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
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