Repet?t?ve M?croteach?ng: Learn?ng to Teach Elementary Soc?al Stud?es

Repet?t?ve M?croteach?ng: Learn?ng to Teach Elementary Soc?al Stud?es

The role of deliberate practice in the development of performance has been studied extensively in many contexts, such as in athletics (eg. Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-R?mer, 1993). The construct of deliberate practice in the development of teacher performance has been receiving heightened examination lately, though the role of practice in the development of elementary social studies teachers remains essentially unexplored. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a repeated practice microteaching model on the teaching behaviors of 64 elementary preservice teachers who taught the same social studies lessons to small groups of 4th-grade students four times in succession. Candidate reflection journals from all candidates, observational transcripts of 14 teaching pairs, focus group interviews with the candidates, and informal cooperating teacher interviews revealed that the preservice teachers’ lessons changed over the four successive teaching episodes. The candidates became more comfortable and confident after teaching the same social studies lesson multiple times. Candidates also reported that their lessons became better, yet the qualitative data revealed that even though their teaching became more efficient and student work correctness improved, only a few preservice teachers increased the cognitive demand of their questions and activities. Nonetheless, most candidates demonstrated increased use of social studies pedagogical content knowledge through their examples and discussions, as well as increased attention to student thinking. Repeated practice field experiences seem to hold potential for elementary candidates to develop their use of social studies pedagogical content knowledge.

___

  • Anderson, D. (2007). Cooperating teachers’ power in the student teaching practicum. Education, 128(2), 307-323.
  • Anderson, D. (2008). Student teachers and their cooperating teachers: Expectations and reality. Issues in Education, 1(1), 17-26.
  • Anderson, D. (2009). The impact of cooperating teachers on the teaching perspectives of student teachers. International Journal of Learning, 16(1), 119-134.
  • Ball, D. L., & Cohen, D. K. (1999). Developing practice, developing practitioners: Toward a practice-based theory of professional development. In L. Darling-Hammond & G. Sykes (Eds.), Teaching as the learning profession: Handbook of policy and practice (pp. 3-32). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
  • Ball, D. L. , Sleep, L., Boerst, T., & Bass, H. (2009). Combining the development of practice and the practice of development in teacher education. Elementary School Journal, 109, 458- 476.
  • Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1993). Surpassing ourselves: An inquiry into the nature and implications of expertise. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
  • Berliner, D. C. (1985). Laboratory settings and the study of teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 36(2), 2-8.
  • Bloom, B. (1985). Developing talent in young people. New York: Ballantine Books.
  • Boyd, D., Grossman, P., Lankford, H., Loeb, S., & Wyckoff, J. (2009). Teacher preparation and student achievement. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 31(4), 416-440.
  • Britzman, D. P. (2003). Practice makes practice: A critical study of learning to teach. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.
  • Bransford, J., Darling-Hammond, L., & LePage, P. (2005). Introduction. In L. Darling- Hammond and J. Bransford (Eds.). Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do (pp. 1-39). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
  • Darling-Hammond, L. (2006). Powerful teacher education: Lessons from exemplary programs. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
  • Darling-Hammond, L., Hammerness, K., Grossman, P., Rust, F., & Shulman, L. (2005). The design of teacher education programs. In L. Darling-Hammond and J. Bransford (Eds.). Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do (pp. 390-441). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
  • Dunn, T. G., & Shriner, C. (1999). Deliberate practice in teaching: What teachers do for self- improvement. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15, 631-651.
  • Ericsson, K. A. (2006). The influence of experience and deliberate practice on the development of superior expert performance. In K. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. Feltovich, and R. R. Hoffman (Eds.). Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (pp. 685- 706). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  • Ericsson, K. A. (2008). Deliberate practice and acquisition of expert performance: A general overview. Society for Academic Emergency, 15(11), 988-994.
  • Ericsson, K. A. (2009). Enhancing the development of professional performance: Implications from the study of deliberate practice. In K. A. Ericsson (Ed.), The development of professional expertise: Toward measurement of expert performance and design of optimal learning environments (pp. 405-431). New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Rӧmer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363-406.
  • Ericsson, K. A., & Charness, N. (1994). Expert performance: Its structure and acquisition. American Psychologist, 49(8), 725-747.
  • Feiman-Nemser, S. (2003). What new teachers need to learn. Educational Leadership, 60(8), 25-29.
  • Ghousseini, H. (2009). Designing opportunities to learn to lead classroom mathematics discussions in pre-service teacher education: Focusing on enactment. In D. Mewborn, & H. Lee (Eds.), Scholarly practices and inquiry in the preparation of mathematics teachers. San Diego, CA: Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators.
  • Ghousseini, H., Lampert, M., Lewis, J. M., Murray, O., & Scott, S. (2008, April). The role of rehearsal in learning to do ambitious practice. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, New York.
  • Gourlay, L. (2005). Okay, who’s got number one? Permeable triadic dialogue, covert participation and co-construction of checking episodes. Language Teaching Research, 9, 403–422.
  • Grossman, P. L., Compton, C., Igra, D., Ronfeldt, M., Shahan, E., & Williamson, P. (2005, April). Unpacking practice: Decompositions and approximations. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada.
  • Grossman, P., & McDonald, M. (2008). Back to the future: Directions for research in teaching and teacher education. American Educational Research Journal. 45(1), 184-205.
  • Grossman, P. L., Wilson, S. M., & Shulman, L. S. (1989). Teachers of substance: Subject matter knowledge for teaching. In M. Reynolds (Ed.), The knowledge base for beginning teachers (pp. 23-36). New York: Pergamon.
  • Gudmundsdottir, S. & Shulman, L. (1987). Pedagogical content knowledge in social studies. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 31, 59-70.
  • Hammerness, K., Darling-Hammond, L., Bransford, J., Berliner, D., Cochran-Smith, M., McDonald, M., et al. (2005). How teachers learn and develop. In L. Darling-Hammond & J. Bransford (Eds.), Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do (pp. 58-389). San Francisco: John Wiley.
  • Harris, L. M., & Bain, R. B. (2011). Pedagogical content knowledge for world history teachers: What is it? How might prospective teachers develop it? The Social Studies, 102, 9-17.
  • Hashweh, M. Z. (2005). Teacher pedagogical constructions: A reconfiguration of pedagogical content knowledge. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 11(3), 273–292.
  • Hiebert, J., & Morris, A. K. (2012a). Teaching, rather than teachers, as a path toward improving classroom instruction. Journal of Teacher Education, 3, 92-102
  • Hiebert, J., & Morris, A. K. (2012b). Extending ideas on improving teaching: Response to Lampert; Lewis, Perrry, Friedkin, and Roth; Zeichner. Journal of Teacher Education, 5, 383-385.
  • Hoekstra, A., & Korthagen, F. (2011). Teacher learning in a context of educational change: Informal learning versus systematically supported learning. Journal of Teacher Education, 62(1), 76-92.
  • Kersting, N. B., Givvin, K. B., Thompson, B. J., Santagata, R., & Stigler, J. W. (2012). Measuring usable knowledge: Teachers’ analyses of mathematical classroom videos predict teaching quality and student learning. American Educational Research Journal, 49, 568-589.
  • Lampert, M. (2010). Learning teaching in, from, and for practice: What do we mean?. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1-2), 21-34.
  • Lemke, J. (1990) Talking science: Language, learning and values. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
  • Lewis, J. M. (2009, April). Lesson study and the test of practice. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego.
  • Mack, J. (2011, September 9). U.S. education secretary Arne Duncan holds up University of Michigan school of education as national model, but says U.S. teacher preparation needs to improve. Mlive. Retrieved from
  • http://www.mlive.com/education/index.ssf/2011/09/post_6.html
  • Morris, A. K., & Hiebert, J. (2011). Creating shared instructional products: An alternative approach to improving teaching. Educational Researcher, 40(1), 5-14.
  • Moustakas, C. (1994) Phenomenological research methods London: Sage.
  • Plant, E. A., Ericcson, K. A., Hill, L., & Asberg, K. (2005). Why study time does not predict grade point average across college students: Implications of deliberate practice for academic performance. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 30, 96-116.
  • Rich, P. (2012). Inside the black box: Revealing the process in applying a grounded theory analysis. The Qualitative Report, 17, 1-23.
  • Syed, M. (2010). Bounce. New York: Harper Collins.
  • van Gog, T., Ericsson, K. A., Rikers, R. M., & Paas, F. (2005). Instructional design for advanced learners: Establishing connections between the theoretical frameworks of cognitive load and deliberate practice. Educational Technology Research and Development, 53(3), 73- 81.
  • Wideen, M., Mayer-Smith, J., & Moon, B. (1998). A critical analysis of the research on learning to teach: Making the case for an ecological perspective on inquiry. Review of Educational Research, 68(2), 130-178.
  • Zeichner, K. (2012). The turn once again toward practice-based teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 63, 376-382