Surfacing Dilemmas of Responsive Instructional Practice Through Movement Transcription, Visualization, and Video Review

• In Event: Expanding Participatory Video Analysis for Ecological and Ethical Validity

Abstract

Objectives
Since 2016, we have partnered with a professional development organization (PDO) in a large U.S. city that supports secondary mathematics teachers’ professional growth. Mid-career teachers apply to join the PDO in school-based teams; they are selected based on commitments to ambitious instruction. With participating teachers, we have co-developed a video formative feedback (VFF) process for documenting lessons for collective reflection, with a focus on an uncertain, improvisational aspect of ambitious instruction: monitoring students’ groupwork.

Theoretical framework
Educators widely agree that good instruction builds on students’ thinking. To do this well, teachers need to respond in the moment to students’ contributions. As Lampert (2001) described, this involves navigating tensions about responding to ideas that might derail a lesson; managing concerns about inclusion; and thinking about past and future learning goals. Math educators have urged teachers to develop responsive practices not only to center students’ ideas in lessons, but also to create inclusive environments. In this way, developing responsive practice is crucial for both student sensemaking and authentic inclusion.

Most practice-based teacher education pedagogies focus on supporting teachers’ learning of pre-active practices (e.g., planning, anticipating; Grossman et al., 2009) or well-defined interactional routines (Ball & Forzani, 2009). While these are important, the improvisational aspects of teaching require different teacher education pedagogies (Philip, 2019) because responsive practice requires a different kind of teacher knowledge. We seek to specify the nature of teacher knowledge of responsive practice and how it develops.

Data and methods
The data we examine here come from VFFs and interviews with 11 participating teachers. The VFF cycle begins with the teacher’s question (e.g., am I intervening with groups equitably?). We then record a lesson with multiple cameras, including students’ small-group conversations and teachers’ groupwork monitoring. Then we debrief with the teacher (and their school-based PDO colleagues). During debriefs, we view and discuss classroom video in light of the teacher’s question.

Results
Our analysis reveals that dilemmas in responsive instruction are features of teacher knowledge in responsive practice, not problems to be resolved. During VFF debriefs, numerous dilemmas about groupwork monitoring arose as we discussed ambiguous, interesting, and challenging moments. These moments had layers deeply rooted in situational particulars.

For instance, one teacher described tensions between letting students struggle through challenging problems and stepping in to support their thinking. As we watched and discussed video of her questioning strategies with different groups, situational particulars arose — including her sense of students’ mathematical confidence, the purpose of the lesson (e.g., exploration vs. review), and timing within the class period. Looking across our corpus, we find myriad details that shape teachers’ in-the-moment decisions about responsive teaching.

Significance
This analysis underscores how responsive practice relies extensively on teachers’ ongoing interpretation of the situational particulars of their classrooms, requiring teacher knowledge that incorporates dilemas. By documenting the situated complexity of teachers’ responsive practices, our findings undercut rhetoric of “best practices.” Methodologically, they highlight new approaches to supporting participatory video analysis with teachers to uncover layers of meaning in classroom interactions.

Authors

• Ilana S. Horn, Vanderbilt University

• Ben Rydal Shapiro, Georgia State University

• Brette Garner, University of Denver

• Kyle Nolting