CITE Practicum Project
Title of Project: Beginning Teachers and the Management of the Conflicting Intentions
in Practice
Student: Aaron Zimmerman
Advisor: Alicia Alonzo
Abstract of project:
Teachers must make many decisions in the course of any one lesson. Beginning
teachers may find some of these decisions to be particularly difficult given the multitude
of dilemmas that are inherent in the act of classroom teaching. Therefore, the purpose of
this study is to analyze how beginning teachers think about the instructional dilemmas
they face. A lesson from each beginning teacher will be observed and video-recorded.
After the lesson, the teacher and the researcher will watch the video as the teacher
explains his or her thinking process during the lesson, specifically as related to the
instructional dilemmas that were encountered during the lesson. These interviews will
help the researcher to analyze how beginning teachers approach and resolve the
instructional dilemmas that they encounter in the classroom.
Keywords: Teacher decision making; Instructional dilemmas; teacher reflection on
practice
Purpose, focus, and intended audience:
The purpose of this study is to investigate how beginning teachers make decisions
in the classroom, specifically in response to moments that they perceive to be
instructional dilemmas. Given that beginning teachers may find this process to be
particularly difficult, it is worth exploring how teachers perceive themselves to be
processing and responding to these challenging instructional moments. It is hypothesized
that beginning teachers will perceive many instructional dilemmas in the classroom and
that the effective resolution of these dilemmas will involve framing these dilemmas in a
manner that allows for cognitive and emotional flexibility.
This research is intended to inform teacher educators and teacher education
programs as to how beginning teachers go about making decisions in the classroom,
specifically in the context of instructional dilemmas. This research aims to highlight the
skills (e.g., cognitive and emotional flexibility) that beginning teachers use to manage
their instructional dilemmas in practice.
Participants:
The subject population includes MSU secondary math teaching interns currently
enrolled in TE 804 (Kristen Bieda – Section 20), excluding interns who are enrolled in
the investigator’s section of the methods course (TE 803 –Aaron Zimmerman – Section
15). Preference will be given to those secondary interns who are currently instructing a
course of Algebra 1 in their field placements. The investigator will recruit these
participants by visiting Kristen Bieda’s section of TE 804 and explaining the research
project to the interns in the TE 804 class.
Data Collection:
Each participant will be observed and video-recorded teaching one lesson. The
participant and the researcher will review the video-recorded lesson in a stimulated recall
interview, in which participants will be asked to elaborate on the decisions they recall
themselves making, as cued through the watching of the video-recorded lesson.
The stimulated recall interview with the teacher participant will take
approximately two hours and will take place after the classroom observation. Depending
on when during the course of the semester the teacher participant is observed, and
depending on the teacher participant’s daily schedule, it may be possible to conduct the
stimulated recall interview directly following the classroom observation such that it does
not interfere with any of the teacher participant’s other teaching responsibilities.
Otherwise, the stimulated recall interview will be conducted after school hours.
Interns will be given monetary compensation for their time; additionally, this
project will give interns the opportunity to reflect on their teaching with someone other
than their field instructor or mentor teacher.
Human Subject Considerations:
During the interview after the lesson, teaching interns may feel uncomfortable
viewing videos of their own teaching and discussing their thought processes, particularly
during challenging teaching moments. The likelihood of this is low, given that teaching
interns are used to watching, reflecting on, and discussing their own teaching (for
example, with their field instructors). Likewise, the seriousness of this risk is low, given
that interns are expected to reflect on and discuss their own practice; furthermore, none of
the instructional moments nor any of the reflections that are discussed during the
interview will be used for professional or evaluative purposes, thus considerably lowering
the seriousness of this risk. Furthermore, the sampling frame will not include any interns
currently taught by the investigator.
Reports to be provided to the Department:
Results, conclusions, and implications of this study will be presented and
provided to the TE 801/803 secondary course team. This study hopes to identify
strategies that interns use to successfully manage the instructional dilemmas they
encounter in the classroom. These strategies could be integrated into the TE 801/803
curriculum. Likewise, difficulties that interns experience in classroom decision-making,
as revealed by this study, may inform specific points or elements of professional growth
that should be addressed in the TE 801/803 course.
Potential implications for the teacher preparation program:
If teacher education programs and teacher education course instructors are better
able to understand the cognitive and emotional processes that teaching interns engage in
while making instructional decisions, teacher education may be better able to prepare
beginning teachers. Helping beginning teachers manage the process of instructional
decision-making is especially important in the context of spontaneous instructional
dilemmas – moments in which the appropriate course of action is often uncertain,
ambiguous, and value-laden. This research hopes to identify the specific challenges that
beginning teachers face during these dilemmas as well as the skills and resources that
beginning teachers are able to draw upon in order to successfully navigate these
instructional moments. The hope is that this information can be translated into
curriculum for courses that prepare beginning teachers (e.g., TE 801/803).
Evidence of discussions about the nature, operation, and potential impact of
the research with faculty members related to the program of study:
The researcher (Aaron Zimmerman) has discussed this practicum project with
Kristen Bieda, instructor of the section of secondary mathematics interns. She has given
me permission to introduce my project to the interns at the beginning of one of the TE
804 course meetings in order to recruit participants.
Proof of IRB Approval:
See attached documents