Learning to Identify Worthwhile Instructional Tasks for Promoting Deep Learning in Science and Mathematics

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 29
  In Roundtable Session: Preservice Teachers' Curricular Resource Use for Teaching Math and Science

Abstract

Consistent results across more than a decade point to the importance of instructional tasks in students’ opportunities to learn. Teacher preparation programs can offer means to support teachers’ capacity for selecting worthwhile tasks to provide rich opportunities for students’ learning. The current study aims to examine science and mathematics pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) learning within a capstone teaching methods course to differentiate between instructional tasks based on the cognitive and epistemic opportunities that they afford for students’ learning. We investigated how learning to design rigorous instructional tasks influence PSTs' identification and characterization of cognitive demand of tasks. Findings based on PSTs’ analysis of instructional tasks and their task design revealed changes in how PSTs distinguished between tasks and their underlying reasoning.

Authors

• Miray Tekkumru-Kisa, Florida State University

• Sebnem Atabas, Florida State University

• Kirby Whittington, Florida State University