Spielraumand Teaching

Abstract

In recent years, reflection-in-action has been a major concept for taking account of the craft and practical aspects of teaching. Yet in the everyday teaching praxis, reflection is largely absent. In this paper, we argue that this absence is due to the fact that reflection requires objects of thought that have to be constructed. Both the construction and manipulation of these objects requires "time out" from acting in real time. Taking time out is frequently impossible in the praxis of teaching, unless we want to miss the "teachable moments." We propose Spielraum, room to maneuver, as a concept that describes the reality of teaching much better than reflection-in-action, especially when there is no time out for reflection. We use two extended classroom episodes to exemplify situations that are better described by the notion of Spielraum than by reflection-in-action.

Coordination in coteaching: Producing alignment in real time

“…They not only hear some content being elaborated verbally, but also have it available in visual form. Whereas experienced teachers usually produce multiple representations of the same content as a matter of course, new science teachers may be too preoccupied with the lesson to do so (i.e., they do not have sufficient room to maneuver [Roth, Lawless, & Masciotra, 2001]). But such inscriptions are also important resources for the actions of teachers, who can refer to them in talk or gesture (pointing, iconic gesture) as needed to make salient relevant aspects in the situation.…”

Informal science institutions and learning to teach: An examination of identity, agency, and affordances

“…A part of having agency and a related identity is a having a feeling of fluency in the practices of a field. This having of an embodied sense of practice that allows one to move from one interaction to another all while maintaining Spielraum, which is the ability to maneuver; to develop practices that are anticipatory, timely, and appropriate to given situations (Roth, Lawless, & Masciotra, ). In learning to teach, the notion can be used to think about teaching that allow a teacher candidate to be prepared to take advantage of teachable moments and contradictory events in the moment as social life unfolds with little time for immediate reflection and planning.…”

Teaching as a Clinical Profession: Adapting the Medical Model

“…We elaborate each clinical activity’s characteristics and explore the unique features and limitations of teaching in relation to it. Finally, to account for teaching’s unique qualities, we propose extending the clinical acts of diagnosis, treatment, and inference to include, respectively (a) prioritization and noticing (Sherin et al, 2011), whereby teachers allocate their attention to competing student needs and concerns; (b) disciplined improvisation (Sawyer, 2004), whereby teachers adapt their lesson plans during instruction, recomposing and integrating existing materials with resources that students bring to the interaction (Huberman, 1993); and (c) room to maneuver (Roth et al, 2001), capturing teachers’ state of readiness for action within the contingencies of the classroom.…”