Keeping It Complex Using Rehearsals to Support Novice Teacher Learning of Ambitious Teaching

• Published in: Journal of teacher education Vol. 64; no. 3; pp. 226 - 243
• Main Authors: Lampert, Magdalene, Franke, Megan Loef, Kazemi, Elham, Ghousseini, Hala, Turrou, Angela Chan, Beasley, Heather, Cunard, Adrian, Crowe, Kathleen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.05.2013; Corwin Press, Inc; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Beginning Teachers; California; Collaborative learning; Elementary education; Elementary School Mathematics; First year teachers; Group work in education; Interaction; Mathematics Instruction; Mathematics teachers; Mentoring; Mentors; Methods; Methods Courses; Michigan; Preservice Teacher Education; Preservice Teachers; Teacher education; Teacher Educators; Teacher Response; Teaching methods; Team learning approach in education; Training; Training Methods; Washington; Washington; California; Michigan; United States; mathematics teacher education; instructional practices; elementary teacher education
• ISSN: 0022-4871; 1552-7816
• DOI: 10.1177/0022487112473837

We analyze a particular pedagogy for learning to interact productively with students and subject matter, which we call “rehearsal.” Our goal is to specify a way in which teacher educators (TEs) and novice teachers (NTs) can interact around teaching that is both embedded in practice and amenable to analysis. We address two main research questions: (a) What do TEs and NTs do together during the kind of rehearsals we have developed to prepare novices for the complex, interactive work of teaching? and (b) Where, in what they do, are there opportunities for NTs to learn to enact the principles, practices, and knowledge entailed in ambitious teaching? We detail what happens in rehearsals using quantitative and qualitative methods. We begin with the results of our quantitative analyses to characterize how typical rehearsals were structured and what was worked on. We then show how NTs and TEs worked together to enable novices to study principled practice through qualitative analyses of a particularly salient aspect of ambitious teaching, namely, eliciting and responding to students’ performance.