Developing Teachers’ Pedagogical Understanding

• In Event: Effective Implementation of Pedagogical Reform Through Professional Development: The Quality Teaching Rounds Approach

Abstract

The analysis presented in this paper addresses the impact of Quality Teaching Rounds on teachers’ pedagogical understanding over a three year period. Drawing on 72 transcripts, from over 300 hours of audio recording during teachers’ collaborative analysis of observed lessons, and using constant comparative methods, we identify themes emerging from the teachers’ dialogue regarding improved conceptual understanding of pedagogy, in general, and their own practice, in particular. Specifically, we isolate and examine teachers’ statements of challenges and refinements they have made as a result of the learning opportunities provided through participation in Quality Teaching Rounds.
In teachers’ talk about the experience of Quality Teaching Rounds, they identified four conditions as significant in deepening their understanding: i) a willingness to publicly share their thinking due to the substantial time spent on building a safe environment for professional learning with their colleagues; ii) the procedural scaffolding of the Quality Teaching model and its associated materials which focused their inquiry on previously unnoticed aspects of practice and its effects on their students; iii) the common language, with indicators and descriptors of pedagogical concepts, provided by the Quality Teaching model which made understanding their colleagues less problematic and reduced conceptual conflict and power imbalances among teachers; and iv) the experience of critically observing colleagues’ practice which was considered a new and valuable opportunity to deepen their understanding of quality teaching.
Close analysis of teachers’ statements about what they valued in the Rounds dialogue demonstrates shifts in their understanding of pedagogy. These shifts were evident in teachers bring prompted by, but going beyond, the diagnostic procedures associated with the Quality Teaching model to share revelations about how they think, organize, plan and explain their practice differently. Moreover, they highlight how they now talk differently about teaching, both to colleagues and, importantly for them, to their students. Examples include: (1) how teachers have re-organized their prior knowledge around the concepts provided by the Quality Teaching model and can more easily draw on that knowledge in their observations of their colleagues’ lessons and reflection on their own teaching, and; (2) how they have changed their minds about what they need to focus on in order to support their students’ learning. This degree of self-reported professional learning is significant for all stakeholders in ongoing attempts to conduct meaningful professional development that transfers teachers’ learning to the classroom.
Finally, in this paper we make use of classroom observation scores and, to a limited extent, student performance data, to triangulate claims to improved understanding which have translated into improvements in lesson quality and student results. These analyses highlight the importance of teachers’ understanding at the core of successful collegial inquiry-based professional development on teaching.

Authors

• Julie Maree Bowe, The University of Newcastle

• Jennifer M. Gore, The University of Newcastle