Making a Difference: Examining the Impact of Focusing on Core Instructional Practices in Teacher Education

• In Event: Excellence in Education Research: Early Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

Many scholars in teacher education argue that in order for professional preparation to influence classroom teaching it must be situated in the sorts of ambitious practice that beginning teachers are called upon to do and that can prepare them to do it (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Grossman & McDonald, 2008). They also concur that sustained research effort is required to determine the characteristics of professional learning that make the most difference in preparing skilled teachers (Grossman, 2008). The few studies that have addressed the connection between teacher preparation and classroom teaching point to the importance of helping novices to not only think like teachers but also to be able to do the work of teaching (Kennedy, 1999; Ensor, 2004). There is growing awareness of the importance of enactment in teacher learning, and this has spurred an interest in conceptualizing tools that can support the preparation of teachers for practice. Some researchers are developing such tools by decomposing the work of teaching into core instructional practices (CIPs) that can be articulated, studied, and rehearsed (Ball, Sleep, Boerst, & Bass, 2009; Lampert et al., 2013). These practices are thought to provide teacher educators with the tools to address teaching as a complex task while focusing on its key components.
In my poster presentation, I will report on a research investigation that focuses on the classroom practice of six beginning teachers who had participated during their teacher preparation in a professional learning model, Learning in, from, and for Teaching Practice (LTP), that focused on CIPs in close collaboration with a school district in the Midwest. The LTP model provided repeated opportunities for pre-service teachers to move back and forth between engaging with actual enactments of teaching and investigations of the CIPs, knowledge, and principles of high quality teaching involved in those enactments.
My research focused on the question, “To what extent and in what ways do beginning teachers who participated in the LTP model of teacher preparation that focused on CIPs in mathematics teaching use these practices in their own classrooms?” More specifically, I examined: For teachers who show evidence of CIPs’ use in their teaching, what is the extent and nature of this use? In which situations and under what conditions do they get used (the nature of the content of math lessons, type of instructional activities, and nature of school setting)?

Author

• Hala N. Ghousseini, University of Wisconsin - Madison