Learning From Lessons: Collaborative Inquiry in Practice

• In Event: 49.081 - Building Expertise for Teachers of English Language Learners in the 21st Century

Abstract

This paper presents lessons that L2 teachers learned through three cycles of collaborative inquiry that are part of a broader program of teacher professional development and instructional coaching. Teachers design and refine mathematics lessons that both challenge and support English language learners (ELLs) (Walqui & van Lier, 2010). The structure of the collaborative inquiry process draws upon traditions of Japanese Lesson Study (Stigler & Hiebert, 1999) to develop shared instructional products (Morris & Hiebert, 2011). Focusing on classroom lessons as the object of study, each collaborative inquiry cycle has three phases. First, a team of teachers plans a lesson. Second, one teacher implements the lesson in the classroom as the others observe. Third, the team debriefs what they observed and suggest refinements or adjustments to the lesson based upon those observations. The cycle then repeats, with the lesson being planned again based upon those adjustments. Subsequent implementations rotate the roles of implementing and observing teachers.

This paper reports what one team of mathematics teachers learned as they engaged in collaborative inquiry around three different lessons. Drawing upon analysis of documents produced in the cycles and teachers’ structured reflections, this paper identifies three major themes of teacher learning: degree of scaffolding (Walqui and van Lier, 2010), the roles of language in mathematics (Schleppegrell, 2007), and the development of mathematical knowledge relevant to teaching and learning (Hill, Rowan, & Ball, 2005).

Teachers developed more nuanced understanding of degrees of scaffolding appropriate to a lesson. The distinction between designed-in and contingent scaffolding assisted teachers in adeepening their professional judgment about what supports to prepare, offer, or temporarily withhold in classroom instruction (Hammond & Gibbons, 2005). Teachers reported a greater preference for “back pocket” scaffolding, which they had anticipated students might need, but would not provide until students demonstrated that need. Reflective conversations also focused on contingent decisions teachers had made in the moment, and retrospective analysis and reconsiderations of those decisions.

Teachers began to view language less as a prerequisite and more as interwoven into the disciplinary practices in which they were asking students to engage (Chu, Koelsch, & Bañuelos, 2014). While recognizing the importance of providing explicit models, teachers also began to move away from predetermined scripts and more toward engineering scaffolding tasks built around information gaps or patterns of information flow that would require the use of disciplinary discourse (Ellis, 2003).

In addition, teachers deepened their pedagogical content knowledge about specific mathematics topics, such as compound and independent events in probability. This learning was directly driven by reflections on how students interpreted the tasks which they were given, and the working conceptions which observing teachers were able to record and interpret. These understandings represent emergent local instructional theories (Gravemeijer, 2004).

The paper concludes with a sketch of the ways participating teachers have taken further ownership of this collaborative structure as a means to provide colleagues with legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Finally, the author discusses how the collaborative inquiry process demonstrates promise for continued adoption as a touchstone practice.

Author

• Andrew Haiwen Chu, WestEd