From Stimulated Recall to Scaffolded Reflection: Using Video-Mediated Interviewing to Learn About Teachers' (Sense-Making and) Navigation of Education Policy

• In Event: 72.039 - Design Principles for a Pedagogy of Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives. This poster presents a method we call “scaffolded reflective interviewing” (SRI). The poster shares our journey to this method, what we learned from engaging with it, and what we believe it offers researchers and teacher educators, particularly those interested in teachers’ learning and participation in policy implementation.

Theoretical Framework. From a sociocultural perspective, we regard teaching and learning as complex, mediated activities that demand from teachers significant intellectual labor (e.g., Grossman, Smagorinsky & Valencia, 1999); therefore, we believe that much of what goes into ‘observable’ teaching cannot be observed (i.e., watched) alone and must be captured with multiple, complex methods. We regard policy implementation similarly—as involving learning, sense-making, negotiation, and even appropriation, all which occur in particular, consequential contexts (e.g., Spillane, 2002; Stillman, 2011). Thus, for us, qualitative research—with its capacity for uncovering the dynamics of culture and context—is essential for understanding how and why teachers teach and learn as they do.

Methods. In a two-year study of a high-performing bilingual school, we observed, interviewed, and filmed teachers as they worked to understand and implement the Common Core Standards. We initially planned to conduct “stimulated recall interviews” (Lyle, 2003) in order to capture ‘backstage’ aspects of teachers’ instructional decision-making and policy-related sense-making. We then adapted our approach to align it better with our theoretical framework, research questions, and epistemological concerns. We employed SRI, which—like stimulated recall interviewing—utilizes video and/or other artifacts of practice to prompt participant commentary; however, we focused less on behaviorist notions of ‘stimulation’ and ‘recall’ and more on mediation, meaning-making, and interpretation. Specifically, we had teachers watch clips of instruction and talk through how they thought about, instantiated, and/or appropriated the standards. We then analyzed SRI data vis-à-vis other data.

Results and/or Substantiated Conclusions. SRI offered unique affordances. By creating space for dialogue around the common referent of (video-taped) instruction, SRI inspired and facilitated specificity in participants’ accounts, permitted them to point out examples, and generated discussion that helped reveal subtleties of their accounts/examples. SRI thus enabled us to illuminate areas of coherence and nuance that were central to teachers’ understanding of policy, teaching, and the relationship between the two, but that we might have mischaracterized, or missed, through traditional ethnographic interviewing and participant observation alone. SRI also helped support teachers’ reflection and learning about the impact of their instruction and the policy they were pressed to implement on their students’ opportunities to learn.

Scholarly Significance. Ambitious teaching necessitates teachers’ abilities to engage diverse students in responsive, cognitively-demanding learning (Lampert & Graziani, 2009). It also demands that teachers navigate policy efficaciously and with concern for equitable learning opportunities (Spillane & Jennings, 1997). This study expands our understanding about teacher learning toward ambitious teaching in policy contexts by exploring the ‘hidden’ processes behind teachers’ observable practices of policy navigation and enactment.

Authors

• Lauren M. Anderson, Connecticut College

• Jamy Stillman, University of Colorado - Boulder

• John Luciano Beltramo, University of Southern California

• Kathryn Struthers, Bank Street College of Education

• Joyce Melissa Gomez-Najarro, California State University - Fullerton