Inside practice-based teacher education : a study of one teacher educator's practice

"This dissertation builds on research about practice-based teacher preparation (e.g., Ball & Cohen, 1999; Ball, Sleep, Boerst, & Bass, 2009; Graziani, 2005; Heibert, Morris, Berk, & Jansen, 2007; Lampert, 2010), formative feedback (e.g., Black & Wiliam, 1998; Carless, Salter, Yang, & Lam, 2011; Evans, 2013; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Kluger & DeNisi, 1996), teacher noticing, (e.g., van Es, 2011; van Es & Sherin, 2008; Sherin, Jacobs, & Philipp, 2011), and positioning theory (e.g., Esmonde, 2009; Gresalfi & Cobb, 2006; Harré & van Langenhove, 1991; Herbel-Eisenmann & Wagner, 2010; Herbel-Eisenmann, Wagner, & Cortes, 2010; Wagner & Herbel-Eisenmann, 2009). In particular, I focus on how prospective elementary mathematics teachers are prepared, through a study of one teacher educator's practice. This dissertation is a self-study during a practice-based mathematics methods course for prospective elementary school teachers. Study participants consist of prospective elementary teachers (PTs) who were seniors enrolled in a mathematics methods course at a large Midwestern university. The data for this dissertation includes my lesson plans, videos of each class meeting, prospective teachers' assignments including videotaped lessons, the feedback I provided prospective teachers on assignments and teaching, and my own reflections on teaching. This dissertation contains an introductory chapter, concluding chapter, and three standalone manuscripts. Each manuscript examined a different aspect of my practice as a teacher educator. Each manuscript included a review of relevant literature, data collection, analysis, results, and discussion. Research on practice-based teaching viewed through the lens of examining my own practice provides the thread that sews the manuscripts in this dissertation together. The first manuscript details a lesson-planning tool co-edited with study participants. The tool helped PTs focus attention on student ideas and learning, the mathematical point of the lesson, and the facilitation of mathematically rich discussions. The tool draws liberally on research about lesson planning, orchestrating discussions, and attending to student thinking. The PT collaboration on this tool helped me to see the power of including the PTs' voices in their learning. The second manuscript is an empirical study examining the characteristics of effective feedback in teacher education. I argue that teacher education is a hybrid space where feedback practices bridge both K-12 and higher education contexts. I analyze the feedback I provided to prospective teachers, the characteristics of feedback that participants took up and used to further their learning, and the characteristics of feedback that closed down opportunities for further learning. The third manuscript is an empirical study that draws on the Learning to Notice Framework (van Es, 2011), which I combine with positioning theory (e.g. Harré & van Langenhove, 1991). These theories guide my analysis of student interviews collected in my methods course. Positioning theory points out the links between the ways PTs position students in their written analysis of the interviews and through their instructional decisions. I identify and define both explicit and implicit positioning and argue that static explicit positioning influences PTs' instructional choices and limits the opportunities PTs' students have to learn. I propose a framework for learning to notice positioning in teacher preparation--both for teacher educators and PTs."--Pages ii-iii.