Teacher Candidates' Representation of Student Voice in Scripts of Whole-Class Mathematics Discussions

• In Event: Approaches to Learning About Student Thinking in Practice-Based Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives and perspectives
Scripts—written dialogues depicting classroom interactions—are a common representation of practice used to engage mathematics teacher candidates (TCs) with instances of student thinking and the work of teaching (Herbst, 2018). In some cases, TCs create scripts as approximations of practice (Crespo, Oslund, & Parks, 2011). Researchers have considered how scripts demonstrate TCs’ mathematical and pedagogical knowledge and skill (Buchbinder, 2018, Rougée & Herbst, 2018). Little work has considered how TCs “imagine” students’ mathematical reasoning and classroom participation (Zazkis, 2018)—a potentially novel window into TCs’ vision of teaching (Hammerness et al., 2005). Focused on the idea of positioning of teachers and students (Herbst & Chazan, 2012), we investigate the question: How do TCs’ construct the position and roles of teacher and students in scripts of whole-class discussions?

Methods
We analyzed data from two scripting tasks, focused on the practice of responding to mathematics errors in whole-class discussion, used in secondary methods courses. For each task, TCs were presented with a classroom scenario with teacher and student dialogue, including a student error. TCs continued the discussion using multiple lines of transcript, then provided a rationale for their script and analyzed the student reasoning in the scenario. We analyzed 21 TCs’ responses to the scripting tasks at the start of the methods courses. We used deductive coding and analytic memos to identify patterns in how TCs represented student voice, why they made those choices, and how teachers and students are positioned. Through the memo writing process, we developed inferences regarding how the different representations and position of students related to particular visions of mathematics teaching (Munter, 2014).

Results
One major distinction among the dialogues was whether or not students were represented as actively or passively engaging in the mathematical work, in part through who—teacher or students—contributed new mathematical ideas. Another distinction was who TCs decided would participate. Only some scripts (13 of 42) incorporated multiple students, leveraging the context of whole-class discussion. Despite these differences, TCs used several common moves, suggesting that the presence of taken-as-shared moves is not sufficient to infer TCs’ vision related to responding to errors. We also observed distinctions in the language used to describe student thinking. Some TCs used unproductive framings about a student’s “misconception” or “confused” thinking while others used language that valued student reasoning and prioritized student ownership over the mathematical work. However, some of these latter instances were inconsistent with what the script depicted.

Scholarly significance
We attend to Zazkis’ (2018) call for a focus on “imagined students” in scripts by showing the complexity of considering TCs’ representations and analyses of student voice to understand their perspectives on students and practice. This study also contributes to the literature on approximations and representations of practice by unpacking additional ways they can provide insight into TCs’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions. For areas for future research, we posit that such analyses can have connections to TCs’ future practice and that TCs’ scripts can be a source of investigation in teacher education.

Authors

• Matthew P. Campbell, West Virginia University

• Erin Baldinger, University of Minessota -Twin Cities