Teacher Expertise and Professional Vision: Examining Knowledge-Based Reasoning of Pre-Service Teachers, In-Service Teachers, and School Principals

Abstract

Classroom professional vision is a teaching skill that refers to the ability of teachers to rapidly notice information in class and engage in knowledge-based reasoning about the noticed information. Knowledge-based reasoning includes three interrelated processes: description, explanation, and prediction. The present study aimed to examine how pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and school principals differed in these three reasoning processes after viewing classroom photographs with varying presentation time and interactional complexity. A 3 × 2 × 4 factorial design was used. Teacher expertise (pre-service teachers vs. in-service teachers vs. school principals) was a between-group factor, presentation time (1 vs. 3 s) and complexity (teacher vs. dyad vs. small group vs. whole class) were within-group factors. Analysis of verbal reports suggested that in-service teachers and school principals used significantly more episodic knowledge, content knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge in their reasoning than pre-service teachers did. Explanations with mathematical content knowledge were more frequent for in-service teachers, for shorter rather than longer presentation times, and for photographs showing the teacher only. Explanations with pedagogical content knowledge were more frequent for in-service teachers, for shorter rather than longer presentation times, and for photographs showing a small group. Across time and complexity, school principals verbalized less frequently what they noticed. In-service teachers and school principals verbalized significantly more self-monitoring and more predictions of teacher actions than pre-service teachers. The study findings contribute to the growing body of evidence on classroom professional vision, teacher noticing, and visual teacher expertise, and provide initial evidence on expert teachers' frequent metacognitive self-monitoring.

Exploring the Process of Preservice Teachers’ Diagnostic Activities in a Video-Based Simulation

“…A great deal of information teachers gain about their students for adaptive teaching comes from observation in the classroom while teaching (Karst et al, 2017;Südkamp and Praetorius, 2017). Teachers have to draw their attention to particular aspects in a classroom and the information it contains, as not all ongoing classroom information can be processed at the same time (Gegenfurtner et al, 2020). In order to better understand the link between teachers' attentional foci, the processing of this information, and the final performance in assessing students, it is important to study what student-related information teachers notice and how teachers apply their professional knowledge to reason about this noticed information, which are taken as cues for their evaluations and explanations.…”

“…The teacher professional vision framework, therefore, is seen as an important conceptual model to further study teachers' situation-specific professional skills (Seidel and Stürmer, 2014). In this context, the diagnostic activity noticing refers to the perception of relevant events in the classroom (van Es and Sherin, 2008;Schack et al, 2017), while knowledge-based reasoning is the act of interpreting the noticed information based on one's professional knowledge (Gegenfurtner et al, 2020). Seidel and Stürmer (2014) distinguish three different knowledgebased reasoning activities: describing, explaining, and predicting.…”

Teacher support for metacognition and self-regulated learning: a compelling story and a prototypical model

“…However, as Michalsky (in press) discussed, teachers' professional vision could and should also include a focus on teaching SRL, among other skills beyond disciplinary education (e.g., socioemotional skills; Immordino-Yang et al, 2019). The development of teachers' professional vision requires direct instruction, practice, and feedback (Blömeke et al, 2015;Gegenfurtner et al, 2020), coupled with congruent pedagogical content knowledge and beliefs about teaching and learning (Meschede et al, 2017;Vosniadou et al, 2021). Video-based instruction can be a powerful way to surface opportunities for teachers to intervene and develop their professional vision for noticing such opportunities in the future (Gold et al, 2021).…”

Exploring the Content Knowledge of Accounting Teachers in Rural Contexts: A Call for a Decoloniality Approach

“…After all, "they have inadequate content knowledge of Accounting (Ngwenya, 2014) probably, because they were not properly trained and equipped to teach it competently". Newly qualified teachers do not receive the necessary support and, thus, they lack career development opportunities (Gegenfurtner et al, 2020), especially those at rural schools, which compromises effective teaching to a greater extent in rural than in urban schools. There is a need for professional development workshops meant specifically for rural school teachers, to address their context-based challenges (Diseko & Modiba, 2018).…”

“…Subject advisors are Department of Basic Education officials who provide professional development support to in-service teachers in the form of workshops. Therefore, subject advisors have a vested responsibility in identifying the content gaps that teachers may have regarding the teaching of accounting (Gegenfurtner, Lewalter, Lehtinen, Schmidt & Gruber, 2020), and should support teachers by providing the necessary training/workshops. Mukeredzi (2015) explains that professional development of teachers is considered crucial if teachers are to fulfil the requirements for quality teaching and learning of accounting, especially regarding financial literacy, which is part of accounting, and which is being neglected by teachers in their teaching (Ngwenya & Arek-Bawa, 2019).…”