Understanding pedagogical subject knowledge of student and experienced teachers Dutch as a First Language: zooming in on teachers professional conversations during a Lesson Study Cycle
Submitted by:
Carien H.W. Bakker
Abstract:
Lesson Study (LS) is a teacher professional development approach to build professional knowledge about learning and teaching. LS is a cycle of instructional improvement in which teachers work together through joint planning, observing, evaluating and refining lessons. The central focus in LS is to gain insight in and improve pupil learning is. Principal ingredients of LS are the professional conversations that participants carry on during the joint planning and evaluating of lessons. LS invites teachers to explore their mutual ‘pedagogic blackbox’ which consists of knowledge and beliefs about how to enhance pupil learning.
In the Initial Teacher Education of the University of Groningen, enhancing student teachers’ subject pedagogics skills is an important goal. For this purpose, student teachers of Dutch as a first language participate in a Lesson Study Education Team (LSET). They form a LSET together with their mentor – a teacher of Dutch as a first language who coaches the student teacher at teaching practice - and another colleague teacher at their teaching practice. LSET is an opportunity for student teachers to explore the ‘pedagogic blackbox’ of their more experienced teachers. Mapping out which pedagogical subject knowledge is articulated by both student and experienced teachers during a LS-cycle will help understand and optimize LSET.
Data of all professional conversations during the LS-cycle of two LSETs of Dutch as a first language have been analyzed. Goals and subject matter of both LSETs concerned enhancing pupils’ perspective taking - the cognitive capacity to consider the world from another individual’s viewpoint. The main question answered is ‘Which pedagogical subject knowledge and beliefs about pupil learning of perspective taking is articulated in the professional conversations during a Lesson Study Cycle by beginning and experienced teachers of Dutch as a first language?‘ Data have been transcribed and entered into Atlas-Tii afterwhich relevant fragments have been classified, structured and defined through processes of open and axial coding. Analysis is both data and theory driven.
References
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Warwick, P., Vrikki, M., Vermunt, J. D., Mercer, N., & van Halem, N. (2016). Connecting observations of student and teacher learning: an examination of dialogic processes in Lesson Study discussions in mathematics. ZDM, 48(4), 555-569.