What are the foundational ideas and dispositions in teaching
We believe that there are foundational ideas and dispositions that are
unique to the profession of teaching—in particular teaching directed
towards equal and excellent outcomes for all students. Each of these
foundational ideas reflects a contemporary characterization of the
dynamic and reciprocal relationship that exists between theory and
practice. Thus, content, pedagogy, educational theory and its practical
application are seen as reflexive and connected elements in a dynamic
system of ideas that under gird teaching practice. Our view is that
these foundational ideas and dispositions can and must be taught and
learned and are therefore essential components of the curriculum of
teacher education. Incorporating them in multiple and repeated ways
throughout the teacher education curriculum is part of our professional
preparation mandate.
One of the challenges in teaching these big ideas is imagining what
they “look like” in practice. Take the idea of “knowing the learner,”
for example. This idea makes sense to most novice teachers. Yet, it is
less obvious what a teacher’s practice looks like if she or he holds
deep knowledge of his or her learners. What does learner-responsive
teaching look like? How do teachers learn about their students? How do
they use what they know about their learners as they make their subject
matters accessible to them?
Examples from practice
These short clips – all of which can be used as teacher education
“texts” – were taken from three of the Quest K-12 sites. In different
ways, each illustrates practice that is informed by knowledge of the
learner. Clicking on the teacher’s name will take you to her full site
where you can find many other examples of learner responsive teaching.
If you click on the image, you can view this particular teaching
episode
Example #1 – Mattie Davis: Conferencing with students/conferencing with individuals
|
Commentary:
Mattie takes time to talk individually with her students so she can
learn about each child’s interests and ideas, build trust in their
relationships, and provide support for individual learning goals. In
this clip, Mattie is helping Jerome see himself as a capable writer who
can use his past experiences as material for composing stories in their
classroom Writers Workshop.
|
Example #2 – Melissa Pedraza: Inclusion/adapted guided reading
Commentary:
Melissa adapts her Guided Reading group to meet the needs of her early
literacy learners. She covers some key words with Post-it notes in
Sarah’s book, a student in her class who needs review in using picture
clues as a reading strategy. Melissa encourages Sarah to use the
pictures in her book as clues for predicting the covered words and then
models for her how to check her predictions against the actual text.
|
|
|
|
Commentary:
Knowing her adolescent learners, Yvonne begins this teaching episode by
asking her students to work with someone not in their own clique. The
task itself, which requires her students to think about and share
things that matter to them, provides her a window into her students’
lives as well.
|
Other
examples of foundational ideas and dispositions demonstrated on the K12
sites and drawn upon by the Quest teacher educators
In addition to “knowing the learner,” what other foundational ideas
are there and where can they be found on the Quest K-12 sites? Below we
suggest several of these ideas that the teacher educators in this
Perspective have taught in their courses. Though we have chosen to
highlight several key ideas (and the dispositions associated with them)
as examples, we do not consider this a finished list of any sort, but
rather as an invitation for others to consider what foundational ideas
they believe are critical to principled practice in their settings. We
recognize that because of the dynamic relationship between educational
theory and practice, professional understandings of foundational
knowledge will be vary across contexts and over time as new
understandings and new research on teaching and learning emerge. Thus,
while we believe that the topics we describe below can be considered
foundational for all teachers, we recognize that there are other
foundational ideas and dispositions which will be shaped by specific
sociocultural, socioeconomic, and political educational contexts. We
propose that principled teaching—where teachers are ultimately
concerned with social justice goals of equal and excellent outcomes for
all students—reflects professional commitments to ideas such as those
we’ve identified here.
As the fleshed-out examples in the various pages of this Perspective
demonstrate, these foundational ideas can be taught in various classes
in the teacher education curriculum. Because they are core to the work
of teaching, our view is that they can and should be taught in repeated
ways over the teacher preparation process. For this Perspective, we
clips from the K-12 Quest sites that the teacher educators drew on for
their teaching. If you look at the teacher educator sites (links to the
three teacher ed. sites), you will see these examples and how the
teacher educator used these examples of practice (and others like them)
to teach the foundational ideas in their courses.
Taking an inquiry stance in teaching (more)
|
Commentary:
Sarah talks with a colleague during a teacher research meeting where
they are reflecting on the structures that support English language
development in her classroom. With her colleagues, Sarah watches a
video of Betty and Diana, two ELL students in her classroom. Afterwards
they collectively engage in discussion of what they see in the video
and how this work informs their understanding of successfully teaching
their ELL students.
|
|
| |
|
|
Commentary:
After her research meeting, Sarah asks her students to engage with her
in an inquiry about their work in the classroom. Sarah has her students
watch the video of Betty and Diana working together to complete a class
assignment. Then, in this clip, we see Sarah asking her students to
reflect on what they noticed in the video. Sarah uses the children’s
responses to inform a class list they co-construct of the strategies
that good English language learners use.
|
|
Knowing one’s learners for teaching them well
Commentary: Throughout
the school year, Claire learns about her students by asking them to
respond in writing to several prompts (e.g., something they are proud
of, about their pets, grandparents, what they wish for etc.). She then
uses these essays to inform personal letters she composes for each of
her students. In her letters, Claire attempts to capture each student’s
self-image as reflected throughout their essays as well as her adult
vision of their unique strengths and promise. Claire uses these
personal letters to communicate to each student that she values them as
individuals.
|
|
Constructing professional knowledge is part of teaching practice
|
Commentary:
To understand her students’ experience of doing the participant action
research project in her 6th grade classroom Emily documented what she
saw in the form of narratives. In this clip she reflects on what
she learned from writing these narratives and how what she learned will
influence her practice as a result.
|
|
|
Commentary:
In this 15 minute video Vanessa documents the evolution of her teaching
and her thinking about her teaching over a year’s time. The work
represented here underscores the idea that throughout one’s career
teachers continue to construct professional knowledge that will inform
their continued growth.
|
|
|
Acting with intention to interrupt cycles of inequity in teaching and learning
|
play video
|
Commentary:
Ellen talks about “insistence” as one of the strategies she uses for
supporting her African American students to be high achievers.
Here she describes what insistence looks like on a daily basis in her
classroom.
|
|
| |
|
|
play video
|
Commentary:
Ellen explains how she implements culturally relevant pedagogy and
curriculum in her classroom in order to lessen the cultural dissonances
that exist between herself (a white, female teacher) and her African
American students and their families. She identifies several strategies
that she uses consistently—insistence, clear expectations; and strong
relationships with parents and families—that have resulted in improving
her students’ academic skills and understandings.
|
|
|
|
|
Commentary:
In reflecting on her role and responsibility as a teacher of
adolescents – and adolescents who are in traditionally oppressed groups
– Yvonne explains how her teaching is directed at helping her students
see themselves as empowered knowers. In this clip we hear the
thinking of a teacher whose practice reflects an intention to break the
cycle of inequity that is pervasive in American schools.
|
|
|