Can You Clarify? Alignment and Congruence of Focal Teacher Practices in Lebanon

• In Event: Centering Justice in Planning and Enactment

Abstract

Background:
Ensuring high-quality teaching at scale is difficult under the best of circumstances. In the case of Lebanon, where an influx of Syrian refugees resulted in the doubling of the student population within four years, such a task presents a near-insurmountable challenge. Furthermore, high levels of international response to the refugee crisis has often resulted in fragmented implementation of funded educational programs –as well as their accompanying teacher professional development -- of limited quality, sustainability, or evidence of effectiveness.
This study examines baseline data of an ongoing field trial of a teacher professional development approach that seeks to move from fragmented service provision of pre-packaged, inflexible curricula to a framework of evidence-based core instructional practices that can be easily adapted and integrated into multiple contexts. The framework seeks to establish a shared concept of practices with accompanying communal language.
While impacts are not yet available, we know that teacher reforms are best received when teachers view them as congruent with their context and classroom teaching (Doyle & Ponder, 1977; Cohen & Ball, 1990). The current study investigates patterns of teacher self-assessment of instructional practices targeted in the intervention, including critical thinking and facilitation of classroom discourse, alongside external observer-assessments of these practices.
Methods and data:
All coaches (n = 130) of English, French, and Biology were selected to participate in the study. Coaches were assigned to schools per business-as-usual method; within each assigned school, principals nominated three teachers per subject area for coaching. Teachers (n=640) were randomly-selected from this pool; all taught at first-shift public schools in grades 4-8.
Baseline data collection occurred in January and February of 2020. Teachers self-completed surveys regarding, among other constructs, their perceptions of focal teaching practices. Locally-trained raters collected teacher observation data on the Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observation (PLATO) (Grossman, Loeb, Cohen, & Wyckoff, 2013).
Results:
On average, preliminary results suggest that teachers’ self-report of the frequency with which they utilized focal instructional practices was higher than external observers’ ratings on PLATO. For example, while nearly 60% of teachers reported frequently or always requiring students to think critically in class, external observers reported that the vast majority of the time (80%), teachers were doing 90% or more of the intellectual work in the classroom. Similarly, teachers report using techniques to increase student talk – such as paired or small group discussions – nearly half the time, whereas observers reported only 20% of lessons utilizing these techniques. Of those segments, more than sixty percent provided fewer than three minutes of opportunities for students to talk.
Significance:
Teachers’ perceptions of their use of instructional practices were consistently above those observed by external raters. This may represent misaligned perceptions of pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986) or a lack of standardized professional language (Lortie, 1975). Standardizing teachers’ professional vision and language is likely a necessary but insufficient step in achieving acceptance of practices and methodologies driving toward a more coherent professional learning experience for teachers.

Authors

• Lindsay Brown, New York University

• Ha Yeon Kim, New York University

• Douha Boulares, New York University