Noticing student contribution. Teacher candidates’ negotiation of knowledge when discussing model videos from mathematical classrooms.

• In Event: “Noticing for Equity”: What Is It, and How Can It Be Developed?

Abstract

Purpose
This paper investigates what characterizes teacher candidates’ negotiation of knowledge when discussing videorecorded mathematical discussion from grade eight classrooms. The aim is to identify and describe normative patterns within the group that can provide insights into affordances and limitations in using video in teacher education to foster ambitious and equitable noticing.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
I build on a socio-cultural understanding of ‘noticing’, and will investigate the teacher candidates (TC) negotiation of knowledge through the concept of framing (Goffman, 1974; Discussant, 2021). Van de Sande & Greeno (2012) conceptualizes the negotiation of knowledge in a group as an epistemological framing process. This concept describes on the one side what kind of knowledge the participants treat as relevant and authoritative in the activity they are involved in and on the other side their understanding of what kind of information they are expected to construct. Louie (2018) and Discussant (2021) highlights how such cultural-historically situated frames influences teachers sensemaking and actions in the classroom both prospective and retrospective.

Methods and data sources
This study reports on data from teacher education seminars in mathematics didactics, where the TCs participated in two video-supported learning activities anchored in different model videos showing examples of talks in whole class settings. The data consist of video-recordings from one mathematics didactics seminars (35 minutes). All the videorecorded group conversations where transcribed and divided into thematic episodes. Using tools from conversation analysis (Stivers & Sidnell, 2012), these episodes were analyzed to investigate how the group expressed and negotiated preference organization, epistemic access and rights, and the relative authority of different knowledge.

Findings
Findings indicate that the TC expressed and negotiated two contrasting norms when discussing the talks in the videos: First, when addressing general didactical themes, the TCs treated scientific knowledge as authoritative. In these episodes the TC warranted their claims with events in the video and related these events to scientific concepts. On the other hand, when the TC addressed themes related to mathematics or students mathematical thinking, they treated personalized knowledge as publicly available knowledge and attributed equal authority to personal and scientific knowledge. In these episodes there was also indications of acceptance of vague, incomplete, and fuzzy arguments.

Significance
The identification and description of these contrastive normative orientations provide insight into factors external to the individual TC that influences how teacher education can contribute to development of ambitious and equitable noticing. The first normative orientation highlights the affordance of watching and discussing videos in group and is in line with prior studies showing that the use of video can enhance teacher candidates’ knowledge-based reasoning (Author et al., 2024). The second normative orientation closes rather than opens the participants’ view for the potential mathematical value of the different ideas and proposals put forward by their students. This limits the participants development of ambitious and equitable noticing and represent a constraint in the learning environment that teacher educators need to be aware of, when employing a teacher education pedagogy for educational renewal.

Author

• Håvard Johnsrud Evang, University of Oslo