Decomposing Discussion: Social Studies Teacher Educator Problem-Setting and Novice Noticing

• In Event: Empowering Citizens and Teachers: Engaging Social Studies Instruction

Abstract

Teacher candidates (TCs) often struggle to parse complex classroom practices such as facilitating a discussion. Teacher educators (TEs) impose interpretive frameworks naming, or “problem-setting,” of the components, dilemmas, and aims of these practices, in order to influence how TCs notice and interpret classroom activity. This comparative case study uses interview and think-aloud data to ask how three social studies TEs articulate the pedagogical dilemmas of classroom discussion and to what extent their problem-setting is reflected in their students’ noticing. Findings suggest that TEs with shared perspectives on disciplinary discussion noticed different elements of discussion. TCs, as a group, tended to focus on non-disciplinary elements of videos, but when TCs did notice disciplinary elements of videos, their interpretations reflected their TE’s.

Author

• Lightning Jay, Binghamton University - SUNY