How to Press for Ambitious and Equitable Pedagogy: Changing Teacher Practice Through the Use of Discourse Tools

• In Event: Tools and Routines for Preparing STEM Teachers

Abstract

Objectives: We tracked 12 secondary science teachers through two years of training and professional work, identifying barriers in their attempts to enact ambitious pedagogy in classrooms. We then designed three discourse tools to support rich and responsive talk in science classrooms. These tools has been tested with a second cohort of new science teachers. We report on the conditions under which these tools foster productive dialogue in classrooms.

Theoretical Framework: Sense making and scaffolded discussion are “the primary mechanism for promoting deep understanding of complex concepts and robust reasoning” (Michaels, O’Connor, & Resnick, 2008, p. 284). In this view, learning is accomplished through an ongoing process of comparing one’s own understandings with those that are being aired out on the social plane of the classroom (Herrenkohl & Guerra, 1998; O’Connor & Michaels, 1996). Dialogue in conjunction with material activity also engages learners in the canonical practices of science—that is, “to formulate questions about phenomena that interest [students], to build and critique theories, to collect, analyze and interpret data, to evaluate hypotheses through experimentation, observation, measurement, and to communicate findings” (Rosebery, Warren & Conant, 1992, p. 65).

Methods and Sources of Evidence: In Phase I we conducted longitudinal multi-case studies of 12 pre-service science teachers. We followed them through their pre-service program, into secondary classrooms as they began student teaching, then into their first year of teaching. We collected interview data, classroom artifacts, and observed regularly their classrooms. In Phase II, after the design of a set of discourse tools, we collected the same type of data on a second cohort.

Results: With the help of the tools, participants in our second cohort began to view classroom activity as opportunities for different kinds of talk, rather than as repeated cycles of “lecture-lab-lecture-lab-test.” During their classroom work, participants were able to use the discourse tools to foster productive talk, although we would classify their initial attempts at conversations with students as “clumsy implementation.” Because eliciting and responding to student thinking is explicitly built into the tools, most participants were able to uncover valuable elements of students’ ideas. About a third of participants could also respond meaningfully to their students’ ideas in the midst of class conversations. Because participants and methods instructors were using the same tools, and because these tools became boundary objects that spanned learning contexts, they served as mechanisms to de-privatize practice, anchoring a common language that could more readily support conversations about student learning.

Scholarly significance of the study: This work is accelerating the trajectory towards expert-like teaching by novices, and we are better able to understand the conditions under which novices can take up ambitious forms of teaching. In addition, this work is helping us develop a theory of pedagogical tools based on what we know of how beginners take up new and often unfamiliar forms of productive practice.

Authors

• Mark A. Windschitl, University of Washington

• Melissa Lee Braaten, University of Wisconsin - Madison