Constructing "Contexts of Criticism"? Theory and Methods for Focusing on Learning, Culture, and Contradiction

• In Event: 52.058 - Teaching for Equity in Complex Times: Negotiating the Common Core State Standards in a High-Performing Bilingual School

Abstract

This paper presents a method called “scaffolded reflective interviewing,” designed with the goal of capturing, as this year’s conference theme states, “the diversity and complexity of circumstances” surrounding equity-minded teachers’ policy navigation.
The paper shares the journey to this method, what the authors learned in developing it, and what they argue it offers researchers and teacher educators interested in teacher learning and policy implementation.
The paper and methodological innovation on which it reports are rooted in a sociocultural perspective that regards teaching, learning, and policy implementation as complex, mediated activities, which demand from teachers significant intellectual labor (e.g., Grossman, Smagorinsky & Valencia, 1999; Spillane, 2002). Following from this perspective, much of what goes into ‘observable’ teaching cannot be observed (i.e., watched) alone and must be captured with multiple methods. Robust qualitative research—given its emphasis on naturalistic settings and capacity to uncover the dynamics of culture, context, and consciousness—is thus essential to understanding how and why teachers teach and learn as they do.
As the paper explains, this new methodological approach was developed during a two-year qualitative study in which the authors observed, interviewed, and filmed ten teachers working to enact the CCSS in a high-performing bilingual K-8 school serving predominantly Latino, EB students. The initial design included stimulated recall interviewing (SRI) aimed at capturing ‘backstage’ aspects of teachers’ instructional decision-making and policy-related sense-making. The authors, however, adapted that approach to generate greater alignment with their theoretical framework (CHAT), research questions, and epistemological concerns. They named the new approach scaffolded reflective interviewing (SRI-II), because it utilizes video and/or other artifacts of practice to prompt participant commentary, but focuses less on behaviorist notions of ‘stimulation’ and ‘recall’ and more on reflection, meaning-making, and interpretation.
The paper described the approach and its affordances. In particular, by creating space for dialogue around the common referent of (video-taped) instruction, SRI-II helped illuminate nuances that were central to teachers’ meaning-making, but that researchers might have mischaracterized, or missed, through traditional interviewing and participant observation alone. SRI-II also supported teachers’ reflection about how their instruction and policy implementation impacted students’ opportunities to learn. Examples in the paper focus especially on how SRI-II helped to generate a “context of criticism” (Engeström, 1991) around “close reading” and “text-complexity,” two constructs central to the CCSS (Coleman & Pimentel, 2012).
Ultimately, “ambitious teaching” requires that teachers engage diverse students in responsive and cognitively-demanding learning (Windschitl, Thompson, & Braaten, 2011). Given the state’s reach into K-12 classrooms, ambitious teaching now also demands that teachers navigate standards-based reforms efficaciously and with concern for equitable learning opportunities, especially for historically underserved students, like EBs, who often encounter less rigorous and less responsive instruction (Anderson & Stillman, 2013; Jackson & Cobb, 2010; Oakes, 2005; Wong Fillmore & Martinez, 2015). Thus, it remains critical for researchers to explore with teachers the ‘hidden’ processes behind their observable practices. SRI-II, the authors argue, offers a robust method for doing this. Indeed, the method itself is the paper’s core contribution.

Author

• Jamy Stillman, University of Colorado - Boulder