DEVELOPING PROFESSIONAL VISION FOR PRACTICE: PRESERVICE TEACHERS USING

STUDENTS’ SCIENTIFIC IDEAS IN SIMULATIONS OF PRACTICE

By

Amanda Benedict-Chambers

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Educational Studies)
in the University of Michigan!
2014

Doctoral Committee

Associate Professor Donald Freeman, Chair

Associate Professor Elizabeth A. Davis
Assistant Professor Matthew S. Ronfeldt
Assistant Professor R. Brent Stansfield
 Acknowledgements

Completing this dissertation would not have been possible without the support and

encouragement of my committee, my friends, and my family. First, I want to thank the members

of my dissertation committee: Donald Freeman, Betsy Davis, Matt Ronfeldt, and Brent

Stansfield. It has truly been a privilege to work with each of you. I have learned a great deal

from you; I am grateful for your feedback that has challenged my thinking and improved my

work.

Donald, I thank you for your guidance, support, and mentorship for the last six years. I

appreciate how you have always been an advocate of my work, and for the ways you always

challenge my thinking about theory. I could not have finished this dissertation without your

support and flexibility along the way. Betsy, I am grateful for the opportunity to work with you

in the elementary science methods course and in the ELECTS project. Thank you for all of your

support and for representing the kind of teacher educator and researcher I aspire to be. Matt, I

appreciate your acute questions and insights into teacher education; thanks also for meetings

with good coffee. Brent, I thank you for your encouragement and for exposing me to the

richness of work in professional expertise.

I have been blessed to work with amazing faculty and staff at the University of Michigan.

I am particularly grateful to Debi Khasnabis, Beth Grzelak, Annemarie Palincsar, Magdalene

Lampert, Cathy Reischl, Chris Feak, Liz Kolb, Joe Krajcik, LeeAnn Sutherland and many others

who have challenged my thinking and helped me to become a better educator and scholar.

I could not have survived this dissertation journey without the support of my friends.

Dianne, you have enriched my life, our times together walking, drinking coffee, and discussing

ii
the Lord were always a source of inspiration and encouragement to me. I think you for all of

the ways that you and Chuck have supported Eric and me along this journey.

To my Thursday night small group, especially Leanne, Carrie-Anne, Betsy, Christie,

Susanna, and Crystal, I could not have done this without your prayers, encouragement, and of

course, all of that wine. You all are the best. Our evenings together always provided hope and

perspective during difficult times.

To my School of Education friends, Michele Nelson, Anna Arias, Sylvie Kademian, Stef

Iwashyna, Amber Bismack, Sarah Fick, James Hagerty, Annick Rougee, Diana Sherman, and

Michelle Reicher, I thank you for the many lively conversations we shared together about

teaching and grad school, and I look forward to more of those in the future. Rohit Setty, I thank

you for always being a sounding board as we navigated grad school together, and I thank you

for your generosity and support.

I would also like to thank all of my friends at GradCru and the Vineyard Church of Ann

Arbor for helping me to maintain an eternal perspective. I am a different person now than when

I started grad school, and I thank you for your role in that.

I would especially like to express my gratitude to my family: Eric, Mom, Dad, Bruce, PJ,

Pam, Chuck, Lisa, Alex, Anna, Shibu, and Joel. This has been a long journey, and I thank you for

being so supportive, generous, and flexible. Dad, you inspired me to pursue a PhD, thank you

for teaching me to ask good questions. Mom, I thank you for the work ethic and determination

you have modeled for me my whole life. Eric, I thank you for walking alongside me every step

of this journey, and for all of the sacrifices you endured along the way. You have been an editor,

a cook, an interior designer, a gardener, and a voice of wisdom (which I needed a lot!). I could

not have completed this dissertation without your unceasing support and love. And last, but

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certainly not least, I thank God for bringing amazing people to my life, and for giving me the

strength and perspective to persevere and to enjoy this process.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements..........................................................................................................................................ii!
List.of.Figures...................................................................................................................................................vii!
List.of.Tables...................................................................................................................................................viii!
List.of.Appendices............................................................................................................................................ix!
Abstract.................................................................................................................................................................x!
CHAPTER.1.INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................1!
Study.Overview.and.Research.Questions.................................................................................................5!
CHAPTER.2.CONCEPTUAL.FRAMEWORK.AND.LITERATURE.REVIEW..................................9!
Approaches.to.Studying.Teacher.Noticing...............................................................................................9!
Teacher!Noticing!Research!Informed!by!the!Nature!of!Expertise!.............................................................!9!
Teaching!Noticing!Research!Emphasizes!the!Topics!and!Stance!of!Noticing!....................................!11!
From.Noticing.to.Professional.Vision.and.Professional.Discourse................................................18!
Professional!Vision!for!Practice!.............................................................................................................................!18!
Establishing!a!Professional!Discourse!................................................................................................................!20!
Articulation!.....................................................................................................................................................................!22!
Efforts!in!Teacher!Education!and!Science!Education!to!Establish!a!Professional!Discourse!......!23!
Pedagogies!for!Supporting!Novices’!Professional!Vision!...........................................................................!25!
ActivitySTheoretical.Illustration.of.Peer.Teaching.............................................................................28!
Summary............................................................................................................................................................31!
CHAPTER.3.METHODS........................................................................................................................33!
Overview............................................................................................................................................................33!
Study.Design.....................................................................................................................................................34!
Study!Context!.................................................................................................................................................................!34!
Elementary!Science!Methods!Course!..................................................................................................................!35!
Peer!Teaching!Lesson!Feedback!Discussions!..................................................................................................!37!
Mediating!Tools!for!Science!Teaching!and!Learning:!EEE!Framework!and!Student!
Misconceptions!.............................................................................................................................................................!37!
Study!Participants!........................................................................................................................................................!48!
The!Role!of!the!Researcher!......................................................................................................................................!51!
Data.....................................................................................................................................................................52!
Data!Sources!...................................................................................................................................................................!53!
Peer!Teaching!Lesson!Feedback!Discussion!Videos!.....................................................................................!54!
Peer!Teaching!Artifacts!.............................................................................................................................................!55!
Interviews!with!Focal!Participants!.......................................................................................................................!55!
Data.Coding.and.Analysis.............................................................................................................................56!
Analysis!of!Peer!Teaching!Feedback!Discussion!Data!..................................................................................!57!
Analysis!of!the!Secondary!Sources!of!Data!.......................................................................................................!62!
CHAPTER.4.MOVES.TO.NOTICE.AND.CHALLENGE.TOPICS......................................................64!
Identifying.Challenges.of.Science.Teaching.and.Learning.in.Feedback.Discussions...............65!
Episodes!of!Attending!to!Challenges!....................................................................................................................!65!
Challenges!of!Science!Teaching!and!Learning!.................................................................................................!69!
Moves.to.Notice.in.Peer.Teaching.Feedback.Discussions.................................................................74!
Interactions.Focused.on.Investigating.Student.Thinking.................................................................78!
A!Novice’s!Perspective!on!Noticing:!Insights!into!Developing!Professional!Vision!........................!83!
Novices’!Noticing!across!the!Data!Set!.................................................................................................................!86!

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CHAPTER.5.DEVELOPING.PROFESSIONAL.VISION.FOR.PRACTICE......................................90!
Three.Mechanisms.of.Developing.Professional.Vision.for.Practice..............................................91!
Challenges!that!Embody!the!Professional!Discourse!...................................................................................!95!
Investigating!Challenges!by!Articulating!Thinking!.......................................................................................!98!
Investigating!Challenges!by!Envisioning!Alternatives!...............................................................................!100!
Using!the!Professional!Discourse!to!Imagine!Student!Thinking!............................................................!103!
Challenges.not.Expressed.through.the.Professional.Discourse...................................................107!
Lea’s!Experience!Feedback!Discussion!.............................................................................................................!108!
Noemi’s!Experience!Feedback!Discussion!......................................................................................................!111!
CHAPTER.6.CONCLUSION................................................................................................................117!
Theoretical.Implications...........................................................................................................................119!
Professional!Discourse!............................................................................................................................................!119!
Interacting!Contexts!..................................................................................................................................................!122!
Implications.for.Teacher.Education......................................................................................................126!
Establishing!Professional!Discourse!through!Tools!...................................................................................!126!
Establishing!Professional!Discourse!through!Roles!....................................................................................!128!
Identifying!Challenges!of!Professional!Discourse!........................................................................................!131!
Using!the!Professional!Discourse!to!Articulate!Thinking!.........................................................................!131!
Using!the!Professional!Discourse!to!Envision!Alternatives!.....................................................................!132!
Implications!for!Developing!Professional!Vision!in!Interacting!Contexts!.........................................!133!
Limitations.....................................................................................................................................................137!
Directions.for.Future.Research...............................................................................................................138!
APPENDICES........................................................................................................................................140!
REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................................161!

vi
 List of Figures

Figure 2.1 Activity Theory Model ............................................................................................................... 29!

Figure 3.1 Ecosystem lesson aquarium setup and webbing activity from STC, Ecosystems Unit 47!
Figure 3.2 Ball and Track Apparatus Setup of the Motion investigation from Chicago Science
Group, 2000-2010................................................................................................................................. 48!
Figure 4.1 Cade's Experience Feedback Discussion: Investigating a Challenge Related to
Scientific Practices and Student Thinking about Motion .............................................................. 79!
Figure 4.2 Sam’s Experience Feedback Discussion: Evaluating a Range Of Discrete Topics ........ 79!
Figure 5.1 Ball and Track Apparatus Setup of the Motion Lesson Investigation ............................. 93!
Figure 6.1 Developing professional vision for practice in simulations ............................................. 118!
Figure 6.2 Activity Theory Illustration of the Peer Teaching Contradictions ................................ 126!
Figure 6.3 Protocol for discussing instruction and identifying problems of practice .................... 135!

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 List of Tables

Table 3.1 Teacher Education Program Course Sequence .................................................................... 35!

Table 3.2 Peer Teaching Instructions for the Experience Peer Teaching ......................................... 39!
Table 3.3 Assigned Alternative Ideas for the Ecosystems and Motion Lessons .............................. 40!
Table 3.4 Ecosystems and Motion Lessons Scientific Practice Challenges........................................ 41!
Table 3.5 Focal Participant Selection by Criteria .................................................................................... 50!
Table 3.6 Novices in the Peer Teaching Teams ...................................................................................... 51!
Table 3.7 Overview of the Initial Data Set ............................................................................................... 53!
Table 3.8 Data collection timeline .............................................................................................................. 56!
Table 4.1 Noelle’s Experience Feedback Transcript .............................................................................. 67!
Table 4.2 Episodes of Attending to Challenges Across the Data Set ................................................ 69!
Table 4.3 Categories of Challenge topics ................................................................................................. 71!
Table 4.4 Categories of Moves to Notice in Episodes of Attending to Challenges ....................... 75!
Table 4.5 Novices’ noticing across the data set: The presence of identifying challenges related to
student thinking ..................................................................................................................................... 87!
Table 4.6 When two or move novices attend to challenges about student thinking ..................... 88!
Table 5.1 Cade’s Experience Feedback Discussion, Excerpt 1 ............................................................ 94!
Table 5.2 Cade’s Experience Feedback Discussion, Excerpt 2 ............................................................ 99!
Table 5.3 Cade’s Experience Feedback Discussion, Excerpt 3 .......................................................... 101!
Table 5.4 Lori’s Explain Feedback Discussion........................................................................................ 104!
Table 5.5 Lea’s Experience Feedback Discussion ................................................................................. 109!
Table 5.6 Noemi’s Experience Feedback Discussion ........................................................................... 112!

viii
 List of Appendices

Appendix.A..EEE.Framework.for.Science.Teaching.and.Learning..............................................140!
Appendix.B..EEE.Framework.Rubric.....................................................................................................142!
Appendix.C..EEE.Framework.Feedback.Form....................................................................................144!
Appendix.D..Peer.Teaching.Memo.........................................................................................................150!
Appendix.E..Survey.Questions.................................................................................................................151!
Appendix.F..Interview.Questions...........................................................................................................152!
Appendix.G..EDUC.528.Syllabus..............................................................................................................154!

ix
 Abstract

Learning to teach science is difficult for preservice elementary teachers. It involves

adopting the practices and principles valued in the teaching profession. A central challenge

novice teachers face is learning to interpret students’ ideas as they construct explanations of

phenomena. The particular ways that teachers see and understand instructional interactions has

been referred to as professional vision (Goodwin, 1994). This dissertation examined the ways

in which a simulation of practice called “Peer Teaching” supported the development of novices’

professional vision in the context of an elementary science methods course. Designed as an

approximation of practice, the Peer Teaching lessons provided novice teachers with an

opportunity to practice science lessons and to receive targeted feedback. Each novice teacher

role-played a “teacher” and taught three science lessons to a team of novices and a teacher

educator who acted as “elementary students” with the help of research-based science

misconceptions.

The central research question in this study was: How do preservice teachers develop

professional vision for practice in the context of Peer Teaching feedback discussions?

Qualitative data were collected from 16 novice teachers in four Peer Teaching teams. These

data included 48 videos of Peer Teaching feedback discussions, Peer Teaching artifacts, and

interviews with one novice teacher from each team.

The findings of the study suggest that developing professional vision in simulations

involves learning to notice and use what is valued in the profession, the professional Discourse.

Specifically, my analyses indicated that opportunities for developing professional vision occurred

as the novices and the teacher educators (1) established a professional Discourse through

tools; (2) approximated the professional Discourse through roles; (3) identified challenges of

x
the professional Discourse; (4) used the professional Discourse to articulate thinking about the

challenges; and (5) used the professional Discourse to envision alternatives to the challenges.

Novices’ noticing was supported and constrained by the features of the Peer Teaching

as located in the interacting contexts of the course and the teacher education program. This

was evident in the ways novices expressed a contradiction between two competing objects of

developing professional vision: identifying problems of practice and affirming peers’ practice.

The concepts of professional Discourse and interacting contexts have implications for the

design of practice-based opportunities in teacher education. In particular, these concepts have

implications for the design of teaching simulations to support novices’ development of

professional vision.

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 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Preservice teachers face significant challenges in learning to teach science. These

challenges are related to their limited understanding of science concepts and the discourses of

science (Abell, 2007). In addition, novices are typically not familiar with engaging students in

reform-oriented science teaching approaches (National Research Council, 2012) given their

experiences as learners in K-12 education. Novices often have naïve ideas about students and

how they learn science (Zembal-Saul, Blumenfeld, & Krajcik, 2000). They recognize that

attending to students as learners is important (Peterson & Treagust, 1998), but mainly focus on

their interest or engagement (Abell, Bryan, & Anderson, 1998). Furthermore, novices do not

have clear ideas about what they should do with students’ prior conceptions (Davis, Petish, &

Smithey, 2006). Likewise, they often equate science teaching with hand-on activities that do not

include opportunities for sensemaking (Thompson, Windschitl, & Braaten, 2013).

Teaching that focuses on students’ sensemaking is uncommon in American classrooms,

where activities rather than explanations are emphasized (Banilower, 2013). In science

classrooms, helping students learn to construct explanations of phenomena and to use evidence

to justify claims relies on teachers’ capacity to attend to students’ ideas (Windschitl, Thompson,

Braaten, & Stroupe, 2012). This attention involves learning to anticipate, elicit, and facilitate

students’ ideas before, during, and after instruction. These teaching practices are all contingent

on teachers’ capacity to notice and make sense of student thinking (M. G. Sherin, Jacobs, &

Randolph, 2011).

However, learning to notice student thinking is not a practice that comes naturally. In

particular, attending to someone else’s thinking in a subject matter domain that one knows well

1
is unusual (M. G. Sherin et al., 2011). Moreover, questioning someone’s ideas, when you know

those ideas, is not common in daily life. Listening to and probing others’ ideas to identify

relationships and misunderstandings entails a level of attention to others that most normally do

not give to friends or family members (Ball & Forzani, 2009). Further, learning how to attend to

student thinking in elementary classroom settings is difficult for teachers who are faced with a

“blooming, buzzing confusion of sensory data” to make sense of (B. Sherin & Star, 2011, p. 69).

Even experienced teachers struggle to attend to and make sense of student thinking in

elementary classrooms (Jacobs, Lamb, Philipp, & Schappelle, 2011).

For novice teachers in teacher education programs, they have few opportunities to

practice attending to students’ scientific thinking. In their school field placements, they may be

paired with mentor teachers who dedicate a limited amount of time to teach science each day

(McMurrer, 2008). When novices do have an opportunity to teach science, many may be so

overwhelmed by the complexities of simultaneously teaching science and managing student

behavior, that they fail to notice student thinking in relation to features of inquiry-oriented

science instruction (Zembal-Saul et al., 2000).

To address these challenges, the field of teacher education is undergoing a major shift in

the ways they prepare novices for professional practice (McDonald, Kazemi, & Kavanagh, 2013).

In particular, teacher educators are rethinking the pedagogies they have relied on in the past to

foster novice teachers’ learning. Pedagogical approaches such as case methods, computer

simulations, or practitioner research have emphasized the acquisition of knowledge for teaching

over an emphasis on teachers’ professional knowledge and practice (Grossman, 2005;

McDonald et al., 2013). In learning to teach, novices teachers have struggled to use these

approaches to make meaningful connections across course and classroom teaching experiences

(Kennedy, 1999).

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 To enhance novices’ preparation, teacher educators are taking steps to re-conceptualize

the ways “practice” is emphasized in teacher education course settings. Lampert (2010)

recommends four ways to conceive of using “practice” to help novices learn to teach. First, she

asserts that focusing on practice should entail teaching theory in a way that is situated in

practice, rather than an approach to teaching theory (in university courses) separate from

practice (in field placement experiences). Second, she argues that teacher education could be

organized around doing and studying a core set of teaching practices that teachers routinely use

during instruction, such as ways to orchestrate classroom discussions (Hatch & Grossman,

2009), or pressing students for evidence-based explanations (Windschitl et al., 2012). Third, she

suggests that preparing novices for interactions with students in classrooms could involve

teaching simulations like “rehearsals” where novices practice a task and receive targeted

feedback. Fourth, she concludes that like the practice of medicine, preparing novices to learn the

practice of teaching should center on learning the work that teachers do as professionals.

Learning to teach in this way does not suggest going into one’s classroom, shutting the

door, and learning through a process of trial and error (Lortie, 1975); rather, it entails learning

“what teachers do in common…it is about more than acquiring skills or best practices. It

involves adopting the identity of a teacher, being accepted as a teacher, and taking on the

common values, language, and tools of teaching” (Lampert, 2010, p. 26). This process of

learning to teach then involves drawing on professional knowledge and skill to make

interactions with students around content productive for student learning (Ball & Forzani,

2009).

This movement to better prepare novices for professional practice is also redefining

what it means to prepare novices to teach in equitable and rigorous ways. Learning to engage

all students—across ethnic, racial, class, and gender categories—in opportunities to reason

3
about subject matter, participate in the discourses of the discipline, and solve authentic

problems is being referred to as ambitious teaching (Cohen, 1990; Lampert & Graziani, 2009).

In science, this vision for teaching centers on helping students use scientific practices to

construct new understandings of science concepts (Windschitl et al., 2012). The Framework for

K-12 Science Education defines scientific practices as asking questions, developing and using

models, carrying out investigations, analyzing data, constructing explanations, and engaging in

argument from evidence (National Research Council, 2012). This kind of ambitious science

teaching is complex to enact on a day-to-day basis in classrooms (Crawford, 2000; Kennedy,

2005) because it challenges teachers to adapt their instruction to students’ thinking.

A growing number of educators are focusing on the ways in which teachers notice and

make sense of their students’ ideas. These scholars describe teacher noticing in a variety of ways.

Some conceive of noticing as where teachers focus their attention while teaching (Star, Lynch,

& Perova, 2011; Star & Strickland, 2008). Others have also investigated how teachers interpret

what they see (M. G. Sherin & Han, 2004; van Es & Sherin, 2008), including their capacity to

reflect on and consider alternatives to instructional strategies (Santagata, 2011). Many of these

scholars refer to teachers’ ability to notice and interpret classroom instruction as professional

vision. Goodwin (1994) used the term professional vision to characterize the socially organized

ways practitioners see and understand phenomena relevant to their profession.

Like these scholars, I am interested in investigating what teachers attend to in

instructional interactions, and how they make sense of what they see. In particular, as an

elementary science teacher educator, I am interested in helping novices learn to use student

thinking to inform their practice. Given that teaching that focuses on students’ thinking has

been connected to gains in student achievement (Carpenter, Fennema, Peterson, Chiang, &

Loef, 1989; Wilson & Berne, 1999), and attending to student thinking can provide a rich source

4
of information to help teachers continually improve their teaching practice (Franke, Carpenter,

Levi, & Fennema, 2001), it should be emphasized in teacher education. Towards that end, in this

study I employ a teaching simulation called “Peer Teaching” to help novices learn to attend to

and make sense of students’ scientific thinking. Using simulations of practice in methods course

settings has recently attracted attention in terms of their affordances for preparing novices for

professional practice (e.g., Grossman, Compton, et al., 2009). While the literature base for

studying practice-based approaches in methods course settings is growing (Ghousseini, 2008;

Nelson, 2011; Shah, 2011), the particular ways in which these approaches could foster novices’

professional vision for practice has not been fully investigated.

Study Overview and Research Questions

This study capitalized on the existing work being done in a teacher education program

(Ball, Sleep, Boerst, & Bass, 2009) and an elementary science methods course (Davis & Smithey,

2009) to emphasize practice-based learning opportunities. In particular, the elementary science

methods course had been engaged in innovative work to foreground opportunities for novices

to practice science teaching in the context of the course (see Nelson, 2011). Building on the

contributions of prior research conducted in the elementary science methods course (Beyer &

Davis, 2009; Forbes & Davis, 2010), this study focused on a particular practice-based pedagogy

referred to as “Peer Teaching.” Peer Teaching lessons were simulations in the methods course

setting where novices took turns teaching reform-oriented science lessons (NRC, 2012).

Novices were placed in Peer Teaching teams of four novices, and they remained in these teams

throughout the course to facilitate collective knowledge building and camaraderie. During the

three methods course sessions dedicated to Peer Teaching, each of the four novices had a

chance to teach a 20-minute science lesson to his or her peers and the teacher educator who

5
acted as “elementary students.” When the novices were in the role of a “student,” they role-

played misconceptions. These misconceptions were derived from research and enabled novices

to learn about the kinds of ideas students might have about particular science concepts. In

addition, role-playing the misconceptions contributed to the authenticity of the instruction, and

provided the teachers an opportunity to practice eliciting and probing students’

misunderstandings. After each 20-minute Peer Teaching lesson, the teacher educator and

novices engaged in a group feedback discussion, in which they offered targeted feedback to the

“teacher” about his or her lesson. During the science methods course, novices taught three

Peer Teaching science lessons and offered feedback to peers nine times. This study specifically

focused on the feedback discussions that occurred after the Peer Teaching lessons. The

purpose of this study was to contribute to current work in teacher education focused on

exploring the affordances of practice-based experiences in novices’ teacher preparation. In

particular, this study sought to examine how the innovative features of the Peer Teaching

design, including tools such as the student misconceptions and shared language of science

teaching, might foster novices’ profession vision.

Peer Teaching feedback discussions were investigated to examine the mechanisms

through which novice teachers could develop professional vision for science teaching in

simulated settings. Guiding my study was the following research question: How do preservice

teachers develop professional vision for practice in the context of Peer Teaching feedback

discussions? Three sub-questions drove the analysis:

(a) What challenges of science teaching and learning are noticed in the Peer Teaching

feedback discussions?

(b) What is the process through which novice teachers notice the challenges of science

teaching and learning in the Peer Teaching feedback discussions?

6
 (c) What interactions occur among the challenges, the process, and participants’

noticing in the Peer Teaching feedback discussions?

Data were collected during the winter semester of January 2012. Study participants

included 16 novice teachers and five teacher educators. Qualitative data were collected from 16

novice teachers in four Peer Teaching teams. These data included 48 videos of Peer Teaching

feedback discussions, Peer Teaching artifacts, and interviews with four focal participants. To

analyze the data, I used a combination of open coding and codes derived from the literature.

The overarching goal of this study was to explore the mechanisms through which novices

develop professional vision for practice in the context of Peer Teaching feedback discussions.

The remainder of this dissertation is organized into five chapters. Chapter 2 describes

the research base related to the study of teacher noticing and the theoretical work that informs

and underlies this study. In Chapter 3, I provide a detailed description of the Peer Teaching

lessons and the research design, including the instructional context of the study, data set, and

the methods of analysis. Chapter 4 presents the findings of the three analytic sub-questions

related to what challenges the novice teachers with the teacher educators noticed, how they

noticed them, and the interactions that occurred around the noticing. In Chapter 5, I use these

findings to answer the central research question. Also in Chapter 5, I illustrate the mechanisms

through which the novice teachers with the teacher educators develop professional vision in

the context of the Peer Teaching feedback discussions. I conclude this work in Chapter 6 by

considering the theoretical implications of the study for conceptualizing professional vision and

its process of development as acquiring a professional Discourse. I also discuss implications for

designing practice-based opportunities to support novice teachers in acquiring a professional

7
Discourse in teacher education program settings. Finally, I discuss the limitations of the study

and outline directions for future research.

8
 CHAPTER 2

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter begins with an overview of research in teacher noticing. The extant

literature has studied noticing through a cognitive perspective, which identifies noticing as one

of several aspects of expert teacher cognition. I outline the contributions of these scholars, and

I suggest that employing a sociocultural theory to study teacher noticing could extend the

literature base. I then use sociocultural theory to conceptualize the process of developing

professional vision. I conclude this chapter by drawing on Activity Theory to explain how the

Peer Teaching lessons could provide opportunities for developing novices’ professional vision in

the elementary science methods course.

Approaches to Studying Teacher Noticing

Teacher Noticing Research Informed by the Nature of Expertise

In this section, I summarize the research on teacher noticing to situate this dissertation

study in the current literature in order to justify its contribution to the existing research base. I

argue that research on teacher noticing has primarily taken a cognitive approach to noticing.

The cognitive perspective of noticing emphasizes the role of an individual’s attention, and

minimizes other aspects, such as the social and situated nature of learning (Rosaen, Lundeberg,

Cooper, Fritzen, & Terpstra, 2008; van Es & Sherin, 2002). As such, I explore the ways in which

the methods and findings of the studies have overlooked the role learners and their learning

contexts play in influencing teacher noticing.

The early work on teacher noticing was informed by research on the nature of

expertise. Noticing scholars (e.g., van Es & Sherin, 2002) used identified features of expert

9
thought and action to propose key features of expert teachers’ thoughts and actions. For

instance, expertise research argued that experts have well-structured knowledge systems, and

deploy that knowledge in flexible ways (Schoenfeld, 1985). Experts also focus on substantive

issues and patterns, compared to novices who may only attend to superficial aspects (Chi,

Feltovich, & Glaser, 1981). In addition, experts consider specific situations in terms of the

concepts and principles that they represent (Larkin & Simon, 1987). Finally, expertise research

argued that as individuals gain more experience they become more skilled at making sense of

situations (Chi, Glaser, & Farr, 1988). Building on the ideas developed around expertise, van Es

and Sherin (2002) proposed three key aspects of teacher noticing:

(a) identifying what is important or noteworthy about a classroom situation;

(b) making connections between the specifics of classroom interactions and the broader

principles of teaching and learning they represent; and

(c) using what one knows about the context (students, school, content) to reason to

reason about classroom interactions (p. 573).

In regards to teachers using their knowledge to reason about classroom events, van Es

and Sherin stressed the importance of teachers interpreting classroom interactions. They argued

that teachers need to develop skills to interpret a situation with the aim of understanding it,

such as what students think about mathematics, rather than critiquing a situation and taking

action. In other words, although teaching is action-driven, their goal was to help teachers learn

to develop skills in interpreting classroom interactions, and to use those interpretations to

inform pedagogical decisions. I emphasize interpretation here because examining and helping

teachers interpret student thinking is a central aim of the research on teacher noticing. Yet,

how novice teachers learn to do this is underconceptualized. Thus, this dissertation study will

10
investigate what is means to interpret student thinking in the context of the methods course

setting.

Teaching Noticing Research Emphasizes the Topics and Stance of Noticing

Building on the research about expert thinking, many studies on teacher noticing

emphasize which topics teachers notice and the stance of their noticing. In this section, I first talk

about the studies that have focused on which topics teachers have noticed, and then move to

address the studies that have examined both the topics and stance of teaching noticing. My aim

here is to argue that this research on teacher noticing should be supplemented with a

sociocultural approach to develop a more complete conceptualization of teacher noticing. I

conclude this section by reporting on recent studies on teacher noticing that begin to examine

the role of the who in teacher noticing; or more specifically, the ways in which group members

shape which topics and how teachers notice.

Citing research on the routinized nature of teacher attention (Ethel & McMeniman,

2000), many scholars of noticing focused solely on which topics teachers noticed (e.g., Rosaen et

al., 2008). They tied changes in teacher practice to teacher noticing by arguing that if teachers

do not notice, they cannot make decisions to teach differently. For instance, Rosaen and

colleagues examined changes in what topics three elementary pre-service teachers noticed

before and after using a multimedia editor to view excerpts of their videotaped lessons. No

specific prompts were offered to help the novices analyze the excerpts of their videotaped

instruction. Instead, the aim of this research was to examine how the act of reflecting on a

lesson before and after viewing it on video created dissonance. They argued that the dissonance

created between what the novices remembered from memory and what they saw in the video

directed them to be more discriminating in what topics they noticed. As such, they found that

11
the video-supported reflections were more specific and more focused on classroom instruction

(versus classroom management) and children. Similar to the noticing research conducted by van

Es and Sherin, Rosaen and colleagues argued that video could help teachers develop an “analytic

mind set,” which is not just knowledge of next steps, but also knowledge of how to interpret

classroom instruction.

Although Rosaen and colleagues’ study focused on novice teachers whose practice is

typically not routinized (see Ericsson, 2008), a central aim of their work was to examine how

videotaped instruction could be used to disrupt teachers’ routinized patterns of thought and

action. They referenced research from Putnam and Borko (2000) to argue that the role of the

video could help novices “experience things in new ways” (p.6). What is interesting is that the

Putnam and Borko’s article was written, in part, to highlight the inadequacies of using a

cognitive perspective to research teacher learning. In this article, Putnam and Borko argue that

the physical and social contexts in which learning occurs is an integral part of that learning. In

doing so, they challenge the assumption that teacher cognition could be “independent of

context and intention” (p. 4). They add that whereas the “traditional cognitive perspectives

focus on the individual as the basic unit of analysis, situated perspectives focus on interactive

systems that include individuals as participants, interacting with each other as well as materials

and representational systems,” (p. 4). Thus, Rosaen and colleagues cite Putnam and Borko’s

work, but minimize the role of the novice as a participant in the teacher education program

(context) and do not consider ways that video prompts could reinforce what was being learned

in the program. It is surprising that the authors, themselves teacher educators in the program

they studied, did not acknowledge the potential role of the teacher education program in

shaping what topics the novices noticed. In other words, this research, which focused on the

12
individual teacher as the unit of analysis, minimized the social contexts in which the novices

were situated as learners of teaching.

Talanquer, Tomanek, and Novodvorsky (2013) also investigated which topics pre-service

secondary science teachers noticed, but they considered the role of the teacher education

program in shaping what novices noticed. With one of the larger data sets in studies on teacher

noticing, Talanquer and colleagues examined what topics 43 pre-service teachers noticed when

evaluating evidence of student understanding in another teacher’s science inquiry-based unit.

The units were provided to the novice teachers in the form of a video case with written

artifacts. Talanquer and colleagues found the novice teachers showed preferential attention to

the process skills of designing an investigation, rather than the scientific practices of analyzing

data and generating conclusions. In addition, the novices’ attention was largely focused on

students’ process skills instead of their ideas. Like Rosaen and colleagues’ research, they

concluded that the patterns of topics the novices’ noticed represented important findings about

novices’ beliefs and knowledge of inquiry. In particular, they credited the novices’ attention to

students’ process skills as indicative of their “incomplete or naïve views of inquiry” (p. 203).

In their discussion, Talanquer and colleagues considered multiple social factors that

might have constrained novices’ noticing. First, they emphasized that novices’ understanding of

the purpose of the task, rather than their individual beliefs, may have influenced the patterns of

noticing. Second, they acknowledged that the school culture where the student teachers were

teaching could have contributed to students’ lack of attention to student thinking. They

recognized that “teachers work in professional environments in which powerful contextual

factors focus their attention on classroom routines, students’ behaviors, and curriculum fidelity,

rather than on student thinking” (p. 204). Finally, they pointed to the role of the science

education courses, “The observed lack of attention to the substance of students’ ideas may thus

13
be indicative of the failure of such courses in promoting the type of thinking that is desired” (p.

204). They concluded by suggesting ways for the science methods courses to design and

implement activities to foster attention to student thinking.

The research conducted by van Es and Sherin has primarily focused on the topics and

stance of teacher noticing with the aid of technology. Their work is motivated by expertise

research, which argues that experts are able to interpret significant features of their domain.

Their initial research (van Es & Sherin, 2002) focused on the noticing of pre-service teachers

earning a secondary mathematics or science certification. They examined the topics and stance

of novices’ noticing after watching videos from their own classrooms with a software Video

Analysis Support Tool [VAST]. A series of scaffolds in VAST prompted the novices to analyze

three aspects of their videos: (a) student thinking, (b) the teacher’s roles, and (c) classroom

discourse. Like Rosaen and colleagues’ study, the novices each wrote two narrative essays,

before and after the use of the VAST software. Van Es and Sherin determined a change

occurred in the kinds of interactions that were noticed and discussed by the novice teachers

before and after the video prompts. They found that novices adopted three different stances in

their noticing: descriptive, evaluative, or interpretative. Initially, the novices described

everything as noteworthy. After seeing the video prompts, the novices became more

discriminating in what they identified as important, and they organized their essays around key

interactions (e.g., student thinking and classroom discourse). They noted that novices

interpreted rather than evaluated the classroom interactions, and used evidence from their

videos to support their interpretations.

Van Es and Sherin concluded that the VAST technology may have influenced the novices’

analysis practices because VAST and the teacher education program emphasized similar

knowledge and skills. Both emphasized facilitating classroom discussions and using students’

14
ideas to inform decisions. The authors conjectured that the VAST technology “may have

provided teachers with a framework to help them analyze what they were being asked to do in

the certification program,” (p. 592). Their findings suggest that a framework as represented by

the VAST prompts, could foster novices’ noticing. It has this potential because it reinforces

what is valued in the teacher education program—particular interactions to notice, particular

ways to think about those interactions, and particular ways to talk about those interactions.

Recognizing that the specific prompts could embody what is valued in the institution has specific

implications for this dissertation study, as it is situated in a teacher education program which

privileges particular ways of thinking about and talking about teaching.

Similarly, in their later work (2009; 2006, 2008, 2010), van Es and Sherin explored the

social influences of in-service teachers’ noticing in video clubs. Their research focused on a

group of seven fourth and fifth grade elementary teachers who participated in monthly video

clubs to help teachers learn to attend to students’ mathematical thinking. In their 2008 article,

they identified three discrete trajectories of teacher noticing: direct, cyclical, and incremental.

The trajectories were determined based on which topics were noticed (math thinking,

pedagogy, climate, management, other), the different stances (describe, evaluate, interpret) and

levels of specificity (general, specific) used during the 10 video club sessions over the year. The

teachers on the direct path maintained a narrow perspective on students and mathematical

thinking; the cyclical path occurred when the teacher cycled between a broad and narrow

perspective, and the teachers on the incremental path appeared to develop gradually in their

noticing over time.

In their conclusion, Sherin and van Es stated that the noticing trajectories did not

account for the particular video clip or facilitator in the video clubs—two key social factors.

They explained that some video clips provided greater access to student thinking than others.

15
They pointed out that when clips from two teachers’ classrooms were shown, it always

prompted shifts in the veteran teachers’ noticing. These clips consistently showed teachers

probing students’ ideas. They also emphasized that the facilitator in the group likely influenced

the trajectories. The facilitator adopted several roles, including selecting the video clips, inviting

teachers to notice in an evidence-based manner, and prompting them to notice student

thinking. They asserted that “these facilitation methods, therefore, likely had a strong influence

on teachers coming to focus their comments on interpreting students’ mathematical thinking”

(p. 263).

Van Es’s (2012a, 2012b) recent work on teacher noticing has focused on the role of the

social context in shaping teacher noticing. In these two studies, she revisited the video club data

set to conceive of the seven teachers as a teacher learning community. Here, she considered

that “bringing teachers together to collaborate does not ensure that learning occurs” (van Es,

2012b, p. 5). As a result of new analyses, she argued that the discourse and participation norms

in the group could facilitate or impede the group from attending to student thinking and doing

so in an evidence-based manner. She asserted that learning to collaborate, as well as developing

participation and discourse norms may be important elements of building community. She found

that once the participants developed these practices, they appeared to narrow their focus on

the specifics of teaching and learning. Teachers needed to develop group norms before they

could focus on analyzing the instruction. In fact, she argued the “dimension of probing and

pressing each other’s ideas is more challenging than the other dimensions [of attending to

student thinking]” (van Es, 2012a, p. 192). She concluded that attending to student thinking is

not natural for teachers, and problematizing student thinking is not something that occurs in

everyday conversations. An important contribution of her study was to highlight the social

16
factors that need to be considered in supporting teachers to notice teaching and student

thinking in an analytic manner.

The findings from these studies raise two important questions for this dissertation. First,

the findings question the value of using an individual teacher’s noticing as a unit of analysis.

While the studies noted that individuals’ beliefs and knowledge could shape noticing, they also

pointed to the social context of individuals’ noticing. Second, scholars defined noticing as

identifying and making sense of important or noteworthy interactions. However, the research

also suggested that teachers face challenges in attending to what is important in teaching—

student thinking. This suggests that novice teachers in particular may struggle to be able to

identify and make sense of what is important—student thinking—in instructional interactions.

For instance, focusing on how a student is talking loudly with her peers, rather than listening to

her science-related sensemaking, may distract a teacher from what is important to notice. Thus,

what teachers see may stem from their experiences as former students or camp counselors,

their “apprenticeship of observation” (Lortie, 1975). These challenges suggest that novices may

need support in learning to notice what is valued in the profession of teaching. To elaborate the

conceptualization of learning to notice that informs this study, I use the concepts of

professional vision and professional Discourse. I define these concepts in the next section.

17
 From Noticing to Professional Vision and Professional Discourse

In the previous section, I argued that which topics teachers notice and how they make

sense of those topics may be idiosyncratic in nature. As such, novice teachers may need

support in learning what it means to attend to the work of teaching. They may also need help in

using the practices, beliefs, and language of the profession to make sense of what they notice. In

this study, I use the concept of professional vision for practice to characterize the ways that

novices learn to see as teachers. I also use the concept of professional Discourse to elaborate

what it means to see and make sense of the work of teaching by operating from the same

practices, beliefs, and language.

Professional Vision for Practice

Framing the process of learning to notice as professional vision emphasizes the social

nature of what teachers see and how they make sense of it. Goodwin (1994) used the term

professional vision to characterize the socially organized ways practitioners see and understand

phenomena relevant to their profession. Many scholars of noticing draw on the concept of

professional vision to characterize what teachers as professionals see in instructional

interactions (e.g., Borko, Jacobs, Eiteljorg, & Pittman, 2008). Four aspects of Goodwin’s

argument inform the way I conceive of developing professional vision for practice in this study:

• members of a profession use social practices to build and contest socially organized

ways of seeing and understanding relevant phenomena

• ways of seeing are distributed across practitioners and tools in a profession

• learning to use the tools of a profession is complex and profession-specific, so

novices must learn it with members of the profession

• employing tools in investigations is a process through which practitioners transform

18
 phenomena into objects of collective professional inquiry.

Drawing on sociocultural theory, Goodwin used the concept of professional vision to

represent the collective ways practitioners approach their work. He found that professionals

used practices of coding, highlighting, producing and articulating material representations to

transform phenomena into “socially organized ways of seeing and understanding events that are

answerable to the distinctive interests of a particular social group” (p. 606). Building on the

work of Lave and Wenger (1991), he argued that practitioners develop professional vision as

members of communities. In particular, Goodwin emphasized how ways of seeing are

distributed across practitioners and tools in a profession. To clarify this idea, he described how

an archaeologist uses a Munsell soil color chart to classify artifacts based on the color of the

soil. The Munsell color chart is a tool that archaeologists all over the world use to determine

evidence of earlier human action. He argued that the tool is an embodied representation of

knowledge that helps archeologists identify more types of soil than they could on their own. It

does so because it encapsulates the theory of classifying soil, and it provides solutions to

challenges that previous archeologists faced in determining how to investigate evidence of

earlier humans. Goodwin asserted that the ability to use the tools of the profession to

investigate phenomenon “is embedded within a web of socially articulated discourse” (p. 626).

For instance, using the Munsell color chart tool is not an inherently easy task because the color

patches on the chart are glossy, while the dirt is not, so the two colors are never quite the

same. Moreover, sometimes the color of the dirt falls between the discrete categories depicted

on the chart. He stressed that it is through this investigative process that phenomena are

transformed to become objects of collective inquiry. Insofar as the tools and the knowledge are

established by the community, they must be learned by new members. And as new members,

19
this learning process inevitably involves challenges as novices acquire the ability to see the new

objects. In short, Goodwin emphasizes the socially constructed nature of what professional

practice entails and how it is learned. Moreover, learning to see what is valued in the profession

only occurs as practitioners problematize what they see and draw on tools and one other to

investigate those problems.

Establishing a Professional Discourse

Gee’s (1989) concept of Discourses elaborates professional vision by specifying what

members of the teaching profession should notice—the ways that teachers think, believe,

practice, and use language. Gee argues that Discourses with a capital “D” act as a type of

“identity kit”; they stipulate shared ways of acting, talking or writing1. As such, Discourses are

acquired by enculturation into social practices with others who know the Discourse. An

individual’s Primary Discourse is acquired through socialization in an individual’s home

community. Secondary Discourses are obtained through a process of apprenticeship with an

institution; this entails adopting the common values, language, and tools of the institution. For

novice teachers, this implies that learning to teach as a professional practice involves acquiring a

capital “D” Discourse, which stipulates socially-shared ways of doing and talking about the work

of teaching. In addition, it suggests that learning to teach is a collective process through which

novices acquire the practices of the institution (e.g., the teacher education program) through a

process of socialization. In short, Discourse emphasizes two points for novices’ professional

preparation. First, learning to teach involves adopting a kind of teacher identity, a shared way of

1
He distinguishes discourse with a little “d” from “Discourses” with a capital “D.” He uses the
little “d” to mean “connected stretches of language that make sense” (p. 6).

20
seeing, doing, and talking about the work of the profession. Second, teachers acquire the

Discourse of teaching as they use it with other practitioners who know it.

If developing a professional vision for practice entails identifying the professional

Discourse, then what is the Discourse of teaching? Teacher educators lament that the field is

still “dreaming of a common language” (Grossman & McDonald, 2008). Lortie stated in 1975

that “teaching is not like crafts and professions, whose members talk in a language specific to

them and their work” (p. 123). He argued that the lack of a “common technical vocabulary”

prevented teachers from accessing a repertoire of shared practices and knowledge about

teaching. It is widely accepted that “more than 30 years later, the field still lacks a framework

for teaching, with well-defined common terms for describing and analyzing teaching”

(Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, 2009, p. 186).

In addition to lacking shared language and practices, the field also lacks common

principles and views of instruction and student learning to undergird the teaching practices.

Instead, prospective teachers and practitioners hold a range of personal and idiosyncratic views

of teaching and learning. They developed these ideas during years of observing teaching from

the vantage point of a student, coach, or parent. Lortie (1975) referred to this phenomenon as

the “apprenticeship of observation.” He explained that the ideas prospective teachers hold are

based on their experiences as students observing teachers’ work but not being privy to the

knowledge, plans, and decisions informing teachers’ actions. These unexamined tacit ideas are

often deeply ingrained from years of experiences, and they can act as filters to shape what

teachers attend to, and what they ignore or do not see (Feiman-Nemser, 2001).

21
Articulation

Learning to notice entails attaching language to experiences. If teachers bring

unexamined views to the process of learning to teach, then developing professional vision for

practice should account for the mechanisms through which they draw on the Discourse to

make sense of their work. Freeman’s (1991, 1992, 1993, 1994) study characterizes how a group

of teachers in an in-service master’s degree program used the professional discourse2 of the

program to rename their experiences and to assign new meanings to their teaching practice.

Freeman found that as the teachers developed an understanding of the Discourse of the

teacher education program, they engaged in “articulation” in which they used the teaching

practices and principles of the program to gain access to their thinking about their classroom

practice. Before the Discourse was established, the teachers used a local language to express

their tacit and unanalyzed conceptions of teaching. The local language reflected their ideas of

teaching and student learning prior to the teacher education program. As the teachers engaged

in articulation, they were able to be more analytic in their noticing of their own practice. In

doing so, they were able to rename their experiences and to assign new meanings to their

professional practice as teachers.

Freeman’s concept of articulation suggests that teachers will make sense of their

practice according to the language that they are able to access—their local language or the

professional language of the teacher education program. In terms of supporting novice teacher

noticing, this implies that novices could benefit from a shared Discourse. Freeman (1993)

clarifies that establishing a Discourse involves more than just coming up with similar terms, it

2
Freeman uses professional discourse with a lower case “d” to emphasize the language
dimension of the Discourse identity.

22
should help teachers “operate from a common view of teaching and learning—a shared set of

socially constructed facts—which is made explicit in talk and action” (p. 495). Like Goodwin’s

assertions about developing professional vision, Freeman emphasizes that novices should have

opportunities to acquire the professional discourse in practice with others.

Building on Freeman’s work, I adopt the concept of professional Discourse with a capital

“D” to denote the work of teachers’ professional practice (the ways of being, and the language,

actions, values, and beliefs that embody teaching). What teachers do and how they talk about

their work is established socially, so learning the professional Discourse is inevitably a social

process. In the next section, I explore the efforts in teacher education and science education to

establish a professional Discourse.

Efforts in Teacher Education and Science Education to Establish a Professional Discourse

Scholars in teacher education and science education are working to establish statements

of professional Discourse. Given the challenges novices face in identifying and making sense of

what is important in teaching (e.g., student thinking), they need to be able to access a

professional Discourse to articulate their thinking in terms that are shared by their colleagues.

In particular, the field of teacher education is taking steps to specify core teaching practices and

principles that could serve as the fulcrum of novices’ teacher preparation (Grossman,

Hammerness, et al., 2009). Identifying core teaching practices could support teachers in

engaging in ambitious instruction which aims to provide equitable instruction for all students

(Windschitl, Thompson, & Braaten, 2009). Scholars argue these high-leverage practices (Sleep,

Boerst, & Ball, 2007) could be grounded in research on both how children learn and how

novice teachers learn.

23
Grossman, Hammerness, and McDonald (2009) suggest that core teaching practices should

include the following characteristics:

• Practices occur with high frequency in teaching

• Practices that novices can enact in classrooms across different curriculum or

instructional approaches

• Practices that novices can actually begin to master

• Practices that allow students to learn more about students and about teaching

• Practices that preserve the integrity and complexity of teaching

• Practices that are research-based and have the potential to improve student

achievement (p. 277).

For instance, using particular discourse routines (e.g., How did you figure that out?) to engage

students in mathematical discussions is one example of a core teaching practice being

implemented and studied in mathematic methods courses (Ghousseini, 2008). In elementary

instruction, the core practices of teaching science could center on helping students learn to

construct explanations of phenomena, understand how to justify claims, and how to revise their

ideas in response to evidence (Thompson et al., 2013).

Recent efforts in science education are also attempting to establish statements of

professional Discourse for the science education community. In particular, The Framework for K-

12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012) and the new standards, the Next

Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were written in part to provide a more coherent picture of

how students learn science. The Framework articulated that students should develop facility

with the scientific practices that scientists use to investigate and build models of phenomena.

The Framework uses the term “practices” instead of skills to clarify that “engaging in scientific

24
investigation requires not only skill but also knowledge that is specific to each practice”

Education (National Research Council, 2012, p. 2) . The Framework acknowledges the over-use

and ambiguity of the term “inquiry” in the science education community and the necessity for

re-defining the work of teaching and learning science: “‘inquiry’…has been interpreted over

time in many different ways throughout the science education community, part of our intent in

articulating the practices is to better specify what is meant by inquiry in science” (NRC, 2012, p.

2). The Framework accomplishes this effort by specifying eight scientific and engineering

practices that students, as scientists, should employ to learn science concepts. The scientific

practices include: asking questions and defining problems; developing and using models; planning

and carrying out investigations; analyzing and interpreting data, using mathematics and

computational thinking; constructing explanations; engaging in argument from evidence; and

obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information (NRC, 2012). These practices serve as the

means through which teachers can support students in learning science concepts. Towards that

end, this study conceives of professional vision for practice in elementary science teaching as

focusing on attending to and making sense of students’ scientific thinking in interactions with

science concepts.

Pedagogies for Supporting Novices’ Professional Vision

To foster novices’ professional vision for practice, the field of teacher education would

benefit from developing shared pedagogies. These pedagogies could establish the professional

Discourse and then help novices notice the professional Discourse (develop professional vision)

in teaching interactions. Such “practice-based” approaches could situate the work of teaching

(i.e., the professional Discourse) as the content and context of novices’ learning (Ball & Cohen,

25
1999). Recent work by Grossman, Compton, Igra, Ronfeldt, Shahan, and Williamson (2009)

reflect efforts to specify a framework for preparing novices for professional practice.

Grossman and colleagues conducted a cross-professional study to describe and analyze

the teaching of practice in seminaries, schools of professional psychology, and teacher

education programs. They identified three central and interrelated components for

understanding practice in professional education: representations, decomposition, and

approximations of practice. Representations of practice illustrate an aspect of a practice, such as

lesson plans, case studies, or videos of teaching (see for example, Brophy, 2004; Hatch, Sun,

Grossman, Neira, & Chang, 2009). A video representation of an expert professional, for

instance, can be used by an instructor to identify facets of practice. Decompositions of practice

parse the representations into essential parts for teaching and learning. In the preparation of

clergy, Grossman and colleagues observed an instructor of a Reading for Preaching course

decompose the reading of scripture into specific topics: voice and diction, phrasing and

emphasis, and nonverbal communication. These topics were all informed by principles of

reading scripture. Taking apart and naming the components of reading scripture helped the

novices know what to bracket and attend to while practicing reading and observing others

practice reading.

Only after novices know what to look for, and how to do it, can they begin to practice,

or approximate the task. Practice begins in a setting that is less complex and less authentic. For

instance, novice clergy approximated the task of reading scripture in front of their peers in a

course before reading scripture in front of a congregation. While the approximations of

practice may not fully resemble the work of a professional, removing the professional practice

from its authentic setting serves to highlight its complex features (Rose, 1999). For instance, in

clinical psychology, novices role-play situations in which one acts as the “therapist” and the

26
other the “client.” Here, they simulate a clinical therapy session as they envision how a virtual

therapist and a virtual client might work together to develop a therapeutic alliance. The

opportunity for these novices to develop a model simulation of an interaction with a client

resembles the concept of embodiment addressed earlier.

The degree of inauthenticity also allows the novice’s learning to be more deliberate.

Deliberate practice theory argues that professionals attain superior performance when they

practice a carefully sequenced set of activities, receive targeted feedback from an instructor,

and repeat the tasks to remedy the errors (Ericsson, 2008). Approximations of practice provide

opportunities for deliberate practice because novices are practicing tasks at different grain sizes.

For instance, in Grossman and colleagues’ study novice clergy practiced reading scripture

before integrating scripture into their sermon.

This study adopts Grossman and colleagues’ framework to conceptualize the ways that

novices could develop professional vision in the elementary science methods course.

Representations of practice are used in the course to establish the professional Discourse.

Decompositions of practice help novices to identify and name aspects of the professional

Discourse. Finally, approximations of practice in the form of Peer Teaching are used to provide

novices with opportunities to enact the science teaching practice advocated by the Next

Generation Science Standards. The Peer Teaching approximations also include opportunities to

give and receive feedback, which allow novices to practice noticing and making sense of the

professional Discourse.

27
 Activity-Theoretical Illustration of Peer Teaching

In this chapter thus far, I have defined the process of developing profession vision for

practice as attending to and making sense of the professional Discourse. I have argued that

professional Discourse represents who teachers are, what they do, and the social mechanisms

through which they acquire professional practice with others who know the Discourse. In

terms of science teaching, I specified that professional vision for practice in elementary science

teaching involves attending to and making sense of students’ scientific thinking in interactions

with scientific practices and science concepts. In this section, I employ Activity Theory

(Engeström, 1987) to highlight the complexities involved in developing professional vision.

Activity Theory’s emphasis on socially mediated learning provides a lens for

understanding the social factors that may facilitate or constrain novices’ learning in the Peer

Teaching. According to Activity Theory, the Peer Teaching feedback discussions are “activity

systems” (Engeström, 2001). This means the discussions are an “object-oriented, collective, and

culturally mediated human activity” (Engeström, 1999, p. 9). Given their social nature, activity

systems are made up of competing demands that shape how the goals of an activity system are

accomplished. The elements of an activity system and their interactions are illustrated in Figure

2.1. Activity Theory has been used increasingly by scholars to investigate the competing factors

involved in novice teachers’ learning (Grossman, Smagorinsky, & Valencia, 1999; Smagorinsky,

Cook, Moore, Jackson, & Fry, 2004; Tsui & Law, 2007; Valencia, Martin, Place, & Grossman,

2009).

28
Figure 2.1 Activity Theory Model

Activity Theory maintains that an activity system is directed by a collective object or

motive (e.g., acquiring the professional Discourse) (Leont'ev, 1981). All actions within the

activity systems are interpreted in light of the object (motive or problem space) of the activity

system and accomplished by one or more participants, the subject(s). For instance, from the

perspective of a teacher educator, the object (motive) of the Peer Teaching is to provide novice

teachers with an opportunity to develop professional vision for science teaching in the context

of the methods course. Attending to and making sense of the professional Discourse is

accomplished through the use of mediating tools (Leont’ev, 1981), such as the EEE Framework

and research-based student misconceptions and scientific practice challenges in the Peer

Teaching. A tool is described by Gee (2008) as a mediating device or other individual that a

person uses to bolster her performance beyond what she could do alone. When people use

tools or each other, knowledge is distributed. Moreover, when people collaborate with others

to use tools, it allows them to “accomplish more than they could by themselves, and that

knowledge is stored as much in the network and the practices of the group as it is in any one

29
person’s head” (Gee, 2008, p. 92). As such, tacit knowledge or prior experiences (such as the

novices’ apprenticeship of observation) may also be employed as tools to attend to and make

sense of teaching.

The interactions in the top half of the triangle (subject↔ tool↔ object) are implicitly

influenced by the social structure of the Peer Teaching, represented by the bottom half of the

triangle (community↔ roles↔ norms) (Engeström, 1987). The community includes all of the

participants who share the same object, such as the teacher educators and the novices. The

division of labor refers to the roles of who does what within the activity system, and who is

privileged with the power and status (Johnson, 2009). For instance, the participants take turns

role-playing as “teachers” and “students” during the Peer Teaching lessons. Engeström,

Engeström, and Suntio (2002) explain that the division of labor element characterizes the

possible hierarchical or horizontal distribution of power and social position within the activity

system. In the Peer Teaching feedback discussion, this idea of power and roles may manifest in

the ways novices do or do not problematize aspects of their peers’ instruction. Participants’

actions in the community are determined by norms, explicit and implicit rules and expectations

that shape the interactions and their work to achieve the object (motive) of the activity system.

The purpose of Figure 2.1 is not to merely identify the components of the Peer Teaching but to

illustrate the interrelated nature of the concepts.

Towards that end, as the components of the activity system (e.g., tools, participants’

roles, and norms) interact, the object may change. For instance, novices may see complimenting

a peer as the object of the feedback discussions, instead of critiquing his teaching practice. This

perception and implicit norm, which is shaped by the socially situated nature of the participants

30
as novices and friends in the same teacher education program, may shift the object from

investigating teaching to affirming teaching.

These structural tensions within and between activity systems, referred to as

contradictions, act as sources of change for an activity system (Engeström, 2001). Contradictions

can provide opportunities for the participants to re-envision the elements of the activity

system. For instance, the introduction of the reform-based science teaching practices (as

represented by the professional Discourse of the EEE Framework tool) could generate

contradictions within the tools as novices grapple with their assumptions about students’

learning from their apprenticeship of observation (another tool). However, the process of

addressing contradictions enables new norms and new forms of knowledge to be produced

(Tsui & Law, 2007). In short, Activity Theory provides a novel perspective for understanding

the socially situated and collective nature of participants’ actions within the Peer Teaching

feedback discussions.

Summary

In this chapter, I argued that teacher noticing has primarily been conceptualized and

researched according to a cognitive perspective of learning. Building on these scholars’

contributions, I employed a sociocultural perspective to conceive of teacher learning and

noticing as socially situated. In particular, I used professional Discourse to represent the work of

teachers’ professional practice (the ways of being, and the language, actions, and beliefs that

embody teaching). What teachers do and how they talk about their work is established socially,

so I argued that learning the professional Discourse is inevitably a social process. Developing

profession vision for practice was used to characterize the collective nature of learning to attend

to and make sense of the professional Discourse. I specified that professional vision for practice

31
in elementary science teaching involves attending to and making sense of students’ scientific

thinking in interactions with scientific practices and science concepts. I described the steps that

current work in teacher education is taking to establish a professional Discourse for teaching,

and I explained how Grossman and colleagues’ framework for the teaching of practice may

provide opportunities for novices to develop a professional vision for practice in the context of

methods courses. I also drew on Activity Theory to illustrate the social and complex nature of

developing professional vision in the Peer Teaching feedback discussions. In Chapter 3, I

elaborate the Peer Teaching design and show how it was created to capitalize on the work

being done in the field of teacher education as well as in the teacher education program, which

is the context of this study. In Chapter 3, I also detail the methods I use to conduct the study.

32
 CHAPTER 3

METHODS

Overview

The research question for this dissertation is: How do preservice teachers develop

professional vision for practice in the context of Peer Teaching feedback discussions? This study

adopted a phenomenological approach to explore the mechanisms through which novice

teachers develop professional vision for practice in simulated settings. I use profession vision

for practice to denote what teachers attend to and how they make sense of instructional

interactions that embody the professional Discourse.

This definition draws on work from linguistic anthropologist Goodwin (1994) and

teacher noticing researchers van Es and Sherin (2002). Taking a phenomenological approach to

noticing entails exploring the ways in which participants in the Peer Teaching feedback

discussions experienced noticing; how they made sense of what they noticed, and how they did

so with their colleagues. Qualitative data were collected from 16 novice teachers in four Peer

Teaching teams in the elementary science methods course. These data included 48 videos of

Peer Teaching feedback discussions, Peer Teaching artifacts, and interviews with four focal

participants. To analyze the feedback discussion data, I used a combination of open coding and a

priori codes derived from the literature. The purpose of this chapter is to elaborate these

methods and to explain the study design, context, and data set I used to investigate the

phenomenon of noticing as it occurred in the context of the Peer Teaching feedback

discussions.

33
 Study Design

To reiterate, this dissertation used a phenomenological approach to study the

phenomenon of developing professional vision for practice in Peer Teaching feedback

discussions in the context of an elementary science methods course. The first step in a

phenomenological analysis is to find ways to “make the familiar strange” (Erickson, 1973, p. 16).

This step requires “a new way of looking at things, a way that requires that we learn to see what

stands before our eyes, what we can distinguish and describe” (Moustakas, 1994, p. 33). A part

of understanding professional vision then involves an examination of the context that shapes

novice teachers’ noticing. In the following section, I describe the context for the study and then

explain the details of the study and my approach to analysis.

Study Context

The study was conducted in a teacher education program within the School of

Education at a large Midwestern university. During the yearlong program, the novice teachers

earned a teaching certification and a master’s degree in education. The preservice novice

teachers had already earned a bachelor’s degree in a particular subject area. The novice

teachers in the program included both recent college graduates and individuals pursuing a

second career, and as such, their ages and experiences varied.

Novices began the program in June and typically finished the following June, unless they

pursued an additional ESL endorsement. Throughout the year, the novices took courses at the

university and worked in elementary field placements in local school districts (see Table 3.1).

34
Table 3.1 Teacher Education Program Course Sequence

Summer Term Fall Term

- Courses and fieldwork in a summer school - Courses on campus and in local elementary schools
program in a local school district - Novices work in their school placements
EDUC 401 Developmental Reading and EDUC 403 Individualizing Reading and Writing
Writing Instruction in the Elementary School Instruction in Elementary Classrooms
MATH 485 Mathematics for Elementary EDUC 431 Teaching of Social Studies in the
School Teachers Elementary School
EDUC 510 Teaching and Learning EDUC 518 Workshop on Teaching Mathematics
EDUC 650 Reflective Teaching Experience
(fieldwork)
Cognate course: Educational Linguistics
Winter Term Spring Term
- Courses in January - Graduation; courses May – June
- Feb-April, novices in their school placements
full-time “student teaching”
EDUC 490 Literacy for English Language EDUC 604 The School Curriculum
Learners EDUC 695 Research and Educational Practice
EDUC 528 Workshop on the Teaching of
Science
EDUC 649 Foundational Perspectives on
Educational Reform
EDUC 510 Teaching and Learning
EDUC 650 Reflective Teaching Experience
(fieldwork in school placements)

This study took place in the elementary science methods course (ED528) during the

novices’ third semester of coursework. During the month of January, the novices were on

campus, taking courses before they began to work in their school placements full time

(“student teaching”) in February through April. This means that the majority of the course

assignments took place in the context of the elementary science methods course, since the

novices only visited their school placements one afternoon a week.

Elementary Science Methods Course

The elementary science methods course, which is a required course in the teacher

education program, was designed to help the preservice novice teachers develop the

35
knowledge, skills, and ways of reasoning necessary to become a teacher of science at the

elementary and middle school level. The course focused on both the science content resources

needed for teaching science and the instructional practices of science teaching. The course was

also intended to help novices develop a greater sense of themselves as professionals, joining a

community that shares norms, specialized knowledge, and ethical commitments (i.e., a

professional Discourse). The course emphasized four main learning goals for the novice

teachers:

• To describe the four strands of science learning—understanding scientific

explanations (content), generating scientific evidence (through scientific practice),

reflecting on scientific knowledge (and the nature of science), and participating

productively in science

• To incorporate the four strands of science learning into effective elementary science

teaching to support students as they engage with an investigation question,

experience the scientific phenomenon in order to answer the investigation question,

and explain the scientific investigation with evidence.

• To identify and enact instructional strategies that make science accessible to all

students, including through connecting it to their lives

• To learn how to prepare, teach, and analytically reflect on elementary school science

investigation lessons (See Appendix H EDUC 528 Syllabus3).

3
The EDUC 528 syllabus was adapted from Dr. Betsy Davis’s syllabi development in EDUC 421

36
Peer Teaching Lesson Feedback Discussions

The Peer Teaching lessons in the context of an elementary science methods course

were designed to provide novices with opportunities to develop a professional vision. The Peer

Teaching lessons enabled novices to draw on the knowledge of their colleagues and the teacher

educators (as members of the profession) as well as the professional Discourse through

mediating tools. These tools included the EEE Framework for science teaching and learning and

representations of students’ misconceptions. The novices with the facilitating teacher educators

used the professional Discourse and the tools to collectively envision challenges novices might

face in science teaching lessons.

Mediating Tools for Science Teaching and Learning: EEE Framework and Student Misconceptions

The Peer Teaching lessons provided opportunities for novices to draw on and use the

professional Discourse of the science education community through the mediating tools of the

EEE Framework and representations of student misconceptions. The course conceptualized the

professional vision for science teaching through the identification of three phases of elementary

science teaching. The phases emphasized the role of using investigations to support students in

learning science content and scientific practices. These practices were embodied in the “EEE

Framework for Science Teaching and Learning” and they included:

• Engage with an investigation question,

• Experience the scientific phenomenon to generate evidence to answer the investigation

question; and

• Explain the scientific investigation with evidence

These practices were deliberately identified, named, and practiced in small grain sizes to

facilitate novices’ capacity to notice and use them.

37
 The EEE Framework was designed by the EDUC 421 Elementary Science Teaching

Methods course planning team4 and this study centered on the EEE framework’s second

iteration. I led the development of the EEE framework, and it was introduced in the

undergraduate elementary science teaching methods course in Fall 2011, when I taught one

section of the course.

Although the EEE framework was designed by the Elementary Science Planning Team,

the framework closely resembles the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSC) 5E

Instructional Model (Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaboration, Evaluation) (Bybee et al.,

2006). This model was developed in the late 1980s based on the theories of learning advocated

by Johann Herbart (1901) and John Dewey (1910), and the Atkin and Karplus (1962) learning

cycle proposed in the early 1960s, which was used in the Science Curriculum Improvement

Study (SCIS) curriculum program. More recent iterations of the BSCS 5E Instructional Model

rest on the theories of student learning as reported in the National Research Council (NRC)

report, How People Learn (National Research Council, 1999). We adapted some of these ideas

in our development of the EEE framework.

The science teaching and learning practices of the EEE Framework phases were made

accessible to the novice teachers through Grossman and colleagues’ components of

professional practice described earlier. One course session was dedicated to representing and

decomposing each phase. For instance, for the Engage phase, novices learned about ways to use

an investigation question to establish a meaningful purpose for students’ investigations and data

collection. In the Experience phase, novices learned how to support students in collecting and

4
At the time of this study, the group included Dr. Betsy Davis, Carrie Beyer, Michele Nelson,
Mandy Benedict-Chambers, James Hagerty, and Anna Arias

38
recording data that answered the investigation question. In the Explain phase, novices learned to

support students in constructing scientific explanations based on the data students collected

during the Experience phase. On the sixth, ninth, and eleventh session of the 12-session

methods course, the novices engaged in approximations of practice in which they taught an

Engage, Experience and Explain Peer Teaching lesson, respectively. The novices were placed in

Peer Teaching teams of four novices, and they remained in these teams throughout the course

to facilitate collective knowledge building and camaraderie. During the three course sessions

dedicated to Peer Teaching, each novice took on the role of a “teacher” and taught a 15-20

minute lesson to his/her peers who acted as “students.” When the novices were teaching, their

peers acted as elementary students (intellectually, not behaviorally). Table 3.2 presents the

instructions provided to the group.

Table 3.2 Peer Teaching Instructions for the Experience Peer Teaching

9:20- 9:40 First Ecosystem teacher teaches lesson. The “teacher” will identity the specific grade of the
students. Teacher educator and others act as “elementary students” using their assigned scientific
alternative ideas and scientific practice challenges during the lesson. The teacher educator may interject
in the middle of the lesson to offer feedback
9:40- 9:50 Debrief with feedback about the teacher’s efforts to support students in establishing data
collection for answering the investigation question and carrying out the investigation.
- Teacher evaluates him/herself using the green rubric
- Teacher educator and others jot down notes from the lesson on the blue feedback form
- Group discusses the lesson and the teacher shares one thing that s/he would like to revise from the
enactment

9:50- 10:10 Second Ecosystem teacher teaches lesson. If feasible, s/he may want to take up the
feedback offered to the first Ecosystem teacher.
10:10- 10:20 Debrief with feedback
10:20- 10:30 Class Break
10:30- 10:50 First Motion teacher teaches lesson.
10:50- 11:00 Debrief with feedback
11:00- 11:20 Second Motion teacher teaches lesson. If feasible, s/he may want to take up the feedback
offered during the previous lessons.
11:20- 11:30 Debrief with feedback
Return to the Science Methods Room. All teachers complete the reflection questions on the back of the
green EEE framework rubric.

39
 In addition to the EEE Framework, representations of students’ misconceptions served

as tools to mediate novices’ abilities to acquire the professional Discourse and to envision

student thinking in a context where actual children were not present. The misconceptions were

derived from research about student thinking in the areas of ecosystems and force and motion,

the topics of the two Peer Teaching lessons (e.g., Driver, Guesne, & Tiberghien, 1985). Each

“student” was assigned a particular alternative idea to guide his or her contributions in the

lesson. The list of student alternative ideas (misconceptions) is indicated in Table 3.3.

Table 3.3 Assigned Alternative Ideas for the Ecosystems and Motion Lessons

Alternative Ideas for the Ecosystems Unit Scientific Concepts

One species or animal exists in an ecosystem to
A species exists to fulfill its own needs.
fulfill a need for a different population.
Organisms may include nonliving things Organisms are only living things.
Organisms may refer to only certain living things
All living things are organisms.
(only animals, not plants)
Humans feed other organisms. Without humans, An ecosystem can exist and remain stable
organisms would not be able to survive. without human interference. Sunlight provides
the source of energy for producers.
Consumers eat producers for their energy.
Producers make food for themselves and they
Producers make food for other organisms.
can be consumed as food for other organisms.
A living organism responds to stimuli, grows,
Plants, algae, and seeds are not living
reproduces, and is made up of cells6
Alternative Ideas for the Motion Unit Scientific Concepts
Energy and force are the same. A force is a push or a pull; it will not result in
work unless it results in moving a mass in the
direction that the force is exerted. Energy
measures the amount of work done.
If a body is not moving there is no force acting upon Rest and constant motion are the same thing to
it. a scientist. In both cases the forces acting on
the object are balanced. Whether an object is
at rest or in motion depends on your frame of
reference.
If a body is in motion, there is a force acting upon it Constant motion does not require that a force
in the direction of motion. be acting on an object.
Large objects exert a greater force than small Gravitational force between objects depends
objects. on the mass of the objects, not their volume or
density. The two objects exert equal forces on
Objects of specific colors exert a greater force. each other—the forces you exert on the earth
is equal to the force the earth exerts on you.

40
 In addition, to simulate the types of challenges a teacher might face in an elementary

classroom in engaging students in complex investigations, the “students” were also assigned

scientific practice challenges to express in the instruction. For instance in the motion lesson,

students might struggle to make and record the quantitative measurements in a precise way. In

the ecosystems lesson, “students” may struggle to collect the qualitative data (see Table 3.4).

Table 3.4 Ecosystems and Motion Lessons Scientific Practice Challenges

Ecosystems Lesson: Student Scientific Practice Challenges

• Adding smiley faces to the living or non-living things.
• Using inaccurate colors in their pictures of the objects in the ecosystems (students like to color the
rocks red and purple).
• Not drawing the objects true to scale, e.g., the animals are larger or smaller than the other things in
the aquarium.
• Pictures lacking specificity – not identifying the specific animal or plant.
• Not being objective in the observations, “We see roots and they look cool!”
• Making inferences rather than stating observations, “The fish is happy!” rather than noting that the
fish is swimming around in the tank.
• Spending large amounts of time coloring one thing in the aquarium and missing the other things.
• Giving the animals and plants human features or qualities (anthropomorphizing the animals and
plants).
• Becoming so excited by the objects in the aquarium that students miss the purpose of making the
observations to answer the investigation question.

Motion Lesson: Student Scientific Practice Challenges

• Not taking careful measurements of the distance of the track ball.
• Not starting the track ball at the same point for the trials.
• “Taking over” the investigation while other students may “sit back” and not get involved, either in
the work of conducting the investigation or in the intellectual work of figuring out what is
happening.
• Acting as if one thing has an effect (but in fact it doesn’t) but students keep looking for it (e.g.,
students looking for the temperature to increase in the thermometers in the sweaters in the
Watson & Konicek article).
• Recording the data in the table in an unsystematic manner.
• Not filling out the table as they conduct the investigation because they think they’ll remember it
later.
• Becoming so excited by the marbles and the collisions that students miss the purpose of doing
the investigation to answer the investigation question.
• May not understand the importance of controlling some variables, and they may try to change
multiple variables at the same time.

41
 The list of scientific practice challenges was also derived from science education

research (e.g., Driver et al., 1985), and the teacher educators’ research and experiences. Some

of the teacher educators were involved in studying the enactment of the ecosystems unit in

local elementary schools (Davis et al., 2012).

The Peer Teaching lessons and feedback discussions were designed to enable the

novices with the teacher educators to use these tools as a means to acquire the professional

Discourse and to attend to student thinking as it interacted with the instruction and science

concepts. One affordance of the Peer Teaching lesson was that it did not require novices to

attend to student thinking while simultaneously managing the complexities of actual elementary

science classrooms, such as time, curricula demands, and student behavior challenges (Davis et

al., 2006).

A part of developing professional vision involves practicing how to notice and do the

work of the profession. As such, the Peer Teaching lessons provided a setting in which the

novices could try out the work of the profession and make inevitable mistakes without the fear

of impacting children’s learning. For instance, they practiced probing students’ ideas, and

responding to misconceptions when the “students” in the lesson offered them.

42
Goffman (1974) elaborates this purpose of simulating practice:

The capacity to bring off an activity as one wants to—ordinarily defined as the

possession of skills—is very often developed through a kind of utilitarian make believe.

The purpose of this practicing is to give the neophyte experience in performing under

the conditions in which (it is felt) no actual engagement with the world is allowed,

events having been “decoupled” from their usual embedment in consequentiality.

Presumably muffing or failure can occur both economically and instructively. What one

has here are dry runs, trial sessions, run-throughs—in short “practicings” (p. 54).

By focusing on “dry runs” in a context where elementary children are not present, the novice

teachers could refine their teaching before they were faced with the responsibility of attending

to children’s learning in an elementary classroom. As such, in the context of approximating

practice, teaching mistakes were privileged for the ways in which they made transparent the

complex interactions between instruction, student thinking, and concepts (Lampert, 2001). I

refer to this feature as allowing preservice teachers to experience “instructive teaching

mistakes.”5 For example, during a Peer Teaching lesson, a novice teacher may have neglected to

begin her science lesson by posing an investigation question that established the purpose of the

lesson. Instead of allowing the novice to continue teaching and to undoubtedly provide

instruction that lacked a clear purpose, the teacher educator could interrupt the lesson and

bring the teaching mistake to the attention of the group to discuss. After a brief discussion, she

may ask the novice to rewind and reteach the beginning of the lesson. In the context of the

methods course, the teaching mistakes could be leveraged to benefit the learning of the group,

5
Grossman and colleagues (2009) refer to this concept as “instructive failures” (pg. 11). Given
that I use this concept with preservice teachers and want to de-emphasize the severity of
failure, I refer to it as “instructive teaching mistakes.”

43
the collective. Novice teachers no doubt make teaching mistakes in their lessons in elementary

classrooms, but in the elementary classroom setting, there may not be an opportunity to

transform the mistakes into instructive moments. In an elementary classroom, students’

learning and instructional time are privileged, so a lesson would not be interrupted to address a

preservice teacher’s instruction. Additionally, stopping a preservice teacher’s lesson to discuss

the instruction is not part of the culture of elementary teaching in the context of school

settings. However, in the university methods course setting, there are no children, so the

preservice teacher’s learning can be privileged.

The Peer Teaching feedback discussions were designed to leverage the instructive

teaching mistakes by offering the “teacher” feedback that was targeted, just-in-time, and

intended for the collective. When a novice made an instructive teaching mistake during a Peer

Teaching lesson, the teacher educator could intervene and stop the lesson. For instance, the

teacher educator may focus his feedback on the questions the group was using to probe

students’ ideas. For instance, the novice may have needed to ask her “students” more questions

such as, “Why do you think that?” or “What is your evidence to support that claim?”

Furthermore, since the Peer Teaching lesson did not take place in an actual classroom,

the teacher educator could manipulate the element of time to offer just-in-time feedback.

Manipulating time in a lesson by stopping it allowed the teacher educator to offer “just-in-time

feedback” right when the peer teacher needed it, instead of waiting until after the lesson. The

teacher educator could leverage the richness of the instructive teaching mistake, before it

passed and was forgotten. Additionally, she could ask the preservice teacher to rewind her

lesson (or fast forward) and re-teach an aspect of it. In the context of the methods course, the

preservice teachers’ learning was not ruled by time, something that is a precious commodity in

elementary classrooms.

44
 The Peer Teaching setting also allowed for feedback that was intended to build

collective knowledge. Feedback that is offered to preservice teachers in the context of an

elementary classroom is typically private. Rarely are teaching mistakes viewed as problems of

practice that teachers can grapple with and learn from (Lampert & Graziani, 2009). Yet in the

methods course, teaching mistakes were positioned as common problems of practice and were

leveraged for their insights into complex practice. Furthermore, the problems of practice were

opened up to the group, so the mistakes and ways to manage them could develop the

professional Discourse among the members. In this way, feedback may be offered to an

individual novice, but given in a way that was intended to build the knowledge of the collective.

This approach to feedback as building collective knowledge and the professional Discourse does

not often resemble the discussions that occur in teacher education programs or in novices’ field

placement settings (Lampert, 2010; Little & Horn, 2007). Thus, as the novices joined their

colleagues and the teacher educator in studying, approximating, and articulating the complex

aspects of science instruction, they were able to draw on and contest their visions of the

professional Discourse.

During the lessons, the “students” used the EEE Framework Feedback Form to record

their observations of the “teacher’s” instruction (see Appendix C. EEE Framework Feedback

Form). After each lesson, the teacher educator and the novices took a few minutes to record

more observations on the Feedback Form, and the “teacher” used the rubric to evaluate

his/her teaching and to note ways the lesson could have been revised. Then the teacher

educator and novices engaged in a 10-15 minute feedback discussion, in which they offered

targeted feedback to the “teacher” about the lesson. Here, the teacher educators encouraged

the group to share what effective teaching moves they noticed in the “teacher’s” lesson. After

talking about strengths, the group might move to discuss missed opportunities. The feedback

45
discussions typically ended with the “teacher” expressing how he or she might revise the

instruction. In total, novices practiced teaching science three times (Engage, Experience, Explain

lessons) during the course and offered peers feedback nine times.

To reflect on the Peer Teaching experience, novices wrote a memo in which they

analyzed their instruction, “student” learning, and the feedback they received (see Appendix D.

Peer Teaching Memo). All of the lessons were video recorded, so novices used the timestamps

from their videoed lesson as evidence to support their claims about their enactment of the EEE

Framework teaching practices. In the Engage, Experience, and Explain memos, they also stated

their takeaways about science teaching and learning from the Peer Teaching lesson and the

group discussions.

Novices used one of two lessons from elementary science curricula to teach the Peer

Teaching lessons. The first lesson was from the Ecosystems unit from the Science and Technology

Concepts (STC) curriculum materials. The Ecosystems unit emphasized the relationships

between living and nonliving things. Here, students explored the investigation question, “How

do living things depend on other living and nonliving things?” Students recorded observations of

interactions between fish, snails, duckweed, elodea, and algae in a small-scale ecosystem

aquarium (2-liter bottle) to investigate the concept of an ecosystem (see Figure 3.1).

46
Figure 3.1 Ecosystem lesson aquarium setup and webbing activity from STC, Ecosystems Unit

The second lesson was from the Motion unit from the Science Companion curriculum

materials (Chicago Science Group, 2000-2010). In this lesson, the novice teachers acting as

“students” performed controlled collisions with balls of different masses on a meter stick track.

One ramp ball was rolled down a toilet paper tube to collide with a track ball placed at the

bottom of the tube on a meter stick track (see Figure 3.2). “Students” collected data to answer

the following investigation question, “What makes a big and small collision?” Six balls were

tested in the experiment, including a rubber ball, a large and small steel ball, a wooden ball, and

a large and small marble. Some of the “teachers” also changed the length of the tube (by using a

paper towel roll) and varied the height of the ramp by using different quantities of blocks.

47
Figure 3.2 Ball and Track Apparatus Setup of the Motion investigation from Chicago Science
Group, 2000-2010

Different teacher educators worked with the teams to facilitate the discussions.

Although the teacher educators usually worked with different groups for each lesson, Priti’s

team worked with the same teacher educator for both the Experience and Explain lessons. I did

not want the teacher educators working with the novices whom they interviewed, so this

arrangement was necessary for the Explain Peer Teaching (described more later). This means

that the same four novices worked together for all three Peer Teaching lessons, but they

worked with different teacher educators. I describe the teams further in the next section.

Study Participants

Participants in this study were the novice teachers in the master’s level elementary

science methods course. The participants were selected based on their willingness to

participate in the study, in terms of written and audio/visual capacities. Although 21 out of 24

novices in the course gave consent to participate in data collection that surpassed the regular

artifacts collected for pedagogical purposes, two of those novices were eliminated from the

study because of their status as undergraduates. The two undergraduates were student athletes

who were unable to take the undergraduate science methods course because of their

schedules. As such, they were eliminated from the study because their course experiences in

the undergraduate teacher education program were different from the rest of the class.

48
Four focal participants were selected for the study based on the following criteria:

• Novices’ responses to two questions on the survey distributed on the first and last day

of class (see Appendix E. Survey Questions.) This survey used two five-level Likert item

questions to elicit information about the novices’ perceptions of science teaching and

their ability to effectively teach elementary science. These two questions served to

identify novices who varied in terms of their experiences with and confidence in

teaching elementary science.

• The novice’s mentor teacher teaches science (some mentor teachers teamed with

another colleague so they did not teach science.)

• The novice’s grade level, major and minor, age, and gender were considered to

represent a range of novices given the focus on investigating how a variety of preservice

teachers offered and used feedback.

• The stability of the novice’s placement. Many of the novices moved to new placements,

and new grade levels in January when the course began.

49
 Table 3.5 indicates how the four focal participants were selected for the study.

Table 3.5 Focal Participant Selection by Criteria

Survey Criteria Focal Participant Selection6

Science major or minor and 5 novices in the class met this criteria
• 2 novices were science majors,
Perceived confidence in knowledge of science neither gave consent
and confidence in ability to effectively teach • 3 novices were science minors
elementary science • 1 novice changed her placement in
January
• 1 novice left the second question
about ability blank
• Priti was selected: science minor,
indicated confidence for both
questions, female, 30s, 4th grade
field placement

Perceived not confident in knowledge of 1 novice in the class met this criteria
science and confident in ability to effectively • Noelle was selected: female, mid-
teach elementary science twenties, 5th grade field placement

Perceived not confident in knowledge of 2 novices in the class met this criteria
science and not confident in ability to • 1 novice’s mentor teacher did not
effectively teach elementary science teach science which would
constrain her opportunities to
teach it in her placement
• Noemi was selected: female, early
20s, 1st grade field placement

Unsure in perceived knowledge of science and 5 novices in the class met this criteria
unsure in ability to effectively teach • 1 novice who did not give consent
elementary science • 2 novices changed placement in January
• 1 intern wrote, “unsure--depends, love
science,” female, mid-twenties, 4th grade
• Scott was selected, he wrote, “felt
unprepared, making sure things haven't
changed too much since I learned them
in high school and undergrad science,”
male, 40s, 4th grade field placement

6
All names are pseudonyms.

50
 Four teams of four novice teachers were created around each of the focal participants.

In total, the data in the study were collected from the 16 novices in the four teams (see Table

3.6).

Table 3.6 Novices in the Peer Teaching Teams

Peer Teaching Teams

Priti Noelle
Lea Gina
Sam Lacey
Camille Lana
Scott Noemi
Lori Cade
Diane Nina
Julie Joyce

The Role of the Researcher

My role as both the instructor and researcher informed the design of this dissertation

study. For instance, I identified sources of data that could be used for pedagogical purposes, and

other sources that would be sequestered after the novices’ grades were posted. Given the

nature of the pedagogical sources of data, some of these sources did evolve throughout the

course to better facilitate the novices’ learning. For example, based on feedback that the

novices and the teacher educators provided after the first iteration of the Peer Teaching

lessons, I revised the Peer Teaching feedback forms to include a two-column chart for

observations and inferences. The first column provided space for the peer students and teacher

educators to record observational notes during and after the lessons. In the second column, the

peer students and teacher educators identified the ways in which the teaching moves reflected

the practices of the EEE framework.

Given my dual role as the course instructor and researcher, I recruited four individuals

to conduct the interviews of the four focal participants and to serve as teacher educators

51
during the Peer Teaching lessons. The four teacher educator-interviewers were not notified of

the identities of the focal participants. This decision served to protect the privacy of the novices

during the Peer Teaching lessons and to remove the pressure the teacher educator may feel as

he or she offered feedback to the different novices during the lessons. Furthermore, this

anonymity was intended to strengthen the validity of the study in terms of understanding the

phenomenon of noticing in the feedback discussions. In addition, the other novices in the class

did not know the identities of the focal participants.

Three of the teacher educator-interviewers were School of Education science education

doctoral students, and the fourth was a former science education master’s student who was

now a staff member in the School of Education. The three doctoral students and the one staff

member had all previously worked with the Peer Teaching lessons, and three of the four had

served as former apprentices in the elementary science methods course. As such, these

individuals were familiar with the course and had helped to design the course and earlier

iterations of the Peer Teaching lessons (See Benedict-Chambers, 2012 for more information

about the history of the Peer Teaching lessons).

Data

This dissertation employed a phenomenological approach to investigate the process

through which novices develop professional vision for practice in Peer Teaching feedback

discussions in the context of an elementary science methods course. Adopting a

phenomenological approach involves “capturing and describing how people experience a

phenomenon—how they…make sense of it, and talk about it with others” (Patton, 2002, p.

104). In the next section, I describe the sources of data I collected to gain insight into the

participants’ experiences of noticing in the Peer Teaching feedback discussions.

52
Data Sources

As a part of the course and the study, a variety of qualitative data were collected

(Green, Camilli, & Elmore, 2006). The initial large data set is represented in Table 3.7. These

data included videos of the Peer Teaching lessons and feedback discussions, reflection memos,

EEE Framework feedback forms and rubrics, and interviews with the four focal participants.

Some of the initial sources of data were collected for pedagogical purposes. Other data, such as

the interviews, were collected and put aside until after grades were posted. Table 3.7 indicates

the initial data that were collected from the 16 participants in the study.

Table 3.7 Overview of the Initial Data Set

Data source Number of files Format

Focal Participant 20 Audio (transcribed)
Interviews n=4x5
Science teaching surveys 16 Paper copies
n=16
EEE Rubric 48 Paper copies
n=16x3 lessons=48
EEE Feedback Forms 144 Paper copies
16x3 novices per team
x3 lessons= 144
Peer Teaching Lesson 48 Paper copies
Plans and Reflection
Memos 16x3= 48
Video of methods course 12 Video
sessions (12 sessions)
Videos of Peer Teaching 41* Video (transcribed)
lessons and feedback
discussion
n=16x3 lessons=48
*Seven Peer Teaching lesson feedback discussions were not recorded due to technical
difficulties with the camera, or the novices forgot to turn on the camera.

I deliberately selected a subset of the initial data set for this study. In order to examine

the ways in which the novice teachers with the teacher educators drew on the professional

Discourse to develop professional vision, I focused my analyses on the videos of the Peer

53
Teaching feedback discussions. The interactions in the discussions revealed the patterned ways

that group members used the professional Discourse to articulate their thinking about the

challenges of science teaching and learning. I used the Peer Teaching artifacts and interviews

with focal participants to provide contextual information that refined my analyses.

Peer Teaching Lesson Feedback Discussion Videos

The Peer Teaching feedback discussions for the four Peer Teaching teams served as the

primary source of data for this study. The feedback discussions were the main source of data

because they provided insight into the ways in which the novices interacted to draw on the

professional Discourse to identify and to make sense of science teaching and learning. In a

phenomenological study, the data are “treated as a text or a document that is being studied;

that is, as an instance of the phenomenon that is being studied” (Denzin, 1989b, pp. 55-56).

Thus, video data from the feedback discussions were used to gain insight into instances in which

the novices were developing professional vision. In particular, the video data provided

information of which challenges the novices noticed, how they noticed the challenges, and who

noticed the challenges. The Peer Teaching lessons and feedback discussions were recorded by

either a camera used for research, and or the novices’ personal cameras used for pedagogical

purposes in the teacher education program. Seven of the 48 feedback discussions from the

Engage Peer Teaching were not recorded due to technical difficulties or the participants

forgetting to turn on their cameras. In addition, the research camera malfunctioned during

Noelle’s group’s Explain feedback discussion, and Noelle and Laura’s cameras cut off in the

middle of their feedback discussions.

54
Peer Teaching Artifacts

The Peer Teaching artifacts, as secondary sources of data, were also collected to

contextualize the discussions and to strengthen my interpretations of the feedback discussions.

These Peer Teaching artifacts included the Peer Teaching lesson plan, EEE Rubric and feedback

forms, and the reflection memos. These documents provided insight into the process through

which the novices’ noticing developed throughout the three Peer Teaching lessons. All

together, the Peer Teaching lesson feedback discussion videos with the Peer Teaching artifacts

informed claims about the mechanisms through which novice teachers with facilitating teacher

educators developed professional vision in the context of the Peer Teaching feedback

discussions.

Interviews with Focal Participants

Interviews with the four focal participants also served as secondary sources of data to

illuminate the experiences of the novices in noticing in the feedback discussions. The focal

participants were interviewed five times, once after the three Peer Teaching lessons and the

science lesson they taught in their school field placements in February, and once at the end of

their student teaching in May. The teacher educator-interviewers conducted the first four

interviews and these transcripts were sequestered until after course grades were posted. I

conducted the final interview in May. The purpose of the interviews was to corroborate what

the novices noticed in their own Peer Teaching lesson, and what they noticed in their peers’

lesson.

In the fall, the interview protocol went through various iterations based on feedback

from the committee members. The interview protocol was also tested during the fall semester

with two undergraduate novice teachers in the undergraduate elementary science methods

55
course. Two of the teacher educator-interviewers conducted the pilot interviews and I

observed. Afterwards, we debriefed the interview and refined the questions based on the

novices’ responses. I trained the other two teacher educator-interviewers to use the protocol;

we discussed the interview questions and talked through possible novice responses, specifically

referring to the two pilot interviews. See the interview protocol provided in Appendix F.

Interview Questions. Table 3.8 shows the timetable for the collection of data associated with

this study.

Table 3.8 Data collection timeline

Time (relative to Data collected

methods course)
Session 1 Science Teaching Survey
Session 6 Video of Engage Peer Teaching lesson feedback discussion
Peer Teaching feedback forms and rubrics collected
Interview #1 with focal study participants
Peer Teaching Engage reflection memo
Session 9 Video of Experience Peer Teaching lesson feedback discussion
Peer Teaching feedback forms and rubrics collected
Interview #2 with focal study participants
Peer Teaching Experience reflection memo
Session 11 Video of Explain Peer Teaching lesson feedback discussion
Peer Teaching feedback forms and rubrics collected
Interview #3 with focal study participants
Peer Teaching Explain reflection memo
Session 12 Last session of the course
After the course Interview #4 with focal study participants after teaching science
lesson in their school field placements
After student Interview #5 with focal study participants after student teaching
teaching

Data Coding and Analysis

Consistent with a phenomenological analysis, my approach to analysis for this study was

to “hold the phenomenon up for serious inspection. It is taken out of the world where it

occurs. It is taken apart and dissected. Its elements and essential structures are uncovered,

defined, and analyzed ” (Denzin, 1989b, pp. 55-56). In my initial pass through the data set, I

56
identified patterns in the Peer Teaching feedback discussions in which the novice teachers with

the facilitating teacher educators consistently attended to challenges of science teaching and

learning. In subsequent iterations, I focused my analysis on the interactions that occurred as the

participants identified and discussed the challenges.

In particular, three analytic questions concerning the what, the how, and the who of

noticing guided my analysis:

(a) What challenges of science teaching and learning are noticed in the Peer Teaching

feedback discussions?

(b) What is the process through which novice teachers notice the challenges of science

teaching and learning in the Peer Teaching feedback discussions?

(c) What interactions occur among the challenges, the process, and participants’

noticing in the Peer Teaching feedback discussions?

Analysis of Peer Teaching Feedback Discussion Data

My analysis of the feedback discussion transcripts occurred in four iterative stages:

transcribing and segmenting into episodes, coding, representing, and writing analytic memos. I

describe the steps I took in this section.

First, I transcribed each feedback discussion. Given the complexity of transcribing the

group discussions, I relied on the secondary data sources to accurately transcribe aspects of

conversation or meanings that were difficult to comprehend. In particular, I watched the video

and listened to the audio, read the novices’ Peer Teaching lesson plans, memos, rubrics, and

feedback forms. After all of the feedback discussions were transcribed, I compiled them in

Dedoose. Dedoose is a software application for analyzing text, video and spreadsheet data,

qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods research.

57
 After the feedback discussions were transcribed, I segmented the data into episodes of

attending to challenges. In my initial pass through the data, I established a unit of analysis,

termed an episode, based on when the novices and teacher educators introduced a new

challenge about the Peer Teaching instruction. This method draws from Little and Horn’s

(2005) notion of dividing a discussion transcript into “episodes of pedagogical reasoning.” I

focused on challenges as a way to package the data into units. I then was able to determine the

challenge topics, or the object of inquiry in the discussions, and the moves the participants

enacted to make sense of the challenge topics. An “episode of attending to challenges” began

with a participant’s move to identify a challenge These moves were statements in which

participants described interactions in the Peer Teaching lesson as challenging, confusing,

worrisome, or worthy of questioning. Both the “teachers” and “students” from the Peer

Teaching lesson introduced challenges in the feedback sessions. I marked the end of an episode

by noting topical shifts and or participation structure. The episodes of attending to challenges

could involve one participant acknowledging a challenge, or it could occur over multiple turns

of talk. I focused specifically on moments in the feedback discussions in which the participants

grappled with challenges of science teaching and learning to examine how novice teachers with

the teacher educators developed professional vision in the context of the Peer Teaching

feedback discussions.

Second, I coded the episodes of attending to challenges to develop analytic categories

according to which challenge topics the novice teachers and teacher educators noticed, how they

noticed them, and who noticed them. I located challenge topics in the feedback sessions by

engaging in line-by-line coding of the 41 Peer Teaching feedback discussion transcripts. I worked

chronologically through the entire set of feedback discussions, coding the topics when they first

58
appeared in the episode. The nine categories of science teaching and learning challenge topics

noticed in order of frequency included:

(1) Student thinking topics

(2) Science concepts from the Peer Teaching lesson curricula

(3) Designing Investigations and Making and Recording Observations

(4) General Pedagogy not specifically related to the EEE Framework

(5) Investigation Questions

(6) Constructing Evidence-based Claims

(7) Analyzing and Interpreting Data

(8) Making Predictions

(9) Defining Terms

I then coded how, or the ways in which the novices and teacher educators noticed the

challenges. I used participant talk in the feedback discussions to characterize how they noticed. I

drew on Johnstone’s (2008) description of discourse moves. She argues that asking a question

about something noticed is defined by its function, rather than its structure. Johnstone

compares these moves to the kinds of interactions that might occur in a chess game, in which

one player’s move on the chessboard affects the next player’s move. To characterize how

participant talk serves a function in the interaction, I refer to the phrases participants used as

“moves to notice.” Identifying the patterned and recurring phrases in the discussions as

constituted by moves allowed me to examine how one person’s move to notice shapes the

interaction by setting up and constraining another’s response (Horn & Little, 2010).

The moves to notice were identified and refined through several iterations of coding.

Again, I worked chronologically through the Peer Teaching feedback discussions, and engaged in

59
line-by-line coding that closely attended to the patterns of talk used by the novices and the

teacher educators. This analysis work reflected a grounded theory approach as I moved

between the words and phrases of the novices and teacher educators and my interpretation of

those words (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). The codes emerged based on my understanding of the

data and my knowledge of the professional Discourse as an instructor in the teacher education

program7 and in the science methods course. I developed codes to reflect the moves in each

discussion, and then codes to reflect the moves enacted across the discussion data set. This

was an iterative process, as I compared codes across the feedback discussion transcripts to

revise and refine the coding scheme. A former instructor of the elementary science methods

course also coded 20% of the data set. After checking for agreement on codes after coding

independently, the codes were readjusted and the data were recoded (Remillard & Bryans,

2004). Some of the codes were combined and in other cases, the codes were eliminated (Miles

& Huberman, 1994).

7
I served as a research assistant to the instructors, Dr. Hala Ghousseini and Heather Beasley,
in the novices’ mathematics methods course during their first semester in the teacher
education program. I was also an instructor and field instructor in the program in the three
years prior to the research study. As such, I was fluent in the professional Discourse and could
be considered a participant observer (Patton, 2002).

60
I identified five categories of moves to notice that occurred across the episodes of attending to

challenges:

(1) Identifying challenges

(2) Articulating thinking about challenges

(3) Envisioning alternatives to challenges

(4) Describing instruction

(5) Evaluating instruction

The third step in the analysis process involved creating representations of the data. The

representations occurred in two forms: data displays and tables. The representations allowed

me to identify and then interpret patterns that I had encountered while coding. To reiterate,

three analytic questions guided my analysis of the representations: (a) what challenge topics the

novices and teacher educators noticed; (b) how they noticed them; and (c) what interactions

occurred among the challenge topics, the moves, and participants’ noticing.

The data displays informed subsequent iterations of the coding process. In particular,

the data displays showed patterns of how the novices and teacher educators noticed the

challenge topics by using the professional Discourse to articulate their thinking and to envision

alternatives (see Table 4.3). I created tables to show the results of analyses relating to the

challenge topics, the moves to notice, and who noticed the challenges in each of the 41

feedback discussions (see Table 4.4). The consistency of the tables enabled me to compare the

codes across all of the feedback discussions and to develop concepts to reflect the findings.

As I have already depicted, the fourth step in the analysis involved finding patterns,

examining the data for anomalies, and making interpretations. In studying a phenomenon such

as developing professional vision, the final step requires an integration of the parts “to offer a

61
tentative statement, or definition of the phenomenon in terms of the essential recurring

features identified” (Denzin, 1989b, pp. 55-56). To do this, I looked across the data set and

wrote analytic memos that focused closely on the patterns. I also created theoretical models to

try to explain the patterns I was seeing (Patton, 2002). These efforts led to additional analyses

in which I sought more confirming and disconfirming evidence.

Analysis of the Secondary Sources of Data

The analysis of the secondary sources of data, including the Peer Teaching artifacts and

the interviews, occurred in a different manner, given their purpose to contextualize the

feedback discussions. As I transcribed the feedback discussions, I simultaneously transcribed the

interviews with the focal participants. I regularly reviewed the novices’ artifacts to fill in any

gaps as I made sense of the feedback discussions. For example, as I was analyzing Lori’s Explain

feedback discussion, I could not understand the comment the teacher educator made about the

wording of Lori’s investigation question. Her comment prompted a long discussion between the

novices about the relationships between investigation questions, science concepts, and student

thinking. In order to more fully understand the exchange, I reviewed Lori’s lesson plan and her

rubric, the teacher educator’s feedback form, and Lori’s memo to better understand the

context of the comment. I describe the findings of this work with Lori’s lesson in Chapter 5.

The analysis of the interview transcript data reflected a similar approach. I read and re-

read the transcripts to more fully understand the experiences of the novices in noticing in the

feedback discussions. For instance, the interview with Noemi after her Experience feedback

discussion illuminated the ways in which she had interpreted the teacher educator’s feedback in

the discussion. In her interview, Noemi expresses her frustration about the challenge topics the

teacher educator identified in her lesson; she felt she was being judged unfairly about a teaching

62
topic that she had not been taught. Her interview prompted me to re-examine the topics that

were raised in her feedback session and the role of the other novices in the group’s discussion.

I discuss her lesson more in Chapter 5. I now turn to Chapter 4 where I report the findings of

the three analytic questions that guided my analysis. I use these findings to answer the central

research question in Chapter 5.

63
 CHAPTER 4

MOVES TO NOTICE AND CHALLENGE TOPICS

The purpose of this chapter is to present the findings of the three analytic questions

that guided my analysis. I use these findings to answer the central research question in Chapter

5. The three analytic questions include:

(1) What challenges of science teaching and learning are noticed in the Peer Teaching

feedback discussions?

(2) What is the process through which novice teachers notice the challenges of science

teaching and learning in the Peer Teaching feedback discussions?

(3) What interactions occur among the challenges, the process, and participants’ noticing in

the Peer Teaching feedback discussions?

To address the analytic questions, I first describe the science teaching and learning

challenge topics that novice teachers and the teacher educators noticed to indicate which

aspects of the professional Discourse were made available in the discussions. I then explain the

interactions of the novices and the teacher educators around the challenge topics to show the

mechanisms through which the challenge topics became available to the group. Finally, I

describe the two representations I created, which enabled me to look across the data set to

identify salient themes.

64
 Identifying Challenges of Science Teaching and

Learning in Feedback Discussions

Episodes of Attending to Challenges

In my initial pass through the data, I identified patterns in which the novices and the

teacher educators engaged in discussions of challenges that involved multiple participants and

turns of talk. To bound these interactions into units to examine, I established a unit of analysis,

termed an “episode of attending to challenges.” This method draws from Horn’s (2005) notion

of “episodes of pedagogical reasoning.” The episodes of attending to challenges began with a

participant’s move to Identify a Challenge. Identifying Challenges were statements that

participants used to characterize the Peer Teaching interactions as challenging, confusing,

worrisome, or worthy of questioning. Both the “teachers” and “students” from the Peer

Teaching lesson introduced challenges in the feedback discussion. I marked the beginning and

end of an episode by noting topical shifts and/or participation structure. The episodes of

attending to challenges could involve one participant acknowledging a challenge or it could

occur over multiple turns of talk.

For instance, the following is an episode of attending to challenges in Noelle’s

Experience feedback discussion. This episode, which lasted 7 minutes, was the second episode

in Noelle’s feedback discussion that lasted a total of 12 minutes. As explained earlier, the

Experience lesson was the second Peer Teaching lesson in the series of three lessons in the

science methods course. Noelle was assigned to teach the ecosystems lesson, which centered

on helping students understand the relationships between living and nonliving things. In the

ecosystems lesson, students explored the investigation question: How do living things depend

on other living and nonliving things? “Students” recorded observations of interactions between

65
fish, snails, duckweed, elodea, and algae in a small-scale ecosystem aquarium (2-liter bottle) to

answer the investigation question. In the Engage phase of the ecosystems lesson, the “teacher”

used a picture of a riverbank ecosystem to provide an initial common phenomenon and to elicit

students’ ideas about the interactions between the living and nonliving things. In the Experience

phase of the lesson, “students” made and recorded observations about the interactions

between the fish, elodea, snails, etc., to investigate the concept of an ecosystem. In the

following episode, Noelle, with the teacher educator and the other novices, discuss the

challenges of helping students develop the scientific practice skills (process skills) of making and

recording accurate observations to learn science concepts about ecosystems. As shown in Table

4.1, the feedback discussion is in the left column of the table, with the analysis of the

mechanisms indicated in the right column.

66
Table 4.1 Noelle’s Experience Feedback Transcript

Feedback Discussion Transcript Analysis (topics in italics)

TE: (1) What would you revise? TE poses a facilitation question
Noelle: (2)…what I’m struggling with most is how to Noelle identifies a challenge about connecting
integrate the investigation question into this the investigation question with students’
aspect… of the observations…(3) But I think I could observations of what animals depend on (science
have reminded students… that’s the question we concepts) in the eco-column investigation.
want to answer. We need to collect evidence to She envisions an alternative
answer this question… (4) I think I focused so much
on the process of observing and recording and what She articulates her thinking about neglecting
that meant that I kind of lost the content. the science concepts in the lesson
TE: (5) Yeah, I was wondering that a little bit. (6) you TE agrees and identifies the challenge
did such a nice job on the process but then on the
actual sensemaking of the scientific content…(7) I She articulates her thinking about process
wonder if it would work to stop the kids in the skills and scientific content
middle of the observations and say, “Okay,
remember our investigation question…can we have She envisions an alternative in which the
some initial ideas--answers to this investigation teacher reminds students of the investigation
question based on our observations?” question.
Noelle (8) Yeah and that would be a good way for Noelle articulates her thinking about how that
them to notice because when I was looking through alternative would connect to making
the [EEE Framework] rubric I didn't really provide an predictions.
opportunity at all for them to make a prediction
about the outcome.
TE: Yes, Gina didn’t either; I didn’t think about that.
Noelle (9) I didn't think about that as part of this Noelle articulates her thinking that the
lesson…it makes sense because it would also help purpose of the observations is to collect
them to refocus their observations so that they can evidence
start collecting evidence.
TE: (10) What were some of the observations that TE identifies the challenge by asking Noelle to
you noticed us making that you could have drawn on elaborate her thinking
to help us think about the investigation question?
Noelle: (11) You said you thought you saw the fish Noelle articulates her thinking by referencing
eating the junk at the bottom of the aquarium, the some specific “student” comments (student
snails moving down the elodea…some of Gina’s thinking) from the lesson and how their
were like, “I noticed gravel. I noticed plants. I see observations connected to the concepts in the
fish talking to each other.” But then she said, “I see a investigation question
snail eating the plant.” …I did see observations that
had to do with the dependencies.
Lacey: (12) I think something that’s hard (13) which Lacey identifies the challenge and articulates
I was thinking about while you were doing this the difficulty of supporting students in
because I work with fifth graders too…is when recording observations (investigations) in an
students are mislabeling things…I wonder as a accurate manner
teacher how you deal with 25 students doing that
and how you can make sure that they’re not
spending their whole investigation period calling one
thing another thing.
Noelle: (14) I think--pulling from Gina’s lesson a Noelle draws on Gina’s Ecosystems lesson to
little bit, if I was doing it with the whole class I might envision an alternative and then articulates her

67
 have them do partner observations…(15) maybe thinking to emphasize the importance of
some small group work…so they could present students attending to the evidence
their evidence, and then those other people would
have the hats of being critical scientists…
Lacey: And that wasn’t really necessarily like a
criticism.
Lana: (16) That reminded me that I have some Lana identifies a challenge in which she
fourth graders where the problem might not be that imagines another difficulty students might face
they draw inaccurately. It might be that they spend in recording their observations (student
their entire time making a single snail look thinking)
awesome…I guess it hadn’t occurred to me that we
would have to worry about that, but I definitely have
some students that that would be the problem.

The episode in Table 4.1 from Noelle’s Experience feedback discussion started with

Noelle’s move to Identify a Challenge. This episode lasted until the end of her feedback

discussion. I provide Noelle’s feedback discussion here to illustrate the analytic categories I

describe in the next section. Noelle’s episode was one of 99 episodes of attending to challenges

that I identified across the 41 feedback discussions (see Table 4.2).

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Table 4.2 Episodes of Attending to Challenges Across the Data Set

Engage Experience Explain

Team Novice Feedback Feedback Feedback
Discussion Discussion Discussion
Cade N/A 1 3
Team 1

Noemi N/A 2 2
Nina 2 1 2
Joyce 1 1 2
Noelle 2 2 2
Team 2

Gina 2 4 4
Lana 2 2 1
Lacey 4 1 3
Priti N/A 2 2
Team 3

Camille N/A 2 3
Lea N/A 2 5
Sam N/A 6 3
Scott 4 1 4
Team 4

Julie N/A 2 3
Lori 3 3 2
Diane 0 3 3
Total Episodes 20 35 44
N/A indicates feedback discussions that were not recorded due to technical difficulties.

The number of episodes of attending to challenges ranged from none in Diane’s Engage

feedback discussion to six in Sam’s Experience feedback discussion (see Table 4.2). Coding the

episodes of attending to challenges enabled me to examine the specific topics participants raised

in the discussion and the means through which they explored the different facets of the

challenge. In the next section, I describe how I used the episodes of attending to challenges to

investigate which challenge topics were identified in the discussions.

Challenges of Science Teaching and Learning

Examining the episodes of attending to challenges enabled me to focus on the specific

exchanges that occurred in the feedback discussions as the participants interacted around

challenge topics. In order to pinpoint the challenge topics, I engaged in line-by-line coding of the

discussion transcripts for each of the four teams. I worked chronologically through the entire

69
set of feedback discussions, only coding the topics when they first appeared in the discussion. I

coded the topics in this way to reflect the dynamic nature of the group discussions. Although

one novice may have identified a challenge topic, the other participants may have elaborated

that topic with additional comments. In other words, I endeavored to characterize the topics

(as aspects of the professional Discourse) that were made available for the group to discuss in

the Peer Teaching team; not the topics that a particular individual noticed. Consistent with my

conceptual framework, I intended to examine the process of developing professional vision in

the context of the group discussions, not in one individual teacher. Table 4.3 provides a

description of the challenge topics that I identified as emergent and grounded categories in my

analysis. Table 4.3 also indicates the frequency of the challenge topics that all four Peer Teaching

teams introduced across the 41 feedback discussions.

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Table 4.3 Categories of Challenge topics

Frequency across Challenge topic Description

Data Set
58 Student thinking Reference to student thinking in three ways: (1)
specific student misconceptions related to the
science concepts of ecosystems or force and
motion; (2) specific student issues related to using
the scientific practices to learn science concepts;
(3) confusions as teacher-learners in the lesson
47 Science concepts Science concepts emphasized in the lesson, e.g.,
weight or mass of the balls, force, ecosystems,
interdependence, depends
36 Designing Investigations, Setting up the investigation to establish a plan for
Making and Recording collecting data; carrying out the investigation by
Observations collecting and recording observations such as
drawing pictures or taking measurements
25 General Pedagogy Pedagogy not specifically related to the EEE
Framework, e.g., discussion moves, using charts,
behavior management
22 Investigation Questions Reference to investigation questions, which were
used to provide a purpose for students learning.
Students collected data to construct scientific
explanation to answer the investigation question.
19 Constructing Evidence- Reference to constructing claims with evidence,
based Claims writing scientific explanations
18 Analyzing and Reference to compiling data and identifying
Interpreting Data patterns to construct scientific explanations
13 Making Predictions Reference to predictions
11 Defining Terms Reference to defining the meaning of terms;
explaining terms to provide access to students,
such as English Language Learners.

The topic category of Student Thinking refers to scientific ideas and understandings that

participants introduced in the discussions. They referenced student thinking in three main ways.

First, they imagined specific alternative ideas (misconceptions) related to the science

concepts of ecosystems or force and motion. These ideas often reflected the assigned

misconceptions participants used in the instruction.

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 For instance, in move #11 in Noelle’s feedback discussion presented earlier, Noelle

references the specific comments “students” made in the lesson as evidence of students

beginning to think about how living things depend on non-living things:

You said you thought you saw the fish eating the junk at the bottom of the aquarium,

the snails moving down the elodea…some of Gina’s were like, ‘I noticed gravel. I

noticed plants. I see fish talking to each other.’ But then she said, ‘I see a snail eating the

plant.’

Second, they envisioned issues elementary students might face in learning to employ the

scientific practices to learn science concepts. For instance, in move #16 in Noelle’s feedback

discussion, Lana commented, “That reminded me that I have some fourth graders where the

problem might not be that they draw inaccurately. It might be that they spend their entire time

making a single snail look awesome.” As depicted in Noelle’s discussion, the alternative ideas

and scientific practice challenges often related to the specific ideas that particular individuals in

the group were assigned to use as “students” in the lessons. Third, participants acknowledged

their own sensemaking and confusion as teacher-learners in the lesson. For instance, in Lori’s

Experience feedback discussion, Scott acknowledged his confusion, “My problem was figuring

out how did the track ball fit into the chart. Actually, as an adult, I was looking for, ‘Okay, so

we have the wooden ball here,’ …and not realizing that we were using the same track ball

every time, and I know you talked about it, but for some reason, that just slipped my mind.”

The topic of Science Concepts is related to the ecosystem and force and motion

concepts emphasized in the Peer Teaching lesson curricula. The topic categories of scientific

practices were the different practices the teachers noticed in the discussions. These included

Investigation Questions, Making Predictions, Designing Investigations, Making and Recording

Observations, Interpreting Data, and Constructing Evidenced-based Claims. These categories

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reflected the practices emphasized in the EEE Framework. For instance, the Engage lesson

teaching practices centered on helping students ask investigation questions and make

predictions. The Experience lesson teaching practices emphasized helping students to design

investigations and to observe and record data. The Explain lesson teaching practices focused on

supporting students in analyzing and interpreting data and constructing evidence-based claims.

General Pedagogy refers to techniques and strategies not explicitly represented in the

EEE Framework. For instance, in Lea’s Experience feedback discussion, Lea grappled with the

challenge of managing students’ behaviors as they conducted the force and motion investigation:

“I was worrying about that because if they were in small groups that could become a huge

management issue; there’s certain kids that I wouldn’t trust to be able to do it, and how

constructive they’d be in groups.” Defining Terms refers to defining the meaning of terms to

provide access to all students, including English Language Learners. As noted earlier, the novices

were also taking a literacy course for English Language Learners while in the science methods

course.

Table 4.3 also shows the frequency of challenge topics that were noticed across the 41

feedback discussions. As indicated in the table, novices attended to Student Thinking 58 times,

Science Concepts 47 times, and Investigations 36 times across the data set. Taken together,

these finding suggests that the novices noticed Student Thinking, Science Concepts, and

Investigations more than they noticed the other topics. These data raise the question of the

mechanisms through which the novices with the teacher educators noticed these challenge

topics of science teaching and learning.

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 Moves to Notice in Peer Teaching Feedback Discussions

Consistent with my interest in the process through which novice teachers develop

professional vision, I specifically focused on what happened in the discussions when challenges

were introduced. Examining the how of noticing provides insight into the patterned nature of

novice teacher and teacher educator interactions around challenge topics of science teaching

and learning. I used participant talk in the feedback discussions to characterize how they

noticed. I drew on Johnstone’s (2008) description of discourse moves. She explains that a

statement, like asking a question about something noticed, is defined by its function, rather than

its structure. To characterize how participant talk serves a function in the interaction, I refer to

the statements participants used as “moves to notice.” Identifying the patterned and recurring

statements in the discussions as constituted by moves allowed me to examine how one

person’s move to notice shapes the interaction by setting up and constraining another’s

response (Little & Horn, 2007).

The moves to notice were identified and refined through several iterations of coding.

Again, I worked chronologically through the Peer Teaching feedback discussions, and engaged in

line-by-line coding that closely attended to the patterns of talk used by the novices and the

teacher educators. This was a painstakingly iterative process as I identified distinctive patterns

and developed categories of moves for each feedback discussion. I then took those categories

and used them across the feedback discussion transcripts to ascertain their robustness. The

categories of moves to notice were revised and refined throughout the process.

Five categories of moves to notice occurred across the episodes of attending to

challenges in the 41 Peer Teaching feedback discussions. Through the analysis, I determined that

the grain-size of a move to notice varies. Several moves to notice may occur in one sentence,

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or one move to notice may span several sentences. Moves to notice may refer to one’s own

lesson or another’s lesson. The five categories are described in Table 4.4.

Table 4.4 Categories of Moves to Notice in Episodes of Attending to Challenges

Frequency Moves to Notice Description Phrase

across Data
Set
305 Identifying Challenges Statements in which novices and “I struggled….it's hard"
teacher educators attend to the “I have a question…”
complexity of teaching science "I didn't know…"
in the Peer Teaching context or "Why did you…?”
in an elementary classroom "That could be
confusing…"
"I wonder why…?"
400 Articulating Thinking about Statements in which novices and "I believe…"
Challenges teacher educators use the "This happened
professional Discourse to because..."
articulate their thinking “I think when you…”
“Because I think…”
"….so…."
240 Envisioning Alternatives to Suggestions of alternatives for “I would have..,”
Challenges improving instruction in the ”I should have..”
Peer Teaching lesson or in an "You could...”
elementary classroom “In a 4th grade class
you’ll need to….”
25 Describing Instruction Statements in which novices and “I noticed…”
teacher educators recount the “You said”
events that occurred in the “You gave”
lesson. A describe statement “I said…”
does not include an articulation
24 Evaluating Instruction Statements in which novices and “I liked when you…”
teacher educators comment on “That was good when
what was effective about the you…”
instruction. An evaluate
statement does not include an
articulation

As noted earlier, the first move to notice category identified through the analysis was

the move to Identify Challenges. This move to notice refers to statements in which participants

described interactions in the Peer Teaching lesson as challenging, confusing, worrisome, or

worthy of questioning. Next, I identified moves I refer to as Articulating Thinking about

Challenges and Envisioning Alternatives to Challenges. The Articulating Thinking move

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represents the process whereby novices use the professional Discourse of the teacher

education program and elementary science methods course to express their thinking. This

category reflects the concept of “articulation” identified by Freeman (1991). There is one

central difference in the way Freeman refers to articulation and the way I use it in this study.

Freeman’s study was a longitudinal study in which he focused on teacher learning in an in-

service master’s teacher education program. Given his focus on in-service teachers, he uses

articulation to refer to the process through which teachers draw on the teacher education

program Discourse to rename their tacit experiences. As they gain entry into the community of

Discourse, their initial use of the Discourse is not entirely correct. He explains that the

members of the Discourse recognize the gaps in the newcomer’s use. As the teacher becomes

more fluent in the Discourse, she begins to use the Discourse to explain her thinking. This is

the process through which she begins to sounds like a member of the Discourse community.

Given the setting and design of this study, Articulating Thinking about Challenges

represents the process through which novices begin to acquire the professional Discourse of

the science education community (along with the literacy, mathematics and social sciences

community through the teacher education program) in the timespan of the science methods

course. This means that Articulating Thinking reflects the somewhat circuitous process through

which novices draw on prior experiences, as well as experiences in the teacher education

program, to make sense of their noticing. Accordingly, the category of Articulating Thinking

does not denote that participants explicitly reference the professional Discourse; instead, the

category reflects the ways in which participants’ efforts to articulate their thinking is expressed

as an amalgam of prior experiences and professional Discourse.

The second move to notice is Envisioning Alternatives to Challenges. As the Peer

Teaching groups took-up the challenges of science teaching and learning through the moves to

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Identify Challenges, and Articulate Thinking, they also Envisioned Alternatives to manage the

challenges. These moves indicated novice teacher and teacher educators’ attention to

alternatives that could improve instructional interactions in the Peer Teaching lesson or in an

elementary classroom.

Like Articulating Thinking, the final two categories of Describing Instruction and

Evaluating Instruction reflect prior research. Scholars who study teacher noticing in video clubs

(e.g., van Es & Sherin, 2008) found that teachers often describe or evaluate classroom

instruction. However, in this study in the context of the feedback discussions, participants often

justified what they noticed, by using the professional Discourse to Articulate Thinking, so there

were fewer instance of novices Describing and Evaluating Instruction.

The novice teachers and teacher educators enacted these moves to notice across the

41 Peer Teaching feedback discussions. As recurring patterns of talk, they may be considered

“scripts.” In other words, these exchanges may represent “standard plots of types of

encounters whose repetition constitutes the setting’s interaction order” (Barley, 1986, p. 83).

In addition to these five moves to notice, I recognized patterns in which the teacher educators

employed Facilitation Questions in the discussions. The questions, such as, “What were some

things that you noticed?” (Lea’s Experience feedback discussion), or “What were some of the

good things you noticed Scott doing?” and “What would you revise?” (Scott’s Engage feedback

discussion) were offered to facilitate the novices’ noticing. The teacher educator facilitation

questions were enacted 36 times across the data set. Examining the challenge topics and the

moves to notice provided insight into understanding the mechanisms through which the novices

with the teacher educators used challenges of science teaching and learning to develop

professional vision.

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 Interactions Focused on Investigating Student Thinking

After establishing categories to characterize which challenge topics the participants

identified and the moves they enacted to notice them, I created two types of representations to

gain insight into the patterns that I had encountered while coding. To reiterate, I investigated

the interactions between: (a) which challenge topics the novices and teacher educators noticed;

(b) the process through which they noticed them; and (c) the interactions between the

challenges, the process, and participants’ noticing. First, I created data displays to map the

interactions across the discussions. Figure 4.1 and Figure 4.2 present two interaction timeline

displays that represent excerpts from two Peer Teaching feedback discussions: Cade’s

Experience feedback discussion and Sam’s Experience feedback discussion. Cade’s discussion

represents the 30 feedback discussions where two or more novices Identified Challenges to

investigate. These discussions afforded opportunities for developing novices’ professional vision.

Sam’s discussion represents the 11 feedback discussions where two or more novices did not

Identify Challenges to discuss. In these discussions, a teacher educator or a novice may have

introduced a challenge, but another novice did not take up the challenge to explore with the

group. These discussions were characterized by moves to evaluate discrete topics that hindered

novices’ opportunities to develop professional vision.

Creating the interaction timeline was an iterative process as I continued to revise it to

determine the best way to “see” the patterns and nuances of the interactions. A part of the

revision process involved sharing the display and my interpretations with the committee

members and other instructors of the elementary science methods course. Their comments

helped clarify my presentation of the findings.

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 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Identify
Challenge
Articulate
Thinking
Envision
Alternatives
TE Facilitation
Questions
Describe
Instruction
Evaluate
Instruction
Elapsed time
2 4 6
(minutes)
Figure 4.1 Cade's Experience Feedback Discussion: Investigating a Challenge Related to Scientific
Practices and Student Thinking about Motion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Identify
Challenge
Articulate
Thinking
Envision
Alternatives
TE Facilitation
Questions
Describe
Instruction
Evaluate
Instruction
Elapsed time
2 4 6
(minutes)
Figure 4.2 Sam’s Experience Feedback Discussion: Evaluating a Range Of Discrete Topics

Legend
Student Investigation Science General
Investigation Thinking Question Concepts Pedagogy
“Teacher”

“Students”

Teacher
Educator

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 The left column of the display indicates the moves to notice categories that the

participants enacted across the feedback discussion. The numbers in the topic row represent

participants’ moves to notice enacted across the feedback discussion (e.g., see the transcript of

Cade’s Experience feedback discussion in Chapter 5).

Each shape represents a particular move to notice made by a participant over the

course of the discussion. For instance, in Cade’s feedback discussion, the circles represent the

moves to notice made by Cade as the “teacher”; the triangles, moves made by the teacher

educator; and the rectangles, moves made by the other novices who were “students” in his

lesson. The shades of the shapes, shown in the legend, indicate the point in the discussion in

which a new topic was introduced via a particular move. The bottom row denotes the elapsed

time in the discussion. As I examined the interaction timelines for Cade and Sam’s Experience

feedback discussion, I noticed that the participants in Cade’s feedback discussion investigated

science teaching challenges related to student thinking, scientific practices, and science

concepts. More specifically, they discussed science teaching and learning challenges about using

investigations and investigation questions to develop students’ understandings of force and

motion. In contrast, the participants in Sam’s Experience feedback discussion evaluated a range

of discrete topics. In particular, they discussed three different topics of general pedagogy.

As shown in Cade’s Experience feedback discussion interaction timeline, the moves to

notice all occur near the top of the timeline. The moves are clustered around Identifying

Challenges, Articulating Thinking, and Envisioning Alternatives. Participants identify the five

topics through the moves to Describe Instruction, Identify Challenges, Articulate Thinking, and

Envision Alternatives. For instance, in move #6, Noemi contributes the topic of student

thinking in her move to Articulate her Thinking. Then in move #7, she acknowledges the role of

the investigation question in eliciting student thinking; she contributes this topic to the

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discussion through a move to Identify a Challenge. In move #12, Cade introduces the topic of

science concepts via a move to Envision Alternatives. The display also points to the involvement

of the novices, including Cade, in enacting the moves to Identify a Challenge. Paired with the

analysis of his feedback session transcript, Cade’s interaction timeline suggests a discussion in

which the group members were engaged in identifying challenges, articulating their thinking, and

envisioning alternatives about investigations, student thinking, investigation questions, and

science concepts. These rich discussions occurred in 18 of 41 Peer Teaching feedback

discussions.

In Sam’s Experience discussion, nine topics are introduced through the moves to

Evaluate Instruction, Articulate Thinking, and Identify Challenges. The topics introduced

through the Evaluate Instruction moves, in particular, suggest a discussion that was not focused

on investigating a central challenge through the moves of Identifying Challenges, Articulating

Thinking, and Envisioning Alternatives. Instead, the display shows various topics related to

general pedagogy and investigations introduced through a range of different moves that did not

advance the discussion.

In terms of the participants’ involvement in the discussion, the display points to the two

teacher educator facilitation questions and the subsequent moves to evaluate enacted by the

novices. As I explained earlier, in my initial analyses I focused on the process of noticing and

how it occurred in the group. As such, I had backgrounded the specific roles of the novices and

the teacher educator. Thus, in analyzing the displays, I was surprised to see differences in the

novices and teacher educators’ participation. In terms of the teacher educators, I saw the

facilitation questions, which teacher educators had been encouraged to use to facilitate the

discussions often precede moves to Evaluate the Instruction. These Evaluate moves often

introduced new topics into the conversation that did not serve to facilitate a coherent

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discussion. I also identified patterns in which the teacher educators’ moves to Identify

Challenges were not followed by novices’ move to Identify Challenges. For instance, a teacher

educator raises a challenge, and a novice agrees and notes that he had a similar question, or had

also struggled with the teaching topic.

Instead of the subsequent moves to Identify Challenges, I noticed novices Describing or

Evaluating the Instruction, which in fact minimized the challenge (Horn & Little, 2010). For

example, the following exchange in Sam’s feedback discussion reflected this pattern; the teacher

educator was trying to alert the group to the ways in which Sam could have emphasized the

investigation question to direct students’ thinking in the investigation.

The teacher educator asks Sam, “I didn’t know what your question was; so what was

your [investigation] question?”

Lea deflects the teacher educator’s move to Identify a Challenge, “Yes, you said it.”

Priti agrees, “You said it then you brought our attention to what we’re going to be

doing for the day” (Sam’s Experience feedback discussion).

As illustrated in Sam’s Experience feedback discussion, the moves to Evaluate seemed to

minimize the challenges and not invite the group to engage in further analysis. In Sam’s feedback

discussion, there were no instances in which two or more novices Identified Challenges (see

Table 4.5). Rather than the novices collectively grappling with the challenges, as shown in

Cade’s discussion, in Sam’s discussion the conversation occurred between the novices who

acted as (“students”) and the teacher educator. As illustrated by the absence of circles in Sam’s

timeline (see Figure 4.2) he largely remained silent as the participants discussed his lesson. In

Cade’s discussion in Figure 4.1, the seven circles suggest he was an active participant in the

analysis of his instruction. Finally, the participants’ moves to discuss or evaluate different aspects

of Sam’s lesson may have contributed to the high number of episodes of attending to challenges

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in his feedback discussion. The six episodes in Sam’s discussion suggest the participants

discussed six different issues in the 13-minute feedback discussion. In Cade’s nine-minute

feedback discussion there was only one episode of attending to challenges; thus, all of the topics

introduced into his feedback discussion furthered the analysis. In particular, the topics in Cade’s

discussion related to supporting student’s scientific thinking through the use of scientific

practices.

The patterns I identified in the two timelines suggested the following: (1) novices’ moves

to Identify Challenges, Articulate Thinking, and Envision Alternatives often occurred together in

the discussions; (2) the ways topics were introduced via moves to Evaluate or Identify

Challenges shaped the length of the discussion; and (3) novices’ enactment of moves to Identify

Challenges and the teacher educators’ Facilitation Questions. Taken together, these differences

revealed two kinds of feedback discussions: ones where novices had opportunities to engage in

collective analysis of science teaching and learning topics, and others where challenges were

introduced but were not taken up by the other novices. Rather, novices engaged in moves to

evaluate and compliment discrete topics, often about general pedagogy. Detecting these

patterns among the moves, the topics, and the novice or teacher educators’ involvement, led

me to the focal participants’ interviews. Here, I examined the interactions between the

participants, their moves to notice, and the challenge topics contributed in the discussions.

A Novice’s Perspective on Noticing: Insights into Developing Professional Vision

Based on these analyses, I re-visited the focal participant interviews to make sense of

the patterns and to gain insight into the challenges that were being identified. I conducted the

final interview with the focal participants at the end of their student teaching semester. I used

feedback in the interview as a context for asking the novices about noticing. Before this

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excerpt, Noelle mentions that she had not received constructive feedback from her mentor

teacher and realizes that her most critical feedback in the future will most likely come from her

students and from herself. She acknowledges that the feedback she received from her peers in

Peer Teaching was different from the feedback her mentor teacher gave her. Her mentor

teacher did not address the topics that Noelle wanted feedback about. Noelle also

acknowledges the social factors that impede teachers from sharing constructive feedback.

(1) Interviewer: I’m curious about the feedback that you received during the course

and if anything was still salient and influenced your [science] lesson in the field.

(2) Noelle: …I feel like I probably could have gotten more constructive feedback on my

science teaching from my peers, from my mentor teacher, from my professors… I

think there’s a lot of tiptoeing because you don’t want to hurt people’s egos because

so much of being a teacher is being confident in what you are doing and …I think

people in the field, in this field have a really hard time giving critical feedback.

(3) Interviewer: …so the feedback that you’ve received from others this semester, in

student teaching, what kind of feedback did you receive, who offered that?

(4) Noelle: …I feel like the best feedback I’ve gotten is based on noticing something

within myself and asking someone else in a question form to then elaborate on

that…it seems like there has to be some level of self-awareness that something is

going wrong…if you are in an environment where people don’t want to give

constructive feedback because they feel like they are going to hurt your feelings, if

you can say, “Oh, I’ve noticed this about myself,” then…it gives them the

opportunity to say, “You are right, you know, this was something…” …and I feel

like I get more information that way, and so if I can figure out a way to ask better

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 questions in receiving the feedback, questions...in relation to students, is something

that I want to think more about…it probably would have been helpful for my

mentor teacher, [for me] to share, “This is what I have been learning … can you

look for these things in me?”

In line #2, Noelle expresses her frustration about not receiving more constructive

feedback, and then offers a suggestion. If she can determine what she needs help with, and can

express that in a question, she believes that she could receive more useful information about

her instruction. Her comments about feedback are relevant to this discussion of challenges

because she emphasizes the importance of the teacher in acknowledging a challenge in her

practice, by naming the challenge. She states that acknowledging a challenge seems to invite the

other person to offer more information about what could be revised.

In line #4, she points out that she could have shared with her mentor teacher what she

was learning in her teacher education program, and requested their feedback about those

topics. Here, Noelle acknowledges that her mentor teacher might not notice the aspects of her

instruction that she wants her to notice, i.e., topics related to what she has been learning on

campus. In other words, Noelle recognizes two things: (1) identifying challenges in another

teacher’s instruction is shaped by social factors, but if you can name the challenge, it invites

them to investigate it with you; (2) two teachers may not notice the same thing in an

instructional interaction, but if you share your knowledge with them, you can help them learn

to see teaching as you see it. Her comments point to the essential role of shared knowledge in

noticing similar topics in each other’s instruction.

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Novices’ Noticing across the Data Set

The final step in my analysis involved representing the findings of novices’ noticing

across the data set in tables. Given the themes that became evident in my analysis of the

interaction timeline displays, I aggregated the data to examine patterns according to four

features of the feedback discussions:

(1) number of episodes of attending to challenges in each feedback discussion

(2) presence of two or more novices Identifying Challenges in the episodes

(3) presence of moves to Identify Challenges, Articulate Thinking, and Envision Alternatives

in the episode

(4) presence of student thinking as a topic in the episode

Table 4.5 presents the results of compiling the data set into one table. In the table, the

“yes” indicates the presence of the feature in the feedback discussion, and the “-“ indicates an

absence of the feature in the feedback discussion. In 34 out of 41 feedback discussions (45

episodes) participants investigated science teaching and learning challenges related to student

thinking. The 45 episodes are shaded in gray below. These feedback discussions, which center

on investigating students’ scientific thinking, suggest rich opportunities for developing

professional vision for practice.

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Table 4.5 Novices’ noticing across the data set: The presence of identifying challenges related to student thinking

Engage Feedback Discussion Experience Feedback Discussion Explain Feedback Discussion

Two or More Two or More Two or More
Teams Novice Episodes of Student Episodes of Student Episodes of Student
Novices Three Moves Novices Three Moves Novices Three Moves
Attending to Thinking Attending to Thinking Attending to Thinking
Identifying Present Identifying Present Identifying Present
Challenges Present Challenges Present Challenges Present
Challenges Challenges Challenges
Cade N/A 1 Yes Yes Yes 3 - - -
Yes - Yes
Yes - -
Team 1

Noemi N/A 2 - - Yes 2 - - Yes

- Yes Yes - Yes Yes
Nina 2 Yes Yes Yes 1 Yes Yes Yes 2 Yes Yes Yes
- Yes - - - -
Joyce 1 Yes Yes Yes 1 Yes - Yes 2 - - Yes
Yes Yes Yes
Noelle 2 - Yes Yes 2 Yes - - 2 - - Yes
Yes Yes - Yes Yes Yes - - -
Gina 2 - Yes Yes 4 Yes - Yes 4 Yes - -
Yes - Yes Yes - Yes - - Yes
- - Yes - - -
Team 2

- Yes Yes - Yes Yes

Lana 2 Yes Yes Yes 2 - Yes Yes 1 Yes Yes Yes
Yes - - Yes - Yes
Lacey 4 - Yes - 1 Yes Yes Yes 3 - Yes Yes
Yes - Yes - - Yes
- Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
- - -
Priti N/A 2 - - Yes 2 - Yes Yes
- - Yes Yes Yes Yes
Camille N/A 2 - - Yes 3 - - Yes
- Yes Yes Yes - Yes
- Yes Yes
Lea N/A 2 - - Yes 5 - - -
- - Yes - - -
Team 3

- Yes -
- Yes Yes
- - -
Sam N/A 6 - - Yes 3 Yes Yes Yes
- Yes Yes Yes - Yes
- - - Yes Yes Yes
- - Yes
- - Yes
- - Yes
Scott 4 - - Yes 1 - Yes Yes 4 Yes Yes -
- - - Yes Yes Yes
- - Yes - - Yes
- Yes Yes - - -
Julie N/A 2 Yes - - 3 Yes - Yes
Team 4

- - - - Yes -
Yes Yes Yes
Lori 3 Yes Yes Yes 3 - - Yes 2 Yes Yes Yes
- - Yes Yes - Yes Yes Yes Yes
- - Yes - Yes Yes
Diane 0 3 - - - 3 Yes Yes Yes
- Yes Yes - - Yes
- Yes Yes - - Yes
Total 20 8 11 14 35 11 13 30 44 19 21 31

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 Table 4.6 presents the number of episodes in which multiple novices enacted moves to

investigate challenges related to student thinking. These results are for illustrative purposes, not

for statistical analysis.

Table 4.6 When two or move novices attend to challenges about student thinking

Three Moves and Three Moves but

Attending to Student Not Attending to
Thinking Student Thinking
Two or more novices
20 (53%) 18 (47%)
attend to challenges
Fewer than two novices
19 (31%) 42 (69%)
attend to challenges

The findings reported in Table 4.6 indicate that in 53% of the episodes, when two or

more novices Identify a Challenge, and enact the three moves (Identifying Challenges,

Articulating Thinking, and Envisioning Alternatives), they investigate the topic of student

thinking. In 69% of the episodes, in which fewer than two novices attend to challenges, student

thinking is not discussed. Based on these findings, I can assert that in the discussions that lack

two or more novices Identifying a Challenge, generally the groups are not focused on

investigating student thinking as an object of collective inquiry.

These results emphasize the important and interrelated nature of the interactions

between (a) which topics are noticed; (b) how they are noticed; (c) and who notices them.

When fewer than two novices Identify a Challenge, the groups are less likely to identify the role

of student thinking than when multiple novices acknowledge the same challenge. This suggests

that identifying the challenges affords an opportunity for collective analysis. Moreover, collective

attention facilitates opportunities to investigate topics related to students’ thinking and their

use of scientific practices to learn science concepts. In the next chapter, I explore the

interaction between challenges and collective attention as mechanisms for developing

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professional vision. These feedback discussions, which focused on examining teaching challenges

related to students’ scientific thinking, suggest the discussions may have provided opportunities

for developing novices’ professional practice.

In this chapter, I presented the findings of the three analytic questions related to what

challenges the novice teachers with the teacher educators noticed, how they noticed them, and

the interactions that occurred around the noticing. In particular, I explained how I used the unit

of analysis, an episode of attending to challenges, to identify analytic categories to characterize

the challenge topics and the moves to notice participants used in the feedback discussions. I

also described the two representations I created, the noticing interaction timeline display and

tables, which enabled me to look across the data set to identify salient themes. Together, my

analyses indicated there were feedback discussions in which participants investigated science

teaching and learning challenges that reflected the ways of teaching advocated by the Framework

for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012). Participants articulated their

thinking and envisioned alternatives to challenges related to student thinking (58 times), science

concepts (47 times) and scientific practices (e.g., investigations 36 times). These findings suggest

opportunities for noticing and making sense of the professional Discourse of science teaching

and learning; in other words, opportunities to develop professional vision in the context of the

feedback discussion. In Chapter 5, I use these findings to answer the central research question.

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 CHAPTER 5

DEVELOPING PROFESSIONAL VISION FOR PRACTICE

In this chapter, I use the findings of my three analytic questions to answer the central

research question: How do preservice teachers develop professional vision for practice in the context

of Peer Teaching feedback discussions? I present the findings regarding how 16 novice teachers in

four Peer Teaching teams develop professional vision in the context of the Peer Teaching

feedback discussions. In particular, I illustrate the specific mechanisms through which novice

teachers develop professional vision by investigating challenges of science teaching and learning.

The opportunity to develop professional vision was evident in the topics of student thinking,

scientific practices, and science concepts, or the professional Discourse, novices collectively

investigated using moves to identify challenges, articulate thinking, and envision alternatives.

My analyses suggested that in the context of the Peer Teaching feedback discussions,

developing professional vision for teaching involves: (1) identifying challenges that embody the

professional Discourse; (2) investigating those challenges by using the professional Discourse to

articulate thinking and to envision alternatives in classroom contexts; and (3) imagining student

thinking, which occurs when the novices and the teacher educators transform a Peer Teaching

interaction into an object of collective inquiry in which examining student thinking in relation to

instruction and science concepts is emphasized. Articulation, the process whereby teachers

draw on the professional Discourse of the teacher education program and elementary science

methods course to make sense of and to re-conceptualize their experiences, mediates the

interactions between the three mechanisms (Freeman, 1991). This work is supported by the

use of tools (e.g., the EEE Framework and assigned student misconceptions) and the

participants as embodied representations of the professional Discourse. As the novices and the

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teacher educators invoke the professional Discourse to make explicit their thinking about

science teaching and learning, they have opportunities to develop professional vision. In other

words, opportunities to become members of the profession as they draw on and contribute to

shared ways of thinking, believing, practicing, and using language.

In the first section of the chapter, I provide two illustrations to show the three

mechanisms for developing professional vision for teaching as they interact in the context of

Peer Teaching feedback discussions. The first example is drawn from data from the Experience

Peer Teaching lesson feedback discussions (the second Peer Teaching lesson). The second

example is drawn from the Explain Peer Teaching feedback discussions (the third Peer Teaching

lesson). In the second section of this chapter, I present two additional illustrations to depict the

interactions that occur in the feedback discussions in which these mechanisms are not

emphasized. The richness of having all three is even more apparent in examining instances

where all three are not present. These examples also come from data from the Experience

Peer Teaching lesson feedback discussions. Although these mechanisms were derived from the

grounded analysis of all 41feedback discussions, I use specific excerpts from the feedback

discussions as illustrations.

Three Mechanisms of Developing Professional Vision for Practice

The first illustration from Cade’s Experience Feedback discussion shows the process

through which the novices and the facilitating teacher educators develop professional vision by

identifying challenges that embody the professional Discourse, and investigating those challenges

by articulating thinking and envisioning alternatives. Across the data set of the Experience

feedback discussions, there were 12 out of 17 feedback discussions (30 of 35 episodes) in which

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participants used the moves to identify challenges and investigate those challenges (see Table

4.5).

Although imagining student thinking is present in this illustration, I use the second

illustration to emphasize the ways in which the group members use the professional Discourse

to imagine student thinking as an object of collective inquiry. This 8:56 minute feedback

discussion, which includes one episode, shows three of the four novices on the team, along

with the teacher educator, attending to challenges of helping elementary students design

investigations to learn about force and motion. Cade’s feedback discussion is analyzed here

because it has some unique features that make it useful for analysis.

Specifically, the feedback discussion begins with a move to attend to a challenge, instead

of moves to describe or evaluate instruction that characterized many feedback discussions. In

addition, the analysis of the challenge lasts the entirety of the discussion, with only three moves

to evaluate shared to conclude the discussion. Moreover, this discussion lacks teacher educator

facilitation questions, which often occurred in the other feedback discussions. Cade’s feedback

discussion also includes multiple instances in which the group members attend to challenges,

articulate and envision alternatives, and imagine student thinking.

Cade’s Experience Peer Teaching feedback discussion took place on January 17, the

second out of three Peer Teaching lesson feedback discussions. Cade, Noemi, Nina, and Joyce

are the four novice teachers in the Peer Teaching team. As described in Chapter 3, the novices

teach one lesson, broken into three parts (Engage, Experience and Explain), over three different

Peer Teaching lessons. Cade teaches the force and motion lesson. In this lesson, the novice

teachers acting as “students” perform controlled collisions with balls of different masses on a

meter stick track. One ramp ball is rolled down a toilet paper tube to collide with a track ball

placed at the bottom of the tube on a meter stick track (see Figure 5.1). In the Experience Peer

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Teaching lesson, the “teachers” practice helping “students” conduct investigations and make

and record observations to answer the investigation question, “What makes a big and small

collision?” Students use the observations, the distance in centimeters that the track ball rolls

down the meter stick track, in the Explain Phase to answer the investigation Questions. Six

balls are tested in the experiment, including a rubber ball, a large and small steel ball, a wooden

ball, and a large and small marble. Some of the “teachers” also change the length of the tube

(i.e., by using a paper towel roll) and vary the height of the ramp by using different quantities of

blocks.

Figure 5.1 Ball and Track Apparatus Setup of the Motion Lesson Investigation

(Motion Lesson, Science Companion)

The analysis provided here does not address the full discussion, but the selected

excerpts provide a rich exemplification of the ways in which the novices teachers along with

the teacher educators identify challenges which embody the professional Discourse, investigate

those challenges by using the professional Discourse to articulate thinking and to envision

alternatives, and imagine student thinking. The first excerpt illustrates the ways in which the

novices with the teacher educator identify challenges that embody the professional Discourse.

As shown in Table 5.1 the feedback discussion is in the left column of the table, with the analysis

of the mechanisms indicated in the right column.

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Table 5.1 Cade’s Experience Feedback Discussion, Excerpt 1

Cade’s Experience Feedback Discussion Analysis

Nina: (1) Yeah, I think that was one thing I Nina describes Cade’s purpose for the
noticed…you had students think about how they would lesson—having students design an
set up the design. investigation
Cade: (2) That was definitely part of my objectives was Cade articulates his objectives as
the science process stuff, and I mean, it is fourth focusing on the science process
graders so…
Nina: (3) I was curious…with fourth graders, do you Nina identifies a challenge of students’
think they could really come up with an [investigation] ability to design an investigation
design--and develop something? Or would you still just
have them talk about it and then be like, “Here’s how
we going to record [the data]?”
Cade: (4) I thought this format would allow them to Cade articulates his instructional
attend to what we’re keeping the same and what’s decision about the two variables
changing. (5) But I did struggle… [with] a format that He identifies the challenge of giving
still gave them freedom to design it. support while allowing students to
design
Noemi: (6) Yeah. I thought it was interesting when you Noemi articulates their assigned
did ask, “how could we organize this investigation to alternative ideas
help us answer this question?” Obviously…we all have She identifies the challenge of student
our [assigned] student confusions…when you asked confusion by acknowledging the role of
that question we were all able to voice our set his IQ
confusions. (7) I wonder… if you did give that She envisions how posing that IQ might
investigative question, if that would have been an enable him to correct student
opportunity for students who were confused for you to misconceptions
be able to take out those alternative ideas. (8) …You
thought about how we were confused about how the
experiment would run and so that would give you the
avenue to correct some of those student
misconceptions.
Cade: (9) The size [of the balls] versus the weight? Cade names the specific alternative idea
Maybe I should have taken that up. and envisions that he could have
responded to it
Nina: (10)…Would you let me run with that idea [if I Nina identifies the challenge of students’
was a student]? alternative ideas in designing an
investigation
Cade: (11) The size versus the weight [misconception]? Cade articulates the purpose of the
I think so, because that would have been a core learning lesson and envisions how organizing the
at the end. Because if you had data that was organized data by the misconceptions—size and
by size and data that was organized by weight, (12) then weight, could emphasize the science
we could have come to the fact that it didn’t have to do concept learning goal
with how big the [balls] are, it has to do with how
much they weigh.

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Challenges that Embody the Professional Discourse

In this section, I use the excerpt from Table 5.1 to explore the ways in which novice

teachers develop professional vision by identifying challenges that embody the professional

Discourse. When an individual identifies a challenge, she signals a topic that is important to her.

When two or more novices attend to a challenge that embodies the professional Discourse,

the challenge becomes greater than the individual. It becomes a challenge that is relevant to the

profession and relevant to the novices becoming members of the profession. As such, others

are invited to examine the challenge and to offer their ideas in articulation.

In Cade’s Experience feedback discussion, this challenge centers on helping students

design investigations with multiple variables to learn about collisions, or the concepts of force

and motion. Cade’s Experience feedback discussion begins with Nina recounting how Cade

encouraged his “students” in the lesson to consider how to set up the design for the

investigation. Nina asks him in move #3, “I was curious …with fourth graders, do you think

they could really come up with an [investigation] design?” This move to identify a challenge

transforms his Peer Teaching instruction into two challenging aspects of science teaching and

learning: (a) elementary students’ ability to develop an investigation design; and (b) ways to help

students develop an investigation design in an elementary classroom. She wonders if Cade

would give students a pre-constructed worksheet with identified variables and constants (e.g.,

balls of different masses, ramp height, or tube length) or if he would allow students to

determine how to test those variables. This move to identify a challenge in Cade’s lesson

directs Cade to a particular aspect of his lesson, and presses him to explain the reasoning

underlying his instructional decision.

In move #5, Cade admits he struggled with the decision, which opens up the space for

his and others’ articulation. First, he articulates that he wanted students to attend to two

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aspects of the design process: attending to variables that do not change (control variables) and

those that do (independent variables). In move #5, he elaborates his challenge as wanting to

both provide support and allow for students’ freedom to design. Then, in move #6, Noemi

articulates her interpretation by acknowledging the key role of students’ alternative ideas. As

noted earlier, the novices and the teacher educator were assigned specific alternative ideas to

hold and contribute during the lesson. In doing so, she names the scientific practice Cade

used—an investigation question8—as one way to elicit students’ alternative ideas. Here, she

points out that one purpose of the investigation is to confront students’ alternative ideas. Her

articulation, in which she refers to the same concept using multiple terms: student confusions,

alternative ideas, and misconceptions, provides evidence of the process through which novices

articulate by drawing on the professional Discourse to rename their tacit and unexamined

experiences (i.e., confusions and misconceptions). The professional Discourse of the science

methods course emphasized how student misconceptions were reasonable and natural. As

such, teachers referred to those ideas as “alternative ideas” to remove the pejorative meaning

associated with “misconception” (ED528 Class Video, Session 3, January 5).

In the process of directing the group’s attention to student ideas, Noemi conjectures

that using the investigation question would enable a teacher to “take out” and “correct” those

ideas. The notion of taking out and correcting students’ alternative ideas was a possible

reflection of the discourses of novices’ prior experiences. In other words, learning to use the

data collected in the investigation to confront students’ alternative ideas, versus the teacher

correcting the ideas, was a science teaching practice they grappled with throughout the course

8
The science curriculum in the novices’ school placements referred to the investigation
question as the “investigative question,” so the novices often used both terms to refer to the
same idea.

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(see EEE Framework). It is possible that Noemi’s use of “correct” prompts Nina to ask in move

#10 if Cade would let her continue to hold that misconception if she was an elementary

student.

He articulates two important points in his response in moves #11 and #12, “The size

versus the weight [misconception]? I think so, because that would have been a core learning at

the end. Because if you had data that was organized by size and data that was organized by

weight, then we could have come to the fact that it didn’t have to do with how big the [balls]

are, it has to do with how much they weigh.” First, he emphasizes the role of the data in

redirecting students’ alternative ideas, versus the teacher correcting them. Second, his response

underscores the importance of directing students’ attention to patterns in the data. In this

articulation, Cade references the scientific practice of interpreting data to develop an

understanding of science concepts.

As illustrated in the first part of Cade’s feedback discussion, the interactions that

occurred as the novices identified challenges that embody the professional Discourse served

two main purposes for developing novices’ professional vision. First, when two or more novices

identified a challenge, they signaled an interaction that is important to be investigated. Second,

as they use the professional Discourse to examine the challenge, the thinking of individuals and

the group is made available to be developed or contested. While Cade did not explicitly

disagree with Noemi’s use of “correct,” he did emphasize that his learning goal was to help

students develop that understanding through the data. Third, the interaction of the collective

using the Discourse of the collective transforms a topic from merely a struggle to a challenge

that teachers as professionals grapple with and can draw on the professional Discourse to make

sense of. In Cade’s feedback discussion, this challenge concerns how to best engage students in

learning science in inquiry-oriented ways when students have not yet developed the capacity to

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use the scientific practices to learn science concepts (Davis & Smithey, 2009). This means that

in the context of the Peer Teaching feedback discussions, novices are able to identify, name, and

make sense of challenges that have been identified, named, and investigated by others before

them. This experience is different from the kinds of trial and error experiences that teachers

often face and conceptualize in individual and idiosyncratic ways (Lortie, 1975).

Investigating Challenges by Articulating Thinking

As I argued in the previous section, the mechanism of investigating challenges by using

the professional Discourse to articulate thinking is another way that novices develop

professional vision in the Peer Teaching feedback discussions. In particular, investigating

challenges by drawing on the professional Discourse builds collective capacity as the group

members examine and express aspects of the challenge via the Discourse (Kazemi & Hubbard,

2008). The excerpt in Table 5.3 from the second section of Cade’s Experience feedback

discussion illustrates the concept of investigating challenges by articulating thinking. In move

#13, the teacher educator joins the discussion to articulate her thinking about the challenge of

helping students to design an investigation to confront alternative ideas.

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Table 5.2 Cade’s Experience Feedback Discussion, Excerpt 2

Cade’s Experience Feedback Discussion Analysis

TE: (13) …One of the first pieces of developing an The TE envisions an alternative way to
investigation is coming up with a question… but structure the investigation, identifies a
some of the things we want to figure out don’t challenge, and articulates that Cade had two
necessarily fit with that…you are talking about the separate objectives
weight, right? …So, having a place of my question:
“Does the weight affect how far the trackball
travels?” And then you can talk about, “We are
talking about weight, what do we want to keep the
same?” (14) That was something I was struggling
with… (15) whether or not your objectives were
to help students develop an investigation or
whether it was actually to determine the content
involved in this.
Cade: (16) It was both; I had content and process He articulates what the TE just stated as
goals. content and process goals
TE: (17) So being able to piece those apart TE articulates two distinct objectives of
because…it was hard to determine when we are learning content and learning the scientific
suppose to gather the content, when we are practice of investigation design
supposed to set up the investigation.
Noemi: (18) But…I’m sorry…my understanding in Noemi articulates her thinking about content
science is that the content goals and the process and process goals as she identifies and
goals are very intertwined and that you get at the attends to a challenge in the TE’s articulation
content through the process, (19) so I don’t
understand the idea.
TE: (20) The set up part…You’re using the TE reiterates her earlier articulation and
opportunity for students to create an investigation envisions an alternative in which students
to get to the content, but you still have to have understand how to do the investigation
students figure out what it means to create an before being able to interpret the results
investigation first before you can get that content…
(21) You have to make sure you focus on the
investigation part before saying, “Okay, it went this
far, what does that show us?” But we haven’t fully
developed …what our investigation is…

In moves #13-#20, the teacher educator, Cade, and Noemi engage in a discussion in

which they clarify the meaning of teaching with science process skills (i.e., scientific practices)

and science content goals. The teacher educator questions Cade about his goals as either

helping students develop an investigation or learn content. In move #17, she articulates her

thinking, “…it was hard to determine when we are suppose to gather the content, when we are

supposed to set up the investigation.” In move #15, Noemi draws on the professional Discourse

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to disagree, “But…I’m sorry…my understanding in science is that the content goals and the

process goals are very intertwined and that you get at the content through the process, so I

don’t understand the idea.” She does so as a way to express her understanding of the

professional Discourse, by referencing the terms that others use in science teaching. This

opportunity to use the professional Discourse signals the gap between her understanding of

content and process goals (as embodied in the Discourse) and the understanding of the teacher

educator. The teacher educator is then able to clarify in move #20 that students must have the

scientific practice skills first (e.g., knowledge of which variables to change and which to keep the

same) before they can apply the scientific practice skills to do an investigation and learn science

concepts. This illustration shows how investigating by articulating enables the group to express

their understanding of a Peer Teaching interaction through the lens of the professional

Discourse. In doing so, they are able to draw on embodied representations of the professional

Discourse to begin to envision alternatives to the challenges.

Investigating Challenges by Envisioning Alternatives

Novice teachers also develop professional vision in the context of the Peer Teaching

feedback discussions through the mechanism of investigating the challenges by envisioning

alternatives. In the final excerpt of Cade’s Experience feedback discussion included in Table 5.3,

the novices with the teacher educator build on their earlier analysis to envision alternative ways

to scaffold students’ efforts to learn about variables and the concepts of force and motion.

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Table 5.3 Cade’s Experience Feedback Discussion, Excerpt 3

Cade’s Experience Feedback Discussion Analysis

Cade: (22) No, I understand you’re saying. No, no. Cade draws on the professional
What you’re saying is for each experiment we basically Discourse to envision an alternative with
would have a mini investigation question… a “mini investigation question”
TE: (23) Yes, and I think that would have helped guide TE articulates why Cade’s alternative
it better so that we could use the investigation [to might work
learn the content].
Cade: (24) No, I did struggle with that…it’s like the Cade identifies the challenge the TE
struggle between having it so procedural and leaving named to elaborate why he finds it
it… (25) It’s hard to make a plan that’s supportive and difficult, and envisions an alternative in
also is open, in the sense like students are going to be which each group investigates a different
able to guide it. (26) What I’m getting from what variable
you’re saying is it’s really important before we actually
went into this trial that we define…what are we
looking at in this [investigation]? In this [group] it was
weight, then this [group] could have been size, and
then this [group] could have been the ramp.
TE: (27) And the nice thing is you could then take all TE envisions an alternative in which the
those together at the end and then go back and have a teacher combines the groups’ finding to
whole class discussion to get back at your main reinforce the content in the IQ, Cade’s
investigation question. You could then take all those initial goal
together at the end and go back and have a whole class
discussion to get back at [the content] in your main
investigation question.
Cade: (28) That was my plan and also I thought if [the Cade articulates his rationale for his initial
class] was in small groups then different groups would plan, connecting back to earlier vision of
probably [complete different trials]…because there’s a the lesson
lot of different things you could take from it.
Noemi: (29) And it’s hard… being that this isn’t the Noemi identifies another challenge, the
beginning of the year, (30) and I figure in the fourth time of year (Jan.), envisions helping
grade class you’re going to do some work on forming students learn to form investigations at
investigations that might be even more the beginning of the year, and articulates
simple…supporting them in that. (31)…because this her idea that teachers might start with a
probably isn’t the way that you would have introduced simpler investigation.
how to form an investigation, you might use something
even simpler to do it all in one.
TE: (32) Does that make sense, Noemi? What we are TE identifies the challenge Noemi raised
saying about the investigation and the content? (33) I earlier, and articulates the idea that
didn’t want to make that confusing because you are teaching science involves using practices
correct you do want to use the practices to get to the to emphasize content
content.
Noemi: (34) But if [students] don’t understand the Noemi identifies the challenge, noting it
practices… (35) So, starting with something even would be problematic if students do not
more simpler, to really get at that process and then to understand the practices, and envisions
apply the process to a more complex content. starting with a simpler investigation to
help students develop the scientific
practice skills

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TE: (36) To give an example, one of the teachers we TE envisions an alternative and articulates
worked with, just to get her students in the process… Cade’s earlier goal of helping students
of what it means to do an investigation she has them identify variables that are the same and
use M&Ms and they have to figure out what can different. She provides an example of
happen to get the color off the M&Ms (37) is Noemi’s suggestion to introduce scientific
something they can go through and they can talk about practices at the beginning of the year,
what they want to change and what they want to keep articulating a way that Cade could meet
consistent. So it’s very specific, very simple his earlier vision
investigation I think in the sixth grade. This is a very
complex investigation to do later on in the year.

In move #22, Cade builds on the teacher educator’s articulation and his own

understanding of the professional Discourse to envision an alternative, “What you’re saying is

for each experiment we basically would have a mini investigation question…” Since the groups

were investigating different variables (e.g., the length and height of different ramps, the size and

mass of different balls) one overarching investigation question would not work. It seems that

Cade recognizes the importance of the investigation question in establishing a purpose for the

investigation; so, he proposes a mini investigation question to better scaffold students’ efforts.

Later in move #26, he elaborates on his earlier insight and offers a more specific

question to facilitate the work of testing different variables, “What I’m getting from what you’re

saying is it’s really important before we actually went into this trial that we define…what are

we looking at in this [investigation]? In this [group] it was weight, then this [group] could have

been size, and then this [group] could have been the ramp.” Here, he envisions a specific plan

to help each group understand the variable being altered in their particular investigation. One

group could change the variable of the mass of the ball, the other the size of the ball, another

the height of the ramp under the track. He even points to the imaginary group of students as he

expresses his idea for improving his instruction in an elementary classroom (Cade’s Experience

Peer Teaching video).

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 This illustration indicates the ways in which investigating by envisioning serves to help

novices develop professional vision. Envisioning alternatives provides novices with an

opportunity to apply the professional Discourse to new interactions in elementary contexts.

Especially in the simulated context of Peer Teaching where children are not present, envisioning

is a necessity as it invites novices to apply new ways of talking about, thinking about, and doing

teaching. In essence, it invites novices to imagine student thinking in relationships with

instruction and science concepts.

Using the Professional Discourse to Imagine Student Thinking

In the previous sections, I used an illustration from Cade’s Experience Peer Teaching

feedback discussion to argue that identifying challenges that embody the professional Discourse,

and investigating those challenges by using the professional Discourse to articulate thinking and

envision alternatives are mechanisms through which novices develop professional vision in the

context of Peer Teaching feedback discussions. These two processes are more fully actualized

when the novices with the teacher educators transform a Peer Teaching interaction into an

object of collective inquiry. This occurs as they use the professional Discourse as a lens to

imagine student thinking in relation to instruction and science concepts.

In this section I use an excerpt from Lori’s Explain feedback discussion (Table 5.4) to

illustrate how the participants employ the professional Discourse as a lens to imagine student

thinking as an object of collective inquiry. Across the entire data set, participants in 34 out of

41 feedback discussions (45 of 99 episodes) attended to the topic of student thinking.

Lori’s Explain Peer Teaching lesson was the third and final lesson in the series of three

lessons in the science methods course. Like Cade, Lori taught a Peer Teaching lesson on force

and motion. The members of her Peer Teaching team include Lori, Scott, Diane, and Julie. Both

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Scott and Lori taught the force and motion lesson while Diane and Julie taught the Ecosystems

lesson. The Explain Peer Teaching lesson centered on “teachers” helping “students” compile

observations recorded in the Experience lesson, identify patterns in a sensemaking discussion,

and construct evidence-based claims to answer the investigation question.

Before this excerpt, the teacher educator points out that Lori’s claim is written in a way

that is confusing, so she suggests rephrasing the claim to emphasize the biggest collision. Her

move to attend to a challenge in Lori’s lesson is then elaborated and refined as the novices

invoke the professional Discourse to articulate their thinking and to envision alternatives to

foster student thinking as it relates to instruction and science concepts.

Table 5.4 Lori’s Explain Feedback Discussion

Lori’s Explain Peer Teaching feedback discussion Analysis

Scott: (1) …in my planning of this unit, I didn't like Scott identifies a challenge related to the
that investigative question, biggest and smallest investigation question.
collision (2) because I thought it was He articulates his thinking that the language of
confusing…somehow to make that language more the investigation question may contribute to
precise because biggest collision—what does that student confusion
mean--the biggest fall? Yes, that's a hard thing to kind
of wrap your mind around it, especially as a kid.
Lori: (3) If they don't get the way you're measuring Lori identifies the challenge and elaborates it by
big and small is by the distance travelled, it's hard, (4) noting that students must understand the
because I guess…you could have made the ramp ball variables of the investigation
the constant and made the track ball the variable. (5) She envisions an alternative of changing the
So, then the variable would of tied in more with the variables to facilitate student understanding
actual collision instead of it being the result of the
collision.
Teacher Educator: (6) Yes, it's a little bit tricky. TE identifies the challenge in agreement
Scott: (7) But then, that’s hard (8) because really it's Scott identifies the challenge, and uses the
the mass of the ramp ball that affects the distance Discourse of the science concept to articulate
that it goes, right? …I guess a heavier track ball questions about the relationship between the
would go less distance with the smaller ramp ball. Is variables and the science concepts
that really based on the size of the collision?
Teacher Educator: (9) Yes, I think it's the same TE articulate her thinking about the complexity
point, which is why in the original lesson they have of the lesson
you modify the ramp ball, the track ball, and the She reiterates Scott’s question to envision an
angle [of the ramp]. There are so many things going alternative investigation design
on (10) … so I think you could have them modifying
either [the ramp ball or the track ball] and make the
same point.
Scott: (11)…I didn't even think about that. The only Scott articulates his thinking about the variables

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thing I thought about was changing the ramp ball, but prior to the feedback discussion
I think that would …make it more clear.
Teacher Educator: (12) Yes, I liked the idea of TE articulates the connection between the
changing either the ramp ball or the track ball. But investigation variables and the data student
getting back to organizing the data-- you have to get collects
them to look at modifying one thing which ends up
being a little bit tricky if you have a complex set of
data…
Julie: (13) I wonder—I know this question came Julie identifies the challenge and uses the
right out of the unit-- but I wonder why professional Discourse of the investigation
[investigation question] wasn't just the biggest question to envision an alternative in which the
collision? (14) They could still answer the smallest, question is simplified
to extend their thinking.
Scott: (15) That would be like the third part of the Scott uses the professional Discourse to
[EEE Framework] rubric about applying it to new articulate Julie’s suggestion as an example of the
problems. (16) You could easily, like you say, extend Explain phase of the EEE Framework.
it, into that last part of the rubric. He re-states the alternative Julie had envisioned
TE: (17) Yes. The one I kept thinking about when I TE articulates her thinking about the alternative
was thinking about biggest and smallest collisions by noting some ideas that students might have
was car accidents. But, you don't want to tell kids about collisions
that, but if they come up with it, you could say,
"What are some collisions or what are some
examples in the real world?" They might come up
with bowling. They might come up with car
accidents.
Lori: (18) So, would it be better …to not even [talk Lori identifies the challenge and draws on the
about] creating the biggest collision? (19) I know professional Discourse as represented in a
when we were doing the reading about giving the course reading to articulate her thinking about
discussion for arguments and then posing just two why a simplified investigation question could
variables and saying, "Is it the size?” or “Is it the support student understanding
weight?" Could that be, I mean, at this age for first
graders and second graders, like an appropriate
investigative question, “Is it the size of a ball or the
weight of the ball that affects collision?” Because that
way they are looking at both of them...
TE: (20) Yes, then, you could modify both of those TE builds on Lori’s articulation to envision the
things in the experiment and see which one — alternative of modifying the investigation to
“Okay, these two weigh the same but they're emphasize one main question
different sizes, did they go different distances?”
Yes, that sounds like a great question.

In this excerpt, Lori, Scott, Julie, and the teacher educator transform an aspect of the

Peer Teaching lesson, Lori’s explanation claim statement, into an object of collective inquiry.

Here, they use the professional Discourse to imagine student thinking in relation to instruction

and science concepts. For instance, in move #1 Scott acknowledges the role of the investigation

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question. He had also taught the motion lesson and had grappled with the complex language of

the investigation question. In move #3-#5, Lori emphasizes that students must understand the

variables of the investigation to use the results to gain insight into the science concepts of force

and motion. In move #8, Scott elaborates this discussion by using the professional Discourse of

the science concept to relate the distances with the size of the collision. In move #13, Julie

leverages a facet of the professional Discourse, the investigation question, to suggest a way to

simplify the investigation for the first graders. In move #18, Lori draws on the professional

Discourse as represented in a course reading to articulate her thinking about how a simplified

investigation question could support student understanding. Taken together, in this discussion

the novices with the teacher educator identify a challenge that embodies an aspect of the

professional Discourse. Then they leverage the professional Discourse, providing topics like the

investigation question, the variables of the investigation design, student thinking, and the science

concepts students are learning, to imagine student thinking and to envision alternatives to

improve the instruction.

The challenge topics as well as the envisioned alternatives discussed in Lori’s Explain

feedback discussion resemble those offered in Cade’s Experience feedback discussion and in

Noelle’s Experience feedback discussion (presented in Chapter 4.) These challenges relate to

the complex work of using investigations to support student thinking and to help students learn

science concepts. Although they are teaching in separate rooms, and working with different

teacher educators, the three groups all emphasize the role of the investigation question in

directing students’ sensemaking in the Experience phase and how facets of the investigation may

support or impede student thinking about science concepts. These discussions demonstrate the

importance of the professional Discourse. Here, it facilitated a process whereby the novices

with the teacher educators identified challenges that were accessible to the group and

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investigated the challenges through articulation and envisioning alternatives. These mechanisms

facilitated a process through which novices with the teacher educators transformed a Peer

Teaching interaction into an object of collective inquiry. As such, when student thinking in

relation to instruction and content becomes the object of collective inquiry, it emphasizes the

rich possibilities for developing professional vision in simulated settings like Peer Teaching

lessons.

As I noted in Chapter 2, Goodwin (1994) argues that the process of transforming

phenomena into an object of inquiry important to the profession is not an automatic or easy

task, even with the support of tools and the collective. He maintains that it is something that

professionals must learn in community. However, scholars have documented the difficulties

teachers face in attending to student thinking (Borko, Koellner, Jacobs, & Seago, 2011). For

instance, their experiences observing teaching from the vantage point of a student has

emphasized the work of teaching as an individual performance instead of what teachers do in

relationships with students and content in environments (see for example, Cohen, 1990;

Lampert, 1990). These findings suggest that simulated experiences in methods course settings

offer opportunities for fostering novices’ professional vision.

Challenges not Expressed through the Professional Discourse

In the previous section, I argued that developing professional vision for teaching involves

identifying challenges that embody the professional Discourse and investigating those challenges

by using the professional Discourse to articulate thinking and envision alternatives in classroom

contexts. These mechanisms facilitate a process whereby novices with the teacher educators

transform a Peer Teaching interaction into an object of collective inquiry in which participants

use the professional Discourse as a lens to imagine student thinking in relation to instruction

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and science concepts. In this section, I further develop this argument by examining the feedback

discussions in which these mechanisms are not emphasized. The richness of having all three is

even more apparent in examining instances where all three are not present.

Two illustrations drawn from the study offer insight into the interactions in these

feedback discussions in which participants identify challenges that were not expressed through

the professional Discourse. As such, the participants do not use the Discourse as a lens to

investigate the challenge by articulating their thinking and envisioning alternatives, nor do they

imagine student thinking in relation to the instruction and science concepts.

Lea’s Experience Feedback Discussion

The first illustration comes from Lea’s Experience feedback discussion (Table 5.5). Like

Cade, Lea taught the force and motion lesson. I include another force and motion lesson here

as one way to indicate the differences across the discussions. The members of Lea’s Peer

Teaching team include Sam, Priti and Camille. This 8:29 minute feedback discussion, which

includes two episodes, shows the novices along with the teacher educator attending to

challenges related to general pedagogy. In this discussion, there are no instances in which Lea

or her colleagues collectively attended to challenges. In addition, there were only two instances

across Lea’s team’s Experience Peer Teaching discussions when two participants (one novice

and one teacher educator) attended to student thinking. In only 7 of the 41 feedback

discussions (54 of 99 episodes) did the groups not mention student thinking; this discussion

after Lea’s Experience Peer Teaching is one example from the seven. In the excerpt included

below, the feedback discussion begins with one novice, Camille, who evaluates Lea’s instruction

and compliments the ways she helped the first graders take precise measurements of the

distance the balls rolled down the track.

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Table 5.5 Lea’s Experience Feedback Discussion

Lea’s Experience Feedback Discussion Analysis

Priti: (1) Then having the tape too to mark where Priti evaluates an aspect of Lea’s lesson
the ball ended [on the track], I think that’s cool.
Lea: Yes. (2) I mean, I was worrying about that just Lea identifies a challenge concerning how
(3) because if they were each in small groups that to manage student behaviors as they
would become…a huge management issue; there’s complete the investigation
certain kids that I wouldn’t trust to be able to do She articulates her thinking about the
it…that’s one thing I kept going back and forth feasibility of arranging students in small
about how realistic it would actually be to do it in groups
this way.
TE: (4) I think the way you set it up…everything TE articulates his thinking about the
was very well outlined…I don’t think there’s any organization of Lea’s lesson and student
gaps in what you want the students to know and do understanding of what to do
and how you’re going to run the experiment…I
think your discussion about how to measure the He identifies a challenge about the
ball at the front and the back, an interesting way to difficultly of the entire class being able to
get students to think about the preciseness of how see the ways to measure the balls on the
they are going to measure…(5) What might be track
difficult in that situation is if you have a class of 30
kids and they can’t see.
Lea: (6) Yes, and I think I would try to do a teacher She envisions an alternative and
version of the ramp or something or just have acknowledges the challenge that two
everybody crowd around…(7) it was difficult “students” in the Peer Teaching lesson
enough for Sam and Camille faced
Sam: (8) But I think you calling attention to the Sam articulates his thinking about how
specifics, the little details like how to release the the procedures of the investigation were
ball, the numbers on the ruler, the tape for the start explained clearly
point…all play a big role into making sure that the
experiment went smoothly. I think it was explained
to the level of first graders.
Lea: (9) Yes, was it too much? I mean, it was kind Lea identifies another challenge about
of awkward because we did a lot of that last the ways she emphasized the procedures
week…like in a real classroom I wouldn’t have had for students. She acknowledges the
to do that because it’d all be on the board. awkwardness of the Peer Teaching
instruction

This excerpt shows Lea expressing her concern about managing students in doing the

investigation-based lesson. In move #3, she notes that there are some students that she

“wouldn’t trust to be able to do it.” In moves #4 and #8, the teacher educator and Sam

maintain this focus on topics related to general pedagogy in her lesson. Specifically, they

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articulate their thinking about different parts of her instruction related to the procedures of

doing the investigation, “everything was very well outlined,” “well organized,” “calling attention

to the specifics, the little details like how to release the ball, the numbers on the ruler, the tape

for the start point.” These comments all relate to students’ behaviors as they engage in the

investigation. What is absent in this exchange is the view of students as thinkers. It seems that

students are viewed as needing to be managed, and Lea as the teacher-manager. The challenge

of teaching discussed here is not elaborated or refined via the means of the professional

Discourse. It may be that the challenge identified, managing student actions, instead of managing

student actions in service of their learning, does not embody the professional Discourse. If the

challenge then is not a part of the professional Discourse there is no need for participants to

draw on the Discourse to investigate it. In other words, they are able to adequately draw on

their prior experiences with children to make sense of the challenge. Towards that end, the

novices do not acknowledge the complexity of the instruction in the discussion; there are no

instances of other novices attending to a challenge in Lea’s lesson.

One explanation for the absence of the novices attending to challenges relates to the

topic Lea identified. The general pedagogy challenge topic was one Lea as an individual grappled

with, but it was not one that the others found to be complex or worthy of further

investigation. As noted earlier, they were able to draw on their individual prior experiences

with children to ascertain how to manage the situation (Lortie, 1975). Moreover, they did not

see it as a challenge, embodied in the professional Discourse, which other teachers grapple with

as well (Berlak & Berlak, 2011; Lampert, 1985). A second explanation is that the novices may

see their role as peers who encourage each other. So, the feedback discussions may serve as a

context through which to compliment the “teachers” instead of questioning their instruction

(Noddings, 2003). This role differs from one who sees himself as a colleague working with

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others in the profession to build and contest professional vision (e.g., Bacevich, 2010). In

Chapter 4, I presented an interview excerpt with Noelle in which she acknowledges the

“culture of nice” that pervades teaching. Noelle recognizes that teachers’ desire to compliment

may impede the opportunity to analyze instruction and to envision ways to improve student

thinking as it interacts with instruction and concepts.

Noemi’s Experience Feedback Discussion

The second illustration is drawn from Noemi’s Experience feedback discussion (Table

5.6). In Noemi’s feedback session, similar to Lea’s discussion, the challenge that is identified

does not embody the professional Discourse. As a result, the novices do not use the Discourse

as a lens to investigate the challenge by articulating their thinking and envisioning alternatives.

However, what is different about Noemi’s Experience feedback discussion is that the teacher

educator introduces the challenge topic. Across the Experience discussions, 7 of the 16

feedback discussions did not include two or more novices identifying challenges. This means

that either the teacher educator, like in the case of Noemi’s discussion, or one novice,

identified a challenge that was not taken up by another novice.

As noted earlier, Noemi was a member of Cade’s Peer Teaching team who taught the

ecosystem lesson (described in Chapter 4 with Noelle’s Experience lesson). Cade’s Experience

feedback discussion was analyzed earlier as an example of a session in which novices and the

teacher educator attended to a challenge that embodied the professional Discourse,

investigated it through articulation and envisioning, and imagined student thinking as an object

of collective inquiry. Given that the context was the same (Noemi’s lesson was the first for the

team that day), with the same novice teachers and the same teacher educator, Noemi’s

Experience feedback discussion offers insight into the significance of the challenges discussed in

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the different feedback sessions. In this discussion, the teacher educator questions Noemi about

the ways that she conflated the scientific practices of making predictions and observations.

Then, she asks Noemi about the format of her handout, in which she had separated the

practices of drawing and writing observations.

Table 5.6 Noemi’s Experience Feedback Discussion

Noemi’s Experience Feedback Discussion Analysis

TE: (1) I have a question with the word bank. TE identifies a challenge about the way Noemi
What was your reason for having us list off non- used the word bank with the science concepts of
living things before having seen the aquarium? non-living things.
Noemi: (2) Um, I struggled with that. (3) I Noemi acknowledges the challenge and articulates
thought because the reading had been done…the her rationale about using the predictions to help
students have done this reading and…I thought “students” refer to the ecosystem reading
that if I took off the bag [covering the aquarium]
and then had you come back to the word bank,
that would be too disjointed…I thought that
making predictions might be more useful than just
telling you myself, but I thought it would be
behaviorally too difficult to have it, jumping back
and forth between the two…
TE: (4) So something to consider then you are TE articulates Noemi’s instructional decision as
actually combining—what we consider an conflating the two separate practices of
observation and a prediction, and so the non-living observations and predictions
things become predictions, and yet the other TE identifies the challenge of combining the two
pieces become almost observations because we’ve practices
already read about them, and (5) so you’re actually
combining two very different scientific practices on
one sheet and so gets confusing…
Noemi: Okay.
TE: (6) I just had another question with the TE identifies another challenge in Noemi’s
worksheet. What was your motivation for dividing instruction related to her observation data sheet
it up in that format?
Noemi: Um…you mean in picture and writing?
TE: (7) So no, you have “I observe blank and TE articulates her thinking to explain that Noemi is
blank” and then we have a picture and writing and directing students to draw and write about parts
you do another, “I observed blank and blank” and of the eco-column aquarium
a picture and writing. So you are actually pulling
out pieces of the aquarium instead of doing it as
more of a consolidated unit.
Noemi: (8) Because I wanted to focus their Noemi draws on the professional Discourse to
observations on interactions, and then if I were articulate her reasoning; she wanted to support
giving them two spaces to fill in then they’d be able students in making observations that would enable
to focus on two animals because there are two them to answer the investigation question about
things. Because there is so much going on that if I how living things depend on living and non-living
felt that using this would help them focus on the things
interactions and really specifically on just two

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different components that would get them at
the…dependence of living and non-living things…
TE: (9) Both. Because one thing to consider, the TE references a specific student challenge to
structure of it for first grade is nice… but…one of articulate her point that Noemi’s handout may
the things that students have a lot of challenges in exacerbate the difficulty students face in making
making observations is location. So for example, precise observations
they’ll put duckweed in the middle, because
they’re having a hard time figuring out the actual
location of things, and so when you pull it out in
pieces they don’t get that practice.

This excerpt from Noemi’s Experience feedback discussion shows the teacher educator

identifies two challenges in Noemi’s lesson. In move #3, she asks, “What was your reason for

having us list off non-living things before having seen the aquarium?” In move #11, she asks,

“What was your motivation for dividing it up in that format?” Noemi responds with

uncertainty, “Um… you mean in picture and in writing?” Unlike in Cade’s Experience feedback

discussion where the novices participated in identifying challenges, investigating by articulating

and envisioning, and imagining student thinking, here the teacher educator dominates the

discussion with moves to identify challenges, articulate thinking, and envision alternatives.

Noemi, as well her colleagues, mostly remain silent.

To offer additional insight into the interaction and the absence of the novices’ moves to

identify challenges, and investigate by articulating thinking and envisioning alternatives, I provide

an excerpt from an interview with Noemi immediately following her team’s Peer Teaching

lessons. As I explained in the methods chapter, Noemi was one of the four focal participants

who was interviewed in each Peer Teaching team.

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 In this excerpt, Noemi is asked to discuss which piece of feedback from the Peer

Teaching feedback discussion stood out for her. She explains the challenge the teacher

educator identified from her lesson surprised her.

(1) Interviewer: Which piece of feedback stood out for you..?

(2) Noemi: I guess the need [for students] to free observe first…I guess it was the in-class

[science methods course] discussion yesterday; I was under the impression that it would

be necessary to focus student observations on the investigative question…because the

investigative question is the framework for the investigation… And I guess I didn’t

realize that it was necessary to have that open observation piece first.

(3) Interviewer: Okay. And why do you feel like that stood-out?

(4) Noemi: Because it surprised me…

(5) Interviewer: How did the feedback feel, either from the ….?

(6) Noemi: It felt really frustrating from the…teacher educator...it feels frustrating because

I don’t feel like I …understand completely how to teach in an EEE framework. So it feels

like I’m being judged unfairly about something that I wasn’t taught to do. So it’s so

frustrating to me. I do take feedback well normally, but in this instance it did make me

like sort of borderline confrontational and very frustrated. …like if it had come from my

peers where I’ve built more relationships with…and like I see their credentials so it’s

more meaningful…

In line #4, Noemi explains the teacher educator’s feedback about not conflating

students’ predictions, observations, and explanations surprised her. It surprised her because she

was under the impression, based on the discussion from the previous science methods class,

that she should focus students’ observations on interactions, the concept emphasized in the

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investigation question. In line #6, she describes feeling judged unfairly in the feedback and

explains that she did not feel confident in teaching the EEE framework. As such, she felt she was

being judged unfairly in something she had not been taught to do. Her comments suggest she

had expected feedback that would resemble the topics she had been learning and practicing.

She emphasizes that she had designed her lesson to purposefully reflect the previous day’s

discussion about helping students to record observations about interactions, so she was

surprised when the Teacher Educator contested her instructional decision.

Similar to Lea’s Experience feedback discussion, in Noemi’s discussion, the novices do

not enact the moves to identify challenges and investigate by articulating thinking and

envisioning alternatives. Instead, the teacher educator enacts these moves. These findings raise

the question of why the novices, active in questioning Cade during his lesson, are silent in

Noemi’s feedback discussion. Furthermore, their lack of involvement in Noemi’s discussion did

not resemble the ways they consistently enacted moves across their team’s discussions to

identify challenges in each other’s instruction (see Table 4.5). For instance, Nina and Noemi

both press Cade in his Experience Peer Teaching feedback discussion to articulate his

instructional decisions.

To consider the novices’ silence in Noemi’s feedback discussion, I return to the concept

of professional Discourse. In Noelle’s interview provided in Chapter 4, she underscored the

importance of having a shared understanding of the feedback a teacher could receive about her

instruction. That is, she wanted others to notice what she saw in her own teaching practice.

Likewise, in her interview Noemi expresses frustration in receiving feedback about topics that

were not a part of what she was learning in the science methods course (the teacher educator

with Noemi’s group was not the instructor). She was surprised by the feedback because she felt

like the goal of her lesson--to support students in making observations that connect to the

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investigation question—reflected the big ideas emphasized in the methods course the previous

day.

In her interview, Noemi admits that if the feedback had come from a peer, it would have

been more meaningful. One explanation for this assertion could be that as peers in a cohort-

based teacher education program, the novices might in fact notice similar things because they

are learning the same Discourse. Furthermore, they share a status as new members in the

profession, and are inevitably grappling with similar challenges. This suggests the topics that

novices notice in their peers’ instruction may reflect the same topics they are struggling to

master in their own teaching practice. Noemi’s interview implies that the challenge identified in

her instruction did not embody the professional Discourse she and her peers were learning. As

a result, neither she nor her peers were able to use the professional Discourse as a lens to

investigate the challenge and to envision alternatives. Moreover, they were not able to make

available their thinking about the issue for others to examine. Instead, only the teacher

educator, who identified the challenge, was able to engage in the analysis and articulate her

thinking. This suggests that opportunities to develop professional vision for practice in the Peer

Teaching feedback discussions involved identifying challenges of the professional Discourse, so

that novices were able to leverage the professional Discourse to articulate their thinking about

the challenges and to envision alternatives to the challenges in classroom contexts.

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 CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSION

The central research question in this study was: How do preservice teachers develop

professional vision for practice in the context of Peer Teaching feedback discussions? The findings of

the study suggest that developing professional vision in simulations involves learning to notice

and use what is valued in the profession (the professional Discourse) through social

mechanisms, and this process happens in interacting contexts. In particular, my analyses

indicated that opportunities for developing professional vision occurred as the participants (1)

established a professional Discourse through tools; (2) approximated the professional

Discourse through roles; (3) identified challenges of the professional Discourse; (4) used the

professional Discourse to articulate thinking about the challenges; and (5) used the professional

Discourse to envision alternatives to the challenges. The Peer Teaching context, which was

shaped by the science methods course and the teacher education program contexts, supported

and constrained novices’ noticing. This was evident in the ways novices expressed a

contradiction between two competing objects of developing professional vision: identifying

problems of practice and affirming peers’ practice. Figure 6.1 shows the nature of developing

professional vision for practice in simulations, as illustrated by this study. This illustration guides

my discussion of the findings in this conclusion.

In this chapter, I first consider the theoretical implications of this study for the

development of professional vision. In particular, I use the concept of professional Discourse to

re-conceptualize the process of learning to notice as seeing and making sense of events in ways

that reflect the practices and principles of the profession. I also consider the concept of

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interacting contexts, drawn from the idea of activity systems in Activity Theory to highlight the

inherent complexities in developing professional vision. Next, I use the concept of professional

Discourse and interacting contexts to explore implications for designing practice-based

opportunities to foster novices’ noticing. I conclude this chapter by discussing the limitations of

this study and by outlining directions for future research.

Figure 6.1 Developing professional vision for practice in simulations

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 Theoretical Implications

Professional Discourse

Developing professional vision in simulations involves learning to notice and use what is

valued in the profession (the professional Discourse). Applying the concept of professional

Discourse (Freeman, 1993; Gee, 1989) to the development of professional vision is an

important theoretical contribution of this study because it emphasizes the socially situated

nature of what and how novices notice. As new members of the profession, novices’ attention

may be drawn to topics that reflect prior experiences (e.g., apprenticeship of observation)

rather than topics that are valued in the teacher education program. The findings of this study

suggest that establishing a professional Discourse in the science methods course may have

helped novices notice particular aspects of science teaching and learning. Consistent with prior

research on noticing (van Es & Sherin, 2002) my analyses indicated that novices noticed a

variety of topics, ranging from student thinking to general pedagogy. However, unlike prior

work on noticing, the findings illustrated that novices attended to the topic of student thinking

more than any other topic (58 times). They also attended to topics of scientific practices such

as designing investigations and making and recording observations (36 times) more than general

pedagogy (25 times). The top three of the nine topics participants noticed—student thinking,

science concepts, and investigations—reflect the science teaching practices advocated in the

science methods course and in the Next Generation Science Standards (National Research

Council, 2012). These numbers serve to illustrate novices’ noticing by suggesting that novices

were supported to notice particular aspects of science teaching and learning.

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 Other scholars of noticing have found that teachers may struggle to attend to topics,

such as student thinking, that reflect current reforms (M. G. Sherin et al., 2011). To foster

teachers’ attention to student thinking, these scholars are examining ways that facilitators

(Borko et al., 2011) and technology in video clubs (van Es & Sherin, 2010) can direct teachers’

attention and sensemaking towards student thinking. The socially situated nature of noticing

evident in this study suggests that the work of the facilitators and technology prompts may in

fact be establishing a professional Discourse. That is, developing a shared understanding of what

to notice and how to reason about and name what teachers see. Conceiving of developing

professional vision as socially constructed emphasizes the collective and shared, rather than the

individual and idiosyncratic, nature of the process.

So, what was the professional Discourse that novices noticed? Consistent with Gee’s

(1989) work on Discourse, this study demonstrated that the professional Discourse constituted

particular shared ideas, practices, and language of science teaching and learning that participants

used. For instance, my analyses indicated that the novice teachers used jargon as shorthand to

represent the instruction they noticed and their shared beliefs about it. In Nina’s Engage

feedback discussion, the novices articulated the concepts “Engage” or “Phase” to express

shared ideas about the science teaching practices and principles of the Engage phase. In the

science methods course, the concept “Engage phase” of science teaching and learning denoted

particular science teaching practices and ways of viewing students as sensemakers with

misconceptions. These practices and principles of engaging students at the beginning of a

science lesson involved the following: (1) eliciting students’ ideas and misconceptions, (2)

engaging students with an investigation question, and (3) encouraging students to write

predictions about the investigation question (see Appendix A).

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 Identifying challenges of the professional Discourse invited novices to employ their

shared ideas to make sense of the challenges. For instance, after her Engage Peer Teaching,

Nina identified a challenge of the professional Discourse related to responding to students’

ideas in the Engage phase. In her lesson, she had elicited students’ ideas about the investigation

question from her ecosystems lesson, and Cade had responded with a misconception. He had

role-played the documented science misconception in which students anthropomorphize plants

and animals as helping each other in ecosystems. After Nina shared that her first reaction was

to correct the misconception, Cade emphasized that in the Engage phase teachers should probe

students’ ideas but not correct any alternative ideas, “…as an Engage stage, you didn’t sort of

step in [and correct the misconception], but you acknowledged that we were wrestling with it

and encouraged us to keep thinking about it” (Nina’s Engage feedback discussion). Then Noemi

agreed and added that in the Engage phase teachers should not redirect students’ ideas, but

rather record all of their questions on the board, “…in this Phase, I would have almost written

everything we are wondering and I’ve sort of gotten to the same problem …in my [field

placement] classroom, and not really knowing what I should write up and what’s considered

scientific, but I think in the initial Phase like getting all the questions up there” (Nina’s Engage

feedback discussion). Nina’s Engage feedback discussion illustrates how the concept of Engaging

students was an aspect of the professional Discourse, and it represented shared ideas about

how to begin a science lesson. In sum, conceiving of professional vision as noticing the

professional Discourse emphasizes the social and collective nature of the process. This suggests

that novices’ noticing may reflect what is valued in their social setting more than their individual

beliefs or knowledge.

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Interacting Contexts

Another important theoretical implication of this study is the conceptualization of

learning to notice as occurring in interacting contexts. Applying the concept of interacting

contexts to the development of professional vision emphasizes the competing demands that

novices faced in learning to notice across the Peer Teaching and teacher education program

contexts. In Activity Theory, Engeström (1989) refers to these contexts as separate but

interacting activity systems. Activity systems are an “object-oriented, collective, and culturally

mediated human activity” (Engeström, 1999, p. 9). Given their social nature, activity systems

may be driven by different goals or governed by different rules. Engeström found that multiple

perspectives within and between activity systems might generate contradictions. Contradictions

are not the same as problems; they are structural tensions that can act as sources of change

and development. They can provide opportunities for the participants to re-envision the

elements of the activity system.

My analyses suggested that the process of developing professional vision in the Peer

Teaching was subject to emergent contradictions. These tensions were expressed as two

competing views of the object (motive) of Peer Teaching: identifying problems of practice and

affirming peers. To illustrate this process, I present the contradictions of the Peer Teaching

activity system in Figure 6.2. The purpose of the figure is not to merely label the elements but

to show the dynamic interplay between them, which emphasize the collective and inherently

complex nature of developing professional vision. Understanding these contradictions can

provide opportunities to re-conceptualize the mechanisms through which novices develop

professional vision.

The Peer Teaching activity system was directed by a collective object or motive (e.g.,

developing professional vision for practice) (Leont'ev, 1981). All actions within the activity

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systems are interpreted in light of the object (motive) and accomplished by the participants, the

subjects. From the perspective of a teacher educator, the object (motive) of the Peer Teaching

was to provide novice teachers with an opportunity to investigate problems of practice. To

attend to these challenges of the professional Discourse, novices used mediating tools, such as

the EEE Framework and research-based student misconceptions and scientific practice

challenges. When people collaborate with others to use tools, the knowledge is stored in the

practices of the group rather than one individual’s mind (Gee, 2008). Novices’ tacit knowledge

and prior experiences (such as their apprenticeship of observation) were also used as tools.

The interactions in the top half of the activity system model (subject↔ tool↔ object)

were implicitly influenced by the social structure of the Peer Teaching, represented by the

bottom half of the model (norms↔ community↔ roles) (Engeström, 1987). The community

included all of the participants who shared the same object, including the teacher educators and

the novices. The roles represented the division of labor, or who did what within the activity

system, and who was privileged with the power and status (Johnson, 2009). In the Peer

Teaching, the participants acted as colleagues as they engaged in role-plays to help each other

learn to teach. The novices and teacher educators’ actions in the community were determined

by norms, explicit and implicit rules and expectations that shaped the interactions and their

work to achieve the object (motive) of the activity system.

The findings suggest that contradictions were expressed as competing views of the

roles, norms, tools and object of the interacting contexts of the Peer Teaching and teacher

education program. For example, my analyses demonstrated that participants used moves to

evaluate the instruction 24 times across the data set (see Table 4.4). These moves represented

instances in which novices complimented their peers’ instruction (e.g., “I liked when you …”)

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rather than problematized the instruction (305 times) or expressed their thinking about the

instruction through articulation (240 times). Contradictions may have occurred because the

Peer Teaching activity system introduced a new element (e.g., the object of problematizing

practice), which led to contradictions between the old element (affirming peers’ practice) and

the new one. This contradiction may have occurred because of the different roles (friends,

colleagues, novice teachers) the novices adopted across the interacting contexts.

The following example from Priti’s Experience Peer Teaching feedback discussion

illustrates the contradictions that emerged due to the divergent views of the object, roles, and

tools of the interacting contexts. Here, Priti’s peers, Camille and Lea, minimize a problem of

practice Priti identified about orienting students to others’ comments in her lesson.

Priti: The one thing that I saw myself that I would like to revise is that I didn’t do a

whole lot of orienting students to one another this time as much as I did last time. Last

time I really made a move to direct them to one another, “What do you think about

this? and Can you comment on that?” and I didn’t do a whole lot of that this time.

Camille: You set the bar for yourself really high last time.

Lea: I liked that you paired us up into groups, to make it even smaller.

Rather than problematize Priti’s instruction (object) and help her to investigate her

teaching as a colleague (role), Camille and Lea minimize the problem and complexity of teaching

(competing object) and take on the role of an encourager or friend (competing role). Here, the

contradictions between the object and the role facilitated an outcome in which the novices

avoided critique. A contradiction related to the use of the tool, the professional Discourse, was

also evident in this episode. The professional Discourse was established to mediate novices’

efforts to identify and make sense of problems of practice. However, in Priti’s discussion, she

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did not draw on the professional Discourse to identify a problem related to helping students

use scientific practices to learn science concepts. Likewise, Camille and Lea did not leverage the

professional Discourse to discuss why it is important for teachers to orient students to one

another’s scientific ideas. Identifying topics that were not expressed in the professional

Discourse, such as behavior management, occurred across Priti’s team’s Experience Peer

Teaching discussions (see Table 4.5). There were only two instances of the participants, one

novice and one teacher educator, imagining student thinking across the Experience feedback

discussions for Priti’s team9. The focus on students’ behaviors rather than students’ ideas reflect

another tool—socially-constructed ideas about teaching from novices’ “apprenticeship of

observation” (Lortie, 1975). Similarly, in a discussion about how to improve her Experience

Peer Teaching, Lea suggested conducting one teacher demonstration, because she believed the

students would not be able to manage the complexities of the investigation in small groups (see

Chapter 5). Thus, rather than apply the professional Discourse to envision alternatives, Lea

instead looked to her prior assumptions about students’ capacities to use investigations. These

findings, that novices struggled to problematize their peers’ instruction and to articulate the

professional Discourse, resembles other studies on peer feedback (e.g., Bacevich, 2010;

Benedict-Chambers, 2012).

9
As shown in Table 4.5, during the Explain Peer Teaching feedback discussions, Lea’s team did
enact moves where the novices identified challenges and attended to student thinking, scientific
practices, and science concepts.

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Figure 6.2 Activity Theory Illustration of the Peer Teaching Contradictions

Implications for Teacher Education

The concepts of professional Discourse and interacting contexts have implications for

the design of practice-based opportunities in teacher education. In particular, these concepts

have implications for the design of teaching simulations to support novices’ development of

professional vision.

Establishing Professional Discourse through Tools

The findings of this study suggest that tools may serve to establish a professional

Discourse in simulations. My analyses demonstrated that the tools of the EEE Framework and

the lists of student misconceptions and scientific practice challenges could reflect the views and

ways of teaching advocated by the Framework for K-12 Science Education Standards (National

Research Council, 2012). In particular, the EEE framework named and organized the practices

and principles of science teaching. The EEE framework delineated teaching as Engaging students’

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ideas, and helping students to collect data to Experience and Explain scientific phenomena. The

framework established a shared language the novices could use to make sense of the problems

of practice.

The use of the tools was evidenced by the language novices employed to discuss and

make sense of their noticing. For instance, in Nina’s Engage Feedback discussion described

earlier, Nina identified a problem of practice about responding to a student’s misconception.

Here, novices leveraged the concept of the “Engage phase” to express shared understandings.

In Cade’s Experience feedback discussion analyzed in Chapter 5, novices used the language of

“student’s alternative ideas,” “investigation question” and “science process goals” (see Table

5.1) to collectively analyze Cade’s Peer Teaching. Moreover, the fact that the participants

articulated the scientific practice topics across the data set, for instance, making and recording

observations (36 times), investigation questions (22 times), constructing evidence-based claims

(19 times) and predictions (13 times) suggests the novices were drawing on the professional

Discourse to support their noticing (see Table 4.3). These findings suggest that teacher

educators may want to establish a shared language of teaching and learning that embodies the

professional Discourse (Freeman, 1991). This shared language can then inform the problems of

practice that novices with the teacher educators investigate in the simulations. Other scholars

have emphasized the importance of establishing a shared language for novices teachers (e.g.,

Grossman, Hammerness, et al., 2009).

Consistent with Gee’s (2008) argument that tools can help individuals develop

knowledge by storing it in the language and practices of a group, the EEE Framework and the

lists of student misconceptions and scientific practice challenges could represent the

professional knowledge of experienced science teachers. The examples of student

misconceptions used in the approximations represented documented ideas that children (and

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adults) hold about ecosystems and force and motion (e.g., Driver et al., 1985). The scientific

practice challenges indicated actual difficulties students face in using scientific practices, such as

making and recording observations and collecting qualitative data, as they conduct

investigations. While teachers could likely learn these ideas over years of experience, making

explicit students’ challenges enabled the novices to collectively investigate and manage them in

the simulated setting.

Establishing Professional Discourse through Roles

One implication of this study is the value of using role-plays in simulations. Consistent

with Ronfeldt and Grossman’s (2008) argument that opportunities to observe, experiment with,

and evaluate new roles and new ways of teaching in approximated settings may provide novices

with opportunities to develop a professional identity, my analyses indicated role-plays could

help novices acquire a professional Discourse. Given that acquiring a professional Discourse

involves becoming a teacher with particular views of teaching and learning, role-plays may be

especially important for novices learning to teach science. Like other research on beginning

science teachers (Zembal-Saul et al., 2000), the findings indicated that novices had few

opportunities before the science methods class to practice teaching science lessons (Noelle,

first interview; Scott, first interview; Noemi, first interview). In particular, novices tend to have

few experiences using scientific practices, such as constructing scientific explanations, to help

students learn science concepts (Davis et al., 2006). Guided by the tools of the EEE framework

with the student misconceptions and scientific practice challenges, novices role-played “science

teachers” and “elementary students” engaging in authentic interactions. Specifically, the role-

plays provided novices with opportunities to enact the roles of “teachers” teaching science in

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ambitious ways (Windschitl et al., 2012) and responding to documented student

misconceptions. “Teachers” had a chance to practice eliciting and interacting with the resilient

nature of students’ ideas (e.g., Watson & Konicek, 1990). Distilling the work of teaching to

managing productive relationships among students’ ideas, scientific practices, and science

concepts meant that novices could focus their attention on essential interactions. Absent were

the distractions and the competing demands novices often face in elementary classrooms, such

as managing students’ engagement in complex investigations (Davis et al., 2006).

One surprising finding and important implication of this study is that role-playing

“elementary students” may help novices imagine students’ thinking in interactions with scientific

concepts and scientific practices. As indicated in the study, participants explored students’ ideas

in 34 of the 41 Peer Teaching feedback discussions (see Table 4.5). They problematized

scientific practices in 37 of 41 Peer Teaching feedback discussions and science concepts in 33 of

41 feedback discussions. The emphasis on noticing student thinking, scientific practices, and

science concepts was surprising to me given that research on novice and veteran teacher

noticing suggest that teachers are more likely to attend to students’ behaviors than their

thinking (M. G. Sherin et al., 2011). Furthermore, novices were not explicitly prompted by the

teacher educators to notice student thinking in the feedback discussions; rather, teacher

educators asked open-ended questions such as, “What did you notice from Diane’s lesson?”

(Diane’s Engage feedback discussion).

The findings of the study demonstrated that attending to student thinking occurred in

two ways: (1) “students” offered feedback to the “teachers” by referencing specific ideas they

had role-played; and (2) novices used their own thinking as learners to envision alternatives to

the instruction to better support student thinking. These findings that novices could imagine

students’ thinking in a setting where children are absent are consistent with Gee’s work (2008)

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on the concept of embodiment. He argues that learners are able to build model simulations

based on experiences. He explains that in video games of skateboarding, players are able to

draw on their experiences of skateboarding in a real skate park to design a virtual

skateboarding park. Here, the players must solve problems (they’ve created) to skate in the

park successfully. Gee asserts, “We build our model simulations to help us make sense of things

and prepare for action in the world. We can act in the model and test which consequences

follow before we act in the real world” (p. 85). The concept of embodiment suggests that while

elementary children are not present in the Peer Teaching, novice teachers can draw on prior

experiences with children to imagine their responses. Furthermore, they can envision student

responses by leveraging the student misconceptions and scientific practice challenges tools.

Finally, novices can use the simulated teaching experiences to inform future interactions with

elementary children. For instance, they could reflect back on a problem of practice that was

discussed to ascertain how to manage a similar challenge they face in the classroom setting.

Other scholars have documented the affordances of teachers observing teaching from

the vantage point of an “elementary student” (Nelson, 2011; Shah, 2011). However, there are

few studies that investigate the value of assigning novices to role-play particular research-based

misconceptions and scientific practice challenges, examples of student thinking that embody the

professional Discourse. Rather, studies emphasize how the teacher educator role-plays

common student challenges in teaching simulations (Lampert et al., 2013). Thus, a contribution

of this study is that it demonstrates the value of asking novice teachers to enact roles that

personify aspects of the professional Discourse via tools that reflect student misunderstandings.

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Identifying Challenges of Professional Discourse

In the conceptual framework of this study, I presented Goodwin’s (1994)

characterization of professional vision as socially organized ways of seeing and understanding

phenomena relevant to a profession. In this study, seeing and understanding teaching involved

identifying challenges of the professional Discourse (see Figure 6.1). My analysis indicated that in

40 of 41 Peer Teaching feedback discussions, participants identified science teaching and

learning challenges (e.g., “I struggled…” “I have a question…” see Table 4.5). Across the four

Peer Teaching teams’ discussions of the three lessons, there was only one discussion, Diane’s

Engage feedback discussion, where participants did not identify any challenges. Furthermore,

novices’ noticing of the topics occurred within the episodes of attending to challenges in the

feedback discussions. Thus, exploring challenges of the professional Discourse was a central

means for learning to teach in the Peer Teaching. This suggests that teacher educators may

want to consider ways to support novices in identifying teaching challenges in simulations.

Collective investigations of teaching challenges afford an opportunity to build and contest the

professional Discourse.

Using the Professional Discourse to Articulate Thinking

Consistent with Freeman’s (1991) work on articulation, the findings indicated the

novices employed the professional Discourse to articulate their thinking about the teaching

challenges. Freeman used the term “articulation” to characterize the ways teachers use the

Discourse of the teacher education program to rename their experiences and to assign new

meanings to their teaching practice. Novices with the teacher educators engaged in articulation

400 times across the data set (e.g., “This happened because…” I think when you…”). Novices’

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moves to articulate their thinking occurred more than any other move across the 41 Peer

Teaching feedback discussions (see Table 4.4). Articulation in learning the professional

Discourse emphasizes the manner in which novices draw on the professional Discourse to

express their thinking. In articulation, novices became members of the same community who

value the same principles and practices of teaching. In the Peer Teaching feedback discussions,

articulation helped to build collective understanding of the professional Discourse. It also

enabled teacher educators to assess the emergent understandings of the novices, and to

ascertain if novices’ thinking resembled or diverged from that of the profession. This suggests

that teacher educators could help novices to engage in articulation by establishing a professional

Discourse through which novices could rename and reconstruct their practice (Freeman, 1993).

Using the Professional Discourse to Envision Alternatives

The novice teachers also developed professional vision in the simulations by using the

professional Discourse to envision alternatives to the teaching challenges. The findings indicated

that the move to envision alternatives occurred 240 times across the data set (e.g., “I would

have…” “In a 4th grade class you’ll need to…”). Envisioning alternatives provided an opportunity

for the novices with the teacher educators to use the professional Discourse to manage

challenges. For instance, in Nina’s Engage feedback discussion described earlier, the challenge

Nina identified had to do with responding to students’ misconceptions in the Engage phase.

Novices were able to leverage the shared practices and principles of the professional Discourse

to consider ways they could elicit, and not correct, students’ misconceptions in elementary

classrooms. The mechanism of envisioning alternatives indicates that novices were able to use

what was valued in their profession to make sense of the same challenges teachers face in

elementary classrooms.

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Implications for Developing Professional Vision in Interacting Contexts

A final implication of this study for the design of practice-based opportunities is the

concept of interacting activity systems. Earlier, I highlighted the competing demands that

novices faced in terms of the object (motive), roles, and tools of the Peer Teaching and teacher

education program activity systems. In this section, I discuss the ways the interacting contexts

could facilitate the object, tools, and roles of the professional Discourse. In doing so, I want to

highlight an important implication for teacher educators—the objects, tools, and roles cannot

be emphasized in just one activity system, like the Peer Teaching. Rather, the objects, tools, and

roles must be used across the network of interacting activity systems.

Teacher educators may want to consider ways the teacher education program could

develop shared tools, such as language, to emphasize a shared object (motive). In this study, the

object was developing professional vision—learning the practices and principles valued in the

profession (professional Discourse) by identifying challenges, articulating thinking, and

envisioning alternatives. The findings indicated the teacher education program used shared tools

to establish the same teaching practices and principles across the novices’ methods courses. For

instance, two instructors in the program articulated a list of “Principles of High Quality

Teaching and Principles for Learning to Teach” (Scott & Lewis, 2008) to inform methods course

instruction and syllabi. These documents contributed to shared principles and practices of

teaching (e.g., “Children are sensemakers”). These documents also made explicit the ways in

which people learn to teach. For instance, “Teaching is something that can be learned. Learning

to do something requires repeated opportunities to practice. There is value in making teaching

public” (e.g., Lampert, Ghousseini, & Beasley, 2010). As a research assistant to the instructors

of the novices’ first methods course in the program, I was able to observe how the norms and

133
teaching practices of engaging with students as sensemakers were established. For instance, I

saw that the instructional goals for novices’ learning on day two of their mathematics methods

course in a local summer school focused on “eliciting students’ ideas and thinking around how

they are using mathematics strategies” (field notes, July 6, 2011). Here, the novices were able to

take on a new identity-kit via the values of the professional Discourse.

Developing feedback protocols is another way teacher educators can help novices

develop a shared understanding about how to learn the professional Discourse. In particular,

the protocols could serve as tools to help novices investigate (rather than evaluate) their peers’

instruction (see Figure 6.3). Moreover, protocols could focus novices’ attention on student

learning rather than topics of general pedagogy. Other research has documented the benefits of

teachers using protocols to offer feedback (e.g., Curry, 2008). The sentence frames in the

protocol direct novices to question their instruction and their peer’s instruction and to remain

focused on how student thinking might be impacted by the lesson.

Likewise, feedback forms, like the EEE Framework form, could be used across a teacher

education program to outline the work of teaching and to establish a professional Discourse. A

framework for organizing the practices and principles of teaching might also support novices in

using the Professional Discourse (rather than their apprenticeship of observation) to articulate

their thinking (e.g., Freeman, 1993). In addition, feedback forms might direct novices to record

evidence of the instruction, in the form of observed teaching practices and principles, rather

than evaluating (complimenting) the instruction.

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 Protocol for discussing instruction and offering feedback: Use examples
from the lesson as evidence to support your claims.
If you were a "teacher":
• “I struggled to know how to support students’ learning when X happened in the
lesson…”
• “When the “student” said X in the lesson, I struggled to know how to respond to
his/her ideas…”
• “I think the way I did X could confuse students' learning of those concepts…”
If you were a “student”:
• “I was confused by when you did/said X… I wonder how elementary students
would respond to X in the classroom.”
• “I think elementary students could be confused by X in the lesson…”
• I was wondering about the X decision you made in the lesson…?

Figure 6.3 Protocol for discussing instruction and identifying problems of practice

Finally, teacher educators may want to leverage roles to help novices acquire a

professional Discourse across the interacting contexts. The findings of this study suggest the

use of the “teacher” and “student” roles in simulations were emphasized across the teacher

education program. For instance, in the novices’ first math methods course in the teacher

education program, they engaged in rehearsals before teaching children in summer school (field

notes, July 6, 2011). The multiple opportunities to engage in role-plays may explain why the

novices acknowledged their value. For instance in Priti’s Explain feedback discussion, Sam

explained that he wanted his responses to her lesson to resemble that of a fourth grader, “I

wanted to be authentic of a kid really trying to grasp the concept …I think that we should try

to get as much out of these, you know role-play scenarios, where it’s like not over the top, but

trying to be aware of real fourth graders.” The science methods course occurred during the

novices’ third semester in the program, so they may have recognized the benefits of the roles in

supporting their learning and teaching. Or, they may have come to accept the (albeit awkward)

usefulness of the roles after hearing instructors throughout the program emphasize its value

135
(e.g., Lampert et al., 2013). Activity Theory suggests that the social pressures of feeling silly

acting as a “teacher” or “student” in a simulation with one’s peer could generate a

contradiction in which the novice does not fully engage in the role-play (see also, Grossman,

Compton, et al., 2009). This emphasizes the importance of providing multiple opportunities for

novices to engage in the roles and to experience the benefits across the teacher education

program.

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 Limitations

There are a few limitations to this study that are important to consider. First, this study

cannot make claims about the long-term effects of the teaching simulations on developing

novices’ professional vision. However, the findings that suggest novice teachers were able to

engage in and investigate authentic problems of practice in the teaching simulations underscores

the value of these settings.

Second, the scope of the study was limited, and like many other studies in teacher

education, it examined a small number of novice teachers working in a single methods course

over a short period. However, studying the small groups enabled an in-depth examination of

the ways in which they grappled with the complexities of learning to teach science and the

social factors that shaped the process. As such, the results of this study provide powerful

insights into the phenomenon of noticing for teaching as situated within a larger teacher

education framework.

A third possible limitation of this study pertains to my particular approach to discourse

analysis. I had not intended to closely examine how participants used language to develop

professional vision and thus did not address the ways in which particular individuals’ use of the

language became more sophisticated over time. However, I did examine how the Peer Teaching

teams’ language reflected aspects of the professional Discourse (e.g., particular topics related to

science concepts, student thinking, and scientific practices). Moreover, I examined how the

members of the teams analyzed teaching and learning via the professional Discourse or prior

experiences (the process of articulation). Despite these and other limitations, this work offers

valuable insights into novice teacher learning.

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 Directions for Future Research

This study extends prior research, but additional questions remain. Here, I return to the

concepts described earlier for understanding the mechanisms of developing professional vision

for teaching in simulations of practice. One area for research focuses on the tools that

embodied the professional Discourse: How do the tools help to establish the professional

Discourse? How can teacher educators and novices use the tools to represent, decompose,

and approximate teaching and learning? In addition, how do the tools help novices adopt roles

and provisional identities where they can observe, experiment with, and receive feedback on

teaching science in ambitious ways (Ronfeldt & Grossman, 2008)? Finally, how do the

documented student misconceptions direct novices’ attention to student thinking? In

professional development settings, how might student artifacts, as tools of the professional

Discourse, support practicing teachers in developing a professional Discourse?

Another area for further study concerns novices’ use of the tools across the various

interacting contexts. Specifically, do they continue to use the tools that embody the

professional Discourse (e.g., EEE Framework) in elementary classroom settings, and if so, how?

Moreover, how can the tools serve as boundary objects (Engeström et al., 2002; Gutierrez,

Baquedano-López, & Tejeda, 1999) to scaffold novices’ learning across multiple settings and into

their first years of teaching? Relatedly, how do novice teachers identify, investigate, and envision

alternatives to challenges of science teaching and student learning in elementary classrooms?

Then, how do novices use their professional vision for practice to improve their teaching

practice?

Given the ways in which the object (motive) of the teacher education program shapes

the object (motive) of the Peer Teaching lessons, one ripe area for research concerns how a

shared object develops across a program, and what tools, norms and roles could be used to

138
mediate the process. A number of researchers are trying to develop and study a set of high-

leverage practices that could support teacher learning across teacher education program

contexts (Kazemi, Franke, & Lampert, 2009). These are but a few examples of areas for future

research that could grow out of the outcomes of this study. The possibilities for future

research into using interactive simulations of practice to develop professional vision for practice

are numerous and will hopefully shape preservice and in-service teacher learning.

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 APPENDICES

Appendix A. EEE Framework for Science Teaching and Learning

EEE Framework for Science Teaching and Learning

Students Likely dimensions Relevant science teaching practices
may… of the lesson Teachers may….
phase
• Establish an Pose or co-craft a question or problem for
investigation investigation. This question/problem should
Engage question/problem establish a meaningful purpose for experiencing the
with an scientific phenomenon, and it should generate
investigation interest and curiosity among students.
question • Share initial ideas Elicit students’ initial claims (or models) to answer
about the the problem/question. Encourage students to draw
question/problem upon their prior knowledge and experiences.
• Establish data Support students in setting up one or more
collection for investigations that allow them to gather data that
answering the they can use as evidence to answer the
investigation question/problem. With varying degrees of
question/problem guidance, have students...
• Determine what data will be gathered and how
and why it will be collected and recorded
• Make reasoned predictions about the outcome
of the investigation.
Experience • Carry out the Support students in systematically collecting and
the scientific investigation recording data (e.g., making scientific observations,
phenomenon making systematic measurements) to generate
to generate evidence to answer the investigation
evidence to question/problem.
answer the This includes…
investigation • Observing and listening to students as they
question interact
• Asking questions to help students begin to make
sense of what their data mean, rather than
“telling” students the answer.
• Redirecting students’ investigations to be more
systematic, precise, and objective when
necessary
• Managing the distribution and collection of
materials
• Facilitating productive small group work

140
 • Identify patterns Support students in making sense of the data so
and trends in the that they can generate claims with evidence. This
data for includes …
answering the • Compiling class data, and if relevant,
investigation organize/represent the data in meaningful ways
question/problem (e.g., in tables or graphs).
• Directing students to particular aspects of the
data to help them identify and make meaning of
patterns or trends in the data.
• Helping students select appropriate and
sufficient data to use as evidence to support
claims.
• Generate scientific Facilitate a discussion that enables students to
claims with answer the investigation question by using the data
evidence and to generate evidence-based claims.
reasoning Provide students with scaffolds, such as “I think
____(claim) because I observed _____ (evidence)”
or "What I know: ____ (claim). How I know it:
Explain _____ (evidence)."
with evidence Provide opportunities for students to share their
explanations with others, including peers, parents,
etc. Help students…
• Revisit their initial ideas about the investigation
question, expanding upon or developing new
evidence-based claims
• Compare their own explanations with
explanations reflecting scientific understanding,
given via direct instruction, textbooks, models,
etc. This includes introducing new terms to
students, as appropriate.
• Question one another about their explanations.
• Apply knowledge Support students in applying their knowledge to
to new problems new learning tasks. For example,
and questions • Ask students “what would happen if…” to think
through and explain their understanding of
science concepts, and/or give a concrete new
scenario that requires application of the new
knowledge

141
Appendix B. EEE Framework Rubric

EEE Framework for Science Teaching and Learning Rubric

Intern teaching: Date: __________________

Observer:
Science Lesson:

Engage with an investigation question

Likely dimensions of Proficient Developing Missed Opportunity
the lesson phase Performance Performance Performance
Establish an • Begins the lesson by • Begins the lesson • Begins the lesson without
investigation posing or co-crafting with a question or posing or co-crafting a
question/problem a question or problem that question or problem for
problem for minimally establishes investigation.
investigation. a meaningful purpose • Begins the lesson without
• Establishes a for upcoming establishing a meaningful
meaningful purpose activities or is purpose for upcoming
for upcoming confusing. activities.
activities and
generates interest
and curiosity among
students.
Share initial ideas • Elicits students’ • Elicits students’ • Does not elicit students’
about the initial explanations initial explanations ideas.
question/problem (or models) to the (or models) to the
problem/question. problem/question
• Encourages students without probing
to draw upon their deeper into
prior knowledge and students’ prior
experiences. knowledge or
• Asks probing reasoning.
questions to
encourage students
to explain their
reasoning.
Specific examples, language, or moves the teacher used to support the students in engaging with an investigation
question:

What is one move in need of revision? How would you revise it?

142
1. What feedback did you receive during the peer teaching?

2. What did you learn about science teaching from this peer teaching activity?

3. What would you do differently if you were to teach this lesson again?

4. Any additional thoughts about today’s peer teaching activity?

143
Appendix C. EEE Framework Feedback Form

EEE Framework for Science Teaching and Learning Feedback Form

Intern teaching: Date: __________________

Engage with an investigation question

Likely dimensions Relevant teaching practices
of the lesson Proficient Performance Developing Performance Missed Opportunity
phase Performance
Establish an • Begins the lesson by • Begins the lesson • Begins the lesson
investigation posing or co-crafting a with a question or without posing or
question/ question or problem for problem that co-crafting a
problem investigation. minimally question or
• Establishes a meaningful establishes a problem for
purpose for upcoming meaningful investigation.
activities and generates purpose for • Begins the lesson
interest and curiosity upcoming without
among Ss. activities or is establishing a
confusing. meaningful
purpose for
upcoming
activities.
Share initial • Elicits Ss’ initial • Elicits Ss’ initial • Does not elicit
ideas about explanations (or explanations (or Ss’ ideas.
the question/ models) to the models) to the
problem problem/question. problem/question
• Encourages Ss to draw without probing
upon their prior deeper into Ss’
knowledge and prior knowledge
experiences. or reasoning.
• Asks probing questions
to encourage Ss to
explain their reasoning.

144
 Observations from Lesson Inferences
- specific examples, language, or moves the - How did the teacher support the
teacher used to help students establish an students in establishing an investigation
investigation question and share initial question/problem?
ideas about the question/ problem. - How did the teacher elicit students’ initial
explanations to the problem/question
based on their prior knowledge and
experiences?

What is one move in need of revision? How would you revise it?

145
 Experience the scientific phenomenon to generate evidence to answer the
investigation question
Relevant teaching practices
Likely dimensions Proficient Performance Developing Performance Missed Opportunity
of the lesson Performance
phase
Establish data Support Ss in setting up one or more - Supports Ss in setting up one - Does not
collection for investigations that allow them to gather or more investigations, but provide an
answering the data that they can use as evidence to the investigations may not opportunity
investigation answer the IQ question/problem. With allow for the collection of for Ss to
question/ varying degrees of guidance, have Ss... sufficient or accurate collect and
problem - Determine what data will be evidence about the record data.
gathered and how and why it will phenomenon. - Does not
be collected and recorded - Tells Ss the procedure for provide an
- Make reasoned predictions about what data will be gathered opportunity
the outcome of the investigation. and how it will be collected for Ss to make
and recorded without a reasoned
discussion that helps Ss predictions
understand the underlying about the
rationale. outcome of
- Helps Ss make predictions, the
but without eliciting reasons investigation.
for their predictions.
Carry out the - Supports Ss in systematically - “Tells” Ss the answer to the - Does not
investigation collecting and recording data investigation. provide an
(making scientific observations & - As Ss interact, focuses mainly opportunity
systematic measurements) to on procedural or behavioral for Ss to carry
answer the IQ. issues. out an
- Observes and listens to Ss as they - Asks questions not likely to investigation.
interact. help Ss begin to make sense
- Asks Ss questions to help them of what their data mean.
begin to make sense of their data - Neglects Ss’ work in
rather than “telling” Ss the answer. conducting the investigation.
- Redirects Ss’ investigations to be - Haphazardly distributes and
more systematic, precise, and collects materials.
objective when necessary. - Struggles to keep small
- Manages the distribution and groups productive.
collection of materials well.
- Facilitates productive small group
work.

146
 Observations from Lesson Inferences
- specific examples, language, or moves the teacher used to help • How did the teacher support the students in
students establish data collection and carry out the investigation setting up an investigation to gather data that they
can use as evidence to answer the
question/problem?
• How did the teacher support the students in
carrying out the investigation?
• How did the teacher support the students in
systematically collecting and recording their
observations?

What is one move in need of revision? How would you revise it?

147
 Explain with Evidence
Relevant teaching practices
Likely dimensions Proficient Performance Developing Performance Missed Opportunity
of the lesson Performance
phase
Identify Support students in making sense of the data - Facilitates a discussion that - Tells students
patterns and so that they can generate claims with provides a limited what their data
trends in the evidence. This includes helping students: opportunity for students to mean without
data for - Compile class data, and if relevant, use the data as evidence to providing them
organize/represent the data in answer the original with an
answering the
meaningful ways (e.g., in graphs, tables). question/problem. opportunity to
investigation - Attend to particular aspects of the data - May not provide an make sense of the
question/ to help them identify and make meaning opportunity for students to data.
problem of patterns or trends in the data. compile class data, or data - Tells students
- Select appropriate and sufficient data to compilation is confusing or how their data
use as evidence to support claims. unorganized. answers the
- May not provide an original
opportunity for students to question/problem
identify and make meaning of without providing
patterns or trends in the data. them with an
opportunity to
use the data to
make sense of the
original
question/problem
.

Generate Facilitate a discussion that enables students - Provides a limited - Does not elicit
scientific to answer the investigation question by using opportunity for students to students’ claims
claims with the data to generate evidence-based claims share their explanations with evidence
evidence and with scaffolds such as “I think ____(claim) with others. (e.g. Students about the
because I observed _____ (evidence).” may only share their phenomenon.
reasoning
Provide opportunities for students to share explanations with the - Does not
their explanations with others. Help teacher.) provide
students… - Elicits students’ claims but opportunity for
- Revisit their initial ideas about the does not encourage them students to
investigation question, expanding upon to support their claims share their
or developing new evidence-based with evidence. explanations
claims. with others.
- Compare their own explanations with
explanations reflecting scientific
understanding, given via direct
instruction, textbooks, models, etc.
This includes introducing new terms to
students, as appropriate.
- Question one another about their
explanations.
- Support students in applying their - Asks questions that focus on - Does not provide
Apply knowledge to new learning tasks. re-stating, "what was an opportunity
knowledge to - Ask students, “What would happen learned," rather than for students to
new problems/ if…?” to think through and explain their questions that ask for an apply their
understanding of science concepts. application of knowledge. knowledge to
questions
new learning
tasks.

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 Observations from Lesson Inferences
- specific examples, language, or moves the teacher • How did the teacher support students in making
used to help students identify patterns and trends sense of the data so that they could generate
in the data and then use the patterns/trends to evidence-based claims to answer the IQ?
generate claims with evidence (and reasoning, if • How did the teacher provide opportunities for
relevant). students to share their explanations with others?
• How did the teacher support students in applying
their knowledge?

What is one move in need of revision? How would you revise it?

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Appendix D. Peer Teaching Memo

Reflection Memo on Peer Teaching Explain Lesson

Due by Sunday night, January 29, posted to your dropbox in CTools

After you’ve taught your Explain peer teaching lesson, reflect on your lesson enactment and the feedback you received from
your colleagues and the teacher educator. Upload your video to the ED528 hard drive on Friday or Monday.

Answer the following questions in your written reflection:

Instructional Learning Goals

1.) Briefly explain your learning goals (content and scientific practices) for this lesson and how your lesson was deliberately
designed to address those goals. Did your “students” meet your learning goals in the Explain lesson?

Explain Teaching Practices and Enactment

2.) How well did your enactment go with regard to supporting students in making sense of the data (identifying
patterns/trends) so that they could generate evidence-based claims to answer the investigation question? What went well?
What didn’t go well?

• Provide evidence from the video enactment (indicate the timestamp(s) from your video) to support your discussion (of
either strengths or missed opportunities).

3.) How well did your enactment go with regard to supporting and responding to students in constructing adequate claims
with sufficient evidence? What went well? What didn’t go well?

• Provide evidence from the video enactment (indicate the timestamp(s) from your video) to support your discussion (of
either strengths or missed opportunities).
• Did you have an opportunity to support students in applying their knowledge to new problems/ questions?

Explain Peer Teaching Enactment and Feedback

4.) What do you think you will take away from the opportunity to peer teach the Explain lesson? Why?
5.) What do you think you will take away from the feedback you received during the Explain lesson? Why?
(d)
• Did you meet, exceed, or fall short of your own expectations for yourself, including the teaching goal(s) you were focusing
on?

• Be specific about what you would do differently or try in the next lesson. For example, what specific questions would you
ask? What language would you use? Get to the details to make it do-able, not just talk-able.

EEE Peer Teaching Enactments and Feedback

6.) What do you think you will take away from the three opportunities to peer teach the Engage, Experience, and Explain
lessons? Why?
7.) What do you think you will take away from the feedback you received during the Engage, Experience, and Explain lessons?
Why?

A word on format and style

• This is intended to be a memo. You may respond to each of the questions above separately. In fact, I’d urge you to focus
on preparing thoughtful responses within 2 pages single-spaced rather than making it a ‘school paper’ with introductions,
transitions, conclusions etc. Please be clear which question you are responding to. Care and accuracy with spelling, word
choice, grammar, format etc. are important and will be taken into account as I read your memo.

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Appendix E. Survey Questions
Science Teaching Survey

1. How confident are you in your knowledge of science compared to the beginning of the
course?

a. Not confident at all

b. Not quite confident
c. Unsure
d. Confident
e. Very confident

2. How confident are you in your ability to effectively teach elementary science?

a. Not confident at all

b. Not quite confident
c. Unsure
d. Confident
e. Very confident

3. If you had to choose one word to describe how you feel about teaching elementary science,
it would be:

4. What remaining concerns, if any, do you have about teaching elementary science?

5. What did taking on a student role in the peer teaching lessons help you learn or improve?

6. Based on the course experiences, I feel well prepared with regard to….

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Appendix F. Interview Questions

Interview Questions

Purpose of interview: First, I’d like to thank you for agreeing to participate in this study!
Obviously, there are no right or wrong answers for any of the questions we will talk about; we are just
interested in hearing your views. What you share during the discussion will not affect your grade in the
science methods course in any way. These interviews will only be available to your instructor after the
course has finished. I would like to interview you again (1) after the “Experience” peer teaching, (2) after
the “Explain” peer teaching, (3) and again after your Reflective Teaching lesson. If at any point you
decide you no longer wish to participate in this study, please let us know—you always have the option
to opt out.

Tape recording: I am going to audiotape the interview, because I am interested in your ideas and
want to be sure that I have a good record of everything you say.

Do you have any questions before we get started with the interview questions?

A little bit about the structure of the interview: I’ll start off by asking you some general questions about
yourself and your field placement, as well as your experiences, if any, with teaching science up until now.
Then I’ll ask some more specific questions that are targeted toward helping me understand your
experiences with the peer teaching lessons, the feedback that you received during the peer teaching, and
the feedback you offered your colleagues.

Purpose of Question Question Notes

Background Questions to ask • Tell me your name, your major & minor in the
during the first interview. School of Education, and a little bit about your field
placement (which grade, which school, are you
Establishing a background for seeing science being taught, how often?)
use, teaching, & science • Before starting the ELMAC program, what sorts of
experiences teaching experiences did you have?
• Have you had opportunities to teach science
before? If so, can you describe those for me?
o What do you like most about science?

What interns specifically attend 1. Tell me about your peer teaching lesson today.
to in recounting their lesson. a. What did you do in your lesson?
b. What do you think you did well? What
could you have revised?
c. Interviews 2-4: How did the feedback from
previous peer teaching lessons influence
your lesson today?

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Specific feedback the interns 2. What feedback did you receive from the teacher
noticed that they received educator in your group?
during & following the a. When was this feedback offered? (i.e., in
approximation. the middle or following the approximation)
b. Which feedback stood out to you? Why?
How interns are making sense Reactions to it? How did it feel? Helpful?
of the specific feedback. Not helpful
3. What feedback did you receive from the other
interns in your group?
a. Which feedback stood out to you? Why?
Reactions to it? How did it feel? Helpful?
Not helpful?

Feedback the interns offered 4. Let’s talk about your colleagues’ peer teaching
during the approximation, and lessons. What feedback did you offer your
what influences the feedback colleagues?
they offer. a. Why do you think you noticed that?
4b elicits info about why they b. Did you notice anything else, but didn’t
may not have offered certain bring it up? Why?
feedback--social pressures;
didn’t feel comfortable offering
critical feedback, etc.

Knowledge of student a. What do you think you will take away from the
understanding, curriculum, experience you had today in terms of the peer
instructional strategies, teaching? Why?
purposes of teaching b. What do you think you will take away from the
experience you had today in terms of the feedback?
Why?
c. Can you think of an instance of when you might
use it (the takeaway)?

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Appendix G. EDUC 528 Syllabus
Teaching Elementary Science
Education 528 Winter 2012
Course Information
Instructor: Mandy Benedict-Chambers
Office: 1228M SEB (inside Teacher Ed
suite)
Mailbox: Teacher Education Suite
Phone:
Email: [email protected]
Classroom: 2241 SEB
Office hours: Easily arranged by email

Course Objectives and Organization10

In Elementary Science Methods, we will build on current research and best practice to prepare
you to foster science learning in elementary school students. Our main goals are for you to:
• describe the four strands of science learning—understanding scientific explanations
(content), generating scientific evidence (through scientific practice), reflecting on
scientific knowledge (and the nature of science), and participating productively in science
• incorporate the four strands of science learning into effective elementary science
teaching to support students as they engage, experience, and explain with evidence
• identify and enact instructional strategies that make science accessible to all students,
including through connecting it to their lives
• learn how to prepare, teach, and analytically reflect on elementary school science
investigation lessons

Throughout the course, we will work on the goals listed above. We'll read relevant chapters
and articles that can help us unpack the ideas related to these, and we'll also use other records
of practice (video, student work, etc.) to help bring some of the ideas to life. In each class, we'll
be working on some key teaching practices, and you'll be practicing those practices in our
ED528 class, in the field, or both. By the end of the course, you should feel better prepared to
put the pieces together to teach science effectively as a beginning teacher.
We've structured the class to allow for a focus on the elements of science lessons. Many
science lessons can be broken down into three basic phases: engage, experience, and explain with
evidence. Sometimes, these phases will span across a unit, rather than a lesson. We'll work

10
This syllabus has been adapted from Dr. Betsy Davis’s EDUC 421 syllabus

154
through different teaching strategies associated with each phase, focusing on using investigations
to help students learn science content and scientific practices.
What are possible ways to engage, experience, and explain with evidence in science lessons?
Watch for these elements when you observe science teaching. For example, you might see a
teacher use a KWL or journal writing to engage students by eliciting their ideas at the beginning
of a lesson, and/or the teacher might review previous lessons. For the experience phase, a
teacher might provide students multiple opportunities to interact with scientific phenomena and
concepts. For example, the teacher could have students conduct an investigation, supporting
them in collecting and recording data systematically. S/he might also have students read a text,
watch a video, or conduct research using the Web. In the explain with evidence phase of a
lesson, the teacher might have students look for patterns in data, make claims based on
evidence, construct a consensus model, or all of the above. Some of these approaches might, in
turn, serve as formal or informal assessments.

Course Reading Materials

Required Readings and Other Course Expenditures
Michaels, S., Shouse, A., & Schweingruber, H. (2007). Ready, set, science! Putting research to work
in K-8 science classrooms. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Ready, Set, Science! (abbreviated in the syllabus as RSS!) presents the most up-to-date
discussion of reform-oriented science teaching. The book focuses on how you can
incorporate scientific practices, such as scientific inquiry, into your elementary science
teaching. Written for practitioners, it includes lots of nice descriptions of effective
science teaching at the elementary level. You can purchase Ready, Set, Science! at Ulrich's
or online at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bose/TSS_RSS_FAQ.html.
The other required readings are provided on CTools under "Resources" and within the
"Weekly Resources" folder, by week.
In addition to the required readings, you should expect to need to spend no more than $25 to
cover expenses associated with your science teaching in your elementary classroom.

Additional Resources
You may find some of the following books to be useful, as well. At least portions of these
books are available online. Each is linked from the CTools site and from the CASES Resources
page.
American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1993). Benchmarks for Science Literacy. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Benchmarks "specifies how students should progress toward science literacy,
recommending what they should know and be able to do by the time they reach certain
grade levels" (AAAS, p. xi). The Benchmarks are available at
http://project2061.aaas.org/tools/benchol/bolintro.html. You may want to purchase this
book if you are a science major; the URL is
http://project2061.aaas.org/tools/bsl/index.html

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American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). (2001). Atlas of science literacy.
Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The Atlas provides a concept map view of the Benchmarks described above,
demonstrating how the different concepts are interconnected. Some of the Atlas' maps
are available on-line at http://www.project2061.org/tools/atlas/sample/toc.htm. You may
want to purchase this book if you are a science major; the URL is
http://www.project2061.org/tools/atlas/default.htm
National Research Council (NRC). (1996). National Science Education Standards (NSES). Washington,
DC: National Research Council.
National Science Education Standards are another set of national standards for science
teaching; though many states have their own standards or frameworks, they are
generally in line with the NSES. They are available on-line at
http://books.nap.edu/html/nses/html/index.html . Please note that the Next Generation
Science Standards are being developed and will replace the NSES soon (see
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13165)

National Research Council (NRC). (2000). Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards.
Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
This book builds on the NSES and discusses specific ways of incorporating inquiry into
your science teaching. See http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9596.
Michigan Department of Education. Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations.
The Michigan Department of Education has developed a set of standards for teaching
science in Michigan. These science standards can be found in the Michigan Grade Level
Content Expectations (GLCEs), available at
www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/Item_C_194161_7.pdf .
CASES
The CASES learning environment is available at: http://cases.soe.umich.edu. CASES is a
learning environment we developed to help preservice and new teachers like you as
they learn to teach inquiry-oriented science. CASES includes links to many useful
science teaching resources, including some inquiry-oriented science units. The project is
funded by the National Science Foundation.

Course Requirements and Grading

The percentages listed here are approximate, but will give you a sense of the relative weight of
each assignment. Expectations for these assignments will be discussed in more detail in class,
and detailed assignment sheets will be provided. All written work, unless otherwise specified, is
due by the start of class on the due-date, and should be uploaded to your drop-box on the
ED528 CTools site.

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Class Attendance and Participation, including Teaching Journal (30%)
"Attendance" means being in class on time and staying till the end. If you must miss class, send
an email in advance to your instructor explaining the situation. In keeping with ongoing
discussions in the School of Education, three absences—excused or unexcused—will constitute
failure of the course. "Participation" means that you need to be in the habit of speaking up and
being engaged in whole class and small group discussions and activities, including online
opportunities.
You will also be keeping a science teaching journal where you will record your reactions to the
readings and responses to the guiding reading questions, as well as notes from the peer teaching
lessons. I will collect the teaching journals once near the end of the course.
Peer Teaching in ED528 (three times) (10%, 15%, 15% or 40% total)
Each peer teacher will have a chance to lead their peer “students” through each of the
following three phases of a science lesson: engage with an investigation question, experience the
scientific phenomenon associated with the investigation, and explain the phenomenon with evidence
to his/her peer teaching team. We will refer to the three phases of science teaching as the “EEE
framework for science teaching”.
After each peer teaching lesson, you will submit a short memo where you review your peer
teaching lesson video and reflect on your enactment and on the feedback you received to figure
out changes to make for the future.
Reflective Teaching Assignment (30%)
You will teach a full science lesson in your practicum classroom. For the reflective teaching
(RT) assignment, you will develop a science lesson plan using existing science lessons and other
curricular resources, analyze the lesson plan using analysis criteria, teach the lesson to children,
reflect on your teaching using your video record, and analyze some student work. You will also
have an opportunity to observe a colleague’s RT lesson and to review it using the EEE rubric.

Class Policies and Additional Information

Contacting Me
Email is the best way to reach me. You may also call me, come to my office, or leave something
in my mailbox in the Teacher Education Suite.
Making up a missed class:
To make up a class that is missed, you will need to do the following. Prepare a short memo in
which A) you summarize the main topic(s) of the session; B) you capture 2 to 4 key points
about the topic(s); and C) you list any specific questions you have about the content and how
you will get answers to them (e.g. talk to a classmate, reread the readings, ask me, etc). To do
this memo, I expect you do the reading and assignment for the session (this gets at the basic
content), then talk to classmates about what you missed (this gets at the process and deepens
the content). The memo length is 700 words. Given the intensity of the course, make-up work
is due within two days of your absence or before the next class (whichever is longer) in your
dropbox on CTools.

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e-Etiquette (laptops & cell phones) in class:
Electronics (laptops, cell phones) present a real dilemma in class. Used appropriately, laptops
can clearly support what is going on—taking notes, accessing and tracking down information,
etc. Used otherwise, they can quickly become distracting both for you and for others around
you. And popular notions of multi-tasking as efficient notwithstanding (which brain research is
now debunking), using electronics while trying to do other things can and does get in the way
of productive interaction. For this reason, we ask the following norm: That cell phones are off
and away and laptops stowed while the seminar is in session. During the times that you may
want to take notes, we will flag the use of laptops for that period. But otherwise, electronics
are not needed.

Grading and Late Work

If you cannot complete an assignment on time, please contact me by email and request an
extension. Typically I will give an extension of one week; after that, the work will be counted as
late and your grade will be affected.
You may request a re-grade on any assignment. The request must be made via email and you
must turn in the revision within one week of the assignment being handed back.
Readings
You are expected to do all the reading in advance of class. Our work in class depends on it.
Written Assignments
For turning in your written assignments, you will use the drop box area in the CTools site.
Accommodations
Please talk with me if you require accommodations due to religious practices, learning
disabilities, physical requirements, medical needs, or any other reasons. We will work together
to identify resources and make accommodations. As adults, we all have needs and a broad
range of responsibilities—it’s your job to speak up and talk with me if you need an
accommodation of any sort.
Questions, Comments, or Concerns
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the class, please do not hesitate to
contact me! I am looking forward to working with you throughout the course!

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Summary of Assignment Due Dates (see syllabus and handouts for more complete explanations)
Session Today's In-Class Topic Readings for Today Assignments due Today Peer teaching today…
& Date
(1) Our visions of science teaching
Tues Introducing the EEE framework
1/3
1-4
(2) Engage: What should be taught RSS! Skim chapters 1 & 4
Wed and learned in elementary Skim the six cases: Pages 9, 11, 22, 66, 72, 79
1/4 science? Science education Read chapter 2
9-12 standards, scientific practices,
scientific vocabulary, and EEE Guiding reading question:
framework How do the RSS! Chapters 1, 2, & 4 support, extend, and
challenge your thinking about science learners and science
teaching? Jot down some examples from the reading and
from your experiences in your!science teaching journal.
(3) Engage: Students’ ideas in science Watson & Konicek
Thurs and sharing initial ideas about the Benchmarks Chapter 15
1/5 question/problem MSTA Misconceptions
1-4
Experience: Investigations as Guiding reading question:
learning activities Part I As teachers, why do you think it’s important to anticipate,
(Establishing data collection for elicit, and facilitate students’ ideas in science? In what
answering the investigation ways might you do these?
question)

(4) Experience: Investigations as RSS! Chapter 6 & 7

Fri learning activities Part II
1/6 (Carrying out the investigation, Guiding reading question:
9-12 fostering students’ sense-making What struck you about the advantages and challenges in
PM with data) using models, representations, and investigations to
promote students' learning of science? As teachers, how
might you address some of the challenges?

Session Today's In-Class Topic Readings for Today Assignments due Today Peer teaching today…
& Date
(5) Co-planning for Engage peer Read the Motion or Ecosystems peer teaching lesson plan Prepare for Engage peer
Mon teaching lesson & students’ alternative ideas teach
1/9 Review the EEE phases in your lesson
9-12
(6) Engage peer teaching Skim the other peer teaching unit and students’ Peer teaching lesson plan Engage peer teach: Establish
Tues alternative ideas purpose through question or
1/10 problem; share initial ideas
9-12

159
(7) Explain with evidence: Closing an Abell et al. Peer teaching reflection due by
Thurs investigation lesson Part I McNeill & Krajcik: ch. 1; excerpts ch. 2 Sat., 1/ 14
1/12 (Identify patterns and trends in (pp. 18-25; p. 30)
9-12 the data for answering the
investigation question) Guiding reading question:
Why is it important to use a sensemaking "Explain with
Evidence" discussion to conclude an investigation? How
do the elements of a sensemaking discussion
(argumentation and explanations) advance students'
thinking?
(8) Assessment: Constructed McMillan chaps. 8 & 9 Prepare for Experience peer
Tues response as a form of assessment teach
1/17 in science Guiding reading question:
1-4 (Assessing students’ scientific What types of assessments are used in your classroom
explanations—claims, evidence, around learning science? Based on the McMillan
and reasoning) chapters, describe two kinds of assessments you will
likely use in your science instruction to assess students'
Co-planning for Experience peer learning, explain why you will use them, and give specific
teaching examples of when you could utilize them.
(9) Experience peer teaching Peer Teaching lesson plan Experience peer teach:
Wed Establish data collection;
1/18 carry out investigation to
9-12 support sensemaking

(10) Co-planning for Explain peer RSS! Chapter 3 & chapter 5 Peer teaching reflection due by Prepare for Explain with
Thurs teaching Guiding reading question: Saturday night, 1/21. Evidence peer teach
1/19 What struck you about the advantages and challenges in
9-12 Explain with evidence: Closing an teaching for conceptual change and encouraging talk and
investigation lesson II argument in your classroom? As teachers, how might
(Generating scientific claims with you address some of the challenges?
evidence and reasoning)
(11) Explain with Evidence peer (e) Peer teaching lesson plan Explain with Evidence peer
Thurs teaching Peer teaching reflection due by teach: Revisit question;
1/26 Sunday night, 1/29 identify patterns and trends,
9-12 support claims with evidence;
apply knowledge
(12) Putting it all together: Final Review the two lesson plans through a EEE lens The Reflective Teaching
Thurs synthesis and reflections on assignment with peer
2/2 course observation is due by Sunday
9-12 2/19

160
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