(How) Does Participation in an Instructional Laboratory Impact Teaching Practice?

• In Event: Investigating Legitimate Peripheral Participation in Instructional Laboratories to Enhance Teaching Practice

Abstract

Objectives
We are studying the impact of participation in an instructional laboratory to determine whether and how the work transfers into classrooms. Participants engaged in legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) through structured conversations about the lesson plans, close observation of teaching in a fifth grade classroom, and analysis of student tasks. Further, participants engaged in activities on leading mathematics discussions, a focal instructional practice in the observation. Specifically, we ask: Does their participation impact teachers’ discussion leading practice, and if so, in what ways?

Perspectives
Discussions are important for supporting students in developing conceptual understanding (Michaels et al., 2008) and learning disciplinary norms and practices (Lampert, 2001). Discussions can make space for students to explain and justify their thinking and reasoning, as well as broaden conceptions of what it means to know and do mathematics. In our work, we draw upon a decomposition of the teaching practice of leading discussions (authors & colleagues, xxxx) that puts the collective building of knowledge at the core of the work.

Methods and Data Sources
Two groups of teachers participated, one onsite with a facilitator (N = 9), and the second at a remote site (N = 11), streaming video of the classroom with an in-person facilitator. Participants recorded three mathematics discussions two months before the professional development occurred (pre-videos) and then another three such lessons two months after participation (post-videos).We analyzed the 120 videos that resulted from this collection. A tool capturing 68 specific discussion-leading moves, as well as whether the teacher was responsible for the move, a student initiated the work, or the work was unnecessary, was applied to all videos by two research team members.

Results
Prior to the intervention, the means of move usage of the remote participants were higher than those of the onsite group on almost every dimension (p < .05). Thus, we share the findings for the two groups separately. The onsite group (lower pre-intervention mean) did not appear to be leading discussions before the intervention, but showed slight increases in both orienting students to the thinking of others and concluding discussions, two focal areas of the intervention. Conversely, the remote group (higher pre-intervention mean) who appeared to be leading discussions before the intervention, decreased on several categories but also showed near significant growth on connecting and extending student thinking, arguably more advanced discussion-leading moves. One possible explanation for these decreases is the timing of the post-data collection at the beginning of the year when they may have been explicitly teaching their students how to engage in discussion, leading to fewer instances of particular discussion-leading moves. The increase in connecting and extending may have been due to readiness to take on this difficult work.

Significance
These findings suggest that participation in the instructional laboratory and associated activities impacted teaching practice differentially and they point to the complexities in designing and measuring professional learning.

Authors

• Meghan M. Shaughnessy, Boston University

• Nicole Garcia, University of Michigan

• Jillian Peterson Mortimer, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Kristen Pynes, University of Michigan

• Darrius D Robinson, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor