-based concrete thought, to quasi-self-reflective abstract thinking, and then to ‘true’ reflective judgment’’ (Sprinthall et al., 1996).
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Problem-Solving Because of the uncertain, unpredictable, and eclectic nature of classrooms, effective teachers are problem solvers who can take appropriate action in previously unencountered circumstances. Novice teachers are less able to problem solve. They tend to possess inert knowledge that cannot be accessed without explicit probes (Bransford et al., 1989).
Creating and Applying Conditional Criteria for Each Statement The next step was a continuous cycle of analyzing the data using the framework and advancing this framework based on novel instances. The result was a set of criteria for categorizing all statements uttered by the participants. This stage began with grouping the transcribed statements as either descriptive or reflective. The descriptive statements were analyzed for awareness. The basic idea was to see how participants’ verbal information was related to behavioral activities, and then explore what might account for such differences. New criteria emerged to offer specific depiction of new accounts. Two undergraduate students were hired to provide detailed coding of the data using these criteria. Their work was cross-checked for consistency. When a novel statement could not be sorted into an existing category, the three of us would discuss until consensus was made to either establish a new criterion or to broaden the definition of an existing one. The analyzing techniques improved and modified as the study progressed. When two or more criteria could be used to label a particular statement, the most suitable one was used. These criteria continued to evolve around the data. Hence the resulting set became an indication of the participants’ cognitive activities. In other words, on the one hand, the criteria were conditional labels for categorizing the data. On the other hand, they denoted the resulting patterns manifested from the data. The following is the final set of these criteria, and because of their close association with the results, they will be explained further in the Findings: Awareness: Basic noticing, advanced noticing, and recalling Comprehension: Interpreting, expressing uncertainties, and assuming Acceptance: Agreeing, liking, and judging positively Rejection: Disagreeing, not liking, and judging negatively Connection: Sharing belief, comparing, and sharing experience Desire to act: Applying, and requesting more
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Recapitulating the Recurring Patterns in Each Participant After all statements had been categorized using the criteria above, they were reexamined within the parameter of each participant in order to determine recurring themes, patterns, and characteristics salient to that individual. The purpose was to project them as unique cases of ‘‘idiosyncratic manifestation of the phenomenon of interest’’ (Patton, 2001, p. 450). The process included identifying ‘‘core consistencies and meanings’’ (p. 453), comparing and contrasting typical and atypical qualities, and correlating multiple sources of information from various stages of data collection. Results were six case studies of video ethnography interaction, one from each of the six participants, revealing different aspects of a common phenomenon and the specific cognitive activities of the participants.
Generating Theoretical Propositions by Cross-Case Analysis The last analytical step was to generate and examine theoretical propositions through cross-case analyses. Individual cases were compared to explore probable explanations of common occurrences. Results were stated as provisional theories of video ethnography.
FINDINGS Using a grounded theory approach, findings were organized into four theoretical propositions: (a) teacher-learners have six categories of cognitive activities when using video ethnography, (b) teachers’ experiences and beliefs have profound influences on their cognitive activities, (c) teachers’ cognitive development process is scaffold by video ethnography, and (d) teachers progress in a cognitive development process through interaction with video ethnography.
First Theoretical Proposition: Teacher-Learners Revealed Six Categories of Cognitive Activities When Using Video Ethnography The initial analytical framework used to categorize data collected through various methods included noticing, reflecting, and problem-solving. However, as the analysis process progressed, these labels became inadequate in
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Table 1.
Final Set of Criteria for Analyzing Participants’ Verbal Responses to the Video Ethnography CD-ROM.
Awareness
Reflection Comprehension
Acceptance
Rejection
Connection
Desire to act
Recalling Assuming Judging positively Judging negatively Sharing Experience Requesting More Advanced Noticing Expressing Uncertainty Liking Not liking Comparing Applying Basic Noticing Interpreting Agreeing Disagreeing Sharing Belief
describing different cognitive activities manifested in participants’ novel utterances. Thus, new labels were created. At one time, the study used more than 30 different labels. When they became so numerous, they lost their effectiveness in generalization. Therefore, they were consolidated and categorized into a manageable set so that they could serve the function of typifying all the participants’ cognitive activities without being overwhelmingly detailed. For example, the idea of noticing was developed into many different types and then consolidated into basic and advanced categories. Table 1 shows the final set of criteria, which resembles the initial analytical framework but shows greater sophistication. The two main cognitive levels are awareness and reflection: awareness is the fundamental and reflection is the sophisticated level of thinking. Awareness activities are categorized into three types: basic noticing, advanced noticing, and recalling. On the other hand, reflective activities are categorized into five types (comprehension, acceptance, rejection, connection, and desire to act) with 14 subcategories. The following section provides a definition of each of these categories and subcategories, with examples from different participants. These categories are not predetermined coding criteria. Rather, they are the resulting labels from the researcher’s effort to depict the genres of cognitive activities that emerged from transcriptions of participants’ protocols when they interacted with the video ethnography used for this study.
AWARENESS LEVEL Awareness level activities are rudimentary to the higher reflective level activities. They are characterized as first becoming aware of or paying attention to what is seen and heard. Awareness activities include noticing and recalling. Noticing refers to what the participants observed during or after watching a video. It is further divided into basic and advanced noticing. Recalling refers to their recollection of a commentary.
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1. Basic noticing The basic form of noticing is a straightforward description of the observed with little or no usage of adjectives. It shows what attracts a participant’s momentary attention without apparent connection to any judgment or reflection. At times, an event or an object may be briefly noticed at the first encounter and expounded on later. In this case, the first citation is coded as basic noticing; the later citation is coded at a higher level. Following are examples of basic noticing from Probe 1: Deborah: ‘‘They’re listening to music’’ (Think-aloud). Elizabeth: ‘‘He’s oa student4 twiddling his pencil’’ (Think-aloud). Heidi: ‘‘She started playing music’’ (Video Reaction).
2. Advanced noticing The higher form of noticing is characterized by using adjectives in the description. Statements at this level begin to demonstrate added value judgment, and interpretations of the details noticed. In other words, basic noticing is literal description, and advanced noticing is more subjective description that uses words with implied meaning or educational terms. For example, ‘‘the teacher is talking to the students’’ is basic noticing; ‘‘the teacher is encouraging the students’’ is advanced noticing. Following are some examples from Probe 1 (italics added to adjectives and interpretive actions). Jennifer: ‘‘She’s getting the class’s attention, and the kids all seem really on task’’ (Thinkaloud). Kimberly: ‘‘Looks like a pleasant place to be. It’s not chaotic. It’s calm, and the music is nice in the background’’ (Video Reaction).
3. Recalling Recalling was used only when the teachers reiterated what the commentators said in the CD. Therefore, if a participant gave her summary of the video after listening to a commentary, the description still fell under noticing. However, if the participant rephrased the commentator’s description, it would be called recalling. The following examples are also from Probe 2: Carolyn: ‘‘He said a good way to let the children actually take the pen’’ (Commentary 1). Elizabeth: ‘‘He was talking about how she was modeling during this clip, and how it was considered a shared writing’’ (Commentary 1).
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REFLECTION LEVEL After a participant became aware of a certain event or object, she might reflect further on it. The term ‘‘reflection’’ is used here in its most general sense as providing evidence of thinking further into the encountered. It is derived from Dewey’s (1933) idea of reflection as ‘‘active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends’’ (p. 9). However, reflection as a coding category is generalized to include other forms of cognitive activities grounded in common experiences. The purpose of this widening is to avoid leaving out any traces of cognitive development and to ‘‘move beyond simple questions about whether or not [an observed] practice is working to understanding how it is working and for whom’’ (Jay & Johnson, 2002). Reflection is divided into five categories, and each category contains two to three subcategories of activities. Subcategories are distinguished by subtle differences, whereas categories are more distinctive. Certain statements may overlap into multiple categories; they have been labeled with the one that seems most fitting by the raters. Following are these categories and subcategories with explanations and examples.
1. Comprehension Comprehension is the essential beginning level of reflection and the process of internalizing the encountered. It is the taking in of an external stimulus to make meaning personal. It includes three activities: interpreting, expressing uncertainty, and assuming. Interpreting The first subcategory in comprehension is interpreting, which refers to a participant’s description of what she has perceived rather than a direct account of an observed fact, which would have been labeled ‘‘noticing.’’ An example of an interpretive statement is, ‘‘She’s monitoring her class, but the kids are actually in charge of their own learning from what I’m seeing’’ (Elizabeth, Probe 1, Video Reaction). An example of noticing is, ‘‘She’s just going around, encouraging the students as they’re working on something’’ (Deborah, Probe 1, Video Reaction). Although both teachers described the same phenomenon, the first participant had interpreted the teacher’s ‘‘going around, encouraging the students’’ as ‘‘monitoring her class,’’ and ‘‘they’re
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working on something’’ as ‘‘the kids are actually in charge of their own learning’’ while the second participant had merely stated the fact. So interpreting is different from advanced noticing because instead of rephrasing (advanced noticing), the participant could summarize an activity using educational terms (interpreting). Following are samples of interpretive statements from Probe 2 (some words or phases are italicized to emphasize their interpretive nature): Elizabeth: ‘‘So she’s doing a writer’s workshop kind of thing’’ (Think-aloud). Jennifer: ‘‘Nobody was questioning it so she must have them put these story maps together often’’ (Video Reaction).
Expressing uncertainty An expression of uncertainty generally includes phases such as ‘‘I wondery,’’ ‘‘I don’t knowy,’’ and ‘‘I am not surey,’’ but it also includes asking questions. Therefore, it is an expression of incomprehension in the comprehending process. It often occurred when a participant watched a video but was unsure of its particulars, or when a participant had a keen interest in a certain practice and wanted to know how to carry it out. Following are examples of Uncertainties from Probe 5: Deborah: ‘‘The teacher’s got some papers she’s checking off as she watches them do their reading. I’m not sure what she’s looking for’’ (Think-aloud). Kimberly: ‘‘I do have a question whether the students are sharing the books that they’ve both read together, or whether it would be two students sharing books that are different from one another, but sharing what they read and what they liked about it and how they felt about it’’ (Video Reaction).
Assuming Assuming statements of participants are characterized by words such as ‘‘assume,’’ ‘‘suppose,’’ and ‘‘guess.’’ They are evidence of extending one’s comprehension of uncertain events by speculating based on what is known. In Probe 2, for example, Deborah, Elizabeth, and Kimberly made such statements: Deborah: ‘‘When I think of a pre-writey. I guess they’ve read a book together, and they’re breaking it down into sections’’ (Think-aloud). Elizabeth: ‘‘I’m assuming that the balanced literacy and workshop are similar, or the same thing’’ (Commentary 4).
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2. Acceptance Another main category in reflection is acceptance. It refers to the favorable reception that a participant expresses. It contains three subcategories of activities: agreeing, liking, and judging positively. Agreeing When a participant says, ‘‘I agree,’’ that is an agreeing statement. Notice in the following examples that there is a varying degree of such agreement. Following are such examples from Probe 5: Deborah: ‘‘I agree that students should be reading at home’’ (Commentary 1). Carolyn: ‘‘Absolutely! I agree one hundred percent with what he said there. He said that it’s important to have time in the classroom for the students to read, and I agree one hundred percent’’ (Commentary 1).
Liking The second subcategory of acceptance is ‘‘liking,’’ which includes statements that explicitly use the words ‘‘like’’ or ‘‘love’’ to express the participants’ preference of what they had seen or heard. All participants used the word ‘‘like,’’ but there is a wide range of frequency among them. Elizabeth used it the most (72 times), whereas Deborah used it only once. The majority of the participants never used the word ‘‘love,’’ but Elizabeth and Kimberly used it quite often. During this counting process, special care had been given to exclude other uses of these words (e.g., using the word ‘‘like’’ as ‘‘such as,’’ or using the word ‘‘love’’ to describe a participant’s own students’ preference of an activity). Following are examples from Probes 5 and 6: Deborah: ‘‘I like the idea that she is focusing her mini-lessons on these comprehension strategies, so that the students are aware of the things that they should be looking at as they read’’ (Probe 5, Commentary 3). Heidi: ‘‘I like how the kids are directing this discussion group’’ (Probe 6, Think-aloud).
Judging positively The last subcategory of acceptance is judging positively, which is an expression of a favorable opinion toward what is observed or heard and use words such as ‘‘good,’’ ‘‘great,’’ and ‘‘wonderful.’’ The ‘‘liking’’ statements can fall into this category, too, but in this study, they are separated with more specific descriptions. Following are examples of judging positively from Probe 3: Elizabeth: ‘‘If this is how it is run on a daily basis, then I am very impressed’’ (Video Reaction). Carolyn: ‘‘They’re very attentive to each other, which is a very nice thing’’ (Think-aloud).
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3. Rejection Rejection is another reflective category. Contrary to acceptance, rejection refers to participants’ negative remarks toward a certain aspect of the contents. It is a rare expression for most participants except for Carolyn, the most experienced teacher in the group, whose statements were replete with negative comments. Carolyn’s experiences will be expounded further in her case study. Because these statements are rare, the subcategories and examples of Rejection are stated together below: ‘‘Disagree’’ and ‘‘not liking’’ are expressions where participants explicitly said they disagreed or did not like what they had seen or heard. Statements that ‘‘judged negatively’’ expressed a negative sentiment but did not use either of these words. Findings in this area coincide with Fessler and Christensen’s (1992) idea that experienced teachers are more confident in voicing their contrary opinion to what authority has instructed. The two most experienced teachers, Carolyn and Elizabeth, had significantly higher numbers of rejection comments, while the other teachers did not show significant differences among one another. (A table showing their years of teaching, the number of rejection statements, and other related numbers is included in the second theoretical proposition.) Deborah: ‘‘Well, it sounds like she is doing specialized lists for different kids on different levels, which would be very time-consuming and very difficult’’ (Probe 1, Commentary 2) Elizabeth: ‘‘Reading aloud is a very key, essential point in my opinion. I don’t think she’s not doing enough of that, at least from what I’ve seen’’ (Probe 7, Commentary 4). Carolyn: ‘‘I don’t like that song she was singing, or that she was playing’’ (Probe 1, Video Reaction).
4. Connection The connection category includes reflective statements that show explicit links between the presented materials and the participants’ own teaching and learning beliefs and experiences. It is further divided into three subcategories: sharing belief, comparing, and sharing experience: Sharing belief A belief is an opinion a participant shared based on her own value and experiences. It may not necessarily be articulated as a belief shared in the beginning of the study regarding effective teaching and literacy, but salient
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belief gives a more complete picture of the participants’ entire belief system. The following such examples are from Probe 4. Deborah: ‘‘And if we can teach kids to love to read, that would be the greatest gift that we could give them’’ (Commentary 3). Elizabeth: ‘‘It’s important for us to make connections and that by modeling what good readers do, the kids start to make the connections and start to model those patterns in their own good reading, and they become more engaged in their reading’’ (Commentary 4).
Comparing Another subcategory of connection is comparing, which refers to statements that show participants’ comparisons between the video ethnography contents and their own practices. Comparing is more abstract than Sharing Experience – the next subcategory. In Comparing, participants do not quote specific personal example. The following are such examples from various probes: Deborah: ‘‘The kids seem comfortable sitting on the floor. I’m afraid my kids would be very distracted’’ (Probe 4, Think-aloud). Heidi: ‘‘She started playing music. I’ve never done that. I do it during art and things like that, but I’ve never done it while they’re conferencing’’ (Probe 1, Video Reaction).
Sharing experience Another form of connection is sharing experience, which refers to participants’ statements about their own teaching and learning experience. In contrast to Comparing, which mostly refers to abstract comparison of differences or similarities, sharing experience is supported by personal accounts. The following are examples from various probes: Elizabeth: ‘‘She has music in the background, which creates, from my training and background and experience dealing with ITI training and those type of things, a homey environment. Comfortable’’ (Probe 1, Video Reaction). Kimberly: ‘‘Shared reading was an important part of my childhood with my mother reading aloud. I have enjoyed teachers reading aloud to me. That is a very enjoyable experience, and I’m sure, in my own life, increased my love for literature’’ (Commentary 2).
5. Desire to act Desire to act statements denote a desire to apply what the participant has just learned. They consist of two subcategories: applying and requesting more.
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Applying When a participant explicitly expressed an intention to apply what she had learned, that statement was coded as ‘‘applying.’’ Although all the participants had expressed appreciation of what they had learned and implied desires to apply, not all of them explicitly said they would try one technique or another. Examples of Applying statements are as follow: Carolyn: ‘‘I’m not so interested in getting a finished product, but I can see that discussing a story of mine would be helpful to them, and so I may do that’’ (Probe 2, Commentary 4). Kimberly: ‘‘This one let the students see the positive experience to be involved in creative writing, and even the teacher would like to ask questions and get some questions answered on what could make her story bettery. I would like to do this in my own classroom. I enjoy writing and encourage creative writing a lot in my classroom, and I would like to see something like this. I would like to try this and see how it goes with my own students’’ (Probe 2, Commentary 4).
Requesting more Another form of desire to act is requesting more. When a participant was eager to learn more about a certain practice that she had seen and expressed a desire to know more about the particulars of the practice or to contact the case teacher for more information, that statement is coded as ‘‘requesting more.’’ Only Elizabeth, Jennifer, and Kimberly made these statements, and among them, Elizabeth made many more of these statements than others did. Elizabeth: ‘‘I want to know how long she takes to do that, and how long does she take to teach this process. Is it a matter of a few days, weeks? I want to sit down and pick this woman’s brain, because I’m curious about how long she takes, because I like the fact that she’s using this, and I think she sets up her classroom very well’’ (Probe 3, Commentary 3). Jennifer: ‘‘And I want to see how she transitions from the prewriting toy I remember she was doing her status of the class, or whatever the called it, so I want to see how she transitioned from her mini lesson to the status of the class’’ (Probe 9, Think-aloud).
These six categories and 17 subcategories labeled teachers’ cognitive activities when interacting with video ethnographies. They provided the gateway to a teacher’s cognitive world allowing the inquirer to see how learning happens in one genre of interactive environment.
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Second Theoretical Proposition: Teachers’ Beliefs and Experiences have Profound Influence on their Cognitive Activities In the first stage of the data collection process, each of the six participants was asked about their beliefs of effective classroom and literacy teaching. In this section, these teachers and the influence of their beliefs and experiences will be introduced. This study engaged six fourth grade teachers stratified by their years of teaching. The most senior teacher has 36 years of experience, while the most junior teachers have been teaching for 2 years. They are all Caucasian females, which represent the norm of elementary school teachers in the state. Three of the teachers teach in suburban neighborhoods and the other three teach in the same school where the majority of the students (over 90%) are dependents of military personnel working at a nearby base (Table 2). The student body, therefore, tends to change from year to year and sometimes month to month, depending on the guardians’ assignments. Among these characteristics, the teachers’ years of teaching has apparent relation to the observed cognitive activities as reported in Rejection. Table 3 states these characteristics. 1. Carolyn. Carolyn is the most senior of all the participants. Her classroom is a portable unit outside the main school building. It has a mixture of desks and tables and a reading corner with two shelves of books. Her answers to the questions about beliefs were characterized as being detailed, student-centered, and well supported with many personal examples. Her answers were much longer than those of other participants (see Fig. 2) because of the detailed examples she provided to support her points. Many of her teaching beliefs focused on the students. With regards to effective teaching, for example, five of her seven beliefs focused on the students, and the other two were on the classroom and the teacher. Table 2.
Some Characteristics of the Participants.
Years of Teaching Carolyn Elizabeth Kimberly Deborah Heidi Jennifer
36 11 4 3 (+10 years .as T.A) 2 2
School Environment
Student Ethnicity
Military Military Suburban Military Suburban Suburban
Diverse Diverse Caucasian Diverse Caucasian Caucasian
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Table 3. Participants
Correlation Coefficient with Years of Teaching.
Years of Teaching
Carolyn Elizabeth Kimberly Deborah Heidi Jennifer Correlation coefficient
36 11 4 3 2 2
Cognitive Activities
Number of Words Used in Sharing Beliefs
Rejection statements
Connection statements
Effective teaching
Literature teaching
39 14 0 2 0 1 0.992
157 140 82 80 23 86 0.777
1,080 303 52 141 65 175 0.987
1,951 174 72 105 35 189 0.973
Examples Used
14 3 2 4 0 4 0.933
Number of Words in Answers to Questions About Beliefs
2500
Beliefs about Effective Teaching Beliefs about Literacy Teaching 1951
2000
1500 1080
1000
500
303 174 52
72
141 105
175 189 65
35
0 Carolyn
Fig. 2.
Elizabeth
Kimberly
Deborah
Heidi
Jennifer
Number of Words Participants Used to Describe their Beliefs in Effective Teaching and Teaching Literacy.
2. Elizabeth. Elizabeth is the second most senior teacher among the six participants. She is 36 years old and has 11 years of teaching experience with 7 of those years teaching in fourth grade. She obtained her baccalaureate degree from a state university near the school where Carolyn, Deborah, and she teach. In her classroom, she uses tables rather than
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4.
5.
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desks. Her office corner is cluttered with books, papers, and other instructional materials. Kimberly. Kimberly is 44 years old with 4 years of teaching experience and 2 of those years are in fourth grade. Like most schools in Utah, her school is located in a suburban middle class, predominantly Caucasian area. She is in the same district as the previous three teachers and attended the same local university as Elizabeth and Deborah. Deborah. Deborah is 49 years old with 3 years of formal teaching experience in the current grade and 10 years as a teaching aide. Her classroom is across from Elizabeth’s and is characterized by its tidiness with rows of student desks in their exact locations, creating an interesting contrast with Elizabeth’s. Her office desk and shelves are also neat and clean. She obtained her baccalaureate degree from the same university as Elizabeth. Heidi. Heidi is 32 years old and has been teaching for 2 years. Her school is located in a university town, where she also received her university education. Jennifer. Jennifer is 23 years old and has taught for 2 years in fourth grade. When her principal found out about this study, she recommended Jennifer to participate in order to learn balanced literacy. She introduced her as an excellent teacher with great potential. Her school was also located at a suburban middle class area. Relationship between Teachers’ Beliefs and Cognitive Activities
The current study revealed that participants’ experiences and beliefs have profound influences on their awareness and reflection of the things they see and hear in video ethnography. These experiences and beliefs not only relate to the frequency of certain cognitive activities, they also affect what participants are aware of and how they reflect on them. Such relationships are manifested in a number of different ways: Correlation with Years of Teaching. Correlation coefficients were computed to test connections between participants’ years of teaching and the number of statements in different cognitive activities, beliefs, and examples. The following were found to be highly correlated with years of teaching: (a) the number of statements in Connection and Rejection categories of cognitive activities, (b) the number of words used in answering the two belief questions in Stage 1 of the data collection process, and (c) the number of examples they shared in stating their beliefs and throughout the study. Table 3 shows such relationships.
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Note that participants’ years of teaching have a strong positive correlation with their connection and rejection statements, words used in sharing beliefs, and examples used. The correlation between years of teaching and connection category is relatively weaker (0.77). The correlation between participants’ years of teaching and the number of their rejection statements is nearly perfect (0.99). It means that as teachers become more seasoned, they can better connect with the classroom instruction observed in the video, but they also tend to be more critical of what they see. A strong correlation also exists between participants’ years of teaching and the number of words they use in sharing their beliefs as well as the number of examples they gave. However, much of the effect is due to an extreme outlier, Carolyn (see Table 3). Therefore, although it is reasonable to expect seasoned teachers to have more established beliefs and personal examples, replication with larger samples is needed to confirm. If we consider participants’ years of teaching as the quantity of experience, we may also consider how their quality of experience affects their beliefs, and how such beliefs and experiences affect the quality of the cognitive activities. These influences may be summed up into the following points. Experience Affects the Breadth of a Teacher’s Awareness. A teacher can notice more details of an instructional presentation if she has relevant experience relating to what is presented. For example, Elizabeth had training with a program called ‘‘Strategies that Work,’’ so she was aware of its application in the video. Carolyn had training in gifted and talented education, so she was aware of the ‘‘clean wall.’’ She indicated that gifted children needed a clean (blank) wall that was uncluttered with decorations so they could look at and think. Also, both Elizabeth and Carolyn noticed the rocking chair because they had rocking chairs in their classrooms. Hence, background experience does provide a schema or foundation to incite detail noticing. Experience Affects the Depth of a Teacher’s Awareness. If a teacher has experience in a certain area, she will be able to examine it more deeply than those who do not. The typical example is the use of music in Jean’s writing lesson. All of the participants were aware of the music playing in the background in the video when students were engaged in their spelling exercise, but none talked about the practice as extensively as Carolyn did. Carolyn’s training in writing children’s music made her more sensitive to the kind of music use in the classroom. She criticized using a contemporary song from
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the 1970s. Carolyn said, ‘‘I don’t like the song she was playingy. To me, the words were not uplifting, so I think that’s putting bad thoughts into kids’ minds.’’ Similar situations could be found in other teachers’ responses, such as Elizabeth and Deborah’s in-depth noticing of the book Strategies That Work and of spelling lists. Thus, the teachers’ prior experiences work as scaffolds for their new learning, allowing them to make connections and to generate thorough awareness and new insight of materials. Experience Affects a Teacher’s Comprehension. When a teacher has experience related to a certain action, she can interpret the action as it relates to that experience. For example, when Kimberly watched Jean’s instruction in independent spelling, she thought-aloud, ‘‘She’s talking about it’s Tuesday and they’re doing well on their spelling.’’ Then, based on what she saw and her experience in this area, she interpreted, ‘‘So they must have a linear spelling program where they move from point to another.’’ Again, in another example, Elizabeth was reflecting on Probe 8’s Shared Reading and connected it with her own professional development training: ‘‘I feel like she’s done a lot of ITI training with this. I think that she’s gotten into that brain research and knows what kids are comfortable with.’’ Thus, to Elizabeth, good instruction in this video did not just happen. It was connected with teacher training. On the other hand, a teacher’s inexperience in a certain technique may cause her to feel uncertain and even be oblivious to that technique. Experience Forms One’s Beliefs. In the example of Carolyn, she revealed her own experience with spelling lists – a substitute teacher gave her students two spelling lists when she was absent. Carolyn did not like those lists and thought they ‘‘stifle and stultify’’ the students. We were reminded that one of Carolyn’s beliefs was that learning had to be meaningful to students. Past experiences do shape one’s perceptions, which in turn, determined one’s present beliefs and behavior. Teachers Tend to Identify Evidences that are Supportive of their Beliefs. For instance, Deborah, Elizabeth, and Carolyn had distinctive beliefs in classroom organization, yet they all seemed to be able to find different aspects of the video that were supportive of their beliefs. Elizabeth liked tables where students could sit around in groups, so she enjoyed seeing that Jean used tables in her classroom; however, Deborah labeled the tables as desks because she used desks in her classroom. Deborah also found Jean’s classroom to be very organized – an important belief exemplified in her meticulous
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classroom setup. On the other hand, Carolyn was very conscientious about giving students freedom, so she observed that Jean’s classroom setup facilitated students moving around. The concepts of using tables (often associated with group work), using desks (often associated with independent work), being organized, and having the freedom to move around all seem to be very distinctive or contrastive, yet participants were able to find evidences in the case study to support their individual teaching beliefs. Furthermore, when participants perceived some information as contrary to their beliefs, they might either reject the information or modify their beliefs; for example, Kimberly changed her beliefs about individualized spelling. She initially reacted, ‘‘Trying to plan a total, individualized spelling program is time-consuming and would be a huge tasky[that] would be unreasonable.’’ After reading Jean’s rationale and approach, Kimberly’s concern was resolved. She remarked, ‘‘That’s clever. She’s got a way to make an individualized spelling program which is doable.’’ Later, as Kimberly analyzed further and reiterated Jean’s approach, Kimberly excitedly exclaimed, ‘‘That’s an awesome spelling program. I’d like to try something like that.’’ Hence, if a teacher’s need is met or her concern is resolved, the teacher may modify her belief. Beliefs and Experiences Affect a Teacher’s Judgment. Beliefs and experiences impact both the positive and negative judgment of what she heard and saw. For instance, the video in Probe 7 showed Jean helping a student who was struggling with reading. Carolyn found it in direct contrast to her unstated belief of being protective of a child and labeled such activity as ‘‘painful, painful, painful.’’ She thought the teacher had made a ‘‘poor choice’’ of book. However, Jennifer’s response was entirely opposite from Carolyn’s due to differences in perception and experiences. Jennifer noticed: The kid’s kind of struggling with reading but she’s listening not marking (not scoring the child down). He’s doing a lot of phonics but she’s just letting him struggle through it. He seems to be very focused on his book. She’s commenting on things that he did really well on self-correction and encouraging him to keep going even though he may be a little frustrated. She asked him to read two more sentences at the end.
Jennifer then revealed her rationale and related an experience: She doesn’t step in when he’s struggling and she doesn’t make any comments. She just really listens until the bottom of the page, it seemed. Then she’d again said positive first. She talked about self-correction. She talked about things he was doing really well and then giving him a challenge for the next time. I have students like in this class but to build them up on telling them what they do right. They may not be perfect, they may really struggle with the reading but the telling them what they do right and the
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self-corrections and not butting in is probably going to help this kid ten times more then a million ideas on how to fix things.
Another example is from Deborah when she viewed the video case for the first time, she noticed something intriguing: ‘‘You know, the kids are all being very quiet.’’ Then, she related to her class and made a judgment, ‘‘That is not my classroom. They must know they are being videotaped and they’re being very good because my kids would not be that quiet. Number one, they couldn’t sit across from somebody without wanting to talk to them.’’ Through this think-aloud session, we caught a glimpse of Deborah’s classroom. What caught Deborah’s attention was the student behavior, ‘‘Just that they obviously know what they are supposed to be doing, and they’re all busy.’’ Unstated Beliefs may have Overwhelming Influence on a Teacher’s Perception. Such influence is obvious in Carolyn’s unstated belief of not criticizing students. She seemed to see implications of this belief in every probe, and she voiced her strong objection whenever she saw the slightest suggestion of passing judgment on the students. Other participants – Deborah’s unstated belief of modeling and Elizabeth’s unstated belief of student-centered instruction – also showed similar sentiments, but less mordant. The teachers might not be aware of these salient beliefs because they did not outwardly express them. Yet, these ideas are important integral components of the teachers’ overall belief system. Therefore, this study reveals that a teacher’s beliefs and experiences have a great influence on her cognitive activities and the cognitive development process in general. Constructing learning in a way that leads these beliefs and experiences toward desired directions will have a great impact on the learning experience. Third Theoretical Proposition: Teachers’ Cognitive Development Process is Scaffold by Video Ethnography Video ethnography provides a learning framework that makes the different cognitive activities possible. The digital videos in video ethnography allowed participants in this study to become aware of the happenings in an authentic classroom. They comprehended, judged, and connected these videos according to their own beliefs and experiences. Each of the participants engaged in the various types of cognitive activities throughout her interaction with the CD-ROM, which led to a learning process that was reflective of the teacher’s own practice.
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However, because of the multifaceted nature of an authentic classroom, teacher-viewers cannot possibly comprehend all the dynamics that go on behind the scene by just viewing the videos alone. Commentaries from various sources provide essential comprehension scaffolds for teacher-viewers to grasp a nearly complete portrayal of the teaching scenario. In this study, all participants showed an increased understanding from commentaries in one probe or another. For example, Elizabeth first identified the bookmark technique in the video, but she did not know its purpose. After listening to the commentaries, she then understood it as a strategy to encourage critical thinking through asking questions and making predictions about the reading. At times, commentaries help clarify misconceptions. In Probe 2, for instance, Carolyn initially rejected Jean’s approach because she interpreted it as editing a student’s work, but after reading the commentaries, she understood it as editing the teacher’s own writing and even accepted it as a new idea for implementation. Such increase in understanding allowed participants to engage in cognitive activities beyond the awareness and comprehension arenas, which is, nevertheless, important in a teacher’s learning process to advance in complex thinking. Participants generally prefer the individual comments from the literacy specialist, Jean, and the other teacher than from the professional literature quotes because they found the quotes to be too theoretical, less pragmatic. This preference indicates two possibilities: (1) the quotes from professional literature need to be improved to reflect better selection of content and better presentation in user-friendly language; (2) the pedagogy of video ethnography may require that teacher educators help teachers explore the connections between the probe and the literature and develop skills in linking research and practice. All of the participants expressed appreciation of specific features of the video ethnography and this learning experience as a whole. Deborah’s comment at the end of the study served best in describing such learning: I have learned a ton. I am amazed. You know, I’ve always wished that I could sit down and watch a master teacher. When I did my student teaching, I had a teacher that was really good, but, you know, I only saw bits and pieces of that one teacher. And so I’ve always thought it would be very valuable to see other classrooms. But how can you do that when you’re so busy with your own class. And so I thought that was very valuable. I do, and when I walk up and down the halls, I’ll kind of listen at a door and see what’s going on and pick up little things here and there, things that teachers do. It’s pretty hard to pick that up all by yourself. You learn from seeing others, and doing it on a computer like that is wonderful. I had no idea that there were tools like that. I enjoyed it very much. You know, if I could see something like that and then tomorrow go right in and do something similar, wouldn’t that be, and then use it, and then I would remember it,
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and it would be very valuable. I enjoyed it very much. But, you know, it reminded me that it’s not just the reading and the writing, but it’s the speaking and the listening, and I try to give my students opportunities to share what they’ve written, and for the students to learn to be good listeners. I think that’s part of the process, if you can listen and learn from that. Yeah, it was great. I enjoyed that.
Deborah’s comment not only expressed a general positive feeling about the learning experience, but revealed how video ethnography had complemented her student teaching experience. It allowed her to go through a learning method that she had always wanted – seeing how others teach. This learning experience had instilled a desire to apply what she had learned. Hence, video ethnography has provided a framework that makes engaging in various cognitive activities possible. It allows teachers to move from initial awareness of the happenings in the videos to comprehension and other more complex types of cognitive activities.
Fourth Theoretical Proposition: Teachers Progress in Cognitive Development Process through Interaction with Video Ethnography This last proposition suggests a model that explains how categories of cognitive activities progress and the roles of beliefs and experiences and video ethnography play in this progression. As stated earlier, users of video ethnography engaged in six categories of cognitive activities. These activities generated distinctive patterns in each participant. Cross-case analysis revealed a mental process that appears to be repetitive in all participants, revealing how one cognitive activity may relate to another. The resulting proposition is a cognitive development process that includes awareness and the five categories of reflective activities: comprehension, acceptance, rejection, connection, and application, as represented in Fig. 3. Participants’ verbal reports showed that awareness is the fundamental, essential condition to reflection so it stays at the bottom of the graphic with an arrow pointing up. Teacher-learners must notice what is happening or has happened before reflecting on it. This noticing process goes from basic to advanced levels. That is, it goes from superficial descriptions of the encountered to contextual accounts using eloquent terms. The level beyond awareness is comprehension, which is the internalization of the encountered. The result of the comprehension process is increased understanding through interpreting and assuming. Awareness and comprehension must be present in order for a teacher-learner to reflect further into the process. Rarely did any of the participants skip these two levels in their think-aloud. Even when
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Desire to Act
Acceptance
Connection
Rejection
Comprehension
Awareness
Fig. 3.
Participants’ Cognitive Development Process when Using Video Ethnography.
they did, we could assume they had gone through these steps without verbalizing them. For example, in Probe 8, Carolyn’s first statement was, ‘‘I think that it was good that she had a book for everybody, for almost everybody.’’ Although the statement was coded as ‘‘acceptance,’’ Carolyn was aware that most of the students had the same book before she could make such a judgment. Therefore, awareness and comprehension are the two initial conditions leading to deeper reflection. Beyond comprehension are three parallel categories of activities: acceptance (liking, agreeing, and judging positively), connection (sharing belief, comparing, and sharing experience), and rejection (disliking, disagreeing, and judging negatively), placed just above comprehension in Fig. 3. Acceptance, connection, and rejection are parallel to one other because any
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one of them could happen immediately after a participant had comprehended what was happening – they might even happen in any order. For example, a participant might feel positive (acceptance) about a particular comment and then compare it with her own teaching (connection), or she might share an experience first (connection) before stating her judgment of a clip. Such juxtaposition between a judgment (acceptance or rejection) and connection could be found in each participant. Although it is not common, acceptance and rejection also have a similar back and forth relationship – all of the participants who had rejection statements (Carolyn, Elizabeth, Deborah, and Jennifer) had at one time or another accepted an idea that was initially rejected after considering it further with the help of the commentaries. On the other hand, Carolyn had rejected an originally accepted idea. Therefore, beyond comprehension, a teacher-learner may advance to acceptance, rejection, or/and connection. In most cases, this trio of cognitive activities concluded a participant’s reaction to a certain probe. At times, however, a participant might desire more information about the new technique, or she simply expressed a desire to apply what she had just learned. Such a desire to act, placed at the top level of the model, usually follows acceptance, but it might also occur after one has made a connection implying an implicit acceptance. Although we have not seen it in this study, it is probable that a teacher-learner may desire to apply a modified form of a rejected idea. For example, a participant may reject the idea of a traditional spelling list but want to try an individualized spelling list. Thus, this probable link is represented by a dotted line between rejection and desire to act in Fig. 3. At any rate, when the desire to act occurs, it always follows one of these three categories. In the case when a participant expressed a desire to apply without stating a judgment or making a connection, she was making an implicit acceptance. For example, after recalling the commentary about the importance of providing accurate support in Probe 7, Kimberly exclaimed, ‘‘I would like to try that more in my own classroom,’’ indicating an implied acceptance of the idea. These six categories of cognitive activities proceed from lower to higher levels, representing a cognitive development process that advances from initial cognition to action. A participant’s reaction to a certain idea might stop at any of these categories. That is, she might express her observation of a certain object or her interpretation of a practice, and then never mention it again. In Probe 8, for instance, Heidi simply restated the professional literature perspective without giving any of her own opinions. Within the scaffold of video ethnography, belief and experience are strong factors affecting a teacher’s advancement in the cognitive development
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Acceptance
Connection
Rejection
Belief & Experience
Desire to Act
Comprehension
Awareness
Video Ethnography
Fig. 4.
Video Ethnography and the Cognitive Development Process Model.
process. As symbolized in Fig. 4, a video ethnography case is used as the bottom-line stimulus tool for unlocking the cognitive development process. Next, the circular nodes represent the various components of the cognitive development process: starting from awareness at the bottom, to comprehension, to connection or judgment (acceptance or rejection), and eventually to a desire to act. The influences, belief and experience, are placed on the sides of the cognitive development process. Thus, this model ties together the four theoretical propositions and explains how teachers learn when interacting with video ethnography.
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IMPLICATIONS Findings from this study have pedagogical, technical, and research implications. Pedagogical implications focus on how findings and theoretical propositions may be used in enhancing future teacher development programs. As the theoretical propositions are already based on other findings, the implications here will be addressed according to these propositions.
Attending to the Understanding of Learners’ Beliefs and Experiences When Using Video Ethnography The second theoretical proposition indicated that video ethnography users’ beliefs have profound influence on what they can learn. Professional developers must bear in mind such influence when designing instructions. One possible strategy is to have learners state their beliefs as participants did in this study. As they interact with various components of video ethnography, have them report their reaction as a way of capturing their learning and revealing their unstated beliefs. As teachers understand their beliefs and how such beliefs relate to their learning, they will be more open to new possibilities. Thus, they will have a greater disposition to change.
Using Video Ethnography More Extensively in Teacher Development To help prospective and practicing teachers better understand educational principles by seeing them in action, video ethnography or multimedia cases in general should be used more extensively in teacher education and teacher development. These cases complement the shortcomings of traditional theory instruction and field observation.
Scaffolding the Cognitive Development Process for Application As demonstrated in the cognitive development model in Theoretical Proposition 4, teachers’ cognition advances from superficial awareness to sophisticated reflection on personal practice. To improve the way teachers teach, professional developers must provide strategies that elicit higher level cognitive activities. Such strategies may include using multimedia rending of
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authentic classroom cases, helping teachers understand their own beliefs and bias, and assisting teachers to develop their own video ethnographies.
Adopting Video Ethnography as an Assessment Tool As demonstrated in this study, video ethnography may be used as an assessment tool for teacher development, for instance, assessing teachers’ points of resistance and embrace. It may also be used as a guide for teachers to study their own practices.
Introducing Mechanisms for Enriching and Furthering the Inquiry Process Since the start of this study, the video ethnography technology has continued to evolve and improve. The current version provides a mechanism that links additional resources to the studies to enrich users’ learning experience. These resources may include students’ and teacher’s artifacts, relevant readings, photos of the instructional environment not seen in the video, and internet links to related sites. Additional features may also include ways for users to further the inquiry process using collaborative technologies such as an online threaded-discussion board, chatroom, or a simple ‘‘frequently asked questions’’ list. These features will be inspiring to the users because they will have a way to ask the case teacher questions that relate to their situation. The current CD version has a mechanism for users to create their own cases using existing videos. It also allows users to produce their own cases using their own video and commentaries. In addition, the internet version of the video ethnography allows users to upload their videos to the server so that all participants may view and discuss their contents. As technology advances, new possibilities will emerge. The only limit is really our imagination.
How do the Cognitive Activities Link to theActual Change of Behavior? This study has explored the fundamental process of how thinking develops when learning with multimedia cases, but it requires future studies to conduct research on behavioral changes. We do not suggest an expectation of dramatic alternation of practice based on a short-term exposure to any teacher development tool or program because, as Richardson and Placier
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(2001) suggested, the process of teacher change is long and subtle. Rather, studies should consider how new insights play out in practice, the conditions required for such application, the time lag between learning and applying, and the requirements for sustainable change.
How will the Findings of the Study Change when the Sample Changes? This qualitative study has provided in-depth investigation of six teachers and shared insights on their learning processes. However, how will these teachers change? How will the findings of this study differ using samples that vary according to size, location, ethnic backgrounds, gender, training, grade level taught, teaching style, personality, and so on? What if the participants are pre-service students? Will they reveal similar patterns? What if informants use the tool differently? Future studies using different methods or a similar method but different samples will increase the breadth of our understanding in this area.
How will the Change in the Technological Tool Influence Learning? This study used a specific video ethnography CD-ROM title. What if a different title is used? What if the tool is used differently? The study used only video and commentary features of the CD. As indicated under the technological implications, this technological tool still has many other dynamic features that can enhance a teacher’s learning. Thus, further investigation is needed to examine these features.
What are the Deductive Implications of the Cognitive Development Model? The last section introduced a cognitive development model as the culminating framework for explaining the learning process of video ethnography. It was derived from examining findings generated using a grounded theory approach. It is a new model that needs to be deduced again to see how it can be applied to novel circumstances. In summary, this report suggested three areas of implications for this study: pedagogy, technology, and research. These implications may guide future teacher development programs, production of multimedia cases, and research efforts in this area.
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CONCLUSION This study responded to the need for research that examines teachers’ cognitive development when using video ethnography. It used a grounded theory approach in examining data collected from six teachers in three stages. Findings generated four theoretical propositions that identified teachers’ cognitive activities when using video ethnography, explained how experience and belief influence these activities and how video ethnography scaffolds the development of these cognitive activities. The last theoretical proposition is a development model that illustrated how cognitive activities advance from one level to another. These findings have many implications in pedagogical, technological, and research areas.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I (Peter Chan), would like to express my deep gratitude to the second author, Carl Harris, and many others who have assisted in this research study, especially Robert Patterson, Stefinee Pinnegar, Russell Osguthorpe, David Williams, and Eula Monroe. My dear wife, Joyce, has also given me tremendous professional support and personal assistance.
REFERENCES Bliss, T., & Mazur, J. (1996). Creating a shared culture through cases and technology: The faceless landscape of reform. In: J. Colbert, P. Desberg & K. Trimble (Eds), The case for education: Contemporary approaches for using case methods. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Bransford, J., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (Eds) (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience and school. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Bransford, J., Franks, J., Vie, N., & Sherwood, R. (1989). New approaches to instruction: Because wisdom can’t be told. In: S. Vosniadow & A. Ortony (Eds), Similarity and analogical reasoning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds: Possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Burden, P. R. (1980). Teachers’ perceptions of the characteristics and influences on their personal and professional development. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 198087). Carter, K. (1990). Teachers’ knowledge and learning to teach. In: W. R. Houston (Ed.), Handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 291–310). New York: Macmillan.
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Carter, K., Cushing, K., Sabers, D., Stein, P., & Berliner, D. (1988). Expert-novice differences in perceiving and processing visual classroom information. Journal of Teacher Education, 39(3), 25–31. Clark, J. M., & Paivio, A. (1991). Dual coding theory and education. Educational Psychology Review, 3(3), 149–170. Desberg, P., & Fisher, F. (1996). Using technology in case methodology. In: J. Colbert, K. Trimble & P. Desberg (Eds), The case for education: Contemporary approaches for using case methods (pp. 39–55). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Dewey, J. (1933). How we think ðrev:ed:Þ. Boston: Heath. Fessler, R., & Christensen, J. (1992). The teacher career cycle: Understanding and guiding the professional development of teachers. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Harris, R. C., Pinnegar, S., & Teemant, A. (2005). The case for hypermedia video ethnographies: Designing a new class of case studies that challenge teaching practice. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 13(1), 141–161. Harris, R. C., Tompkins, G., Goodman, L., Chan, P., & Baker, D. (2002). Literature circles: A video ethnography of responding to literature in an 8th grade classroom. Columbus, OH: Merrill Prentice-Hall. Harris, R. C., Turner, J., & Baker, D. (2001). The Jean Turner case: A video ethnography of fourth grade balanced literacy classroom [CD-ROM]. Provo, UT: Harris Video Cases. Hughes, J., Packard, B., & Pearson, P. (2000). The role of hypermedia cases on preservice teachers’ views of reading instruction. Action in Teacher Education, 22(2a), 24–38. Jay, J., & Johnson, K. (2002). Capturing complexity: A typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18(1), 73–85. Kent, T., Herbert, J., & McNergney, R. (1995). Telecommunications in teacher education: Reflections on the first virtual team competition. Journal of Information Technology for Teacher Education, 4(2), 137–148. McKibbin, M., & Joyce, B. R. (1981). Psychological states. Theory into Practice, 19(4), 238–255. Merseth, K. (1999). Forward: A rationale for case-based pedagogy in teacher education. In: M. Lundeberg, B. Levin & H. Harrington (Eds), Who learns what from cases and how? The research base for teaching and learning with cases (pp. ix–xv). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Mewborn, D. S., & Wilson, P. S. (1999). Do you see what I see? Helping preservice teachers develop their powers of observation, insight, and reflection. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, San Francisco, CA. Patton, M. Q. (2001). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Raths, J. (2001). Teachers’ beliefs and teaching beliefs. Early childhood research and practice. 3. Retrieved April 1, 2001, from http://www.ecrp.uiuc.edu/v3n1/raths.html Richardson, V. (1996). The role of attitudes and beliefs in learning to teach. In: J. Sikula (Ed.), Handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 102–119). New York: Macmillan. Richardson, V., & Kile, R. (1999). Learning from videocases. In: M. Lundeberg, B. Levin & H. Harrington (Eds), Who learns what from cases and how? The research base for teaching and learning with cases (pp. 121–136). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Richardson, V., & Placier, P. (2001). Teacher change. In: V. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (pp. 905–947). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.
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Risko, V., & Kinzer, C. (1997). Videodisc, case-based reading instruction in preservice reading education. New York: McGraw-Hill. Scho¨n, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books. Shulman, L. (2001). Learning from cases: Closing the ‘‘Theory-practice gap’’? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Seattle. Spiro, R. J., Coulson, R. L., Feltovich, P. J., & Anderson, D. K. (1988). Cognitive flexibility theory: Advanced knowledge acquisition in ill-structured domains. In: Tenth annual conference of the cognitive science society (pp. 377–383). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Sprinthall, N., Reiman, A., & Thies-Sprinthall, L. (1996). Teacher professional development. In: J. Sikula (Ed.), Handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 666–703). New York: Prentice-Hall International. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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LOOKING AT OURSELVES: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AS SELF-STUDY Helen Freidus, Susan Feldman, Charissa M. Sgouros and Marilyn Wiles-Kettenmann ABSTRACT This chapter documents monthly meetings of Bank Street College Reading and Literacy alumnae between October 2002 and December 2004. It describe the ways in which case study and self-study methodologies enabled participants to support their own professional development and that of colleagues. Findings suggest that the process enabled participants to revisit, reconsider, and reframe understandings and perspectives both in the minute and later as they shared experiences with a broader audience. Outcomes include a more extensive professional knowledge base, increased ability to meet the needs of children and parents, and a stronger sense of self as professional identity.
INTRODUCTION In recent years, throughout the literature of teacher education, there has been a consensus that many traditional forms of professional development Learning from Research on Teaching: Perspective, Methodology, and Representation Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 11, 377–409 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1016/S1479-3687(05)11013-X
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have not been successful. Transmission models, in which experts bring research findings into schools, tell teachers what to do, then leave, have failed to elicit lasting change. Weekend and week-long workshops, in which teachers learn about new methods and materials have proven helpful to many; however, all too often, those messages fade when teachers return to the pressures of daily life. In response to these realities, there has been a call for new models of professional development – models that can be documented as making a difference (Darling–Hammond, 1998; Peterson, 1998; Lieberman & Miller, 1991; Rust & Freidus, 2001; Borko, 2004). This chapter is a response to this call. It describes the meetings of a group of literacy teachers over the course of two years. By supporting each others’ professional development, these teachers have contributed to their own growing professional understanding, their sense of efficacy, and their ability to better meet the needs of the children and parents with whom they work. The questions that have guided the study on which this chapter is based are: (1) What kinds of professional development really make a difference in facilitating teachers’ abilities to think and act in new ways? (2) In what ways do teachers’ vision of themselves as professionals facilitate and/or constrain their professional development?
SETTING THE STAGE The Bank Street College Reading and Literacy Program In the fall of 2002, nine graduates of the Bank Street College Reading and Literacy Program came together to form the Reading and Literacy Study Group. They invited a faculty member to join them in a process of mutual learning. Together, they decided to meet once each month over the course of the academic year. The graduates’ motivation for coming together emerged from their realization that, while they had learned a great deal about working with children and communities throughout the course of their graduate work, there was still a great deal to learn. Each was encountering unexpected challenges as she sought to put her beliefs about teaching and learning into practice. Participants felt frustrated and ambivalent, torn between providing the authentic learning experiences they believed their students needed and the formulaic activities perceived by many parents and teachers to be mandated by current demands for standardized curriculum.
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At first glance, the composition of this group appeared to be homogeneous; however, the members’ backgrounds and the backgrounds and experiences of the children with whom they work have proven to be quite diverse. Marilyn writes: While our group members have had the common experience of studying within the Bank Street educational context, we come from different backgrounds. ‘‘These inform our individual point of view, influence the manner in which we approach and process information, and create our teaching styles (Written Reflection, 8/03).’’ The populations with whom participants work include children from under-resourced schools, schools for the deaf, orthodox Jewish day schools, middle class urban and suburban public schools, and private schools with a focus on social justice. Each participant is involved in clinical practice, the diagnostic teaching of children that links assessment and instruction on an ongoing basis. Some are classroom teachers; others are working as resource room teachers; still others are working in professional development. All are working with individual students in private practice. Helen, the participating faculty member, knew many of the participants as advisees and as students in the literacy courses she taught. Her motivation in joining the group was to gain insight into the world beyond graduate school – to watch how the learning acquired during graduate study played out in a real world context. What works? Why?
Bank Street: The Common Context Every experience lives on in future experiences. (Dewey, 1938/1997, p. 27)
In October 1930, Lucy Sprague Mitchell instituted a program of teacher education at the Bureau of Educational Experiments at 69 Bank Street in New York City. Describing this program that later became the Bank Street College of Education, Mitchell wrote: Our aim is to help students develop a scientific attitude towards their work and toward life. To us this means an attitude of eager, alert observations, a constant questioning of old procedure in the light of new observations, a use of the world as well as of books as source material; an experimental open-mindedness; and an effort to keep as reliable records as the situation permits in order to base the future upon actual knowledge of the experiences of the past. Our aim is equally to help students develop and express the attitude of the artist towards their work and towards life. To us this means an attitude of relish, of emotional drive,
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a genuine participation in some creative phase of work, and a sense that joy and beauty are legitimate possessions of all human beings young and old. (Mitchell, in Antler, 1987, p. 309)
These statements, expressing a respect for teaching and learning as a dynamic, creative endeavor, continue to shape the beliefs and practices of the Bank Street community. It was as part of this ‘‘community of learners’’ (Lave & Wegner, 1991; Rogoff, 1990, 1994; Putnam & Borko, 2000) that the members of the Reading and Literacy Study Group first developed their professional personae as teachers. Throughout their studies, they spoke of teaching and learning as socially constructed, collaborative, and situated in specific contexts. They came to see teaching not as the standardized transmission of information and ideas but as a process that is both transactional and transformative (Freire, 1970/1984). Throughout their graduate education, they were encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning; reflection and dialogue were commonly experienced instructional strategies. Gil Schmerler, a Bank Street faculty member writes: It has always seemed to me that my job as a faculty member – in all of my roles – is to get students to think more deeply about their experiences and the not-so-obvious implications of their and others’ actions, and to examine problems and issues from as many perspectives as possible. Graduate study would seem to have these (reflective) activities as its center. (Interview, 2001)
As these words suggest, both the form and content of study at Bank Street emphasize teaching as a dialogic process in which students of all ages learn through active engagement. Within the more focused context of the Bank Street Reading and Literacy Program, graduates developed an understanding that, in their roles as literacy teachers, they would need to identify and draw upon the experiences, interests, and perspectives of the students with whom they worked. There could be no one ‘‘right’’ method of instruction for all children and no one measure of assessment that would identify the strengths and needs of all children. Literacy was viewed as a holistic process, the integration of reading, writing, and language development. Effective practice needed to be ‘‘balanced.’’ The child stands as the fulcrum; instruction is to be measured out as needed to support the strengths, needs, learning style, and experiences of the individual learner.
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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS Social Construction of Knowledge Vygotskyan theory provides a theoretical basis for examining the dynamic through which teachers scaffold their own development and that of their colleagues. Vygotsky (1978) argued that humans are consciously acting beings, who, through their actions, bring about changes in themselves and in the surrounding world. Both individual actions and interactions with peers are necessary for ongoing growth and development. While Vygotsky described a process through which children grow and develop, it is also possible to use his work as a framework for examining adult growth and development (Glassman & Wang, 2004). Looking at the experience of the Reading and Literacy Study Group through this lens helps to illuminate the learning process that occurs within the group. Each member enacts her practice within her own context, reflects upon it, and selects aspects to bring to the table of the monthly meeting. When asked to describe the process, members responded: L: The questions that are raised here are the basics for thinking about your own practice. When somebody brings up a question, I consider that question. Is it relevant to my practice? Could it be helpful? I see this as a forum to ask my questions and to hear everyone’s responses. Then I evaluate the responses and see how I can incorporate the suggestions. There are no right answers, but the suggestions can be helpful. H: For example? L: For example, when I was talking about the difficulty I was having getting my third graders to read books on their level. Susan suggested paired reading. And do you know what – I took it back and I said to my group of students, ‘‘We are going to try something new. You are pairing up with a partner and, together, choose one of the books in the classroom.’’ Right there a partnering beganyfriends with friendsythinking and talking about books. At first I thought, ‘‘Is this one more thing I have to do?’’ Then I began to think about it and thought, ‘‘O.K. I will try.’’ So, I see this process as a flow from practice, to group, and back to practice. M: Also, in terms of methodology, we did all that work on Verbalizing and Visualizing. S: I think the group has made a difference in terms of our being flexible and our ability to readjust. We have all come in with a question about a particular child. I remember coming in and saying: ‘‘This kid is unteachable,’’ then hearing, ‘‘No, he is teachable.’’ It really does change the way you thinky. You begin to believe that there is a kind of opening. (Meeting Transcript, December 2003)
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In the group, members are both teachers and learners. They share problems and dilemmas with the group, and together they examine them. Scaffolded by new information, new perspectives, and a feeling of professional support, they return to their practice to make sense of emergent new perspectives in their home environments. The knowledge that in four weeks there will be another opportunity to once again revisit and reframe what is happening fosters feelings of possibility and agency. It seems as if the group extends each member’s consciousness, creating a dynamic through which dialogue leads to the crafting of practice.
Situated Cognition Within the past few decades, new ways of understanding cognition and the learning processes related to it have emerged in the literature of psychology and education (Borko, 2004; Putnam & Borko, 2000; Bruner, 1986; Lave & Wegner, 1991; Rogoff, 1990). Congruent with a Vygotskyan perspective, knowledge acquisition is described as a social construction, situated in specific contexts and distributed among the members of a specific community. Shared knowledge and respected ways of talking about this knowledge are shaped within the context of ‘‘discourse communities.’’ These discourse communities provide individuals with ideas, theories, and concepts that enable them to make sense of experience. Thus, learning shifts from being viewed solely as a process of individual cognition to being seen as a process that includes both individual cognitition and the interactions among individuals in a specific context (Borko, 2004; Putnam & Borko, 2000). This perspective recognizes the importance of the nuances of meaning within a particular situation and a particular institution. Using this lens, it becomes less important to ask about what teachers ‘‘know’’ individually than to observe and explore what they can think and do at particular times in particular contexts (Putnam & Borko, 2000). This has significant implications for professional development. According to Hargreaves, ‘‘One’s teaching, what one knows about teaching, and what one believes is possible and desirable in one’s teaching all vary according to the context in which this teaching is done’’ (Hargreaves, 1996, p. 15). The perspectives of situated cognition take on particular relevance when considering how individuals learn to be teachers and how they interpret this learning as they move from the world of graduate school to the world of the classroom or clinic.
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In describing the process of the Reading and Literacy Study Group, Susan wrote: What I like best about our group is knowing that so many of us feel off balance as we move along in our careers. Each member has something so vital to offer, and my sense is that each one of us has become a touchstone for one anothery. It is what inspires us to grow as specialists. (Written Reflection, Spring, 2003)
Within the group context, the dialogue encourages each member to push at the boundaries of her understanding, to frame and reframe her own thinking by engaging in problem solving around her own experiences, and those of her colleagues. This dynamic appears to build on the discourse pattern of ‘‘conference group,’’ a learning model already familiar to group members. Conference group is part of the student teaching experience of all students at Bank Street. It is a weekly seminar in which faculty members meet with their five to seven advisees throughout the fieldwork year. The goal is to nurture the formation of a group of critical friends engaged in a collaborative process of reflective practice. In conference group, the interconnections of personal and professional issues serve as the grist for professional growth. Each of the members of the Reading and Literacy Study Group brought this experience with her into this new group experience. Marilyn describes the process in this way: As graduate students, we had already begun to regard Bank Street as the hub of our educational development and our professional community, so it made sense to develop this new group as an adjunct to the Bank Street community. All of us were already accustomed to ongoing conference groups as part of our graduate work and training. Therefore the idea of the meeting structure was easy to translate into this new group idea. (Written Reflection, Fall, 2004)
Like conference group, the Reading and Literacy Study Group is a collaborative discourse community. In a familiar context, members examine their practice by problematizing and problem-solving specific puzzling issues. Laurie (Summer, 2003) wrote, ‘‘The group provides a safe environment for curiosity, clarification, and a chance to explore confusion.y I think it is an important part of post-graduate education.’’ Diane adds, ‘‘Peer feedback is essential for professional growth. Our alumnae conference group discussions provide this kind of back and forth.’’ (Interview, Spring, 2003). Reflective Teaching More than 20 years ago, Donald Scho¨n pointed out that the diverse contexts in which teachers practice could create problems of ‘‘complexity, uncertainty,
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instability and uniqueness (cited in Lieberman in Rust & Freidus, 2001, p. 157).’’ Inevitably, situations arise that cannot be anticipated. Only by a process of reflection in the moment, what Scho¨n (1987) refers to as ‘‘reflection in action’’ as well as reflection from a distance, can teachers begin to understand this complexity and find ways to meet the needs of diverse learners. Today, there is an increasing demand for standardized curriculum and standardized assessment. Despite a paucity of evidence documenting that these instructional strategies meet the needs of all learners, the call for scientifically based practice pervades the discourse of educational policy (Allington, 2002). For teachers and teacher educators who hope to take an effective stand against the forces of standardization, the process of developing voice and agency is very important. By engaging in dialogues that support re-examination of practice, ongoing experimentation, and critical reflection, teachers are more likely to develop the increasing knowledge, habits of mind, and forms of practice that will allow them to hone their pedagogy and become advocates for the kinds of instructional practices that meet the needs of diverse learners (Stein, Smith, & Silver, 1999). Yet, as reflective as teachers and teacher educators may be, it is impossible, when working alone, to perceive the full complexity of many dilemmas. In response to this, the Reading and Literacy Study Group serves as a mirror or prism ‘‘reflecting, refracting, and changing the ideas, the thinking, and the research and practice of each membery(Manke, 2002, p. 6).’’ The questioning process expands the boundaries of individual reflection, and leads to a new understanding of children’s behavior and the kinds of instruction that supports their needs. In the example below, Susan was having difficulty distancing herself from frustrations that emerged in her work with a challenging child. She could not free herself from the perspective that he was ‘‘unteachable.’’ The process of the group allowed her to examine her work with this child from multiple points of view and to refocus and reframe her perceptions. She writes about how the group conversation freed her to move from a frozen stance to an active one: As teachers, we measure our language carefully. How will we be interpreted by our students? Parents? Colleagues? How will we be translated? We put a great deal of time into perfecting our professional voices, fine-tuning the language for confidence, maturity and political correctness. And we are certainly not about to let an unprofessional outburst expose the flaws. The word ‘‘unteachable’’ popped out of my mouth one night when I was sitting with some members of the Group. There are not too many places I would allow myself to
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utter that word. It is not something we teachers want to use when talking about a student. There are many who might remind us, in no uncertain terms, that an unteachable child is the product of bad teaching. Sitting in the room that night with the women in my group, I felt secure enough to let go of my professional voice for awhile. I knew that I would not be judged.y I also knew what I wanted to hear: that I was rightythat my student was indeed ‘‘unteachable,’’ and that it was time to move on. It was a word that I knew they would all relate to. It had no doubt been silently uttered by everyone at some point. There was not one of us in the group who had not been pulled through the maddening vortex of a child’s struggle to learn. I expected the group to commiserate; to share stories from the trenches and assure me that unteachable students happen to the best of us. But that is not what I heard. ‘‘He is not unteachable,’’ said Helen, and I knew that I would be pushed to rethink my choice of words. Certainly, this child fit my own definition of unteachable. He had become so openly hostile to the idea of tutoring that I had begun to dread the sight of him. There was very little teaching going on, and even less learning. I was ready to shut the door on this unteachable child. It took a different set of eyes to refocus what I had lost sight of. People from the group did not hand me any simple answers that night, but they had plenty of questions that led me to reevaluate the way I had been looking at my student. I began to realize that time added up differently for this child. The group helped me see that I needed to adjust myself to his tempo, to reset the pace. Their guiding questions helped me to think about him in a different way. In other words, the group helped me to rearrange my ‘‘definition’’ – to reconfigure the details. Instead of hitting a dead-end with that word, I found a starting point for a new discourse. ‘‘Unteachable’’ no longer meant that my student was inaccessible and beyond repair. It meant that I had to map out new roads in order to reach him. (Written Reflection, Spring, 2004)
METHODOLOGY For many years, in many contexts, the term educational research and measurement have been seen as one and the same. In efforts to forge a stronger link between education and the social sciences, researchers have sought ‘‘objectivity.’’ According to this model, outside experts in laboratory settings, uncontaminated by the confusing complexities of real classrooms, conduct studies designed to identify the most effective instructional practices. They, then, disseminate their findings to teacher educators and professional developers who, in turn, inform teachers about what constitutes ‘‘best practice’’ (Lagemann in Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). There are some very real problems that emerge when this form of research is used as the sole basis for determining best practice. First of all, the findings
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of these studies are often represented in terms that are difficult for teachers to understand and use. Second, by eliminating the natural ‘‘contaminants’’ of each learning environment, the research belies the complexity of teaching and learning. And finally, by separating the expertise of researchers from that of practitioners, the professional role of the teacher is seriously compromised (Hiebert, Gallimore, & Stigler, 2002, p. 11). However, there is another model of educational research that also has a long and valued tradition. This dates back to the work of Dewey at the University of Chicago in the early part of the twentieth century. Here, educational studies were based on the experiences of classroom teachers in real settings, and findings were recounted in a narrative format that took into account the complexities of teaching and learning (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). It was Dewey’s work that influenced Lucy Sprague Mitchell as she developed the model of research and practice that characterized the Bureau of Educational Standards (Antler, 1987). It is this model that informs the work of the Reading and Literacy Study Group.
Self-Study as a Research Methodology As a research tool, self-study allows teachers and teacher educators to implement and extend the principles of reflective teaching – questioning one’s practice, gathering evidence related to these questions, and reflecting on the evidence in order to better understand the processes of effective teaching. Like reflective practice, self-study is driven by the questions: How can I better help my students? How can I work more effectively with their parents? How can I ‘‘work smarter’’ with administrators and other teachers? However, self-study cannot rest on itself. Loughran (2004) points out: yself-study demands that the knowledge and understanding derived be communicated (and as has become clear in the literature, this occurs in a variety of ways), so that it might be challenged, extended, transformed and translated by others. And this is due to the fact that a defining feature of self-study is that it is available forypublic critique and dissemination, rather than solely residing in the mind of the individual. (2004, p. 25)
This mandate for audience encourages those who engage in self-study to clarify the problem (s) with which they are concerned – to set the stage by articulating the who, what, and where of the experience they are studying. Awareness that the study will be shared with those who hold a range of differing perspectives encourages individuals to push beyond easy interpretations as they seek to explain ‘‘why?’’
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Narrative When teachers share their understanding of children and classrooms, their knowledge often takes the form of story. This is not surprising, for the experience of classroom life happens in narrative form (Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002). As psychologist Jerome Bruner (1986) suggests, narrative is a mode of knowing that deals most directly with the meaning of experience. It seeks explications that are not abstract truths but context sensitive and particular. Narrative inquiry describes practice in terms that make sense to the insiders whose world is being studied as well as to outsiders who seek to understand this work and its implications. Positing that the nature of classroom complexity is relevant to student outcomes, narrative inquiry acknowledges these messy, unpredictable components of classroom dynamics, freezes them for the moment, and examines them in the search for insight into teacher practice and student learning. Narrative inquiry is more, however, than just storytelling. Storytelling alone is not sufficient to document effective practice or to promote growth of teachers or students. Critical reflection is an essential component of narrative inquiry. Concerned with both problems and successes, narrative inquiry requires the investigator to interrogate the experience, to probe beneath the surface of common words and practices in order to understand the how and why of what transpires (Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002; Lyons & Freidus, 2004; Clandinin & Connelly, 1995, 2000).
Case Study Case Study methodology is one form of narrative research that is particularly valuable for understanding a decision or set of decisions that are made within a bounded context (Yin, 1984). Case study begins not with a hypothesis but with a particular subject: a teacher, a class, and a population. It provides a framework for making systematic connections between observable aspects of a situation and the beliefs and understandings that underlie them. It allows a situation to be examined from diverse perspectives and ultimately be informed by both process and perspective. In the past decade, there has been an additional call for the use of case studies in teacher education because they ‘‘provide a medium for thinking about teachers’ work using a language and system for understanding that teachers defined’’ (Richert in Lieberman & Miller, 1991, p. 115). Case study in the form of narrative has proven to be the format of choice for the
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Reading and Literacy Study Group. It provides a tool for documenting and sharing the work members do with their students and a means for documenting and sharing the work they do together as a group. Using narrative case studies enables the group – singly and collectively – to explore professional and personal experience as a text for learning. Members present their work with students using both formal documentation and informal anecdotal case study formats. This creates an opportunity to share the nuances of professional contexts, goals, and ways of working with our colleagues. In their presentations, group members describe the worlds in which they work – who they teach, how their students make sense of the world, how the children interact with texts, and how they interact with their teachers. They talk about the contexts of schools, colleagues in these schools, parents, and of course, the children. The goal is to make sense of the whole. What is working for the children; what is working for the teachers; what is not working. Group members describe what they do, what they think, and what they feel as well as what their students do. Sometimes the cases focus on the whole picture – descriptions of children’s performance, evaluation of strengths and needs, formal and informal test data, descriptions of instructional strategies, and materials that have been used. On other occasions, presentations focus on the aspect of the case in which the presenting group member feels particularly challenged – working with an anxious parent or a conflict with a colleague. In each situation, they try to capture the complexity of the situation. The cases provide fodder for standing back and analyzing the needs of the child, as well as the presenter’s professional growth. The following description tells what the group does and offers some perspectives on how and why their process has become so powerful as a form of professional development for its members.
How the Group Began When the group began, those who attended the first meeting were recent graduates of the Bank Street Reading and Literacy Program. Many, however, knew each other only in passing, if at all. Each was experiencing a sense of anxiety as she left the safety of the graduate school environment and assumed the title of ‘‘Literacy Specialist,’’ not quite certain that she had the expertise and knowledge that went with the title. Each was also feeling a sense of isolation. The community of the teacher education program had
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been very supportive. There was always someone to say, ‘‘You can do it.’’ Now, the whispers of self-doubt were growing louder and louder. In the following description, as the academic year 2004 begins, Susan thinks back to the origins of the group 2 years earlier: We are putting together our schedule of meetings for the upcoming year. It will take some adjusting and fine tuning to fit it all in. There is childcare to arrange, household and work obligations, and the myriad other responsibilities that fill up daily life. And yet, those dates are written down in pen on my calendar. Barring blizzards, illness, and other exigencies, I plan to be there. What is it about this group that has led us all into our third year, still intact, with the same people that we started out with? What is it that binds us, pulling us towards that table in Room 623 once a month from 7–9, when it often seems so much easier to spend the evening at home? When Marilyn told me, two years ago, that she was putting together a Reading and Literacy Study Group, I was dubious. As a reading specialist in private practice, I missed the camaraderie I’d enjoyed with other graduate students, but earlier attempts to form some kind of support system had never materialized. Good intentions petered out after the first or second meeting. Our excuses sounded legitimate: too many obligations; not enough time.y Meetings were convivial, but we were never sure, exactly, why we were there to begin with. And there was no sense of place. There was always that last minute scramble to scout out a new location: library one month, someone’s living room the next. Graduation from Bank Street had left me feeling slightly adrift, and I missed the Bank Street model of conference group. I was used to collaboration, discussion, and teamwork with students as well as faculty members. I agreed to give Marilyn’s idea a try, even while I was formulating my exit plan. E-mails began circulating quickly, as plans were set into motion. Even though I didn’t know some of the other people who had been invited to join, I knew that Bank Street, and our private practices would be the common ground. But I had been down this road often enough to know by now that ‘‘common ground’’ wasn’t enough. I was sure we’d never move past the planning piece as we offered up conflicting times and dates of availability. In one of her first e-mails, Marilyn had asked us to start thinking about our goals and objectives for the group. Certainly, with past groups, we’d never gotten as far as a plan. Showing up on time had seemed like a worthy enough goal. Marilyn, on the other hand, wanted to coordinate some pre-meeting ideas, and she’d asked us to set a purpose for ourselves before we’d even met. There was an energy in those back and forth e-mails, a sense of definition and structure that I hadn’t found in other groups. Re: goals and objectives, I had e-mailed back to Marilyn, ‘‘I’d like to talk about where I’m stumped with some of the children I am working with.’’ Before the meeting, I’d already begun to think of some of the issues that had sprung up in my working life, jotting down thoughts and ideas so that I’d have something concrete to bring to the table. Our first meeting was at the University of Pennsylvania Club, in midtown Manhattan. I was already resistant: too far from home. I was sure that a few people would not even show up. And yet, as I look back, what I remember most was the air of professionalism that each one of us brought into the room that night, along with a sense of expectation.
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There was nothing vague, or undefined about us as we took our places around the table. If we were apprehensive, it did not show. We were crisp, efficient, ready to get down to work. We all looked prepared. Helen’s presence, of course, was another powerful draw, and she seemed to further validate the group. She had guided many of us through our fieldwork (student teaching), and some of us had come to depend on her for insight and clarification over the years. But it was clear from the first meeting that Helen was here to learn along with the rest of us. We were building this model together, and her voice was one of nine as we decided upon a facilitator for each meeting – someone to keep discussion on track so that we could stick to an agenda. Each month, a new facilitator would take over. The framework seemed to take shape around our questions. From the onset, we all wanted to know how each person had gone about enlarging her practice. How did we handle assessment? Were we equipped to do formal evaluations? Why didn’t we feel like reading specialists, and when would our ‘‘professional identity’’ finally kick in? Brianna had some concerns about dealing with parents; Carole wanted to explore resources and materials. Most important, we were all looking for ways to improve our professional voices; define our professional roles. I left the meeting that night feeling the familiar mix of anxiety and excitement that often came out of conference group; we hadn’t really arrived at any answers, and I had a seemingly endless list of questions in my notebook. My mind had been set into a gallop, and I felt a tremendous sense of responsibility. In order for a group to work, expectations have to be established early on, and each one of us needs to recognize that individual accountability is part of the template. We were expected to arrive on time; to be prepared, and to stick to the agenda. I knew that, in the next month, I would need to collect samples of my child’s work so that I could present some kind of case study. Two days after the first meeting, Marilyn sent us our set of agenda notes. Time, place, and dates were set along with long-term planning and organization: We wanted to explore several literacy programs including the Great Leaps Program; have a look at the video of ‘‘Strategies that Work;’’ invite guest speakers. ‘‘Do you think the group would want to have the Lindamood-Bell people come up to Bank Street to talk to us?’’ I wondered. I immediately e-mailed Marilyn. ‘‘I suppose we could decide that at our next meeting, and I could call.’’ My exit strategy was no longer a possibility. I was part of a bigger plan. (Written Reflection, Fall, 2004)
Marilyn provided the initial leadership of the group. It was she who organized the group, finding interested people to join together, setting time and place, sending e-mails that reminded participants not only of their commitment but of the community, which accompanied this commitment. Marilyn recalls the motivation she had for bringing the group together, and describes some of the ways in which she sees the group functioning. Choosing to work as a private practitioner is like pioneering in a wilderness. Moving through the spaces in between the politics of education and culture is a constant exercise in exploring the unknown.y As a private practitioner it is important for me to be with other teaching professionals who understand my work and value my knowledge, efforts,
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and commitment. Having a group of respected colleagues and a forum in which to discuss and evaluate a wide range of ideas and approaches became a critical necessity for me. The Reading and Literacy Study Group provides me with support not only for my growth as a teaching professional but also as a person who needs to be respected and valued. I see our group as engaged in an ongoing conversation that explores our individual experiences in our teaching practices and engages our group in a collective investigation of educational theory and practice. I view some of the defining characteristics of our group as intense curiosity, genuine openness, and generous flexibility. Initially our group was very structured; we had to start somewhere, so we began by building an agenda. (Written Reflection, October, 2004)
The importance that both Susan and Marilyn placed on the initial structures is echoed in the descriptions of other participants. Claudette writes: Structure was really important. There was a clear leader who inspired me, and I didn’t want to disappoint her. Although she would never presume to be the leader, the professional, diplomatic, and analytical way that she carried herself made others feel that important things would happen. This created a positive form of peer pressure. (October, 2004)
And Charissa writes: The early success of our group can probably be traced back to its initial structure – the composition, the academic, and the organizational. Compositionally, the group is made up of people who have a desire to share thoughts, to continue learning in their field, and to stretch themselves professionally. That is the basis for a commitment. Also, the group – even at its largest – is still intimate enough so no one gets lost in the conversations. We are diverse in background, experience, and current jobs. This gives our discussions many differing and sometimes unexpected perspectives. Academically, we are unified through our time at Bank Street and our belief in a balanced, child-centered approach toward literacy and learning – or, at the very least, we share an understanding of that approach that gives us a common language. Organizationally, the group began with a seriousness of mission, employing a monthly agenda, and a rotating facilitator. The agenda was typed and handed around at the meeting, or mutually agreed upon in advance. Using an agenda made our time together more real. This was work that would require a commitment. Though this structure was hardly rigid, as we could diverge from the proposed topic at will, the presence of an agenda did provide a seriousness to the proceedings that embodied an atmosphere more like a graduate forum rather than a coffee klatch. The rotation of the leader forced us, as participants, to stay on task, so we could assume the responsibility of the facilitator when our time came around. In time, as the group coalesced, the agenda slipped away, and, though we lost that initial organizational piece, it was replaced by the discussions of concerns that we had in common but that played out differently in each of our separate workplaces. (Written Reflection, October, 2004)
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Each of these comments points out important components of community formation that coincide with those described by Grossman, Wineburg, and Woolworth. These include: development of a group identity, norms for interaction, formulation of a sense of communal responsibility for the regulation of norms and behavior, and willingness to assume responsibility for colleagues’ growth and development as well as their own (Grossman, Wineburg, & Woolworth, 2001, cited in Borko, 2004, p. 6). From the start, the group served as a collaborative community through which professional identity could be validated and the knowledge and skills supporting this identity could develop. The initial meeting was held at the University of Pennsylvania Club, a site physically and psychologically outside both the working contexts of the individual members and the common context of Bank Street where they had been students. The setting gave the message that participants had a place in the prestigious Ivy League context. Tote bags stuffed with books, lesson plans, and writing implements stood their own alongside mid-Manhattan briefcases designed for those on the fast track. This message was symbolically important. Despite the changes in career expectations that have developed over the past three decades, teaching is still seen by many as ‘‘women’s work.’’ Little valued and poorly paid in this society, it is not always viewed as a ‘‘professional’’ career (Apple, 1986; Tyack & Hansot, 1982). Our first meeting challenged this perspective. Agendas, shared leadership, accountability, articulated goals, and objectives became part of the discourse from day one. Putnam and Borko point out: ‘‘If the goal is to help teachers think in new ways, for example, it may be important to have them experience learning in different settings (2000, p. 6).’’ Consciously or unconsciously chosen for this reason, the site of the first meeting provided a context that connected to a greater academic and professional community. The members of the group came together as professionals whose work was serious and important.
The Development of Trust The trust-building process is often overlooked in the literature of professional development. Research clearly documents that trust is essential for the open communication, candid analysis, and forms of self-reflection that make change and concomitant professional development possible (see Freidus in Nager & Shapiro, 2000; Rust & Freidus, 2001; Clandinin & Connelly, 1995; Loughran, Hamilton, LaBoskey, & Russell, 2004). However, little is said about the complexity of this process. Trust does not just happen; it takes time and work.
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The growth of trust among members of the Reading and Literacy Study Group emerged over time. In the beginning, trust was granted but cautiously so. Analysis of meeting notes and transcripts reveal that early discussions focused on such neutral concerns as how to implement instructional programs and how to write case studies; the topics were professional but generic. Only the surface aspects of individual practices were discussed. At this point, the dialogue was sustained primarily by a few members. Transcript analyses enumerating the number of times that each participant spoke in early meeting and the length of each contribution indicate that some voices were missing or rarely heard. To some extent, this can be explained as a matter of individual styles, but some group members now acknowledge that it was difficult for them to find a way to voice their interests, to speak when they disagreed, or simply to find room to tell the stories of their personal concerns. These members have described how, on one hand, they left the meetings frustrated with ‘‘professional’’ discussions that did not quite address their personal needs; on the other hand, they felt that they were learning and sharing professional camaraderie (Personal Conversations and Meeting Notes, January, 2005). As meetings continued, it became clear that each participant’s words were listened to carefully, respectfully, and caringly. Slowly, the number of voices grew. The group became more willing to discuss what was not working as well as what was. Gradually, after several months, somewhat more personal concerns were put on the table – how to work with a resistant child or how to build credibility with parents. Still, the number of times participants voiced dissenting opinions were few. The discourse of the group was supportive; the information that was shared was highly professional; yet, hard questions were rarely voiced. Then, when the group had been together for close to a year, Susan asked for help with her ‘‘unteachable’’ child. Her willingness to put forth her dilemma with such candor gave testimony to her trust in the group. Susan felt certain that each person sitting around the table at some point had a similar experience and a similar set of feelings. And, her trust was justified. The group’s responses evidenced care for both Susan and her student. As Susan had anticipated, they fully empathized with her. However, from their outsiders’ perspectives, they disagreed with her ‘‘diagnosis.’’ They were respectful but firm. The situation needed to be reframed. And together, they worked on helping Susan to find a way out of her quagmire. This proved to be a turning point for the kind of discussions that took place in the group.
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Slowly but steadily, other members of the group confronted feelings of personal and professional vulnerability and brought hard situations to the group. Claudette soon spoke up describing an upsetting interaction she recently had. In the following passage, she reflects back upon the process of bringing the situation to the group: My supervisor blamed and berated me when the parent of a child with whom I had been working became upset about her child’s learning issues. The parent misinterpreted information I had given her and shared it with my supervisor. My supervisor never gave me a chance to explain myself. This event dramatically altered my relationship with someone whom I had considered a mentor. I was glad the group meeting was approaching so I could vent my frustration. I was so confused. How had things gone wrong? I thought that I was doing the right thing, yet now I felt like my career was in turmoil. It was difficult for me to share this experience for two reasons. First, it felt personally injurious. I was worried about exposing my inadequacies; I now doubted my professionalism. Second, I was concerned about confidentiality. I trusted the group members, but what if information were to leak? Although it was not easy revealing this uncomfortable experience to the group, it was worthwhile. I was relieved when many in the group shared my responses to my supervisor’s behavior. I began to feel more reassured about the decisions I had made. The group also validated my professional opinion regarding the student. This enabled me to push my self-doubt aside and move on emotionally as well as professionally. (Written Reflection, Spring, 2004)
What made it possible for Susan, Claudette, and other members of the group to refrain from editing their cases and share their practice, warts and all? Charissa explains this phenomenon in the following way: From the original structures we developed a method of sharing and opening up that continues and grows.y We began as a gathering of individuals who had a healthy respect for each other as learners and practitioners. This has evolved into downright friendship. Our monthly conversations are rich and specific. Having started on common ground, we have grown to know each other on a deeper level. This has allowed us to ‘‘let our guard down’’ around issues of our practices. As individual practitioners (tutor, consultant) and/or leaders within an institution (teachers, coaches, specialists), it is often difficult to discuss with others what you do not know. We are supposed to know. In our group, we don’t have to know, and there is a great relief. Instead, we can draw on others’ more objective ideas/experiences to inform us. (Written Reflection, Fall, 2004)
The common ground that Charissa refers to is the teacher education program at Bank Street and the process of the conference group. It is likely
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that this prior experience made it easier for the group to forge a new community of trust. While educational literature points out that the culture of many educational institutions discourages the process of questioning (Putnam & Borko, 2000; Clandinin & Connelly, 1995), the graduate programs at Bank Street view inquiry as central to the learning of both adults and children. ‘‘Professional’’ means knowing what one does not know; questioning is seen as an indicator of professional growth rather than a sign of weakness. This is exemplified in Brianna’s story. It was the questioning of her own practice and the desire for insight from colleagues that brought her to the group. Brianna had ‘‘a million questions’’ from the very beginning. The group functioned as a set of critical friends. They acknowledged the realities of the challenges she was facing and supported her desire to figure things out. Neither censuring nor telling her what she needed to do, they helped her to find her way through the maze of challenges she was facing. The thoughtful and respectful responses of participants elicited a growing sense of trust and, concomitantly, an increasing willingness to open her practice to the scrutiny of others. Brianna writes: My peers recognized things in me that I did not see in myself. I started to see that I brought many strengths to the table. Most of all, though, the group helped me to appreciate that all the questions I was asking did not mean that I was a bad reading specialist. Quite the opposite. Our group honored questions with respect. They convinced me that asking questions is the only way to be the reading specialist we all strive to be (Written Reflection, Spring, 2004).
In addition to the above, there was a further factor that appears to have contributed significantly to the development of trust. This was the professional persona of the participants, individually, and collectively. Each participant saw her own feelings of professional commitment mirrored in the goals and practices of the others. And, together, the collective commitment supported an increasing sense of professional awareness and professional identity. Marilyn raises this point in her reflection on the evolution of the group. She writes: What was it about the composition of this group that created such an immediate bond and spawned such amazing growth? I believe that it is the result of a fundamental ethos of compassion and cooperation that that each member of the group embodies. The personalities of each group member vary widely. The spectrum extends from assertive risk takers who enjoy challenging assumptions to those who quietly question. The atmosphere was initially formal and respectful until a few brave souls emerged to energize the direction of the group. Then, over time, the tone shifted to enthusiastic commotion and passionate expression of ideas and feelings. A photograph of our meetings with people gathered around a table spread with cheeses and cookies might suggest a food
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fest, but to me this is the symbol of the amazing intellectual nurturance that is ongoing. (Written Reflection, Fall, 2004)
Charissa (10/04) adds: ‘‘It was understood from the start that we would be expanding on what we already know, using our varied experiences, and sharing things that worked.’’ In retrospect, it seems as if the extended period of professional exploration, the early discussions and somewhat decontextualized sharing of instructional strategies, methodologies, and research were essential. The expectations that group focus would be on ‘‘what worked’’ were honored. The facilitator of the evening moved systematically through the agenda the group had set. The meeting topics were diverse. As a result, each participant had an opportunity to pull upon her own area of expertise, to make a presentation about a strategy that she found effective, to discuss or learn about issues related to her own work. Less vocal participants began to realize that they had information, perspectives, and/or questions that could be useful to their colleagues, and so they began to join in the discussions. Over time, it became evident that everyone in the group had something to offer. As feelings of community developed, members became even more certain that the group was indeed a professional forum; they turned more confidently to each other as sources of expertise. Feeling comfortable with each other’s goals and educational vision, members gave greater credence to the ideas and information that their colleagues offered. Consistent with the notion of distributed cognition (Borko, 2004; Putnam & Borko, 2000), they began to recognize that the knowledge and experience of other group members could enhance their own understanding. The outcome was rich conversation that led to new insights. Recognizing how the group discussions and the sharing of cases provided a form of intellectual stimulation or, as Marilyn says, ‘‘nurturance,’’ commitment to the group process deepened. These conversations, in turn, provided a form of professional development that supported members as they examined their beliefs and practices. Informed by new perspectives, they began to view issues and situations in more complex ways. The following reflection in which Lizette describes the evolution of her work with a parent illustrates this: Once again, the phone rang in my classroom and I dreaded picking it up. I knew who it would bey‘‘that mother again’’.y Here I was fuming about having to repeat myself for the third time this month about what she could do to help her daughter when reading at home. Yet, I was concerned. Questions kept nagging at me: What had I done wrong? Why couldn’t she understand what I was saying to her? Did I know what I was talking about? Her daughter, Marisa, had difficulty reading with expression and understanding text.
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Her mother clearly wanted to help but didn’t seem to be able to follow through on the plans we had made. She kept calling me back and saying, ‘‘I don’t understand.’’ After many frustrating phone calls, I finally brought this situation to the group. They helped me see that I couldn’t just tell Marisa’s mother what to do; I had to teach her. I needed to give her concrete examples of what she needed to do to help her daughter. I went back to the tasks I had suggested to help develop Marisa’s comprehension. I broke them down, and worked with the mother to help her to understand each part. The outcome was positive. The group helped me to question and ‘‘re-see’’ the situation, excavating the many levels of complexity I needed to work through if I was to be successful with mother and daughter. (Written Reflection, Spring, 2004)
And, Charissa recounts how the group conversation helped her to reframe her understanding of what it means to be an effective tutor: As I sit and watch Daniel speed through The Illiad, mispronouncing enough words to know he cannot possibly comprehend the story, I am conflicted. As his reading tutor, am I to work on exercises that will help him become a better reader? Or do I help him with his need to complete the homework that is his greatest concern and is due tomorrow? This internal conflict is the issue I bring to the group. In the ensuing discussion, two questions emerge. One is, how do I perceive my role as a tutor; the second, what function am I fulfilling for the tutee by helping with the homework? I had felt that I was being disingenuous as a reading tutor by retelling The Illiad in words Daniel could better understand rather than helping him to tease out the meaning by himself. The group asked me to consider how I was otherwise helping Daniel. I began to see that by my making the story accessible to him, he has been able to come up with relevant questions for his teacher and peers. He has also been more independent in his writing – expressing his ideas in more depth than before. The group has also made me re-define what it means to be a tutor. My idea of creating an independent learner was in conflict with what I felt I was doing in helping solely with the homework. I was afraid that by ‘‘translating’’ the story for Daniel, he would become too dependent on someone else for his reading comprehension. However, reflecting on the group members’ responses, I am beginning to see that in aiding Daniel by translating the text, I am enabling him to understand the issues on a deeper level, and making it possible for him to develop his own critical independent thinking in the future – both near and far. I grapple with the possibility that I have simply reframed the issue in order to rationalize for my own sake. However, I believe the reframing of this situation makes more sense to me, allowing me to build on what I now realize Daniel is getting from our work together. I no longer feel quite so defeated at the end of our sessions but, instead, see where we can go. (Written Reflection, Spring, 2004)
In each of these narratives, the person presenting the case was willing to look at her own practice, take a risk, articulate the fear that she was not the kind of professional she hoped to be, and discuss with the group both
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the child’s need and the adult’s practice. Each case that was presented described a richly contextual situation and, as a result, elicited more probing questions and nuanced responses from group members. These responses helped the presenter to continue to deepen her analysis of her own work, to reframe her practice, and to emerge with a growing sense of self as professional.
The Impact of Narrative In a prior study, Freidus (2002) found ongoing discussion groups that focused on issues of real concern to participating teachers functioned as both a research methodology and a professional development tool. Conversations recorded over time provided a database that documented growing insight into one’s own practice and a growing understanding of and collaboration with others. Three themes of particular significance emerged from the data. These were: Validation – the recognition by participants that they did have funds of knowledge that supported the instructional practices they were implementing. Community – a feeling of group identity that confirmed each individual’s professionalism and minimized feelings of isolation. Professional growth – the awareness that through a process of ongoing exchange of perspectives, each participant was learning to engage in more sophisticated practice. Loughran in Loughran et al. (2004) points out that the value of collaboration is well documented in the literature of self-study. He describes, for example, that in the studies of the Alaska Teacher Research Network, Bass, Anderson-Patton, and Allender, and Osler & Flack, the following findings emerge: Collaborative discussions with critical friends lead to reframing of professional vision. Collaborative discussions provide opportunities to access alternative perspectives on situations. Problems in practice can lead to learning when shared and examined rather than being perceived as end points. Sharing case studies helps to make tacit understanding explicit, to put beliefs and practices out for others to see, examine, questions, utilize,
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and reflect on practice (see also Mitchell in Mitchell & Weber, 1999; Hatch, 2001). These same themes emerge from the data sources documenting the Reading and Literacy Study Group. When Lizette first brought the case of the persistent parent to the group, she saw this parent as an obstacle. When Charissa described her need to prepare the child she was working with for the next day’s classroom discussion rather than helping him to develop fluency, she was seeing her charge as an impediment to professional conduct. When Susan described her child, she saw him as ‘‘unteachable.’’ In these cases, and in many more, participants have learned to identify their own strengths and the strengths of those with whom they work, refocus their goals, and reframe their practice through a collaborative process of narrative presentation, collective critical discussion, and self-study. And, in each case, the process has led to a new sense of possibility. Loughran (2004, p. 157) articulates the importance of the contributions of the self-study process to professional growth of the individuals conducting a study. He, then, goes on to say that ‘‘responding to pedagogical needs and confronting one’s own practices’’ is only the starting point of self-study. Embedded in the self-study process is the expectation that this research will make a difference to others in the field. The Reading and Literacy Study Group has followed this course, wending a recursive path moving from self-study, to reporting out, to the reframing and reexamining of individual and group practices informed by the experiences of each stage of their work. In the beginning, the group’s primary goal was to document their meetings in order that each participant might gain insight into her own practice. However, as the group came to see that their conversations and presentations were a powerful means of professional development, they began to talk about sharing their model with others in the field. And, as they endeavored to do this, they found that the work involved in representing their group process led to: (1) an even deeper understanding of both individual beliefs and practices and (2) a new awareness of the ways in which the collaborative process contributed to a more complex understandings of teaching and learning. New images of self as professional, new understandings about the role of professional community, and new insight into the roles and responsibilities of individual practitioners have emerged as the group engaged in a self-study of themselves as practitioners nested within a group. With this, came a desire to let others know about their experience. It is this process of reporting out that will now be discussed.
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REPRESENTATION BEYOND THE GROUP Give a presentation at a conference in England? Of course. Without a doubtyabout what?’’ I replied, as so many more thoughts raced through my mind. ‘‘About our group? What should we say? It’s a great group and works really well. Everyone should have one. So how do we tell everyone?’’ And that’s where the thoughts stopped. How do we explain how our group works and why it works and how can another work similarly? A challenge was set before us. (Charissa, Written Reflection, Fall, 2004)
As described above, during the academic years 2002–2004 the Reading and Literacy Study Group used case studies to document and analyze what they were seeing in their own practices. Their purpose was to find new ways of approaching professional challenges in order to become more skilled professionals. In time, they came to see the power of sharing their case studies and the collaborative work they engaged in around these studies. As a result of what they perceived to be their clearly documented professional growth, the group decided to take their story to an outside audience, to share their experience as a successful model of professional development. In Summer 2004, the opportunity arose to write a paper and make a presentation to an audience of teachers and teacher educators at the S-STEP Conference at Herstmonceux, England. The group decided to represent their collective self-study using case-study format. The decision to do this posed a series of daunting but worthy challenges. Here, Susan’s feelings about the process reflect the tensions that concerned each of the collaborators: My own experience with young writers was something I kept coming back to as I worked on the Herstmonceaux Paper. The group had worked together for a year by the time we undertook this collaborative writing project. We all agreed that our work together was meaningful and exciting. It was something we felt passionate about. It was a story that should be told. We wanted to share it with a wider audience. It can be daunting, however, writing for other professionals. How would we be judged? Would our language work; our writing styles mesh? How academic were we supposed to sound? And would the story itself translate into something meaningful to the people who knew nothing about us? It occurred to me that the safety and security we had felt in this self-contained environment might somehow be threatened as we moved into a public arena. It had taken time to build up our trust in each other, and give ourselves over to the process of mutual learning. Would that trust be violated as our stories became public? The questions that drive us can, at the same time, overwhelm us and lead to doubts – especially when we know that we are going to be read by a larger audience. While our meetings had always been a positive experience, they had also contributed to our collective sense of disequilibrium. It was the ongoing questions underlying the
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disequilibrium that drove us to learn more about ourselves individually, and as a group. But we didn’t necessarily have all the answers. So what was it, exactly, that we were going to share? The back and forth of ideas was indeed overwhelming as we struggled to make sense of an experience that seemed to be growing more unwieldy with every writers’ meeting. There were so many perspectives, and so many detours. And we kept generating more questions that sent us all home to rethink our hypotheses. Always, in the back of our minds, was the image of that ‘‘professional audience.’’ (Written Reflection, September, 2004)
The Dilemmas Inherent in Susan’s reflection are several dilemmas that challenged the group as they sought to shape a case study, which would speak to a wider audience. These included the following: Code–Switching Once the decision was made to move beyond the group, members realized that they needed to develop the ability to explain their process with a transparency that had not previously been necessary. Within the group there was a shared discourse; members easily negotiated each other’s language and allusions. Moving beyond the Bank Street community, they could not assume their references would be as fully understood. Members would need to communicate beliefs and practices in a language that could be understood across educational belief systems. Structure How would the paper and the presentation – both the products and the process of collaboratively writing and shaping ideas take form? Here, the model of conference group offered no solutions; collaborative writing and presentation was not a part of this process. Group members brought a wealth of expertise, ranging from the faculty member’s previous participation in a range of academic venues to teachers’ experience in teaching writing, writing for publication, and serving in editorial capacities. However, none had had extensive experience in collaboratively representing shared professional experiences. A great deal was known about how to ‘‘write about’’ self and other; far less was known about ‘‘writing with.’’ Individual processes, focuses, and styles of representation came to the fore, as they had not previously when individuals were preparing their own case studies to present in the group.
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Leadership Just as leadership was an important issue in the early days of group formation, so it appeared to be in the early days of writing and presentation. The purpose of writing and presenting was not just to show what had happened and to explore why it had worked, but also to encourage participants once again to push at the boundaries of their professional competency. Susan’s concerns about violation of the carefully built web of safety, security, and mutual respect were valid. When members first began to edit each other’s words, misunderstandings and feelings of vulnerability surfaced. Over time it proved possible to create a ‘‘co-construction’’ that drew, in varying degrees, upon the perceptions and perspectives, knowledge and skills of group members, but this process took time, effort, and care.
METHODOLOGY OF THE COLLECTIVE CASE STUDY How did this co-construction come to be? The initial leadership came from Helen, the teacher educator. When initial enthusiasm for the writing project was soon followed by the anxiety of where to begin, she asked each member to create a web (a graphic organizer). In the middle, participants put the ‘‘The Group’’ or ‘‘What the Group Means to Me.’’ Stretching out from this were various associations. Some chose to do this in a thematic fashion, e.g. categories headed by such terms as ‘‘nurturance,’’ ‘‘commitment to teaching,’’ ‘‘life-long learners;’’ others chose to highlight the interactive process emphasizing such categories as ‘‘supporting,’’ ‘‘sharing.’’ Still others chose to frame the experience with terms like: ‘‘arena for self-study,’’ ‘‘examination of best practice.’’ Webs were then shared and discussed. Out of this discussion a set of themes emerged. These included: Acknowledging our vulnerability and giving language to our feelings Increasing our sense of possibility: seeing strengths in ourselves and our students Moving toward complexity and nuance – away from success and failure Letting go of ‘‘having to know’’ in order to question our practice Beginning to explore the complexity of the education eco-system Rethinking what constitutes professional development. At this point, referring back to the documentation of the past meetings, members began to reflect upon the different cases that had been presented.
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They thought about how those cases might be used to illustrate different themes. It was decided that each case would be used to highlight one aspect of the group dynamic. Cases would be framed by references to writings in the field and triangulated by references to transcripts of past meetings, interviews that Helen had conducted when the group first began to meet, and reflective statements that participants had written at the end of the first year. Recognizing the complexity of daily life, the group then broke up into teams of three to write their chosen segments; the triad would be each other’s editors, coaches, and cheerleaders. Finally, a team of volunteers worked to weave the many parts of the paper into a cohesive whole. This, in turn, was submitted to each member of the group to read for conceptual integrity and accuracy.
PRESENTATION AS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Moving back and forth between individual self-study and group self-study, and preparing to share their findings with wider audiences, has encouraged participants to break with ‘‘the crust of conventionalized and routine consciousness’’ (Greene, 1988) and attain a new level of professional awareness. In the passage below, Susan discusses the ways in which preparing a paper for publication enabled her to look at her work in a larger context. Things began to fall into place once we decided to write about our individual case studies. I had presented my problem of the ‘‘unteachable’’ child to the group, and we had spent a good deal of time analyzing the situation. We had looked at it critically, and talked about ways to resolve it. Ideas, as usual, went swirling. As I worked through my ‘‘unteachable child’’ problem, an even larger story seemed to be writing itself: the dynamic of the group as it guided me towards a resolution. This was the story we decided to tell, and this decision allowed me to reenter the experience and rebuild it. Working on the Castle project reminded me of the exigencies of the writer’s journey and the detours that we take. It reminded me that we must ask ourselves the same questions we ask our students: Where are we going? How did we get where we are? Will we ever find our way out of this mess? The writing process is often a story of struggle, and it is important that we share our own stories from the trenches with our students. (Written Reflection, Fall, 2004).
And, in the following reflection, Marilyn describes the ways in which her participation in the Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Conference has helped her to reconceptualize her professional identity: The idea that academics should in fact consider the methodology of their teaching practice came to me as a surprise. Apart from being masters of their field, I had not
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stopped to consider how professors came to know how to teach. For most of my life, the experience of academia was based upon receiving information, generally in the form of a lecture, and then being tested.y It was my experience as a graduate student at Bank Street that gradually allowed me to recognize that teaching was as much about the creation of a community of learners as it was about the transmission of information and assessment. I want to be an excellent teacher. Having chosen to spend much of my own life as a student, I am very aware that teachers have the power to influence the their students’ sense of self.y So, how does one become a great teacher? How does studying oneself lead to growth and not some sort of narcissistic preoccupation? It was at Herstmonceux, as I listened to the presentation of professionals engaged in their own efforts to examine their teaching, that I first began to understand some of the questions to ask.y How do we redesign ourselves and our practice to authentically achieve the goals and objectives we set for our students? Looking into my own past as a teacher seemed like a great place to start. My earliest memories of teaching are among my favorite. I remember feeling elated when, as a fifthgrade student, I was asked to go to the first-grade classroom and work with the children for awhile. I was probably a decent teacher then. However, it is quite another story when I look back on my first efforts as a teacher of undergraduate students. I was fastidious about the content of the courses and worked diligently to provide my students with the most current articles and texts. I was current, systematic, and thorough. I used pre-test and post-test designs to assess my course and great statistics to curve my students test results. I worked very hard, and I bet I was just terrible. I modeled my behavior and my course on what I had experienced even though I had been miserable as a student in the same circumstances. I just assumed that it had to be this way. Without knowing it myself at that time, I had integrated the dominator mode of teaching into my own teaching behavior. I felt no responsibility for creating a community; I was there to transmit information. Later forays into teaching were a bit better. I learned to create experiential activities and ask guiding questions of the students to move them toward the areas of investigation and integrate their experiences into the educational context. yHaving the opportunity [in Herstmonceux] to listen to colleagues examine their beliefs, values, and teaching practices has helped me to clarify my own goals for myself as a teacher and risk sharing my own questions, quandaries, and vulnerabilities in order to learn what I need to know to nurture my students along their journey of discovery. (Written Reflection, Fall, 2004)
Finally, Charissa, writes about the ways in which the conference preparation and presentation has broadened her perspectives. Presenting our findings at this conference turned out to be a unique experience in itself. The immediacy of feedback during the presentation enabled us to use the audience’s reflections symbiotically – to rethink, respond, and re-clarify as we continued with our presentation. We were not able in the time allotted to analyze or present everything we
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thought relevant. However, the discussions following the presentation may have revealed more than we could have envisioned or articulated. (Written Reflection, Fall, 2004)
For each of these teachers, self-study and the act of sharing one’s findings with a broader professional community has led to reexamination and reframing of beliefs, practices, and assumptions. Their experiences suggest that when individuals share self-study with a broader audience, those who do the self-study and those who listen to it become a new community of learners. In the best of circumstances, this leads to deeper understanding of self and profession.
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FIELD Case Studies in a Collaborative Process The use of case studies and the collaborative work around them have been powerful professional tools for the Reading and Literacy Study Group. The case studies discussed in this study emerged from the participant’s own work; both preparation and sharing of the studies provided important learning experiences. It is important to note that the process of this group built on prior knowledge and experience. Consequently, the findings of this study cannot be generalized. However, the success of this group suggests that the use of case studies as a professional tool should be explored across contexts.
Professional Development as a Response to Articulated Needs This study supports earlier findings that when professional development emerges directly from the articulated needs and interests of teachers, it is more likely to be effective. Within the Reading and Literacy Study Group, calls for outside expertise emerged as a response to genuine needs. The information was sought out, carefully listened to, and referred to in subsequent discussions. While we do not have the data to document the accuracy with which new curriculum methodologies and resources were implemented, we do know that they became part of the ongoing discourse. When one considers the work of the Reading and Literacy Study Group in conjunction with prior research (Darling-Hammond, 1998; Rust & Freidus, 2001; Lieberman & Miller, 1991; Loughran, 2004), it is clear that teachers’
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voices need to be heard and respected if authentic professional development is to occur.
Developing Self-Study Groups for Professional Development God is in the Details.Mies Van der Rohe (http://www.archpedia.com/Architects/Miesvan-der-Rohe.html).
Organization One cannot underestimate how close a relationship there is between attention to details and the success of self-study groups as a form of professional development. When asked to respond to the question, ‘‘What has made our group successful?’’ Each and every participant agreed: structure, a mutually determined calendar with consistent meeting times, beginning and ending in a timely way, a printed agenda and minutes that facilitate clarity around expectations and procedures, the creation of a comfortable environment including a round table, soft chairs, and food. A carefully constructed environment allows members to focus more fully on important concerns. Shared Leadership If the group is to be collaborative, it seems important that all members assume responsibility for its ongoing conduct. In the Reading and Literacy Study Group, members worked together to set a schedule for meetings. Then, one member assumed responsibility for sending e-mails that reminded participants of this schedule; another made room reservations; still others invited outsiders with specific fields of expertise members to present to the group. A schedule for facilitating monthly meetings ensured that this responsibility was rotated. The conduct of the group was everyone’s responsibility. Time for Trust Building The experience of the Reading and Literacy Study Group demonstrates that it takes time for people to build trust in one another. Beginning by eliciting the pressing concerns of individuals and developing agendas that honor these concerns gave the message that each person’s concern was valued by others. An initial focus that encouraged participants to talk about what they could do appears to have been an important part of the group’s success. Once members believed that others respected who they
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were as professionals, they were more likely to reveal and confront issues about which they felt vulnerable. Building a Research Component into the Process The Reading and Literacy Study Group documented their work on an ongoing basis. Participants agreed from the beginning that meetings would be audio-taped. Sections were transcribed and distributed as part of the monthly minutes. It appears that this documentation reinforced participants’ sense of professionalism. It enabled them to revisit, reconsider, and reframe their understandings and perspectives both in the minute and later as they prepared to share their experiences with a larger audience. The documentation gives evidence that the use of case study and of self-study served as a deeply contexted and deeply meaningful form of professional development. Findings further suggest that the effectiveness of teacher education programs cannot be measured solely by the competencies students demonstrate upon completion of the teacher education program; the ways in which teachers apply these competencies to their continuing efforts to grow as professionals must also be considered. The impact of education does not lie so much in the tangible performance of the individual at any stage. It lies rather in its effect on one’s continuing efforts to integrate experience into the ongoing processes of one’s own life and development (Minuchin, Biber, Shapiro, & Zimiles, cited in Witherell & Erickson, 1978, p. 230).
REFERENCES Allington, R. (2002). Big brother and the national reading curriculum. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Antler, J. (1987). Lucy Sprague Mitchell. New Haven: Yale University Press. Apple, M. (1986). Teachers & texts: A political economy of class and gender relations in teaching. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Borko, H. (2004). Professional development and teacher learning: Mapping the terrain. Educational Researcher, 33(8), 3–15. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (1995). Teachers’ professional knowledge landscapes. New York: Teachers College Press. Clandinin, J., & Connelly, M. (2000). Narrative inquiry. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Darling-Hammond, L. (1998). Teachers and teaching: Testing policy hypotheses from a national commission report. Educational Researcher, 27(1), 5–15. Dewey, J. (1938, 1997). Experience and education. New York: Free Press. Freidus, H. (2002). Narrative research in teacher education: New questions, new practices. In: N. Lyons & V. LaBoskey (Eds), Narrative inquiry in practice (pp. 160–172). NewYork: Teachers College Press.
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Freire, P. (1970/1984). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum Press. Glassman, M., & Wang, Y. (2004). On the interconnected nature of interpreting Vygotsky: Rejoinder to Gredler and Shields does no one read Vygotsky’s Words? Educational Researcher, 33(6), 19–22. Greene, M. (1988). The dialectic of freedom. New York: TC Press. Hargreaves, A. (1996). Revisiting voice. Educational Researcher, 25(1), 12–19. Hatch, T. (2001). Imagining a future for ‘‘On-line’’ teaching portfolios (electronic version). The act of teaching: Using multimedia and new technologies to advance the scholarship of teaching. Palo Alto, Cations: Carnegie Foundation, http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/ elibrary/index.htmretrieved 9/03. Hiebert, J., Gallimore, R., & Stigler, J. W. (2002). A knowledge base for the teaching profession: What would it look like and how can we get one? Educational Researcher, 31(5), 3–15. Lave, J., & Wegner, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lieberman, A., & Miller, L. (Eds) (1991). Staff development for education in the 90’s: New demands, new realities. New York: Teachers College Press. Loughran, J. (2004). Learning through self-study: The influence of purpose, participants, and context. In: J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey & T. Russell (Eds), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Loughran, J., Hamilton, M. L., LaBoskey, V. K., & Russell, T. (2004). International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Lyons, N., & Freidus, H. (2004). The reflective portfolio in self-study. In: J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey & T. Russell (Eds), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Lyons, N., & LaBoskey, V. K. (2002). Narrative inquiry in practice: Advancing the knowledge of teaching. New York: Teachers College Press. Manke, M. (2002). The hill one happens to be sitting on: Community and validity in self-study research. Invited presentation to the special interest group on self-study of teacher education practices. Annual meetings of the American Educational Studies Association, New Orleans. Mitchell, C., & Weber, S. (1999). Reinventing ourselves as teachers: Beyond nostalgia. London: Falmer Press. Nager, N., & Shapiro, E. (2000). Revisiting a progressive pedagogy. Albany: Suny Press. Peterson, P. (1998). Why do educational research? Rethinking our roles and identities, our texts and contexts. Educational Researcher, 27(3), 4–10. Putnam, R., & Borko, H. (2000). What do new views of knowledge and thinking have to say about research on teacher learning? Educational Researcher, 29(1), 4–15. Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development in social context. New York: Oxford University Press. Rogoff, B. (1994). Developing understanding of the idea of communities of learners. Mind, Culture, and Activity: An International Journal, 1(4), 209–229. Rust, F., & Freidus, H. (2001). Guiding school change. New York: Teachers College Press. Scho¨n, D. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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Stein, M. K., Smith, M. S., & Silver, E. A. (1999). The development of professional developers: Learning to assist teachers in new settings in new ways. Harvard Eduacional Review, 69(3), 237–269. Tyack, D., & Hansot, E. (1982). Managers of virtue. New York: Basic Books. Witherell, C., & Erickson, L. (1978). Teacher education as adult development. Theory Into Practice, 17(3), 229ff. Yin, R. (1984). Case study research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
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DISCUSSION Jere Brophy and Stefinee Pinnegar This book was organized to illustrate some of the affordances and constraints of contrasting methodological approaches to qualitative research on teaching (who provides the information, how the information is gathered, and how the findings are represented). The differing perspectives, methods, and forms of representation in the included studies complement one another to enrich our insights about teachers, as they progress from applying to teacher education programs through various stages of completion of these programs to continuing their development as professionals. In addition to these methodological insights, however, the chapters offer a variety of substantive findings that will inform the work of teacher educators, including many that reinforce or otherwise connect with one another. Many of these findings further exemplify classic characterizations of teachers and descriptions of the dilemmas involved in educating them that have been provided by authors such as Cuban (1993), Fuller (1969), and Lortie (1975). However, various chapters update these classic perspectives in at least two respects. First, perspectives have been enlarged with the addition of postmodern, feminist, and other more recent theories that have relevance to research on teaching and teacher education. Second, some of the classic findings are reexamined in the light of recent trends in K-12 and teacher education. Inherent tensions between teachers’ roles as instructional gatekeepers making professional decisions about optimizing curricula for their students and teachers’ roles as public servants responsible for carrying out state and district mandates have become
Learning from Research on Teaching: Perspective, Methodology, and Representation Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 11, 411–428 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1016/S1479-3687(05)11014-1
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especially poignant with the recent proliferation of curriculum standards and high-stakes testing. In Chapter 1, Martin and Russell illustrate the value of systematically gathering feedback from students as part of ongoing assessments of teacher education programs. Theory and research on curriculum and instruction routinely treat assessment as one of the basic components of the curriculum and emphasize the need to connect with students’ prior knowledge and make sure that they understand the purposes and reasons for learning activities. So one would expect teacher education programs to feature institutionalized mechanisms for gathering, analyzing, and acting on student feedback. However, as Martin and Russell’s work illustrates, many teacher education faculty show little interest in collecting such feedback or considering its potential implications for change (if it is collected and made available to them). This is to some extent understandable because students often show large individual or subgroup differences in their ideas about appropriate or valuable educational experiences, so it often is difficult to determine how best to respond to their feedback. However, teacher education programs cannot have much hope of significantly reducing what Martin and Russell call dissonance if they do not solicit student input routinely. The potential value of doing so is illustrated by these authors’ descriptions of several ways that helpful feedback collected from students enabled them to make improvements in their program. The student teachers surveyed by Martin and Russell showed noteworthy differences not only in their reactions to particular program components but in their more global thinking and expectations concerning what is involved in learning to become a teacher. Some showed remarkably mature and professional purviews – actually requesting more big picture connections and content relating to the basic purposes and goals of education. This was surprising because, beginning with Fuller (1969), researchers studying the purviews and concerns of preservice teachers typically have reported them to be focused on survival issues (managing students and implementing activities). The usual interpretation is that the preservice teachers need to develop skill and confidence in these areas before they are ready to address more advanced issues such as adapting the curriculum to the needs of their students. On the other hand, Martin and Russell also found that many students had a ‘‘just give me activities and tell me what to do’’ attitude, which raises questions about what kinds of educational experiences might be successful in inducing conceptual change and enriching their perspectives. Some of the
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activities featured in subsequent chapters, especially case analyses, portfolio assessment, and other reflection activities, often are included in teacher education programs with these very goals in mind. The work described by Martin and Russell in Chapter 1 reflects the authors’ valuing of assessment as a fundamental component of curriculum and instruction and their belief in practicing what they preach by modeling good assessment practice as part of their teacher education program. Similar values and beliefs led Janet Alleman (Chapter 2) to develop the student-led conference as an authentic portfolio assessment component of her social studies education course. Alleman notes that many of the methods advocated in curriculum and instruction courses for use in K-12 teaching are desirable for parallel reasons and likely to have parallel effects if used in university teacher education courses. Her student-led conference activity responds to students’ desire for usable knowledge about assessment and provides them with an authentic opportunity to both implement and experience the affordances of this increasingly popular portfolio approach. In addition, the ways in which Alleman helps her students to prepare for successful student-led conferences model important dispositions toward the implementations of assessment (in which the teacher is aligned with the students as a coach and resource person helping them to develop knowledge and skill that the assessment will verify, as opposed to positioning herself as an authority figure who is aligned with the assessment against the students). Apropos of some of the issues raised by Martin and Russell, Alleman has found the student-led conference to be effective not only for helping students to recognize and synthesize what they have learned, but also for encouraging them to shift from thinking primarily as a student (What do I need to do to get a good grade in the course?) to thinking as a professional (What am I learning about teaching social studies and how can I apply it in my practice?). Inclusion of parents and significant others as conference participants not only adds authenticity but establishes the conference as a ‘‘rite of passage’’ that publicly demonstrates and ratifies her students’ transition from student to professional status (at least, for the majority of the students who are in fact ready to make this transition). Along with pride and other positive affect, the activity promotes maturity and progress in addressing some of the identity issues described in Chapters 5, 7, and 8. As these and other chapters emphasize, many aspiring teachers feel a calling to the profession and focus their thinking primarily on the opportunities it offers to shape students’ lives, not on its relatively low status in the eyes of their parents or society generally. Students from blue collar backgrounds, especially if they are the first in their families to graduate from
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college, often find that their families have mixed or even negative attitudes toward education in general and their choice of teaching as a profession in particular. Students from more educationally and socioeconomically advantaged backgrounds may also encounter opposition, or at least disappointment, from parents who would like to see them pursue a more prestigious profession or a career with the potential to generate a much higher income. As Alleman notes, the student-led conference provides a powerful vehicle for addressing these parental concerns. For the former parents, it demystifies teaching and casts it in a positive light. For the latter parents, it provides the student an opportunity to model dedication to his or her calling and demonstrate aptitudes for it. For all parents, it provides an opportunity to see their child/student functioning as an adult professional. In addition to inducing parental pride, appreciation for the profession, and other positive reactions in the immediate situation, the experience should lead to enduring improvements in quality of the content and the mutual satisfaction taken in future conversations about teaching that the budding teacher has with family members. In Chapter 3, Morgan-Fleming, Marbley, and White describe findings from their explorations of sixth graders’ written and pictorial depictions of good and poor teaching. Their work is parallel in many ways to that of Martin and Russell, except that they obtained elementary students’ feedback about the instruction they were receiving from elementary teachers, whereas Martin and Russell obtained feedback from undergraduate teacher education majors about the instruction they were receiving from their professors. Unsurprisingly, the students’ responses focused on classroom management and teacher caring. They were mostly silent about the subject-matter aspects of the curriculum and about methods of instruction (except for those who expressed an enthusiasm for games). In agreement with previous research on students’ beliefs and attitudes about teachers, the students made it clear that, in addition to support, encouragement, and other affective manifestations, their definitions of teacher caring included clear explanations, appropriate scaffolding, and provision of whatever individual assistance would be needed to ensure that they would be able to learn what they were expected to learn. In effect, these sixth graders expected their teachers to take and follow through on responsibilities for seeing that their students learn. This role definition and associated expectations and approaches to teaching are typically emphasized in studies of desirable teacher expectations and teacher
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effectiveness in producing student achievement gains. These studies typically indicate that the combination of caring, demandingness, and persistent scaffolding of student learning is basic to effective teaching, especially with at-risk students. In terms introduced by Schonmann in Chapter 10, the sixth graders could be said to desire teachers who are conversant with basic teaching roles and enact them successfully. However, they also want their teachers to engage them as persons, not just role players. They value frequent self-disclosure and other manifestations of a willingness to expose one’s personal identity and experiences in the classroom, as well as to move beyond role enactment by getting to know students as individual persons. In Chapter 4, Magliaro and Shambaugh describe the personal models of instructional design they elicited from preservice teachers in their instructional design courses. Their work was motivated by recognition of the disconnection between preservice teachers’ typical beliefs and attitudes about teaching and the approaches to instructional design typically emphasized in instructional design texts. Such texts typically present linear, rational models of instructional design that most preservice teachers are not yet ready for and some may actually resist. The idea was to develop information about the preservice teachers’ existing knowledge and thinking about instructional design, to provide a baseline to connect with and build on in their courses. As expected, only a minority (29%) of the students produced personal models that resembled formal instructional design models. Instead, the productions of over 70% of the students were not clear models but illustrated lists of things that are important to teachers, presented without attention to their connections or specification of how they could be used for planning instruction. In this regard, the findings were similar to those that have been reported in novice/expert studies across a range of professions: Novices’ representations of the domain tend to be sketchy and disconnected, whereas those of experts tend to be much more detailed and interconnected. Many of the elements of the students’ productions were affective or idealistic, reflecting a value-laden stance toward teaching rather than the more coolly cognitive focus on pedagogy or learning that is typical of instructional design models. In this regard, the findings described in Chapter 5 are similar to those described in Chapter 8. Preservice teachers’ lack of interest in, or even resistance toward, rationale design models does not bode well for their potential for delivering curriculum and instruction that is well aligned with clearly formulated educational purposes and goals. This raises the question of the degree to which their thinking changes with experience, and if so, when the changes occur and
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what prompts them. Perhaps instructional design courses would be better placed later in teacher education programs, after aspiring teachers have developed some knowledge of teachers’ curriculum design and gatekeeping responsibilities, as well as an appreciation of the value of approaching these responsibilities systematically. In Chapter 5, McMillan and Price describe their efforts to acquaint today’s aspiring teachers with some of the enduring characteristics and dilemmas of the teaching profession, by exposing their students to autobiographical writings of teachers from the past and asking them to make connections, then representing emergent themes in a readers theater format. Like the activities described in Chapters 7 and 8, the activities described in Chapter 5 were motivated in part by an attempt to break through preservice teachers’ preconceptions, including misconceptions, about teaching. McMillan and Price take what could be described as a counseling or personal development approach to this effort, emphasizing forming good relationships and actively listening and responding to what their students have to say. They also emphasize concepts such as developing self-knowledge, focusing on being rather than doing, and exploring to find one’s identity as prerequisite to becoming able to find a creative ‘‘third way’’ to resolve enduring tensions between felt desires to educate in accordance with one’s ideals and external pressures to teach a reductionist curriculum in preparation for high-stakes testing. This is an ambitious agenda, implying an attempt to induce not merely a shift from student to professional but a readiness and willingness to autonomously regulate one’s professional practice according to value-based reasoning and decision making rather than simply respond to external pressures. It does seem likely that advances in articulating one’s professional identity as a teacher would be needed to support a readiness and willingness to engage in such autonomous professional decision making, although there is reason to believe that accumulations of relevant knowledge, skills, and experience would also be required. The autobiographical selections bring to life many of the generalizations developed by Cuban (1992), Lortie (1975), and others who have written about commonalities across time among the kinds of people who want to become teachers, the nature of classrooms and classroom teaching, the ambiguous status of teachers in society, and the multiple agendas that teachers must attempt to address in response to multiple pressures. The fact that today’s preservice teachers easily make personal connections with these autobiographical excerpts is further evidence that these commonalities are in fact enduring features of the profession.
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The chapter features a feminist perspective suggesting that women have been especially likely to feel called to the profession despite frequently poor salary and working conditions. In both its historical and contemporary aspects, the material in this chapter relating to the moral calling aspects of decisions to pursue a teaching career are very similar to the parallel material featured in Chapter 8, and the material on having to overcome resistance from parents (especially fathers) is similar to the parallel material presented in Chapter 2. The feminist/historical perspective that pervades this chapter is enlightening, but it may need qualification or elaboration in two respects. First, all of the autobiographical excerpts are from female teachers and some of the theoretical structuring implies that teaching is a female profession. However, a significant percentage (about a third) of teachers are male, so characterizations of the profession as female can be overdone. Presumably, a significant minority of the students in the authors’ classes are male as well, and one wonders if they find the depiction of teaching as a female profession to be alienating, or at least confusing, especially if (as is likely) they feel similarly called to the profession for similar reasons as females do. The authors are silent on this point, but it would be interesting to pursue it, such as by collecting and comparing male and female students’ reactions to the class. A second issue concerns developments in teachers’ salaries and working conditions. It remains true that teaching has an ambiguous or even tenuous status as a profession and that administrators exert a lot of authority over teachers. However, unionization and other factors have substantially improved teachers’ salaries and working conditions, and today’s administrators (and union leaders) are increasingly likely to be females. Thus, although the feminist/historical purview still has considerable relevance and explanatory power, a complete understanding of the teaching profession as it evolves in today’s world will require a broader set of perspectives and explanatory concepts. Chapter 6 shares a similar theoretical base with Chapter 5, featuring a feminist perspective and writings by Palmer (1998) and others on identity, voice, and related issues. However, the Binda project described by Brice, Nations Johnson, Cummings, and Summy in Chapter 6 is focused on inservice rather than preservice teachers, and the authors take a more conventional approach in representing their findings. They focus on the group development and interpersonal dynamics involved in bringing together minimally acquainted teachers to collaborate and support one another in developing videos to illustrate and explain their exemplary teaching.
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It is noteworthy that even these confident, experienced teachers who had been selected for the project because they enjoyed very positive local reputations as exemplary teachers nevertheless needed a lot of support to become willing to take risks and move beyond just demonstrating techniques to sharing their personal planning and thinking. Recognizing this, the authors placed a lot of emphasis on molding the collection of university and school personnel into a group that featured an egalitarian ethos (despite differentiated work roles), by articulating and modeling collaborative norms and behavior. This kind of socialization and modeling is crucial in efforts to engage inservice teachers in collaborating in their own professional development (Good & Brophy, 2003). Chapter 6 also exemplifies principles from research on modeling and on the use of video in teacher education that are vital for realizing the potential of video libraries as teacher education tools. As noted in several chapters in the previous volume in this series (Brophy, 2004) and in Chapter 12 of this volume, videotaped excerpts of exemplary teaching are of much more value to the viewers when the video is accompanied by information from the teacher about the planning and thinking that preceded and guided the implementation of the teaching shown on the tape. This makes overt the typically covert information processing and decision making that mediate exemplary levels of professional practice. In addition, research on teaching through modeling indicates that learners typically profit more from observing coping models who make but correct mistakes and persist through false starts or periods of confusion than they do from observing success models who breeze through the task flawlessly and seemingly effortlessly. Novices are likely to make such mistakes and to profit from seeing that they can be overcome through patient and reflective persistence (especially when the model verbalizes the thinking that mediates these adjustments). Some of the teachers in the Binda project understood this intuitively, so they planned their tapes with an eye toward communicating not so much to veterans like themselves but to novices functioning at a much earlier stage of the game. It would be helpful to explain these principles to all teachers involved in tape library projects, both to disabuse them of the idea that they need to be perfect and to help them understand the importance of a ‘‘warts and all’’ approach to developing the tapes and the accompanying commentary. In Chapter 7, Greene and Magliaro describe images of practice obtained from preservice teachers. Although still relatively concrete and dualist, these images were richer than the ones obtained in previous studies (reviewed in the introduction to their chapter). This was especially the case for students
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who had had practicum experience. These students wrote higher level reflections that included material informed by the practicum experience, not just by memories from their K-12 student years. The findings raise questions about the value of reflection exercises very early in preservice teachers’ program. Another change from earlier studies was the increase in mention of state standards backed by high-stakes testing programs. Both in this chapter and in Chapter 5, these recent developments loomed as negative factors in preservice teachers’ images of teaching as a profession. Another noteworthy theme was the boost in perceptions of efficacy and the associated positive affect that occurred as students noted increases in their own professional knowledge and skills. An important factor in this development was their knowledge and use of appropriate measurement criteria, both quantitative (e.g., reductions in the amount of time needed to develop lesson plans) and qualitative (e.g., beginning to include student response as input into their reflections on the relative effectiveness of their lessons). Along with some of the material in Chapter 2, these findings underscore the importance of equipping students with concepts and related operational measures that they can use to assess and improve on their teaching. In Chapter 8, Lay, Pinnegar, Reed, Wheeler, and Wilkes report on what can be learned about applicants to teacher education programs from analyzing the style and substance of how they position themselves with respect to the teaching profession. Given the nature of the data, it is natural to wonder how much of what these applicants had to say was direct expression of genuine beliefs and how much was an attempt to provide the admissions committee with what they thought the committee would want to hear. The quoted material suggests that much, if not most, of the content of these personal statements was genuine. However, applicants’ attempts to depict themselves as desirable future teachers may provide part of the explanation for the interesting finding that the applicants attempted to position themselves as unique, yet did so in ways that made them appear similar. Another part of the explanation may be that the applicants saw themselves as more unusual than they really were. Several developmental psychologists have commented on the ‘‘illusion of uniqueness’’ that is common among adolescents. The findings are reminiscent of those reported in Chapter 4 and elsewhere indicating that, early on, preservice teachers’ models, images, and thinking about teaching are heavily affective and value laden rather than cognitive and focused on pedagogy or learning. Such findings again remind us that
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commonalities in modal personalities (typical of the kinds of people who choose to become teachers) and in developmental status (neophytes whose thinking about teaching is still informed primarily by their ‘‘apprenticeship of observation’’ as students than by observations, reflections, or professional practice informed from the teacher’s perspective) lead to commonalities in perceptions of and beliefs about the teaching profession. Comparisons across chapters also revealed some interesting contrasts, however. Some of the Canadian students studied by Martin and Russell (Chapter 1) appeared unusually thoughtful and mature, even to the recognition that they stood to benefit from instruction in philosophical foundations focusing on the purposes and goals of schooling. In contrast, many of the west Texas students studied by McMillan and Price (Chapter 5) not only were heavily focused on discipline and related survival issues, but also emphasized authoritarian and punitive approaches when talking about them. Finally, the Mormon students described in Chapter 8 communicated highly idealistic, service-oriented stances toward the teaching profession, perhaps reflecting their religious backgrounds. Although they share a great many commonalities by virtue of living in English-speaking North America, these three samples of future teachers reside in locations that are not merely geographically dispersed but representative of quite different cultures. The contrasts in their responses correspond to contrasts in stereotypes of personal traits and belief systems common in their respective locations. This suggests that, even though research on commonalities in preservice teachers has been useful in identifying several such commonalities that help us to understand their initial orientations toward the profession, research on differences rooted in regional cultural or religious differences might be similarly productive. The Chapter 8 authors provide interesting and defensible reactions to the positioning stances taken by the applicants whose statements they examined. However, other interpretations are possible. For example, they express some concern about concessive applicants whose decisions to become teachers are conflicted or tentative, reasoning that these applicants may be poor bets to stay in the profession because they lack the firm conviction that they have been called to it. However, given the backgrounds of so many undergraduate education majors (first generation in their families to go to college, lacking cultural capital that would enable them to enter teacher education programs with elaborated rather than sketchy possible selves as teachers), concessive positioning toward the profession might be all that can be expected from them at this point in their development. Research is needed on forms of counseling and mentoring that would first help
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concessive students make good decisions about whether they should stay in or transfer out of education as their major, and if they stay in, scaffold their progress toward more secure and better-informed stances as novice teaching professionals. At the other extreme, there may be reason for tempering enthusiasm about applicants who combine strong positioning with an emphasis on assertive rather than informative illocutionary force. It is true that their strong identities as teachers and well-formulated ideas about teaching will likely sustain them through their teacher education program and early professional development, making them good bets to stay in the profession. However, these same qualities may make them less open to input than some of their peers, and as several chapter authors have pointed out, much of teacher education involves helping students to get beyond notions of teaching developed through their ‘‘apprenticeship of observation.’’ In Chapter 9, Placier, Burgoyne, Cockrell, Welch, and Neville describe their application of techniques borrowed from the Theatre of the Oppressed to teacher education. There are many parallels in goals, rationales, and even techniques between this approach and the readers theater approach used by McMillan and Price (Chapter 5). However, the experiment described in Chapter 9 proved to be a struggle, producing at best mixed results. Part of this can be attributed to the fact that this was a first-time implementation of a complicated project that among other things involved coordinating the activities and accommodating the contrasting cultures of faculty and students in drama and in education. The education students had negative or at best mixed views of the value of the effort. It is possible that adapting Theatre of the Oppressed techniques to undergraduate teacher education is one of those ideas that looks good on paper but does not generate enough benefits to justify its costs. However, it may be that the techniques can be adapted to make them more cost effective for use in teacher education, and in particular, to make them more acceptable to students as a classroom activity of value. First, some education students may be turned off by the title, because they do not feel particularly oppressed or feel uncomfortable being involved in something called ‘‘Theatre of the Oppressed.’’ If this is a problem, one could eliminate the title and just speak of using drama or role play to address some of the dilemmas that teachers face. Second, although two of the forum theater scenarios were quite realistic (sex abuse, Huckleberry Finn), the other two were quite fanciful and easy to dismiss as irrelevant. Why not make all of the scenarios realistic?
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Third, there was no debriefing. Most authors who write about using drama or role play in teacher education stress the need for debriefing as essential for negotiating and reinforcing the main ideas that the experience is intended to develop. Finally, future research on these techniques might use outcome measures that relate more directly to the content of the scenarios, such as an essay or interview measure that would elicit information about the levels of complexity and nuances of thinking with which the students addressed the problem. Chapter 10 also features applications from drama to teacher education. Schonmann notes that functioning as a teacher involves enacting a role (actually a collection of related roles that vary with situations), so that much of teaching in any particular situation involves performing a familiar role. Unlike an actor’s performance in a drama, the role is not fully scripted, but enacting it involves playing out what amounts to a core script calling for producing a planned sequence of communications and behaviors. Schonmann describes drama as a useful tool for teacher educators to use to engage their students with emotionally threatening aspects of the teaching profession. Because they are enacting or observing representations of teaching depicted as occurring at another time and place, the activity provides sufficient distancing to allow them to deal with potentially threatening emotional issues more comfortably. With appropriate scaffolding, it also provides opportunities for the participants to step back and view the problem from a larger perspective, taking into account others’ views and roles as well as their own. Yet, by choosing compelling aspects of teaching to dramatize and by focusing the dramatization on certain particularly useful affordances of drama (catharsis, improvisation, and breaking out of conventions), the teacher educator can cause students to confront and begin to develop strategies for coping with threatening situations. An emphasis on improvisation is especially important, to help students appreciate and prepare for the fact that teaching requires at-the-moment responding to unfolding events that are only partially predictable. Attempts to methodically work through a preplanned script will lead to problems like those documented in Chapter 11. Chapter 10 also includes interesting discussion of the fact that although teachers enact roles and much of teaching can be construed as performance, they remain individuals with unique personal and professional identities. It is important for teachers to articulate these personal and professional identities, because doing so will help them to play their professional roles in a more planned and artistic manner. At the same time, it will help them maintain their mental health and well being by achieving clarity of
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separation between their personal identities, their professional roles as teachers, and their enactment of these roles in the classroom. What is said about identity in several other chapters (especially Chapters 1, 5, and 7) is consistent with this observation, but also emphasizes the additional idea that it is important for teachers to share some of their personal identities and experiences with their students so that they are perceived as individuals, not just role players. Whereas Schonmann spoke of using drama to achieve distance from emotionally threatening events that occur in teaching, Huber and Clandinin describe one such event in Chapter 11. Many teaching events that arouse disturbing emotions involve incidents of aggression or defiance and the survival issues about which preservice teachers tend to be so concerned. However, the event described in Chapter 11 is more subtle, focusing on a museum instructor’s personal insensitivity to student needs and interests and his pedagogical commitment to sticking closely to a predetermined script in his interactions with visiting groups of school children. The negative emotions and related tensions were felt by the authors, who accompanied the class on the visit to the museum. They were disturbed both by some of the events that did occur and by missed opportunities for connections to children’s individual interests and home culture backgrounds that would have made the experience much more valuable for them. Instead of a ‘‘curriculum of lives’’ that they valued, the authors observed a testdriven curriculum, narrowed to focus on facts emphasized in the provincial standards and likely to be included on the end-of-year tests. Several other chapters also touch on the point that there are inherent tensions between a desire to optimize curriculum and instruction to meet students’ needs and interests and a felt need to respond to pressures to prepare students for high-stakes tests. Chapter 11 broadens the point by illustrating that felt tensions can arise whenever there is conflict about curricular purposes and goals, appropriate methods, how much to focus on disciplinary content, on students’ interests, on society’s agenda, etc. There also may be tensions between home cultures and the expectations prevalent at school, as illustrated in this chapter by the instructor’s refusal to allow a student to wash his hands. In the situation described in Chapter 11, Huber and Clandinin felt these tensions but mostly did not act on them in the situation, and when they got back to the school, they acted on them in ways that appeared to spread them to other professionals (e.g., creating doubt about the value of the field trip), without addressing them in a more constructive way. In part, this was due to their role as observing researchers. A classroom teacher accompanying the
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group who had the same observations and emotional reactions would be in a better position to deal with them constructively, if not on the spot (at the museum), then at least after returning to the classroom (by making some of the connections and responding to some of the student concerns that should have been addressed at the museum). This chapter reflects the conflicting agendas and related tensions that professional educators experience. Like several other chapters, it raises basic issues not only about the multiple agendas and pressures facing teachers, but also about their responsibilities for responding to them (e.g., if governmentpromulgated curriculum guides and tests create what teachers view as an overly narrow and prescriptive curriculum, to what extent is it their responsibility to carry out these mandates to the letter, and to what extent is it their right, or perhaps even duty, to do something else in addition or instead because it is believed to better meet student needs and interests?). In Chapter 12, Chan and Harris describe six teachers’ thinking before, during, and after viewing a video case. Both their review of relevant literature and several of their key findings (e.g., the power of juxtaposition, the importance of commentaries and other scaffolds) reflect some of the main emphases and findings reported in the previous volume in this series (Brophy, 2004). The authors used questions to probe the teachers’ thinking and developed a hierarchical system for coding and describing its salient features. This was informative and should be useful to other investigators. However, there are many possibilities for expanding it, especially by including more focused questions and adding categories depicting the ways that teachers analyze what they are viewing (e.g., by attributing motives or rationales to the taped teacher, or by drawing conclusions about how what they are viewing might be applied in their own practice). One noteworthy finding was that the teachers tended to focus their attention on different aspects of the video, often aspects that seemed to support their own beliefs about good teaching, even when these beliefs conflicted. Other chapters (especially 1, 5, 7, and 8) also indicate that teachers’ preexisting beliefs mediate what they take away from educational experiences, suggesting that changing some of these beliefs is often an important teacher education goal. This again underscores the importance of scaffolding teachers’ viewing of video cases and providing opportunities for them to discuss what they saw and negotiate its meanings and implications. In Chapter 13, Freidus, Feldman, Sgouros, and Wiles-Kettenmann describe the nature, activities, and perceived effects of a collaborative self-help group formed by novices experiencing their first few years of teaching
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(with participation by one of their former professors). Participants all had special interests and expertise in literacy teaching, which was the focus of most of their activities. There are interesting similarities and differences between this group and the Binda project group described in Chapter 6. Both groups were composed primarily of inservice teachers but included one or more university professors who tried to function primarily as part of the group and focus on supporting accomplishment of its purposes rather than leading it in a more directive manner. The Binda project teachers were generally more experienced and had been identified as exemplary, although they were more diverse in subject-matter interests. The teachers in the self-help group were novices but shared a common institutional background as graduates of the same teacher education program and also shared a special interest in literacy teaching. Each group offered opportunities to collaborate in helping group members to achieve common but ultimately individual goals. In the Binda group, these goals were quite specific, focusing on developing videos that effectively illustrated and communicated basic ideas about exemplary teaching. The goals for the self-help group were more general, focusing on helping group members to improve their practice. Chapter 13 includes reference to issues or ideas addressed in several other chapters as well, such as the tension between authentic and test-driven curricula and the notion that teaching is primarily women’s work, little valued and poorly paid. Although the latter ideas are shared by several authors represented in this book, it is doubtful that they are shared by the general public. Chapter 13 also underscores the aloneness of teaching and therefore the importance of building community to support teachers’ professional growth. Community is especially important for novice teachers, and the collaborative norms and self-help activities that developed within this group provide models that should be applicable for support groups for novice teachers in many different situations, especially groups focused around common subject-matter interests. Many of the norms and activities developed in this group (e.g., agendas to focus the activities, providing everyone with opportunities to present cases from their teaching and engage the group in helping them to analyze the cases and identify ways to improve, acting collegially to negotiate understandings rather than giving answers, etc.) reflect practices that have proven successful in other collegial professional development initiatives in the United States (Good & Brophy, 2003), as well as in parallel efforts elsewhere, such as in the lesson study activities of Japanese teachers. In this regard, it is noteworthy that most of the time, the
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day’s presenter did get significant help from group members, but through assistance in thinking through the problem and viewing it in different ways rather than through specific prescriptions. It is noteworthy that as the group progressed, some of its members took advantage of opportunities to present at conferences or write for the public about the group’s activities. This likely supported several group members’ perceptions of self-efficacy and professional growth (as did the Binda group members’ identification as exemplary teachers and opportunity to make videos illustrating their teaching). However, these presentation and publishing activities diverged from the group’s original purpose of helping members develop their expertise as literacy teachers. One wonders if this detracted from the effectiveness of the group in promoting its original purpose or from group members’ perceptions of group cohesion (and if so, whether this represents a problem or simply a manifestation of evolution in purposes and activities that is to be expected in any group, but especially in groups of novices whose concerns and professional development interests change as their expertise develops). One of our goals in this volume is to push the research conversation in research on teaching and teacher education. We structured the book to draw attention to the impact of perspective, methodology, and representation on understanding of teaching and teacher education. We used the format of considering simultaneously method and findings to provoke conversation about fruitful methods for research in teacher education and interesting observations and findings about teacher thinking, teacher development, and teacher education. Often researchers forget that in any area of study there is a ‘‘conversation of the field.’’ It is through this conversation that research moves forward and knowledge accumulates. While any topic might enter the conversation, it is from the conversation as a whole that the fruitful questions and methodologies arise. The chapter by chapter analysis of this book provides an exemplar of what the conversation in the field of teacher education research looks like and sounds like. The scholar of teacher education research must be able to read, understand, and integrate findings across multiple research methodologies and frames. Scholars hear the themes and patterns in the conversation and follow the ebb and flow of this dialogue as they thoughtfully conceptualize and plan their own research. The authors articulate three themes that this volume seems to raise: The tension between listening and hearing in teacher education, identity development for teachers and teacher educators, and the emergence of professional judgment of teachers and teacher educators. The beginning and ending chapters of the book instantiate the tension between listening and
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hearing. Martin and Russell document their efforts to listen to teacher education students in their practice and how their hearing shapes their listening. The last chapter by Freidus, Feldman, Sgouros, and WilesKettenmann documents a study where teacher educators and teachers work together to hear what they are learning, what students are saying, and how that guides their practice. Across other chapters there are constant conversational echoes that raise ideas about listening and hearing and the impact that tension has on both the research and the practice of teachers and teacher educators. The theme of identity development emerges across the book. From the use of student-led conferences as an opportunity to display and articulate understanding of identity as a teacher, it moves into explorations of the initial identity positioning of pre-service candidates and through the implications of similarities of teacher identity across generations. From these snippets of conversation, new questions about what is teacher identity, how does it develop, how does it impact teachers’ learning and growth of new ideas, and how one might study identity emerge. All of the chapters in the book provide evidence of the development and deployment of professional judgment in teaching, teacher education, and research in these arenas. Given Goodlad’s (1990) claim that teachers are employed for their judgment rather than their knowledge, we begin to wonder about the moral dimensions of research and teaching practices. We think about how we might examine how professional judgment develops, what gives it authority, how it is used, and what its use reveals about the assumptions underlying teacher education practices and research. Collectively, these studies of teaching and our analysis of them illustrate and embody the conception of the research conversation of a field. As Bohm (2000) argues, in presenting a method of dialogue, what moves research communities forward is listening to and examining contrasting and supporting assertions and ideas about a phenomenon under consideration. A research conversation in a field that focuses on human interaction, growth and practices becomes richest when all facets of the personal–individual as well as the social–cultural are given voice. Thus, what the chapter analysis reveals is the importance of not so much alternative voices in the research conversation in a field but the juxtaposition of arguments, the range of opinions, and the acceptance and use of a variety of research methodologies. From attention to detail and the range of possibilities, conceptions of practice and research are strengthened, enlightened, and developed. Teaching is never only about cognition, behavior, emotion, values or conation. In order to develop deep understandings of teaching, teacher thinking, and teacher
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education, researchers need to be aware of the holistic conceptions of teaching and research on teaching that the conversation of research reveals.
REFERENCES Bohm, D. (2000). Meaning, purpose and exploration in dialogue. http://www.muc.de/-heuvel/ dialogue/dialogue_exp 10rarion.html(accessed February 2002). Brophy, J. (Ed.). (2004). Using video in teacher education. New York: Elsevier. Cuban, L. (1993). How teachers taught: Constancy and change in American classrooms 1890–1990 (2nd ed.). New York: Teachers College Press. Fuller, F. (1969). Concerns of teachers: A developmental conceptualization. American Educational Research Journal, 6, 207–226. Goodlad, J. I. (1990). The occupation of teaching in schools. In: J. I. Goodlad, R. Soder & K. A. Sirotnik (Eds), The moral dimensions of teaching (pp. 3–24). San Francisco: JosseyBass Publishers. Good, T., & Brophy, J. (2003). Looking in classrooms (9th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Lortie, D. (1975). School teacher: A sociological study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Palmer, P. (1998). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
