Poster #45 - Teacher Responses to Student Mistakes: Observations of Instruction in Four Kindergarten Classrooms

• In Event: 79.052 - MTCC Poster Session 19
  In Poster Session: 79.052-4 - Teaching Across Multiple Spaces

Abstract

Making mistakes and receiving feedback are critical elements of learning (Huesler & Metcalfe, 2012). Although the importance of corrective feedback is well established (Hattie & Timperley, 2007), little research focuses squarely on real-world, mistake-related, teacher-student interactions (Tulis, 2013; Seifried & Wuttke, 2010). This study reports key themes from a recent inquiry that uses the method of portraiture (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) to vividly illustrate how four U.S. Kindergarten teachers respond to student mistakes in their distinct environments – urban district, suburban district, Montessori, and no-excuses charter classrooms. Three salient themes from each portrait are described in turn, demonstrating wildly different instructional responses to mistakes across these teachers. In closing, key insights drawn from cross-case comparison are discussed.

Author

• Maleka Donaldson, University of Hartford