Dialogue for Interpretive Teaching: A Tool to Support Transformative Conversations Between Teacher Candidates and Mentors (Poster 2)

• In Event: The Way Education Is Can't Be How You Teach: Learning Urban Teaching as Interpretative Process

Abstract

Resulting from multi-program implementation of Learning Teaching as an Interpretive Process (L-TIP) at our urban Midwestern College of Education, this study examines the use of Dialogue for Interpretive Teaching in student teaching. Our aim was to structure student teaching as guided participation of implementation of TIP rather than guided practice of teaching as usual. Within the L-TIP framework, guided participation is a format during which “candidates learn how to participate in a community of practice where the primary activity is to facilitate learning based on the cultural, social and historical context of school, themselves and that of the students they teach” (Hollins, 2105b, p. x).
In contrast to guided participation grounded in L-TIP which is highly contextualized and focused on students, the literature on traditional guided participation of teacher candidates reveals a lack of guidance on analysis of student learning (Windschtil, Thompson, & Braaten, 2011). Typical mentoring conversations have been found to focus on approximation of practice (Daniel, Auhl, & Hastings, 2013), conditions outside the teachers’ control (Little & Curry, 2009), and consideration of what learning activity might come next without analysis of what students know and understand (Windschtil, et al., 2011). To address the need to transform interactions between student and mentor teachers, we looked to Hollins’ (2012) description of structured dialogue.
Hollins (2012) developed structured dialogue, a conversation protocol, to transform the community of practice in a low-performing public elementary school. Hollins (2012) describes structured dialogue as a “replacement for externally developed teacher professional development” (p. 25) in which teachers transform the culture of their professional learning community by engaging in conversations that begin with sharing concerns and successes and lead to discussions of potential pedagogical solutions to teaching challenges with a focus on student learning. Structured dialogue supports the three factors Hollins (2012) lists as central to quality teaching: taking responsibility for student learning, adaptation of practice to meet student needs, and the development of cultural norms that seek to transform rather than maintain the status quo.
In this poster, we share the protocol we developed based on Hollins’ (2012) structured dialogue as well as a look at how the protocol was taken up by two student/mentor teacher dyads. Through case study, we found:
The focus of conversations moved from critiquing the approximation of practice of the student teacher to discussing student learning.
Dialogue for Interpretive Teaching appeared to be a catalyst for student teacher agency.
The dyads adopted a problem-solving, action-oriented discourse.
Dyads reported the Dialogue for Interpretive Teaching lead to lasting habits of mind rather than simple completion of an assignment.
Our study indicates structured dialogue is a promising format to promote collaborative reflection that focuses on student learning and places responsibility for student learning on the teacher, disrupting deficit discourses associated with inaction. Further, there is evidence that these critical dialogues between student and mentor teachers create habits of mind that are carried into professional practice, indicating structured dialogue has the potential to both transform student teaching and professional communities of practice.

Authors

• Rhianna K. Thomas, New Mexico State University

• Ekaterina Strekalova-Hughes, University of Missouri - Kansas City

• Erin Meier, Frontier School of Innovation Elementary