Theorizing the Relationship Between Teachers' Noticing in Professional Development and Classroom Practice

• In Event: Conceptualizing Teacher Noticing in Research on Teaching and Teacher Learning

Abstract

Introduction & Objectives
An extensive line of research investigates teacher learning in video-based professional development (e.g. Author, 2011; Gaudin, & Chaliès, 2015), with less research focused on how these settings support teacher learning and their enactment of instructional practice centered on student thinking (see for exception, Author, 2009; Author, 2020; Choppin, 2011). Recognizing the central role that noticing plays in the work of teaching (Kersting et al., 2010; Sherin et al., 2011), we investigate the relationship between teachers' noticing in video-based professional development and the ways in which teachers took up practices of noticing student thinking during instruction.
Theoretical Framework
We draw on situated learning theory to examine the relationship between teacher learning and instructional practice (Kazemi & Hubbard, 2008; Putnam & Borko, 2000). In particular, we propose that video-based professional development provides a context for teachers to develop discourse practices for attending to, interpreting, and inquiring into student thinking. More specifically, we theorize that centering analysis of artifacts of student thinking in professional development - and the discourse practices that surrounded this work - served to apprentice teachers into developing dispositions to focus on and inquire about student thinking during instruction, as well as discourse practices for constructing classroom interactions focused on students’ ideas.
Study Context, Data, and Methods
We draw on data from three video-based professional development contexts to support our claims. Data includes videos and transcripts of professional development meetings, videos and field notes of classroom observations, and interviews with participating teachers. Drawing on ethnographic microanalysis (Frederickson, 1992) and interaction analysis (Jordan & Henderson, 1994), we characterized discourse patterns within the context of professional learning and classroom settings that supported teachers’ attention to, sense-making of, and inquiry about student thinking.
Results
We found several patterns of noticing discourse evident in both spaces (professional development and classroom) indicating the following purposes: (1) identifying and taking up student ideas; (2) providing sensemaking space around student thinking; (3) using student ideas to connect and expand explanations; and, (4) shifting epistemic agency among learners. Further, we found that these discourse patterns first appeared in participants’ discourse in the professional learning setting, and, later, as teachers began to take up similar patterns of noticing, in classroom talk with their students. To justify our claims, we provide illustrative cases from the three professional development contexts to show the generation of discourse practices in this setting, as well as cases from participating teachers’ classroom instruction. Through these examples, we develop a theory of developing a noticing discourse to center student thinking in teaching.
Scientific Significance
This study contributes to research on teacher noticing by characterizing the mechanisms of teacher learning, with a focus on how the social organization of professional learning contexts can support the enactment of practices that are central to organizing instruction around student ideas. Findings of this study also have implications for shifting classroom discourse in ways that can position students as co-authors of disciplinary knowledge and practice.

Authors

• Elizabeth A. van Es, University of California - Irvine

• Melissa J. Luna, West Virginia University

• Miray Tekkumru-Kisa, Florida State University