To
increase high-quality teaching in mathematics classrooms, teacher
preparation programs must ensure that graduates possess the
competencies and dispositions needed to continue learning from their
practice over time. There is no other way for beginning teachers to
become expert practitioners. As part of the Mid-Atlantic Center for
Mathematics Teaching and Learning (CMTL), faculty and doctoral
fellows at the University of Delaware (UD) are testing a model that
proposes careful analysis of teaching as an essential competency for
continued learning. To study how pre-service teachers develop
teaching analysis skills, a strategy needed to be created that would
allow pre-service teachers to analyze classroom teaching and
researchers to examine pre-service teachers work.
Video
provides an excellent forum for analyzing teaching and for observing
such analyses. This “LessonLab” platform allows viewers to study
videotaped teaching episodes online; search and review segments as
needed; mark critical learning moments and record analyses of them;
and share and discuss with other viewers observations about
strengths, weaknesses, and proposed lesson improvements.
The
LessonLab platform has allowed the Mid-Atlantic Center to introduce
special teaching analysis projects into the mathematics content and
methods courses in the UD program. Each semester, 300+ elementary and
middle school pre-service teachers analyze selected segments of
mathematics teaching at relevant grade levels; engage in threaded
discussions with their peers about the teaching segment(s); and
propose revisions to the lesson that would improve students’
learning.
Because of the unexpectedly high-quality of
responses of pre-service teachers on some of these tasks, the project
launched a series of studies to examine entering pre-service teachers
analytic skills. Based on the results of two separate studies, it
appears that, under certain conditions, beginning pre-service
teachers can identify important links between an instructional
activity and students learning and can point to evidence from
students responses to justify their claims. Although not fully
developed, these are significant capabilities that will affect the
design of teacher preparation programs. Interestingly, the condition
under which pre-service teachers demonstrate these skills is created
when they are told that the lesson they are about to watch was not
very effective. If pre-service teachers simply are asked to judge the
lessons effectiveness and provide evidence for their claims, they
often make the classic mistake of assuming students learn what the
teacher demonstrates or explains.
Future studies will explore
the features of the teaching-analysis projects that build upon and
extend pre-service teachers entry competencies. Of particular
interest are the effects of these projects on the development of both
teaching analysis skills and mathematics knowledge for teaching. The
LessonLab platform holds promise for strengthening the manner in
which pre-service teachers are prepared.
