Supporting Teachers' Roles in Educational Opportunity: Providing an Opportunity to Teach

• In Event: 68.060 - Roundtable Session 29
  In Roundtable Session: 68.060-8 - School Organization and Effects: Teaching Context and Conditions

Abstract

The construct opportunity-to-learn’s (OTL) importance in US educational history cannot be overstated. It has underpinned both national and international educational measurement and assessment since the 1970s and subsequent national educational standards and reform. While scholarly literature on OTL focuses on opportunities for students to learn (McDonnell, 1995); absent from that literature is a related construct—opportunity-to-teach (OTT). This paper reports on an exploratory qualitative study to explore and deepen the construct of OTT in the sparse OTT literature and through empirical analysis of educational practitioners’ conceptions and experiences of “opportunities to teach.” This deepening of OTT’s conceptualization is useful for both current and future practice-focused purposes and, through this, for education theory and policy.

Authors

• Sousan Arafeh, Southern Connecticut State University

• Theresa Marchant-Shapiro, Southern Connecticut State University