The Relationship Between Appropriation and Guided Participation in Side-by-Side Coaching

• In Event: Understanding the Complexities of Mathematics Coaching: What Multiple Theoretical and Analytical Frameworks Reveal

Abstract

Practice-embedded learning opportunities have gained prominence in teacher education for closing the gap between professional development and practice. One example is side-by-side coaching, in which the teacher and coach co-participate in practice in teachers’ classrooms. We examine side-by-side coaching through the lens of Rogoff’s (1995) three planes of sociocultural activity to demonstrate how co-participation in context can provide varied and responsive learning opportunities for teachers. Rogoff theorized that learning takes place within and among three planes of activity: the apprenticeship plane which encompasses cultural, historical, and organizational learning contexts; the guided participation plane, in which participants interact and coordinate activity; and the appropriation plane, in which a learner takes on, enacts, and transforms practices by making them part of their repertoire. In our study, we characterized different forms of guided participation and determined how guided participation interacted with appropriation during side-by-side coaching sessions. We ask: What characterized opportunities for guided participation and appropriation of practice during side-by-side coaching? How did these structures interact to support teacher learning opportunities?

Methods
We drew on video records of 21 side-by-side coaching sessions, in which a mathematics coach and teacher collaborated during instruction in the teacher’s classroom. Within these lessons, we focused on conferring interactions (CIs), where the teacher and coach were engaged in discussion with small groups of students. We operationalized guided participation and appropriation by who was leading instruction (teacher, coach, or both), the instructional activity, and whether students were part of the interaction. We identified forms of guided participation and isolated instances of appropriation and guided participation across all 50 CIs. We then looked for patterns in how these instances were sequenced.

Findings
We found that in side-by-side coaching, teachers moved among appropriation of practice and seven forms of guided participation. Appropriation occurred during coaching in 21 of 50 conferring interactions, making it a central teacher learning opportunity in side-by-side coaching. Appropriation interacted with guided participation in two primary ways. First, appropriation was often interspersed with pauses, a form of guided participation in which the coach and teacher stepped back from interacting with students to discuss student thinking and make instructional decisions about what to do next. These brief interactions allowed the teacher to re-enter the student interaction with ideas that fueled continued appropriation. Second, appropriation often occurred at the beginning of a CI, then gave way to other forms of guided participation, most frequently joint teaching with the coach or the coach modeling instruction. Appropriation allowed the teacher to identify areas of practice which guided participation could further support their learning.

Significance
Rogoff’s (1995) framework draws attention to the varied nature of joint activity in coaching and other practice-embedded learning opportunities. Drawing on this framework reveals how appropriation interacts with guided participation to support opportunities to learn and enact practice. Both theoretically and analytically, our findings indicate that appropriation is inherent to coaching, rather than an outcome or end point.

Authors

• Jen Munson, Northwestern University
  Presenting Author

• Erin E. Baldinger, University of Minnesota
  Presenting Author

• Mari Altshuler, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Presenting Author

• Amber Armstrong, University of Minnesota
  Non-Presenting Author