Sie sind auf Seite 1von 5

1

Title: Supporting the Recontextualization of Mathematics Practice from


Preparation to Early Practice

Introduction

Teacher educators struggle with the enduring problem that beginning teachers tend not to
enact progressive practices expected to be effective in supporting deep conceptual
understanding of subject matter (Ensor, 2001; Horn, Nolen, Ward, & Campbell, 2008).
In mathematics, for example, beginning teachers often take up traditional routines of
focusing on illustrating procedures, rather than pressing students to reason about problem
contexts or explain and justify their thinking. Research over the past two decades have
framed this problem of enactment (cf. Kennedy, 1999) as the result of a negotiation
between the subject matter and pedagogical understandings novices learn in preparation
and the understandings held by those in their new teaching contexts (Nolen, Horn, Ward,
& Childers, 2011; Wenger, 1998). According to this line of research, to understand why
novices fail to enact progressive teaching practices, one must examine how novices
negotiate among different, often competing messages, norms, and practices as they
traverse the various contexts of preparation and early teaching practice (Thompson,
Windschitl & Braaten, 2013, p. 575).
Researchers have termed this negotiation recontextualizing (Ensor, 2001; Horn,
2008; van Oers, 1998), and have attributed successful recontextualization to such
factors as strong subject matter knowledge and the commitment to make student thinking
a central focus of pedagogy (Horn, 2008; Thompson et al., 2013) Authors, in review).
Our own research suggests that while these elements are necessary, they are not
sufficient.
In the study reported here, we sought to understand how a beginning teachers
recontextualization of teaching tools and practices might be supported through coaching.
Specifically we asked:
1. What coaching moves seem particularly productive in supporting the
recontextualization of tools and practice from the relatively sheltered context of
practicum and student teaching to the context of ones own classroom?
2. What specifically was negotiated to recontextualize progressive teaching practices
and tools?

Research Context

This paper focuses on the case of a second year teacher, Alex
1
, a participant in a
larger, longitudinal study of learning to teach mathematics and science in which several
cohorts of pre-service teachers were followed from their undergraduate and masters level
preparation programs into their early years of teaching. Alexs undergraduate education
program was deeply informed by socio-constructivist principles of learning, and
coursework and fieldwork emphasized careful consideration of discourse and
participation structures. The sequence was designed to move from an unpacking of
mathematics content from a childs eye view to implications for instruction and

1
All names are pseudonyms.
2
opportunities to practice. Central to the sequence (and the program more generally) was a
view of teaching that starts with, and maintains a focus on, childrens thinking.
A key reference point in the math course sequence was Cognitively Guided
Instruction (CGI), a research-based arithmetic problem and strategy solution framework
that provides an alternate look at the structure of arithmetic (Carpenter et al., 1999). In
this framework the complexity of arithmetic problems is determined not by operation
(addition vs. subtraction), but rather by the specific cognitive demands entailed by the
placement of the unknown in relation to the action of a problem. In addition to giving
problem types a developmental structure, the CGI framework provides a relational view
of childrens solution strategies. Specifically, CGI posits a developmental trajectory of
strategy solutions that are related to a childs ability to represent quantities and reason
about the actions/operations that are part of arithmetic problems. Once learned, the CGI
framework serves as more than a curricular tool (a list of problems to give and an order in
which to give them) or a developmental time-line of solution strategies. Rather, it is a
means for coordinating an alternative view of mathematics content with a pedagogy
defined in relation to childrens mathematics reasoning. Undergraduate students in the
class used the CGI framework to design clinical interviews and tutoring sessions (one-on-
one sessions and small group tutoring sessions) as part of their course requirement.
Because some of the children with whom candidates worked had not yet developed the
basics of count, the instructors augmented the CGI framework with the Math Recovery
framework developed by Wright et al. (2006).
Following graduation, Alex took a position as a first grade inclusion teacher at an
urban charter school in the southern United States. The school was designated as a Title 1
school and teachers had fewer than four years of experience. Alex seemed to have
established strong routines for classroom management, but noted her struggle with
juggling the multiple curricula provided by the school the adopted textbook series, and
two other curricular programs purchased to supplement the main text and reinforce the
content of routine testing. She worried that none of these resources was aligned with the
frameworks she learned in her undergraduate teacher program. She worked closely with
an onsite coach, but the coachs expertise was in literacy, and her feedback tended to
focus on general management strategies rather than addressing Alexs questions about
building a coherent instructional program in mathematics.
After our first visit to her classroom, Alex shared her concerns, and asked whether
the research team members might be allowed to provide feedback and even support.
Having observed that a number of participants in the study were struggling to enact
practices to cultivate students mathematical reasoning, the research team decided it
would be useful to investigate strategies for supporting the recontextualization of tools
and practices that Alex had learned in preparation. One of the research team members
(Nan) had been a teaching assistant in the two course mathematics sequence described
above, and volunteered to serve as coach.

Methods

Data. As a study participant, Alex consented to have research team members
follow her through her preparation program, observing class sessions and examining
artifacts of her coursework and fieldwork. Once she began her teaching position, the
research team arranged to visit Alexs school to observe her classroom teaching, and to
3
interview Alex and a handful of her colleagues about their conceptions of high quality
mathematics and science teaching, and about the school context more generally. After the
initial visit in November 2011, the research team member who volunteered to coach,
Nan, made three additional multiday visits to Alexs classroom. Each visit consisted of
pre-observation interviews, classroom observations, post-observation interviews, and
structured coaching sessions. The day before each visit, Nan and Alex communicated by
phone regarding Alexs plans for the first day of the visit. The next day Alex taught the
lesson and debriefed in a post-observation interview; after school, Nan and Alex met to
look at student work and plan for the next day. This routine was repeated for the second
and third days of the visit.
All interactions were audio- or video-recorded. Nan also took copious notes on
the lessons and planning sessions, and wrote extended reflections on the coaching
process. Research team members conducted additional interviews with the school site
coach, a peer teacher, and the dean of the school to further clarify the social resources
(supports and constraints) with which Alex would negotiate. Finally, we collected
samples of students work and snapshots of any writing or drawings produced during the
lessons.
Analysis. Data analysis proceeded in an iterative process involving examination
and coding of Nans planning and reflection notes, coaching session video, and classroom
video and artifacts. In reading Nans planning and reflection notes we sought to identify
1) her assessment of Alexs teaching practices and 2) her plan to support Alex in making
meaning of the CGI and Math Recovery frameworks in the context of her classroom.
Through video noticings (Jordan & Henderson, 1995) of coaching sessions we tagged
moments when interactions between the coach and beginning teacher centered on the
CGI and Math Recovery frameworks and coded for specific moves by which Nan
supported Alexs use of these frameworks both to develop and test conjectures about
students understandings, and to plan next steps for instruction. This analysis further
provided a means to check our interpretations of coaching interactions against Nans. Our
analysis of classroom video, artifacts, and post-observation interviews centered on
discerning the impact of the coaching sessions on Alexs practice in particular, how
Alex came to recontextualize the CGI framework in her teaching.

Findings

Our analysis reveals two critical dimensions of support that enabled Alex to
successfully recontextualize her practice: refocusing on the mathematics and
reconceptualizing the roles of teachers and students of mathematics.
As noted above, early in our observations, Alex expressed frustration with the
lack of alignment between the conception of mathematics she had constructed in her
preparation program and the view of mathematics embodied in her mathematics
curriculum (Post-Observation Interview, November 2011). She felt that the curriculum
materials were at best a series of lessons organized to teach students specific problem
solving procedures, but without much space to support them to reason about the
underlying mathematics. Nans first coaching move was to help Alex refocus on
mathematical ideas, a step that required Alex to significantly modify key resources and
routines. With Nans support, Alex pushed aside the adopted textbook series, and
stripped away hands-on activities (e.g., cutting and pasting) promoted in the
4
supplementary resources but which distracted students from mathematical ideas.
2
She
replaced these with sequences of story problems that would provide a context for students
to reason about mathematical ideas and to represent, explain, and justify their thinking to
peers. Nan pressed Alex to begin each planning session by considering problems and
student work in terms of significant mathematical ideas. Next steps were selected by
seeking connections between students current levels of understanding and more
advanced understandings of these ideas.
Refocusing on mathematical ideas also entailed rethinking existing routines and
activity structures in particular calendar time, center time, and small group work. For
example, before Nan arrived, Alex used calendar time to teach structural features of
calendar (e.g., identifying what day it is today) and to recite numbers. With Nans
support, Alex organized calendar time to teach number sense (e.g., Forward number
sequence, backward number sequence, counting by 5s) which would be used later in
center time or small group work.
A second critical move was to help Alex reconceptualize her model of identity
(Wortham, 2006; Ma & Singer-Gabella, 2011) from teacher as implementer of
instructional activities to teacher as educational engineer
3
. Nan engaged Alex in using
the CGI framework as a tool for making and testing conjectures about her students
learning by analyzing their work for evidence of understanding. These conjectures and
the evidence Alex gathered, rather than the school pacing guide, became the basis for her
planning. While making this shift, Nan also supported Alex in redefining her model of
identity for students: being a student of mathematics in Alexs class came to mean
making sense of and developing representations of the problems given by the teacher,
communicating and justifying ones strategies, and attending to and questioning the
solution strategies of others. Thus Alex came to position students as authors of and
authorities on mathematical ideas. In posting around the room student work that
exemplified different ways of representing and solving problems, Alex not only displayed
their ideas but also scaffolded students to draw on them as resources for higher levels of
mathematical thinking.

Conclusions and Signficance

This study advances prior work by making clear the importance of subject
specific, content-focused coaching a rare resource for novice teachers in enabling the
recontextualization of progressive practice. While Alex had figured out (and had support
for) the management of student behavior during mathematics lessons, she struggled to
imagine how to manage the development of students mathematical ideas. Subject
specific, content-focused support may be required to help new teachers assume new
models of identity associated with valued mathematical pedagogies: to envision and
enact, in practice, what it might mean to engineer the development of students
mathematical thinking over time.


2
This risky move was rewarded: all students in her class exceeded growth goals on the
end of year achievement test, putting her class in the 90
th
percentile nationally.
3
A phrase Nan used with Alex.
5
References

Carpenter, T., Fennema, E., Franke, M. L., Levi, L., & Empson, S. (1999). Childrens
mathematics. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Ensor, P. (2001). From Preservice Mathematics Teacher Education to Beginning
Teaching: A Study in Recontextualizing. Journal for Research in Mathematics
Education, 32(3), 296-320.
Horn, I. S. (2008). Minding the Gaps: Recontextualizing practices in teacher education.
Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association annual
meeting.
Horn, I. S., Nolen, S. B., Ward, C., & Campbell, S. S. (2008). Developing Practices in
Multiple Worlds: The Role of Identity in LearningTo Teach. Part of the special
issue, Teacher identity as a useful frame for study and practice of teacher
education, 35(3), 61-72.
Jordan, B. and Henderson, A. (1995) Interaction analysis: foundations and practice.
Journal of the Learning Sciences 4(1), 39103.
Kennedy, M.M. (1999). The role of preservice teacher education. In Darling-Hammond,
L. and Sykes, G. Teaching as the Learning Profession: Handbook of Teaching
and Policy, pp. 54-86. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Ma, J. Y., & Singer-Gabella, M. (2011, January/February). Learning to Teach in the Figured
World of Reform Mathematics: Negotiating New Models of Identity. Journal of
Teacher Education, 62(1), 8-22.
Nolen, S. B., Horn, I. S., Ward, C. J., & Childers, S. a. (2011). Novice teacher learning
and motivation across contexts: Assessment tools as boundary objects. Cognition
and instruction, 29(1), 88-122.
Thompson, J., Windschitl, M. & Braaten, M. (2013). Developing a theory of ambitious
early-career teacher practice. American Educational Research Journal, 50(3),
574-615.
van Oers, B. (1998). The Fallacy of Detextualization. Mind, Culture, and Activity. 5:2,
135-142, DOI: 10.1207/s15327884mca0502_7
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. New
York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Wortham, S. (2006). Learning identity: The joint emergence of social identification and
academic learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen