College of Education

Policymakers, researchers, and politicians have recently placed in the cross hairs for examination teacher preparation programs. Under review is the content and efficacy of program outcomes with strong rhetoric aimed at the need to improve the quality of teacher candidates. Studies of teacher preparation highlight the lack of consensus in preparation components and the weak content preparation of teachers (2010 TEDS-M). Furthermore, additional studies cite programs’ meager impact on novice teachers’ preparation to meet the needs of diverse classrooms (Gainsburg, 2012). This debate about teacher preparation programs’ worth and value takes place at the same time that US schools are seeing teachers leave the profession at alarming rates. Statistics on teacher retention suggest that US classroom are often populated by a stream of novice (first to fifth year) teachers who are in the early stages of building skill (Darling-Hammond, 2009; Ingersoll, 2001; Kumashiro, 2010).  

More alarming is that novice teachers and less qualified teachers (those with emergency certification, teaching out of content area certification, or non-traditional route certification with little coursework) are more likely to be employed in more diverse communities where state and federal funding has historically been under-resourced. This means that students within these under-resourced schools are more likely than their peers in more well-resourced districts to be supported by a novice teacher or a less qualified teacher (Darling-Hammond, 2009).  These challenges suggest that teacher preparation programs must support the development of novice teachers’ practice no longer pinning their effort on the “hope” that discussion and investigation of teaching proliferating university course work will flourish into skilled practice after gaining experience.

Secondary Science and Mathematics Teachers Learning Practice centers on a premise that to learn skilled instructional practice that attends to ambitious learning goals for all students there are three essential components: (1) novice teachers need to examine teaching using student work, lesson plans, video of teaching/learning; (2) they need to engage in guided or scaffolded opportunities to teach; and (3) they need focused feedback and assessment on the quality of instruction. Learning ambitious teaching involves teaching using core practices (see fig. 1) of the profession that have been shown to support all students’ learning. The practices we focus on in the program build from national work by researchers and teacher educator on high leverage ambitious teaching practices (Tools for Ambitious Science Teaching; Learning In, From, and For Teaching Practice;Teaching Works; The Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observations).

This work builds what Grossman and her colleagues call pedagogies of investigation and enactment as central to learning teaching (Grossman et al., 2009). The conceptual underpinnings of our approach are built on the work of researchers in mathematics education (Kazemi, Franke & Lampert, 2009), science education (Thompson, Windschitl & Braaten, 2010; Windschitl, Thompson, & Braaten, 2009), and teacher education (Grossman & McDonald, 2008; Grossman et al., 2009). 

Novice teachers learn high leverage practices through a process of guided rehearsals and cycles on enactment. With novice teachers faculty focus on high leverage practices for ambitious science and mathematics teaching through these cycles – a repeated process that supports novice teachers unpack aspects of practice by investigating, planning, and rehearsing instruction with coaching. Each step engages in strategic analyses and teacher reflection. The attention to ambitious teaching allows us to develop a common language-of-practice building community members’ capacities and sense making. Program high leverage practices are embedded within instructional activities that simultaneously maintain and mediate the complexity of teaching by simulating the multiple demands placed on teachers (such as attending to a clear goal, supporting individual and collective sense making, and formatively assessing ideas to inform decision making). Instructional activities bound and support teaching complexity as they have been deconstructed by novice teachers in collaboration with teacher educators in a way that specify the ambitious instructional work and student content learning demands entailed in the activities. Through investigation and enactment cycles, novice teachers build knowledge, skills and sensibilities toward ambitious teaching in science or mathematics. 

Figure 2:  Cycle of Investigation and Enactment

Ambitious teaching practice has a body of research supporting its affordances for student learning and these practices are seen as powerful to novices as they learn teaching. While the way faculty across science and math scaffold novices’ learning is not identical, what is powerful is that as a community we have identified a set of practices that translate across mathematics and science pedagogy. 

Figure 3:  Snapshot of Learing Practice

Learning practice is guided by a set of principles of high quality teaching that guide teacher judgment and decision-making (see Fig. 4). These principles permeate program courses, taking up central issues of equity and accessibility, central in ambitious teaching. Because of these principles are a part of the program framework, teacher development is accomplished through a coordinated and cohesive set of courses that build upon one another and leverage opportunities across courses, settings (university, schools, out of school), and content area. This framework provides a process for working on teaching and a common language for teacher educators to work on practice with novice teachers. 

Because a focus on practice spans the program there is a synergy of effort and understanding built within the community (novice teachers, faculty, and graduate students). Unlike typical teacher education programs where ideas about discipline specific teaching are isolated within a methods course, OSU faculty collaborate across disciplines to put instructional practice at the core and to build resources with novice teachers to support ambitious teaching while at the same time maintaining integrity with the practices of the discipline. More importantly, novice teachers develop skill with using high leverage practices in activities central to the work of teaching and the discipline. 

Currently, a number of research questions are being investigated to understand how and what novices are learning including the challenges and drawbacks they face as they move across settings (schools and university).  Analyses of the data collected to inform our questions will be analyzed to impact program evaluation, revision and curricular refinements. Faculty are also interested in examining how the enactment of high leverage practices impacts our ultimate measure of success, student learning. Research efforts support doctoral work and innovative curricula development. Program faculty have received OSU LL Stewart grants supporting networking with other higher education institutions developing similar practice-focused teacher education courses and programs. A National Science Foundation, Noyce Mentor and Teaching Fellow grant was awarded in collaboration with OSU’s mathematics department and Teachers Development Group. This award provides support to collaborate with innovative district professional learning centered on ambitious teaching and the development of high leverage practices.  Faculty have presented workshops and at professional meetings on the project to share resources and communicate. 

We believe our efforts in the Secondary Science and Mathematics Teachers Learning Practice Project will have a significant effect on our novice teachers’ abilities to enact ambitious teaching of science and mathematics in the classroom and will inform the work of teacher education more broadly.

References:

• Grossman, P., Compton, C., Igra, D., Ronfeldt, M., Shahan, E., & Williamson, P. (2009). Teaching practice: A cross-professional perspective. Teachers College Record, 111
• Grossman, P., & McDonald, M. (2008). Back to the future: Directions for research in teaching and teacher education. American Educational Research Journal, 45(1), 184-205.  
• Kazemi, E., Franke, M. L., & Lampert, M. (2009). Developing pedagogies in teacher education to support novice teachers' ability to enact ambitious instruction. Paper presented at the Crossing divides: Proceedings of the 32nd annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (Vol. 1). , Auckland, New Zealand.
• Thompson, J., Windschitl, M., & Braaten, M. (2010). Developing a theory of teacher practice. Paper presented at the National Association of Science Teachers, Philadelphia, PA.
• Windschitl, M., Thompson, J. & Braaten, M. (2009). Fostering ambitious pedagogy in novice teachers: The new role of tool-supported analysis of student work. Teachers College Record.

Websites of related projects:

• Tools for Ambitious Science Teaching (University of Washington)
• Learning In, From, and For Teaching Practice (LTP) (University of Michigan; University of Washington; UCLA)
• Teaching Works (University of Michigan)
• The Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observations (PLATO) project (Stanford University)