How much does teacher knowledge enhance teaching practice?

I am involved in two studies that are pertinent to this question, one a qualitative study of teaching, an up-close examination, and one a quantitative synthesis of large-scale studies.

When I planned this presentation I assumed I would tell about the second study, but now that I am here, the first seems more relevant. So that is what I will talk about.

Why go Inside Teaching

• Advocates have been trying to reform teaching practices for nearly a century;

• They haven’t had much influence;

• Observers often ask, “Why aren’t teachers doing what we want them to do?”

• I am asking, “Why are they doing what they are doing?”

• Goal: Understand teaching, not judge it

5 Hypotheses for why teachers don’t respond to these goals

• They lack sufficient knowledge (either of content or of pedagogy);

• They don’t share the same values as reformers;

• They are not temperamentally disposed to teaching;

• The circumstances of teaching interfere

• The reform ideas are idealistic

Main categories of classroom practice we interrogated

• Maintaining rules, routines;

• Designing Question-and-Answer routines;

• Responding to unexpected ideas from students;

• Designing Learning Activities

• Presenting (and Representing) new ideas

6 things teachers simultaneously care about

• Covering content (which I called defining learning outcomes)

• Fostering learning• Increasing student willingness to participate• Maintaining lesson momentum (getting on top of

chaos, getting everyone on the same page• Promoting classroom norms of civility• Meeting their own personal needsAll of these were mentioned repeatedly in

discussions of why teachers do what they do.

Implications of having multiple areas of simultaneous concern

• Practices are designed to accomplish multiple concerns simultaneously

• There is no such thing as a perfect practice; every decision involved tradeoffs;

• Reformers don’t consider all the things that teachers consider when they advocate particular practices

Three Reform Goals

A review of reform literature suggests that reformers seek three changes:

• Make school content more rigorous;

• Increase students’ intellectual engagement;

• Ensure universal access to knowledge.

Tension between reform goals and teachers’ six concerns

• Most important concern is maintaining momentum, avoiding major distractions and chaos, losing kids and ideas and time

• Biggest conflict is between affirming students and maintaining momentum

• Reform ideals add further stress by raising the bar when teachers already have their hands full

Things Reformers don’t think about

• How easily kids get distracted;• How divergent their ideas are;• How important it is to maintain momentum;

keep everyone on the same page• Student engagement is as difficult as

student disengagement• Each teacher has her own zone of

tolerance for confusion, digressions, and non-sequitors

Suggestions for Reformers

• Address all the things teachers must think about, like timing, organization;

• Help them learn to respond to divergent thinking

• Develop simpler lesson structures that keep content visible, rather than hidden under complicated procedures

• Find ways to control intellectual engagement, keep it within tolerable boundaries

Kennedy, M. (2005) Inside Teaching: How Classroom Life

Undermines Reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Mary Kennedy

mkennedy@msu.edu