Using Contrasting Cases to Foster Preservice Teacher Noticing Around Valuing Student Language and Ideas

• In Event: Centering Multilingual Ideologies and Practices in Disciplinary Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Objectives

Noticing racialized multilingual youths’ dynamic use of language(s) for learning is a prerequisite for affirming and leveraging learner assets to disrupt deficit-oriented pedagogies that perpetuate inequities in educational opportunities (García & Sylvan, 2011). In a secondary English credential program, this study explored a pedagogical innovation to surface and deepen 14 preservice teachers’ (PSTs) understanding of how diverse youths’ language and ideas may be valued or devalued in classroom discussions. We asked, How can a pedagogical task involving contrasting cases shift PSTs’ understanding and noticing of discussion features?

Theoretical Framework

To support PST noticing, we developed contrasting cases -- juxtaposed examples designed to help people learn to notice important features and better understand conditions of applicability, thus developing a more differentiated and actionable understanding of a phenomenon. (Author, 2016; Bransford & Schwartz, 1999). Here, we developed contrasting cases to help PSTs learn to perceive and differentiate important features of discussion.

Methods
This study took place over two class periods with 14 PSTs in a secondary ELA methods course. The core learning activities involved two sets of six contrasting cases -- similar but distinct short transcripts of high school ELA discussions. We built these dialogs from actual transcripts of classroom dialog, and, with support from 7 expert teacher partners, added variations designed to highlight particular features of classroom discourse.

In class, PSTs worked in pairs to rate these dialogs from the best to the worst example of a classroom discussion, then generated principles to explain their rankings. The first set of dialogs involved students using a language other than English (LOTE), and the second set represented discussions where learners used “non-standard academic” language. We hoped to encourage PSTs to think about and differentiate ways that student language and ideas might be rebuked, ignored, superficially taken up, or deeply taken up in class discussion.

Data sources
Our data sources include:
Rankings of cases for each student pair and principles generated to justify that ranking
Transcripts of pairs discussing the cases and the following whole class discussion
Pre-post video noticing measures

Preliminary Results

One-third of PSTs showed a marked shift towards noticing the devaluing that might occur when teachers recast students’ language, positioning it as incorrect or inappropriate. In pre-noticing measures, PSTs generally described teacher actions as “summarizing but not devaluing.” After engaging with contrasting cases, these PSTs were more likely to describe these same teacher actions as “devaluing by filtering and funneling students’ language through their own.” Comparing cases allowed PSTs to notice subtle distinctions that may go unnoticed in fleeting classroom discussions. Tensions surfaced in PSTs partner discussions of the cases, including questioning their primary role as teachers of English and the tension between valuing students’ language and pushing for “standard academic language.”

Significance
Contrasting cases of classroom dialog represent a novel TE pedagogy that prompts PSTs to have meaningful, grounded conversations about leveraging multilingual youths’ linguistic assets even when they do not see such moments in their own classroom teaching experiences or have the opportunity to reflect deeply in the moment.

Authors

• Leslie C. Banes, Sacramento State University

• Kristen Pilner Blair, Stanford University

• Lee Michael Martin, University of California - Davis

• Joanna W. Wong, California State University - Monterey Bay