The Work of Teaching and the Challenge for Teacher Education

Abstract

In this article, the authors argue for making practice the core of teachers' professional preparation. They set the argument for teaching practice against the contemporary backdrop of a teacher education curriculum that is often centered not on the tasks and activities of teaching but on beliefs and knowledge, on orientations and commitments, and a policy environment preoccupied with recruitment and retention. The authors caution that the bias against detailed professional training that often pervades common views of teaching as idiosyncratic and independently creative impedes the improvement of teachers' preparation for the work of teaching. They offer examples of what might be involved in teaching practice and conclude with a discussion of challenges of and resources for the enterprise.Improving educational outcomes in the United States is a challenging problem, one that preoccupies contemporary reformers and critics alike. With a system of schooling that has never delivered high quality education to all students, policy makers and educational leaders are calling for more complex and ambitious goals to prepare youth for the demands of the 21st century. Visions of better schooling include innovative uses of technology, a much greater emphasis on collaborative work, integrated and problembased curricula, and higher expectations for students. Too often minimized is what such changes imply for the interactive work of teaching and learning. And, given that there are almost 4 million teachers in the United States, preparing teachers to meet these demands is a massive undertaking. Nonetheless, improvements in student learning depend on substantial, large-scale changes in how we prepare and support teachers.Agreement is widespread that teachers are key to student learning, and efforts to improve teacher quality have proliferated. Most initiatives, however, have focused on teacher recruitment and retention and on developing new pathways to teaching. In this article, we argue that such initiatives are insufficient without fundamental renovations to the curriculum of professional education for teachers, wherever and through whatever pathway it occurs. We claim that practice must be at the core of teachers' preparation and that this entails close and detailed attention to the work of teaching and the development of ways to train people to do that work effectively, with direct attention to fostering equitably the educational opportunities for which schools are responsible.By "work of teaching," we mean the core tasks that teachers must execute to help pupils learn. These include activities carried on both inside and beyond the classroom, such as leading a discussion of solutions to a mathematics problem, probing students' answers, reviewing material for a science test, listening to and assessing students' oral reading, explaining an interpretation of a poem, talking with parents, evaluating students' papers, planning, and creating and maintaining an orderly and supportive environment for learning. The work of teaching inclu...

Established and evolving ways of linking to practice in teacher education: Findings from an international study of the enactment of practice in teacher education

“…In identifying indicators of practice-centered coursework, we drew upon research investigating ways to help new teachers learn to decompose and enact classroom practices ("high leverage" or "core practices" in TE; e.g., Ball & Forzani, 2009;McDonald, Kazemi, & Kavanagh, 2013), as well as research on aspects of learning to teach such as lesson planning (Kunzman, 2002). We also drew from research on using artifacts and representations of teaching and pupil learning, as suggested by Ball and Cohen (1999) for establishing a pedagogy of teacher education that is grounded in practice (see also Boyd et al, 2009;Windschitl, Thompson, Braaten, & Stroupe, 2012 on this issue).…”

“…Scholars have argued that, to be more centered in practice, courses must allow candidates to practice and rehearse teaching, not just read about teaching (Ball & Forzani, 2009;Kennedy, 1999). Potential practices include responding to pupils' mathematical ideas (Lampert et al, 2013), engaging pupils in investigations (Janssen et al, 2014;Kloser, 2014), reading aloud (Reid, 2011), and modeling historical thinking (Fogo, 2014) or mathematical procedures (Hiebert & Grouws, 2007 The extent to which candidates have opportunities to use, discuss, or analyze artifacts or resources from real classrooms and teaching, including videos of teachers, cases about teaching and teachers, samples of real pupil work, and transcripts of classroom talk.…”

Pre-Service Beginning Teachers’ Beliefs, Expectations and Other Teacher Preparation Issues of the Practicum at the University of Trinidad and Tobago

“…Other related studies have recognized that no matter what kind of preparation a new teacher receives, no college course or courses can teach how to blend knowledge of particular students and context in decisions about what to do in specific situations (Carr, 1980;Tickle, 2001). Such practical experiences will help students develop 'connective insights' so they can see how their biographies influence their pedagogical judgment to deal competently with classroom situations that are unpredictable (Ball and Forzani, 2009). …”

“I Sorta Felt Like I was out in the Middle of the Ocean”: Novice Teachers’ Transition to the Classroom

“…Further, the findings, particularly of areas of difficulty for beginning teachers, suggest that initial teacher education which focuses on developing a depth of understanding, the development and the application of skills and practices in teaching, will serve beginning teachers well in their transition to teaching. Ball andForzani (2009, see also Grossman, Hamerness andMcDonald, 2009), argue that teaching needs to be understood as unnatural, shifting away from conventions of teaching as telling and learning as listening. There is much in the data analysed that supports this idea, particularly where beginning teachers have struggled to understand the intricacies of complex teaching practices as they transition into their new teaching positions.…”