Learning Environments to Support Teacher Leaders' Learning to Lead Video-Based Discussions

• In Event: 75.019 - Advancing the Knowledge Base to Improve Teaching: Generating a Design Framework for Video-Based Activity Systems

Abstract

This poster will describe design considerations in the use of video in the Problem-Solving Cycle (PSC) model of mathematics professional development and Mathematics Leadership Preparation (MLP) model of teacher leader preparation. The video use we address is situated in our current research-practice-partnership to adapt the PSC and MLP models for implementation in the Urban Unified School District (UUSD). We focus on our approach to preparing teacher leaders (TLs) to facilitate PSC workshops with the math teachers in their schools.
The PSC model consists of three interconnected workshops, organized around a rich mathematical problem. During the sequence of workshops teachers solve the problem and prepare to teach it, and then use video clips from their PSC lessons to analyze student reasoning and instructional practices in the context of video-based discussions (VBDs). Our poster focuses on these VBDs. The purpose of the VBDs is to help teachers notice student and teacher practices during mathematics lessons so that they can improve the quality of their mathematics teaching.
The MLP model prepares TLs to plan and lead PSC workshops. The central component is a series of Leader Support Meetings that provide ongoing, structured guidance for the TLs as they prepare to lead PSC workshops. In designing these meetings, we drew upon Grossman and colleagues’ (2009) studies of learning across professions to include multiple opportunities for “decomposition of practice” (breaking down and analyzing components of practice) and “approximations of practice” (engaging in practices proximal to the practices of a profession).
In a typical Leader Preparation Meeting focused on VBD, the project team, together with the TLs, discuss the purpose of the upcoming PSC workshop and how a VBD can support that purpose. In UUSD, these workshops are designed to support UUSD’s Vision of Learning and Teaching, which includes the dimensions “Agency, Authority, and Identity” and “Access to Content.” TLs then experience the VBD as a teacher-learner (modeling). Next, they have the opportunity to analyze facilitation practices modeled by the project team (decomposition). The third set of activities focuses on TLs’ preparation to lead VBDs. TLs select 2-5 minute video clips from their own PSC lessons or the lessons of other teachers in their schools and plan their VBDs, including identifying a launching question to frame the viewing of the video and back-pocket questions to focus teachers’ attention on key aspects of learning and teaching. They then rehearse facilitating VBDs and receive feedback (approximation).
This work incorporates a variety of ways to assess learning. The short clips TLs select, the focus question they choose, and their feedback to one another during rehearsals provide formative assessment evidence of the TLs’ understanding of the role of VBDs. Later, we are able to assess TL learning by observing them as they lead site-based workshops using VBD with their fellow math teachers.
This poster will describe our use of modeling and rehearsals for learning to facilitate VBDs, and the tools we developed to support these activities such as planning templates and protocols for debriefing modeling and rehearsals.

Authors

• Hilda Borko, Stanford University

• Janet Carlson, Stanford University