Digging In: Leveraging Expert Accomplished Teaching, Learning, and Schools Videos to Reveal Teacher Learners' Need to Learn

• In Event: Video Analysis for Pedagogical Sense-Making Among Teacher Learners Across Disciplines

Abstract

Using Accomplished Teaching, Learning, and Schools (ATLAS) cases, a database of materials submitted to the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards, we examined how the use of video and written commentaries from Nationally Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) support pre-service elementary teachers’ (PSTs) ability to envision accomplished teaching. ATLAS use was situated in field experiences supported by a science-social studies methods block. Specifically, we studied: 1) the teacher educator’s pedagogical use of ATLAS materials and 2) how NBCTs’ videos and commentaries shape PSTs’ developing practice.

To understand the pedagogical use of ATLAS materials, we examined: the teacher educator’s lesson plans, reflections, and digital recordings of lessons. To examine how engagement with ATLAS videos and commentaries informed PSTs’ vision of accomplished teaching, we analyzed: work completed as part of ATLAS use, lesson plans designed and taught by PSTs throughout field experiences, and audio recordings of post-observation conferences. ATLAS cases were used to develop three elements of PST practice: 1) lesson planning, 2) eliciting and building on student thinking, and 3) reflecting on practice.

Teacher educators’ lesson plans were found to follow a consistent pattern that drew on theories of learning and motivation (Edelson, 2001). The teacher educator first motivated PST engagement with case materials by creating a need to know more about some phenomenon of practice. Next the teacher educator and PSTs dug into the case materials to construct an understanding of expert practice by comparing insights emerging from the case with the PSTs’ own early practice and thinking. Each ATLAS instructional cycle concluded with the PSTs identifying particular elements of practice they sought to apply in future teaching.

We found PSTs benefitted most from ATLAS cases when they engaged in and experienced specific activities within the case materials before viewing the NBCT’s video or commentary. The teacher educator’s instructional goals influenced the relative importance of the NBCTs’ video or commentary in supporting PST learning. For example, when engaging PSTs in envisioning expert planning, the commentaries were more useful than video, but when considering how to engage student thinking, the video was invaluable.
Developmental gains were made in PST planning, leveraging student thinking, and reflecting on practice. First, ATLAS commentaries allowed PSTs to recognize what expert teachers consider when planning that they did not, such as the diverse learning needs of their students. Second, unpacking planning and instruction involved in eliciting and building on student thinking allowed PSTs to identify “missed opportunities” in their early teaching. Finally, the PSTs’ articulation of ideas to incorporate into their practice served as effective touch points that the teacher educator and PSTs revisited throughout future planning, teaching, and post-observation conferences.

The significance of this work is in the potential to better understand how visions of expert practice support novice teachers’ development. Findings from this work demonstrate that through the facilitated examination of NBCT cases, PSTs develop criteria for ambitious teaching. Layering analyses of expert teaching alongside their own practicum experiences encouraged PSTs to analyze and refine their own practice with respect to ambitious teaching goals.

Authors

• Heather Jo Johnson, Vanderbilt University

• Amy B. Palmeri, Vanderbilt University