What to Do During Whale-nami? Supporting Preservice Teachers' Noticing and Pedagogical Reasoning During Teaching Rehearsals

• In Event: Examining Practice-Based Science Teacher Education

Abstract

Learning ambitious pedagogy that hinges on students’ participation in productive disciplinary talk and practices requires connected opportunities to approximate core instructional practices and adapt instruction based on what students say and do (Ghousseini, 2015). Some challenges for preservice teachers (PSTs) include learning to “notice” students’ ideas, and to engage in principled pedagogical reasoning to move instruction forward (Gotwals & Birmingham, 2015; Sherin et al., 2011). In our methods class, we wanted PSTs to rehearse noticing and exercising pedagogical judgment as they served as the primary instructional leaders for an extended rehearsal of teaching we call “macroteaching”. Rather than PSTs teach one lesson in a methods course to peers, the PSTs in our methods courses teach a unit – 10-12 instructional hours – to their class colleagues.

We propose that macroteaching serves as an opportunity for PSTs to encounter unanticipated talk and actions, to make purposeful pedagogical decisions based on the emergent student discourse, and to move forward with instruction based on the decisions they made in-the-moment. In this session, we present how four PSTs learned to notice student thinking and make productive pedagogical decisions while serving as the lead instructors during a macroteaching experience during methods class.

Framework

To examine macroteaching in our methods class, we used a situated learning framework to highlight the ways in which teachers’ knowledge is socially, culturally, and historically constructed. Using a situated framework, we defined learning as an individual’s changing participation in pedagogical activities – planning, instructing in-the-moment, and reflection – over time (Lave & Wenger, 1991).

Methods and data

During macroteaching, we collected: (1) PSTs’ planning and reflection assignments; (2) field notes for each day of macroteaching, (3) video of some days of teaching; and (4) notes on an end-of-class debriefing session. During data analysis, we looked for critical incidents that PSTs’ shifting framing of student ideas and subsequent actions.

Results

We report about four PSTs who taught a unit about whale fossils uncovered in the mountains of Chile. Three of the four student groups shared models that aligned with the PST-instructional team’s initial expectations. One group, however, provided an explanation that teaching team did not expect –a tsunami lifted the whales out of the water and into the mountains. “Whale-nami,” as this model became known, represented an important instructional moment fort the PSTs

We make two claims about PSTs emerging noticing and pedagogical decisions in the context of whale-nami. First, the PSTs leading macroteaching had opportunities to encounter the uncertainty that is inevitable in classrooms, and to have a community of colleagues who understand the complexity of the upcoming decision assist them in considering next pedagogical steps. Second, PSTs had multiple opportunities to place value on students’ emerging ideas, rather than shutting down talk and participation.

Significance

We argue that extended rehearsals of teaching are powerful opportunities for PSTs to develop agency as professionals, by which we mean that they learn to make productive pedagogical decisions based on their emerging noticing of student thinking.

Authors

• David Stroupe, Michigan State University

• Amelia Wenk Gotwals, Michigan State University

• Brian Hancock, Alma College