Toward A Theoretical Model for Researching Educator Beliefs

CASTL Technical Report No. 2-05

Toward A Theoretical Model for Researching Educator Beliefs

Connie M. Moss Center for Advancing the Study of Teaching and Learning

Department of Foundations and Leadership School of Education Duquesne University

Copyright 2005. Center for Advancing the Study of Teaching and Learning, Department of Foundations and Leadership, School of Education, Duquesne University.

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Copyright 2005. Center for Advancing the Study of Teaching and Learning, Department of Foundations and Leadership, School of Education, Duquesne University. 2

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About CASTL ______________________________________________________________________

The Center for Advancing the Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) was established in 1998 in the Department of Foundations and Leadership at Duquesne University School of Education. CASTL engages in research programs dedicated to understanding, advancing and disseminating evidence-based study of the teaching-learning process. Mission and Goals The Center for Advancing the Study of Teaching and Learning promotes systematic and intentional inquiry into the teaching-learning process and, through careful and collegial study of learning-centered environments, seeks to advance the understanding and dissemination of evidence-based study of the teaching-learning process in service of all learners. To promote its mission, CASTL intentionally pursues the following goals:

• Promote socially just, learning-centered environments that bring excellence and

equity to all learners;

• Foster systematic and intentional inquiry into the beliefs that educators hold about educational theory and research and effective practice;

• Honor research, theory, and practice as legitimate and complementary sources of knowledge regarding the teaching-learning process;

• Elevate professional learning and educational practice to the level of scholarship;

• Advance the conceptual framework of leadership as learning;

• Develop a knowledge network fueled by researchers, theorists and practitioners who contribute to advancing the study of the teaching-learning process;

• Establish and perpetuate an international community of teacher-scholars representing a variety of teaching and learning environments;

• Promote and coordinate communication within a network of educational institutions and organizations that collaborate in the recruitment and education of teacher-scholars;

• Create a culture of professional learning based on research situated in schools and in other learning environments;

• Examine and develop methodologies by which the teaching-learning process is studied;

• Advocate for the enhancement of the teaching-learning process in service of all learners; and

• Share what is learned about the teaching-learning process.


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Contact Information ______________________________________________________________________

This report is one of a series from our ongoing research effort to advance the study of teaching and learning. If you have any questions or comments on this report, or if you would like to find out more about the activities of CASTL, contact:

The Center for Advancing the Study of Teaching and Learning 406 Canevin Hall School of Education Duquesne University Pittsburgh, PA 15282 (412) 396-4778 [email protected] http://www.castl.duq.edu


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http://www.castl.duq.edu

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Abstract ___________________________________________________________________________

Our assumption underlying this theoretical model is that the base state of cognition is a set of beliefs through which we make sense of the world (Cunningham, 1993). We reason as to how our world works, how it fails to work, and how we should/should not act based upon our successful and unsuccessful negotiations of daily life. These reasoned inferences are rooted in our interconnected beliefs about the world, which in turn comprise a rhizome like knowledge structure, i.e., Lebenswelt. (von Uexküll, 1957) Since our beliefs are part of an interconnected rhizome, they are not separated from other beliefs or ideas. This makes studying beliefs sometimes difficult. In essence, we each have a unique Lebenswelt that is composed of beliefs which have developed from making inferences from our interactions with the world. Though each Lebenswelt is unique, it does not preclude similarities, i.e., similar beliefs or sign structures, across individuals. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the beginnings of a theoretical model that might be used to study a specific group of individuals, educators, e.g., teachers and administrators.


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Umwelt

Jakob von Uexküll's notion of Umwelt, from his paper "A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men", (von Uexküll, 1957) describes the Umwelten that organisms individually and collectively create that then serve to mediate their experience in the world. He uses ticks as an example to demonstrate how, individually and collectively, they construct their worlds based on their biologically determined sensitivity to butyric acid and the specific physical surroundings in which they live. The tick will launch itself toward a source of butyric acid, usually a passing mammal, burrow into its skin, gorge itself with blood, drop off, lay eggs, and die. The Umwelt of the tick is not the environment which, we as observers, would describe as separated from the tick. The Umwelt of the tick is the environment that is reconstituted and structured according to the ticks characteristics. As Cunnighman (1993) has stated “an Umwelt is the actual world of experience; that is, an organism's particular slice of the rhizome is the ‘real’ world for that organism.” The Lebenswelt is the human Umwelt (von Uexküll, 1957) including biological, physical, cultural and most importantly, semeiotic factors. What is unique for humans is our ability to consciously manipulate signs, which enables them to construct worlds apart from nature and direct experience. Because of this and the arbitrary nature of signs, humans can individually and collectively create an infinite array of meanings and possibilities for reality through the manipulation of signs. The importance of signs in creating the Lebenswelt lies in their creative power for infinite representation and meaning-making, or unlimited semiosis (Deely, 1990, p. 61). We literally construct our knowledge dynamically as we interact in the world. If we are constructing our knowledge dynamically as we interact in the world, what are we constructing? What is our Lebenswelt composed of? We argue that we are constructing rhizome like structure of beliefs that allow us to easily negotiate the world each day.

Beliefs

Peirce’s Fixation of Belief (FOB) (1877) article from Popular Science Monthly is devoted to a discussion of how beliefs become fixed or stabilized. To illustrate the fixation of belief, Peirce describes four distinct methods for this process: tenacity, authority, apriori, and experimentation. The first method, tenacity, occurs when we hold on to a belief in the face of doubt in order to preserve a self-identity or a world view to which we are committed. The second method of belief fixation, authority, occurs when we accept the beliefs of authority figures, such as parents, experts, or members of a community with whom we identify or want to identify. The third method of belief fixation, a priori, is invoked when our beliefs are established according to an already existing internal structure of belief that describes the criteria of a reasonable/rational belief, such as philosophical, scientific, or cultural preferences or ideas. The three methods described so far, tenacity, authority, and a priori, all resolve doubt and fixate belief by limited opinion--whether stubbornly maintained, taken from others, or reasoned from premises through experience. There is a fourth method, however, known as experimentation and Peirce preferred it. In Peirce's experimentation, one seeks to remove doubt by collecting more and more observations, generating potential hypotheses to account for experience and, finally, reaching a conclusion based upon an inferential process. Experimentation entails skepticism, openness to alternatives, discernment, negotiation, cooperation, and compromise to fix or stabilize beliefs (Cunningham, 2001). Little work has been completed in education or teacher education using Peirce’s work (Cunningham, 1993; Schreiber & Moss, 2002; Moss & Schreiber, 2004).

The key here is that the method is social and requires community/shared ideas/ shared context and fallibilism to work. All four methods can use any and all types of inference. What differs for method four is that no one person’s or community’s inference is adequate. Without this, abduction may be used; but it


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will never be used well. It will never lead to true novelty for its novel hypothesis will only grow out of a limited context of acceptableness (a priori). It is similar to an inference nest. For people who use method three, a priori is the outer nest. Abduction, then, can only probe as far as one’s a priori conclusions (conscious or unconscious) will allow. I will only deduce from principles that seem reasonable to me; and I will only induce from data that looks good to me. Further, authorities will only be accepted if they look like me. And tenacity will apply to what I like at any point in time.

In FOB, Peirce seems to treat beliefs as singular and separate from each other and therefore static. In his 1892 Monist series, specifically The Law of Mind, Peirce does provide some insight into what happens to beliefs as they change. He states that

“ideas tend to spread continuously and to affect certain others which stand to them in a peculiar relation…In this spreading they lose intensity, and especially the power of affecting others, but gain generality and become welded with other ideas (CP 6.102-111).”

As we are interacting with in our world, how do our beliefs develop? We argue that our beliefs develop through reasoning and making inferences.

Reasoning, Beliefs, and Making Inferences

Charles Sanders Peirce wrote extensively about three types of reasoning. He stated,

These three kinds of reasoning are Abduction, Induction, and Deduction. Deduction is the only necessary reasoning. It is the reasoning of mathematics. It starts from a hypothesis, the truth or falsity of which has nothing to do with the reasoning; and of course its conclusions are equally ideal. The ordinary use of the doctrine of chances is necessary reasoning, although it is reasoning concerning probabilities. Induction is the experimental testing of a theory. The justification of it is that, although the conclusion at any stage of the investigation may be more or less erroneous, yet the further application of the same method must correct the error. The only thing that induction accomplishes is to determine the value of a quantity. It sets out with a theory and measures the degree of concordance of that theory with fact. It can never originate any idea whatsoever. No more can deduction. All the ideas of science come to it by way of Abduction. Abduction consists in studying facts and devising a theory to explain them. Its only justification is that if we are ever to understand things at all, it must be in that way. (5.145)

Ten Modes of Reasoning

Shank and Cunningham (1996) have elaborated Peirce’s types of reasoning by identifying six modes of abduction, three modes of induction, and one of deduction. The full derivation is too detailed to describe here (Cunningham, Arici, Schreiber, & Lee, 2002; Shank, 1994). Each of the six modes of abduction deals with potential or possibility, each of the three modes of induction deal with habituation, while deduction focuses on rules. It is the modes of reasoning, the inferences that we make, that emphasize possibilities that are essential to successfully negotiate our world or resolve doubt. The ten modes are a description of the beliefs development process. When we are trying to resolve doubt, i.e. solving a problem, we are following hunches and looking for clues, building scenarios and coming up with tentative explanations. We abduct to a new explanation. But, abduction alone, of course, is not sufficient. Ideas must be linked by


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reason to other ideas and tested. We test our explanations inductively, and as the explanation continues to “hold up” it develops into a belief we use to successfully negotiate our world. But how do beliefs, Lebenswelt, and reasoning, fit together?

Lebenswelt, Beliefs, and Reasoning

As we are interacting with our world, we are making inferences, thereby creating beliefs--our Lebenswelt, and, in essence, forming beliefs about how our world works that allow us to successfully negotiate our daily lives. We are making sense of our worlds. If we assume the base state of cognition is a set of beliefs through which the world makes sense, i.e., our Lebenswelt, or any particular slice of our Lebenswelt, characterizes our world (Cunningham, 1993). From day to day negotiation, our beliefs are our stability. Imagine, if you can, living in a world where the meaning of a word changes every time someone uses it or where a man could mistake his wife for a hat (Sacks, 1987). Beliefs are our stability but they do change. The real strength of the three types of reasoning occurs when our beliefs no longer work, when we have doubt. Peirce has proposed that we create or accept new beliefs when we are in a condition of inadequacy that he called genuine doubt ( to distinguish this form of skepticism from the methodological form used by Descartes). Genuine doubt arises from experience, hence it is naturally embedded in a relevant context. It is situated or anchored by the network of beliefs and habits that, for whatever reason, have become inadequate to current needs. Being in a state of genuine doubt is unpleasant - the world does not make obvious sense - so it is necessary to create or alter a belief so as to move to some new state of belief, a process that Peirce labeled the fixation of belief. This sense making act, the resolution of doubt and the fixation (stabilization) of belief, lies at the heart of our conception of cognition. The fundamental modes of preserving belief and moving from doubt to belief are inference. As we are moving from doubt to stabilized belief, making inferences, we are engaging in the ten modes of reasoning until a new belief is stabilized.

Educators

Educators have beliefs about learning, classroom instruction, and assessment, along with other aspects of education. Their beliefs allow them to successfully negotiate each day in their classrooms. These beliefs drive how they act toward students, the material being taught, fellow faculty, and parents, just to name a few components in a teacher’s daily life. What we want to try to observe and document are the individual Lebenwelt of teachers and administrators and how they change over time. We are interested in their beliefs about education and learning but also how those beliefs are connected with beliefs about other aspects of their lives.

How can we understand the dynamic nature of beliefs, their Lebenswelts? How can we make sense of the contradictory beliefs that teachers hold? We argue that efforts to investigate these questions and many others have been hampered by quests to define and access beliefs in ways that are both static and constraining. We propose that a more semiotic understanding of the processes inherent in belief formation, transformation, and transmission may have particular utility. To aid in that understanding, we propose a conceptual tool for teacher beliefs--the palimpsest (Moss & Schreiber, 2004). We are not the first to employ the figure of the palimpsests to examine dynamic change (e.g., Bey, 1984; Birkets, 1994; Borenstein & Williams 1993). Scholars across the domains of literature, music, art, religion, and other areas of study have used the concept to both focus and illuminate their research.


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The palimpsest is literally a manuscript that has been "scraped again". The word comes from the Greek palin "once again", and psaein "scrape". In most instances the parchment would be washed and/or scraped and resurfaced, then overwritten, although there are instances of manuscripts that were overwritten without being cleaned. The under-writing of palimpsests is, of course, often difficult to read because although the manuscript was altered it often bears traces of its previous forms. Yet for the conceptual tool of the palimpsest to be useful, it is important to understand two factors. First, it is critical to approach the palimpsest as a sort of natural history that captures both the belief and the process of belief formation. The palimpsest can be re-written and re-inscribed with each new layer of accretion. Some layers can be completely scraped away, some only partially removed. Layers of a palimpsest can be transparent and translucent and reveal what lies beneath, or they cluster in ways that block the revelation of previous layers or segments of previous layers. Second, it is important to note that reading a palimpsest is not a done instantaneously or simply. They are not immediate or straightforward creations. We employ the notion of the palimpsest, then, to stress both the multi-layered character of teacher beliefs and the generative and complex process of their formation, transformation, and transmission in a community of practice. Furthermore, the conceptual tool of the palimpsests helps us understand the limitations inherent in accessing teacher beliefs in isolated and artificial ways.

Therefore, we approach the palimpsest as a particularly useful lens for examining teacher beliefs because it contains the natural, messy, and conflicted history of the beliefs that teachers hold. Overtime, it is inscribed in a layered subtext ribbed and cross-ribbed with beliefs, values, and convictions that have solidified over the years and that grow from a long history of engagement with the life world and provoked in its intimacy. What shines through are not just past versions of the life world, but more importantly, potential alternative views. Therefore, in interpreting teacher beliefs and in reading palimpsests, all the layers are important. These layers help us to understand the evolution of a teaching career and the beliefs that form as our professional lives unfold and continuously oscillate between the known and the unknown. The unknown is fraught with both danger and promise. The known, in the form of our beliefs and knowledge, protects us from contamination with the unknown. But the known also stifles us; our assimilated and ingrained beliefs, knowledge, and underlying assumptions pull us away from exploration of the new or anomalous and from creative action. When we encounter the unknown- -when something unexpected happens to us or when we encounter some new theory or practice-- we find ourselves in a suddenly strange situation in which our traditional knowledge is nonfunctional. We are, as Peirce suggests, compelled by genuine doubt. Our experiences, by analogy, provoke the immediate responses that we instinctively take when faced with new and unique ideas and situations. We impose existing schemes, we rely and depend on the familiar, as we weigh the new with the old. We recreate that which is absent. We compare with what we already believe. We pattern from the past. Thus, as we seek to deal with new practices, theories, and research, we are as McLuhan (1964) so articulately mused, "dragged into the future" while "looking into a rear-view mirror".

Beliefs then, can be viewed as dynamic and interrelated not inevitable and final linear products but rather, palimpsests represent possible realizations of nearly infinite possibilities determined by experiences past, present, and future.


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Method

Participants

A total of 50 teachers and administrators from a large metropolitan area over the past five years are participants in this study. The participants were enrolled in graduate degree courses at a private university. We chose three typical-cases to analyze for this paper.

Document Collection and Analysis

Beliefs have plagued our work and research in different ways over the last decade. A learning program in the Center for Advancing the Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) at Duquesne University, known as Teaching as Intentional Learning (TIL) (Moss, 1998), engages teachers in a process of “systematic and intentional inquiry” (Moss, 2001; 2002) focused on revealing and challenging the beliefs and assumptions that influence their decisions of practice. Moss (2002) describes systematic and intentional inquiry as an intentional process of knowledge construction that is organic, always unfinished, deriving from judgment and belief and revealed through action—through doing and making” (p.4-5). In its most basic form, systematic and intentional inquiry is driven by an educator's curiosity, interest or passion to understand and address an area of concern that emerges from his or her daily practice. Inquiry begins as an educator notices something that intrigues, surprises, or stimulates a question and builds to a professional learning agenda that includes revealing and challenging beliefs and assumptions that teachers hold about the concern and about factors that may contribute to the concern. What the educator experiences or observes often does not make sense in relationship to the educator's previous experience or current understanding (Cochran-Smith, 1995; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993; Lytle et al., 1994; Zeichner, 1994). Teachers are supported in their professional learning agendas through CASTL’s online learning environment. Moreover, the online environment captures detailed descriptions of their thinking and inquiry. As such, TIL provides a context rich environment for investigating our questions and for listening to the language of teacher beliefs (Moss & Shank, 2002).

Raw written electronic statements from all the participants about their area of concern and subsequent inquiry were collected. The electronic statements represent a professional learning agenda that spans a 16-week period. From this pool of participants, three typical-cases were chosen for this analysis. The raw responses were then analyzed by the researchers specifically looking for evidence of teaching or administration beliefs, genuine doubt, changes in beliefs, changes in perspective, and inconsistency of beliefs. By looking for these, we believed that we would get static slices of an individual’s Lebenswelt, yet see changes as time went on and new beliefs emerged sometimes without completing wiping away old beliefs.

Observations From and Discussion of the Cases

Below we provide our three cases: Director of Curriculum, Third-grade teacher, and a Physical Education teacher. A portion of their raw responses are in italics in Appendix A.

Each one of these excerpts is a static slice of the individuals’ Lebenswelt, their belief structures of their actual world at that moment of writing. Within each case, we see different aspects of beliefs, reasoning, and doubt that we highlight below.


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The Curriculum Director was initially very interested in the implementation of effective techniques for developing reading skills in auditory or oral hearing-impaired children. Interestingly, the participant is displaying her beliefs about problems that cause poor implementation and deducing from a perspective that makes sense to her without examining other perspectives. Essentially she states, 1) If the teacher does not understand principles of strategy, 2) the teacher will not implement correctly, and 3) the teachers will deduce that the methodology doesn’t work. The highlight of the deduction here is she has mapped her deduction on what she thinks their deduction will be. This is just one example of the messy interconnectedness of beliefs and reasoning that we all engage in everyday.

The Curriculum Director responses provide a good example of genuine doubt in her questions, “Is there an assumption that hearing-impaired students can’t be expected to achieve such learning goals? Or is this because teachers do not know how to assess these goals?” She conducts some informal interviews with teachers trying to examine these assumptions, and has integrated ideas about what the administrators are doing that may contribute to this problem, but she is still focused on teacher knowledge and implementation (see lines 80-90 in Appendix A). She does not discuss the other assumption at all in the text. By week 14 (see lines starting at 170), her beliefs have appeared to change from a belief about equipping teachers and a problem solution approach to a systems approach in order to understand the teaching and learning environment.

Interestingly, she appears to be accepting the systems approach (uncritical acceptance of an idea) and rejecting the problem solution approach without a critical review of what each illuminate and each hide. By the end of her 16 week semester, she appears to have made some important personal steps in recognizing beliefs that were systemic throughout the school, understanding her own beliefs, experiencing doubt about what are problems, and opening herself up to more perspectives.

Initially, the administrator believes that her job is to fix problems and find answers to give to her teachers so they will be better teachers. Related beliefs to instruction also arise concerning what is supposed to be happing in classrooms, i.e., information acquisition or critical thinking? This is a key moment of doubt, no matter how subtle it reads, but she still only has one perspective—that of the teachers (similar to von Uexkull’s bug only sees on perspective of the tree). It is only after her interviews that she is changing her perspective and seeing the potential flaws in the belief structure she has been working under concerning what administrators should be providing to teachers. What is most interesting is her change in beliefs from problem/solution focus to systems focus she could be creating the exact problem she is trying to avoid—focusing on one way to handle the problem—from problem/solution model to systems model—from only seeing the bark to see the whole tree, but no longer the bark.

The third grade teacher excerpts provide one example of her belief threads that kept coming back. Initially, we felt she was in genuine doubt about her beliefs about who is to “blame” for lack of engagement in the classroom, student or teacher. Her beliefs appear to be on the side of blame the student, but her written comments also indicate she might need to examine what she is doing. In week 5 (see lines starting at 530, Appendix A), she “discovers” the link between assessment and instruction and a meaningful learning environment--but is “still not convinced that my students aren’t to blame” (line 553). A week later, she seems to doubt that third graders’ thinking dispositions can’t be changed the late in the process of schooling. This is a related belief to the doubt question of who to blame. Simply, if they can’t be changed—then I am not to blame, they are—problem solved.

During the following, week she reads about Piaget’s model of cognitive development and determines that developmentally this may be the time to teach good thinking dispositions. She states that her assumptions about student responsibility for learning should to be modified to include helping student learn how to take


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responsibility for their learning (line 645 and 662). This is shift from her previous belief, but not a large one. Her statements so far can be examined from the idea of simply deducing from principles that seem reasonable to her. She is not really stepping outside of her comfort area to challenge her beliefs. Essentially, she is still using the same premise, something wrong with the student—a fix the student philosophy. Statements written in week twelve include an example student from her class. The teacher believes her original assumption was wrong about the student being lazy, she now believes that the issue is the external attributions the student is making in reference to performance in mathematics. She wants to change the student’s attributions to be internal, stable, and controllable (Lines starting at 791). At this point, she has inquired how she can modify her actions to accomplish this.

The last few weeks she begins discussing the need for the students to set goals for themselves. On the surface the statements seem to reflect a change in practice within the classroom, but her underlying belief has not changed. She states, “The assumption that my students may not be motivated to learn…has been challenged this week (Lines 851-853).” Though her statements indicate that her belief about responsibility has changed to include herself, which is positive, the underlying premise she is making deductions from has not—that there is a problem with the student that must be changed.

One of the most interesting aspects of the data is the welding of layers of beliefs—that is a person’s individual palimpsest at a moment in time. From this welding, we see contradictions of beliefs arise—the odd “leftovers” hanging around during belief examination, change, and stabilization. There are numerous examples throughout the written statement of the participants and we provide one here. The Physical Education teacher provides a clear example as he states “I am going to try and grade on how a student improves from the beginning of an activity to the end, I am NOT (emphasis added) going to have a set performance standard that all students need to achieve in class. I would like to implement a plan that would allow me to evaluate how much a student improved.” (See Lines starting at 426 Appendix A). Thus after much thought, inquiry, and examination of material (e.g., clues) it appears a new scenario of what to assess in his courses has been created. Later he states students need to have attainable goals which they can reach to increase their motivational level. Therefore belief about performance criteria has not left, even within the context of this new assessment scenario. In the week 16 report, he states, “students learn bets when challenged by high standards. This is something I have tried to incorporate in my class. To be successful in physical education all students need to be challenged. This is also where setting goals in the classroom can help students increase their motivation.” (See Lines starting at 486). He has completely returned to an a-priori performance criterion view of assessment and appears to have abandoned the growth model grading scenario behind. His underlying reasoning about motivation remains consistent throughout his full text, if I just do one thing, “X” student Y will be motivated.

Generalities Across Cases

From these cases we can see individuals doubt about how to solve a specific problem, i.e., instruction, motivation, assessment and so forth but there are some generalities. One inferred trend from the data is the limitation of all modes of inferences. Specifically, overall reasoning is based on deduction from acceptable premises or from the handpicking of clues (signs) that make abduction to a scenario comfortable within the current Lebenswelt. Related to these patterns of reasoning is the uncritical acceptance and rejection of ideas from right after uncritical acceptance or rejection of ideas. Handpicking of clues and uncritical acceptance or rejection of ideas or information decreases the power abductive reasoning as Peirce described it and, therefore, reduces possibility of novel solution. Reading through full transcripts, we did observe at times participants using pieces of information as clues and metaphors trying


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to develop and explanatory scenario. What we would definitively call abductive reasoning. But, this was not always the case.

Though seemingly different from the limitation of reasoning modes, we believe that the misunderstanding of learning, motivation, and instructional models, or the components of those models is related to a confirmation bias of picking what makes sense and changing what does not to fit the current belief structure. Not surprisingly, we observed that beliefs are tenacious and do not change quickly or easily in many cases. Therefore, significant meaningful learning takes time if we view it from the lens of belief examination and potential change.

Limitations

As with any study, there are limitations. The largest limitation is the data is very thick and this is only the beginning of the full analysis. Inferences we have made here based on these cases, may change, even radically, as we examine and re-examine all of the cases. Even with multiple eyes looking at the collected data, it is difficult at times to pin down the exact belief coherently and the beginning premise of the reasoning. As researchers we are looking at slicing of time in order to try and explain phenomenon we have observed as faculty in teacher education programs. Our own area of concern, which we can’t even try to answer with this data, is do apparent belief changes we see lead to any tangible behavior changes in the daily professional practice of our participants.

Conclusion and Extension

The integration of this composite framework, we feel, provides a solid theoretical model to examine teacher beliefs and the process by which beliefs change through genuine doubt and reasoning. The model allows for understanding preexisting beliefs (knowledge) through tenacity, authority, and a-priori and provides a system for analyzing beliefs as they change and the antecedent to that change, genuine doubt as well as a glimpse into the Lebenswelt of an individual.

From using this composite framework we see several strengths. This framework allows us to examine beliefs as they develop, change, and transform. The framework allows us to illuminate how beliefs can become fragmented, buried, and rearranged, and often resurrected either untouched or slightly altered. It illustrates the messy nature of belief formation, transformation, and fixation. Finally, it allows us to provide a thick description of what happens to beliefs overtime as teachers struggle to reveal, challenge, and reconcile beliefs with evidence from educational theory, research, and experience

These cases are representative of a process that other members of the Teaching as Intentional Learning community have experienced. We have seen time and again that when teachers engage in a learning environment and a learning community that irritates their beliefs, they are driven to resolve doubt. What is critical about the data presented here is that they lend insight into the complex nature of the beliefs that teachers hold, the dynamic complexity of the thinking processes that occur when those beliefs are confronted, and the power of a professional learning community dedicated to systematic and intentional inquiry to heighten awareness and irritation of those beliefs.

As our access to knowledge increases, it is more important than ever before for schools of education to produce educators who can critically examine their beliefs, their knowledge, and their practice. We have assumed for too long, and we would argue to our disadvantage, that teachers must be told which beliefs are false and which are true. Cunningham (2001) has argued that with increased access to information through


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modern technology, traditional patterns of deferring decisions to authority figures may be dissolving. It is no longer sufficient to build our schools of education and our professional learning opportunities around the goals of acquiring the skills and techniques of effective teaching. We have found that a more important outcome of professional learning might be to foster an increased comfort with the state of genuine doubt and the abductive reasoning process that allows teachers to use that discomfort to drive sophisticated and deeply personal learning agendas of their own design. We have also come to believe that when communities are formed to irritate beliefs and provide a forum for challenging and examining them, they can influence teachers and teaching in powerful ways.

Clearly significant learning takes time—time to wrestle with uncertainty, to revisit concepts, to compare, to contrast, to hypothesize. This is in stark contrast to our current models of “teacher training” and “professional development.” Is it any wonder that teachers or administrators begin with the idea that there is one recipe for teaching—that a silver bullet exists? Many of our schools of education are still built around methods courses that promote this notion by teaching techniques and strategies over critical thinking and inquiry. We would argue that it is to our advantage to equip our nation’s educators with not only the most effective instructional methods, but also with the best processes for decision making, collaboration, skepticism, reflexivity, and reasoning so that they can use the real concerns that arise from their practice as starting points for significant learning. In other words, we must commit to producing teachers who are able to reveal and challenge their beliefs about teaching and learning and get at Lebenswelts. It is clear that there are extensive opportunities for future research that pursue a thoughtful and critical understanding of how individuals alter their beliefs and the welding of new and old beliefs along with their residuals. We contend, however, that only when the processes of abductive reasoning are considered in both the formation and transformation of those beliefs, will we gain full appreciation for the complexities of those processes and the power that genuine doubt exerts. It is only then that we will be able to create effective learning environments that both lead educators into genuine doubt and allow them the precious luxury of time—time to both gain comfort with the dissonance that genuine doubt brings and time to absorb the learning agendas that it helps to create.


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Pittsburgh, PA: CASTL, Duquesne University. (Information about access to the password protected CASTL online learning environment available at: http://www.castl.duq.edu. For more information send email to moss@ castl.duq.edu)

Moss, C. M. (2001). A resource guide for the teacher scholar. Pittsburgh, PA: CASTL, Duquesne

University. Online address: http://www.castl. duq.edu/res_guide/ Moss, C.M. (April, 2002). In the Eye of the Beholder: The Role of Educational Psychology in Teacher

Inquiry. A paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.

Moss, C.M. and Schreiber, J.B. (April, 2004). The palimpsest: A conceptual framework for understanding

teacher beliefs. A paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA.

Moss, C.M. & Shank, G. (2002, May). Using Qualitative Processes in Computer Technology Research on

Online Learning: Lessons in Change from "Teaching as Intentional Learning." Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research [On-line Journal], 3(2). Retrieved July 20, 2005 from: http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/2-02/2-02mossshank-e.htm

Peirce, C. S. (1877). The fixation of belief. Popular Science Monthly, 12, 1-15. Peirce, C. S. (1892). The Law of Mind. The Monist, 11, 533–59.


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Peirce, C. S. (1931-1958). Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. C. Hartshorne & P. Weiss (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Sacks, O. (1987). The man who mistook his wife for a hat. New York: Harper Schreiber J.B., & Moss C. (2002). A Peircean view of teacher beliefs and genuine doubt. Teaching and

Learning, 17 (1), 31-53. Shank, G. (1994). Using semiotic reasoning in empirical research: The emergence of Peirce's ten classes of

signs. To appear in MPES Proceedings , 1993-1994. Shank, G. & Cunningham, D. J. (1996). Modeling the six modes of Peircean abduction for educational

purposes. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest AI and Cognitive Science Conference, Bloomington, IN,

von Uexküll, J. (1957). A stroll through the worlds of animals and men. In C. Schiller (Ed.). Instinctive

behavior: The development of a modern concept. New York: International Universities Press, Inc. Zeichner, K. (1994). Personal renewal and social constructivism through teacher research. In S.

Hollingsworth & H. Sockett (Eds.), Teacher research and education reform. 94th Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education (pp. 66-85). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.


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Appendix A Below are excerpts from written transcripts from our three typical cases. Their actual written statements are in italics and our transition or explanatory statements are in bold. Typically, there are over 60 pages of written text for each person. We simply provide these as an example of what we saw in general.


Theoretical Model

CASE 1: Curriculum Director for a large Urban Institute for Disabled Students. The curriculum director begins with the following beliefs about what is an area of concern regarding the teaching/learning environment in her school. Notice that her focus is driven by the belief that fixing the issues in her school demand that she find the “answers” in the forms of strategies and techniques to give to her teachers so that they will be better teachers. In other words, fixing what ails the learning environment in her school is a matter of finding the most effective strategies and providing staff development to deliver those strategies to her staff: “..the most effective techniques and strategies for developing reading skills in auditory/oral hearing-impaired children who have delays in language acquisition and significant gaps in vocabulary development due to pre-lingual severe to profound hearing loss?… Having the best strategies and techniques to teach reading may not be effective, if the teachers using them do not have an understanding of the principles that inform them. This lack of understanding often results in teachers rejecting sound teaching strategies and methodologies too quickly. In deaf education, it is common for teachers to adapt curriculum, materials, tests, etc. to meet the special needs of the learners. However, when teachers are unaware of the essential elements of a program, it is easy to pick and choose the parts that are easy or fast and skip the ones they may not understand or value. In doing this, it is possible that the fidelity of the program is lost and the result is that teachers reject it as another strategy that doesn’t work for hearing-impaired students. Therefore in looking at the best teaching strategies for reading with hearing-impaired students, staff development cannot go unaddressed. After her examination of theory, research and effective practice leads her to the ideas of instruction that focuses on critical thinking rather than information acquisition and information application, she begins to scan the lesson plans of her staff to note where the lesson goals fall on the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy. After conducting this environmental scan of lesson plan goals she says: “I used the Table of the Revised Blooms’ Taxonomy to classify each learning objective of several students on various levels at DePaul Institute to see how well the learning goals covered the various dimensions of knowledge and cognitive processes. Since I am unable to copy the table in this report template, I will state that as you pointed out, most of the goals fell under factual and conceptual knowledge and in the cognitive process dimensions of remember, understand and apply. Not one measurable goal could be listed under evaluate and very few could be listed under analyze. While I’m certain that there are learning activities taking place in the classrooms that fall into the other parts of this matrix, it is very telling where the measured goals are found and where they are not. Are teachers consciously aware that they are not identifying these higher- level skills in goals and objectives in the individual education plans? Is there an assumption that this type of higher- level learning takes place indirectly? Is there an assumption that hearing-impaired students can’t be expected to achieve such learning goals? Or is this because teachers do not know how to assess these goals?” Notice that her thinking is beginning to move from problem solving to identifying underlying factors that may provide a causal explanation for her area of concern. She is now beginning to try to figure out what is going on but her focus is still squarely on what the TEACHERS are doing and how she can get them to see what they should be doing better or differently. She decides to gather more data from her school through informal interviews with the teachers to find out what they are thinking in an effort to be better able to help them. After conducting these interviews

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she states a change in her beliefs, now she is seeing a connection between the teaching learning environment in her school and the role that the school’s administrators play in that environment: Another insight that came from informal conversations with the teachers about how they felt the progress monitoring program was working. While some teachers confidently identified the number of data points they collected and said that they felt comfortable with the assessment tools they were using, most teachers were at the opposite end - not even sure that they got an authentic baseline score. Although we emphasized at an initial workshop that research shows the importance of engaging students in taking responsibility for their learning by understanding their learning goals and graphing their own progress, no teacher attempted to discuss the goals with the students or had them graph their own data. While this was not surprising to me, I believe that it is related to Rick Stiggins point that teachers do not receive the level of training they need to be competent in assessment and principals have not been prepared to supervise and provide leadership in classroom assessments….From this information it looks as if the break down in the learning process can be traced back to what administrators do to ensure that their teachers are intentional, ongoing learners. It would be very insightful to use a tool such as the Revised Bloom Taxonomy to determine what level of learning they are providing the faculty through out the year with scheduled in-service programs. It is wrong to assume that providing teachers with only factual and procedural level knowledge will result in the motivation, effective planning, teaching, and assessing by teachers, that we now know is necessary. Because of the pressures of time constraints, teachers often ask for only the concrete information. Teachers can commonly be heard saying, “Tell me what to do. Give me the tools and let me use them. I don’t have time to spend learning the theory behind the strategy…I believe that well meaning administrators do exactly that, thinking that they are meeting the needs of their faculty. But they fail to recognize that they are missing the opportunity to model and engage teachers in the process of being ongoing learners. If we are not engaging teachers in balanced learning experiences which involve various knowledge dimensions and cognitive processing levels; and if we are not assessing their teaching in a formative way with the same meaningful feedback which provides motivation and internal learning drive, then we cannot expect this to happen in the classrooms with the students. This is the beginning of her focus on the “bigger picture”. She begins expanding her search for information and is no longer just focused on teachers. She begins to take a systems view and is now widening her search to consider contributing factors from all parts of the organizational system. Here she notes another observation that causes her to reconsider her view of what is going on with teaching and learning at her school. Note at the end of this excerpt that she now sees professional development workshops in a way that is very distinct from her view of several months before: …the mission of <name of school> is to prepare each hearing –impaired student to move into the regular educational setting as soon as they are able to succeed academically, socially and emotionally. Consequently students from various levels of our program (K-HS) are leaving our school each year. The result is constant change in class sizes. For example a class of six students last year may turn into a class of three this year. A class of three may turn into a class of two, or at times leave only one student who still needs to remain in the auditory oral program. Each year grouping the students into appropriate learning groups (classes) that take into account academic levels, individual needs, and an age range of no more than 3 years, results in changes for teachers…. Few have had the opportunity to feel successful at teaching reading at this point in the year and so do not have “mastery of experiences.” Most teachers are not feeling relaxed and positive, but are having negative emotional and physiological experiences as they try to plan for a new class as well as collect data and monitor progress in a new way. They do not have the opportunity to gain vicarious experience since


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it is new for everyone except two of us who participated in the initial pilot program last year. They feel unprepared for the up-coming workshop and so they do not see it as a support, but rather another opportunity when they will feel incompetent at the assigned task. The result is lower self-efficacy.

The affects of low self efficacy on their behavior are obvious. The stress and anxiety of teachers in all departments has increased. The topic of conversations is usually the obstacles and struggles they are experiencing. While some teachers are trying new ideas and methods presented in staff development workshops, they are questioning how long they should stay with a particular technique if they are not seeing success with the students. Many teachers are expressing feelings of being overwhelmed and emotionally exhausted at the end of the teaching day. Teachers have stated that they feel like they are expected to do more when in reality they are being asked to do things differently…. Giving information, techniques and strategies through workshops will not always raise the self efficacy of a teacher for a newly assigned task. In fact it could lower self efficacy if teachers are not engaged as professionals but simply told to change their teaching to incorporate the new information. She continues her research, dialogue and study and continues to see her school with new eyes. At about the 12 week mark of a 16 week semester she writes: …in order for real change and growth to occur, teachers need more than “one shot workshops.” They need time to reflect and dialogue with one another to deepen their level of understanding. They need time to collaborate in planning ways to use the new information or address the new expectations. They might need time for peer coaching or mentoring until the process becomes more comfortable and their self efficacy for that particular task increases. They need time to step back and evaluate what they are doing and see the success and/or identify what’s not working. The critical word in the last four statements is time; however time alone is not the answer. If an administration provides hours of inservice time without the right support and guidance, it will not lead to success. When people are engaged in a new task, their self-efficacy is usually low. When self-efficacy is low, taking risks, asking questions that may reveal a lack of understanding, and staying with something new long enough to see results become more difficult. My own experience tells me that providing teachers with time to do a task when they’re not sure what or how to do it, rarely results in good use of time… Effective leaders must see how the new learning will impact the big picture of the school program, and engage faculty in ways that allow them to integrate the new information appropriately with their prior knowledge and experience of the school curriculum, methodologies, learning styles, etc. This statement comes at week 14. At this point she is adopting a perspective that includes looking at the teaching learning environment as a system --a systems thinking point of view. She now sees the organic nature of the issue and the relationships among many causal factors. She no longer sees the issue as a matter of equipping teachers with certain strategies that can be handed down by the administrators. She says: The relationship between individual development and organizational development in educational programs. Three concepts discussed in the readings, result driven education, system thinking, and the value of self reflection for collaborative learning communities, …The effectiveness of individual professional development is directly related to the organizational structure of the institution and its flexibility…Organizational changes and professional development must occur simultaneously in order to achieve the authentic growth and lasting improvement…As <name of school> struggled to align its curriculum closely with regular education, so the students could make the transition back to home districts more smoothly, we often got caught up in the latest


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initiatives and changes. In honest attempts to stay abreast with important educational directives, we attended workshops, and planned in-service time to address these issues. Just as the readings described, uncritical acceptance of too many different innovations caused fragmentation, overload, and incoherent results. All of the professional development programs were addressed at the teachers’ level where they were expected to take information specifically designed for regular education and try to understand it, adapt it, and apply it in the area of oral deaf education. Some new ideas and methods seem to match one class of deaf students but not other classes so some teachers changed their focus in one direction, while others felt free to use other methods. The result was confusion in methodologies, and lack of consistency in following curriculum. …As we refocus our program, we need to be careful not to address the changes we identify with a problem /solution approach. A problem-solution mentality often doesn’t work because the seemingly obvious solution to a single problem results in three more problems that then needed to be addressed. Exactly Systems thinking as described by Peter Senge, is a discipline for seeing wholes, interrelationships, and patterns of change which calls one beyond problem/solution thinking. It sees causality as circular and recognizes that even minor changes can affect other parts in complex ways. Some of the effects will be noticed immediately while others only over time. Some will be positive others negative…System thinking and planning could naturally lead to collaborative learning and self reflection on all levels. If one holds the assumption that all parts of the school program are interconnected and therefore effected by even a small action, it will be more important that everyone recognizing their relationship to others. Staff development programs will no longer be address only on one level, but will be viewed and integrated on several levels. System thinkers would need to step back and look reflectively on the big picture. In order to do this well in a school program one would need input from teachers so they in turn would also be expected to engage in self reflection about their practices and successes in the classroom….I thought this simple statement in The Teacher Within by Robert Garmston was very powerful: Any group that is too busy to reflect about its work is too busy to improve…. I thought this simple statement in The Teacher Within by Robert Garmston was very powerful: Any group that is too busy to reflect about its work is too busy to improve. After 16 weeks, she files a final statement that summarizes her journey: The TIL process moved me beyond the problem/solution mindset and helped me to recognize and value the many perspectives from which a concern should be viewed before applying a seemingly obvious solution. Because of engaging in this process, I went from an area of concern that focused on the development of reading strategies and techniques for hearing-impaired students to recognizing a much broader perspective that involved the critical part of engaging teachers. After looking at this topic through the domains of the teaching-learning process I realized that gathering strategies and techniques was not going to achieve the level of change in our reading program that we needed…. The TIL learning experience gave me the opportunity to step back from my view as a classroom teacher, in which I was comfortable, and showed me a different perspective on the school as an organization. Yes, at your new level you have a more relational and global view and that is what happens when you assume a leadership position. It was stressful on some levels, because it caused me to recognize the limited perspective that was operating at the present time at my school. But this is also important because you can relate to the narrow and limited view that teachers have because of their positions and duties. It gave me courage to name some of the weaknesses in our present staff development plan and to suggest changes in the way professional development was viewed and implemented. It helped me to see not just the symptoms but the need to name – the real issues that were causing the negative attitudes, and low achievement that seemed to be permeating the school…. If one holds the assumption that all parts of the school program are interconnected and therefore affected by even a small action, it will be more important that everyone recognizes their relationship to others. Staff development programs will no longer be address only on one level, but will be viewed and integrated on several levels. Administrators as system


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thinkers would need to step back and look reflectively on the big picture. In order to do this well in a school program one would need input from teachers so they in turn would also be expected to engage in self reflection about their practices and successes in the classroom. CASE 2: Gym Teacher Middle School Urban Setting grades 6 through 9. He is also the new chair person of the Physical Education Dept. In these excerpts we follow one thread of his thinking—it starts with motivation, begins to focus on gender issues and then goes into a focus on obesity and finally comes out with some conclusions on the meaning of motivating students toward a healthy lifestyle and the role that teacher learning plays in that. Week 1: His focus is on trying to “motivate” students in his class. The underlying belief here is that motivating is something he can do to his students and that some students have reasons that they are not easy to motivate. I would like to look at all the different ways to motivate students. Being a Physical Education Teacher has a unique atmosphere and learning environment. I am trying to motivate students mentally and physically. This study is going to help me be a better educator. I can tell because I notice myself already trying new things to motivate students to performmentally and physically… One of the biggest areas of concern is trying to motivate the so-called “non-athlete.” I have many students that simply cannot physically perform skills and tasks that are required. The students become embarrassed and withdrawn from class activities. I try and offer a wide variety of things within each unit to help all students be successful… Directly related to this is students at this age are more interested in socializing then exercising. Students may not want to do something that has the potential to make them look bad in front of their peers. This problem is increased due to all my classes being coed. Also, the coed classes create motivational problems due to female may not want to play a activity because they are left out by the males in the class. Males may not want to participate in an activity that they feel is for females only. Two examples are football and gymnastics. Breaking stereotypes is a motivational concern. Week 5: He begins to look into the idea of gender diversity and reveals some of his assumptions about how and why males and females are “motivated”. The overarching assumption here is that motivation is still something he will do to his students but he must vary what he does by gender. Even though he has reviewed research on gender differences he concentrates his comments on females. An assumption here is that most motivation issues in gym are female issues. He spends time talking about those differences and in the end concludes that differences exist but different approaches are not warranted. He ends by concentrating on a particular female who has low motivation because of obesity. Motivating both boys and girls in the same environment is a challenge. Female students primary reason for engaging in physical activity is to have fun (Diane, 2003). Male students are more about competition… When trying to motivate females you need to focus on giving positive feedback for the skills that they are learning. This feedback helps to enhance self-perceptions, which helps to motivate females… most females do not like the competitive environment in the Physical Education class. You need to have a balance in the types of


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activities that you are doing in class to ensure that males and females can experience a positive learning environment. Society also makes it harder to motivate females in the physical education environment. I did not focus on race and motivation but there was one statistic that really intrigued me. Girls ages 11-17 were asked if they felt competent and capable about their bodies. Thirty six percent of the African-Americans said yes compared to only seven point six percent of the white girls. I am not sure how to interpret this statistics but white girls do not look favorably on themselves for some reason. We still lean towards viewing females as not being equal in the sporting world… females participate for fun, socialization, and to get in shape. You must provide opportunities to achieve these motives in physical activity… the President’s Council report there were many facts that males and females treat physical activity very different. The reason I do not think they should be treated differently is because the class should be run in a way that helps all kinds of students… I strongly feel that your classroom or activity is already motivating females if it is done correctly … I have a female student that is very obese and has a note from the Doctor that she cannot participate in any contact sports or strenuous activity. I called home and talked with the mother and she suggested that her daughter ride a bike in the corner of the gym. I said that we could try that but maybe another approach could work. I felt that this would only push her farther away from her motivation to exercise. When I taught a flag football unit she was not motivated at all and wanted to just sit out and not be involved. I taught her how to referee and she had a yellow flag to throw just like the pros. She would try and run up and down the sideline trying not to miss a call on the field. She was actively involved in the class and was upset when we moved on to the next unit. The next unit was golf and I had no trouble motivating her due to the connection that had been previously established. Week 7. His thinking leads him to considering the differences in females with respect to race and specifically looking at the differences between Caucasian and African-American females especially with regard to weight issues. While researching how females and males are motivated by different means I learned that race has a difference in how females are motivated or their self-esteem. Girls ages 11-17 were asked if they felt competent and capable about their bodies. Thirty six percent of the African-Americans said yes compared to only seven point six percent of the white girls (Diane, 2003). This statistic is very relevant to me because my classes are around forty five percent African-American… Students with a high self-esteem are more likely to be intrinsically motivated so it is a concern why white females do not have a positive self-esteem… Both Black and White females have a desire to be thin but black women do not equate higher weight with being unattractive (Vanderbelt University, 2000). Most studies indicate that culture has a lot to do with Black women and self-esteem. Black men do not view heavier Black women as unattractive which relates to the women not having such a desire to be thin (Vanderbelt University, 2000). Also, the older a Black women gets relates to less importance on weight. I realize that all of my focus is on the Physical Education environment but I also have taught health and will be teaching Health in years to come. This is something that I need to deal with because I teach a unit on eating disorders. Eating disorders is a huge topic to discuss but this is something to remember and do research on at a later date when in the Health classroom. During this time he is also making observations of his physical education classes and speaks about some of what he is noticing and the feelings that confronting his own practice are starting to raise: I also tried to concentrate on how I treat males and females. I will admit that I was upset with how I handled males and females. I found that I had a tendency to not expect as much from my female students in some situations. We played a game of flag football and I allowed my female students to walk instead of playing.


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My thought was as long as they were getting exercise I was doing my job. I did not want to force them to play because when I did this before most of the females would just stand around and not participate. The correct thing to do is find better ways for the female students to be successful. Week 8: He begins to really dive into research to confront his thinking and his practice as his own observations reveal to him that he is not quite as effective as he once considered himself: When students are competing you need to make sure you give feedback to both the winning and losing teams…. When you give feedback to the losing team make sure you also give them something to improve on, as well as praise. This will help them become more intrinsically motivated. (Gill, 1980). One article went against an assumption that I had that competition has no effect upon performance (Steers & Porter, 1974). This may be true as a whole but I also think that competition can be an effective way to motivate some students. This goes back to the thinking that every student is different. Week 10: He decides to really hone in on his own classroom and uses what he has learned to set up an observation of his class through the eyes of his student who is obese. He begins by addressing his own perspective—one of a student who excelled in P.E. Here is what he concludes: The strategy I will use is to look at physical education through the eyes of an obese student. By switching my perspective as to how the student views physical education verses how I view things will benefit my learning… I was always a student that excelled in physical activity and sports. So I put myself in a situation that I was not good at or very uncomfortable with to help me understand the obese child. As you have noticed, I was never that great in English class. In these classes I had to read aloud and give oral speeches. This was terrifying to me and I never wanted to participate due to embarrassment. Once I started to view things from a in this perspective, it helped me to better understand the obese student in Physical Education… I have mentioned several times prior that creating a lifelong learner is my goal. This cannot be done by having students do something for a reward or avoiding punishment. In order for this to happen, the obese students themselves need to do something because it feels good. It is very important to show the student how activity is relevant… The obese student is entering my classroom, more than likely, with a poor self image and not interested in physical activity because it is difficult and embarrassing for them… It is hard to be intrinsically motivated if the activity cannot be done well. This is a concept that I missed…If I am overweight and not able to do something well than how can I be intrinsically motivated. It will also help my students if I can show them how they are developing new skills. If the students see themselves improving, it will increase the likelihood to continue outside of the classroom which is my ultimate goal.

Self-efficacy and the obese student greatly affect the performance in the physical education classroom. Self-efficacy is defined as individuals’ confidence in their ability to organize and execute a given course of action to solve a problem or accomplish a task… Motivating students is a very difficult task for educators. I am learning that there are so many factors involved and it is a never ending process. Motivating obese children in physical education class is my biggest challenge as a teacher. I have also learned that viewing things through the students point of view has helped me better understand motivation. I feel when I took a step back and started looking at the broader picture of motivation it actually helped me focus on individual aspects.


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One thing that I am going to try is to grade on how a student improves from the beginning of an activity to the end. I am not going to have a set performance standard that all students need to achieve in class. I would like to implement a plan that would allow me to evaluate how much a student improved.

Week 12: He is struggling with what he can do. He can no longer consider the quick fix or the idea that he can motivate some students. He takes a larger view and comes up with an idea that is light years from where he began. He decides to create a support system. He describes his idea: I am going to be concentrating on how to create a program that will teach all students to be physically active throughout their lives… I am in the process of trying to start a fitness club to help address the obesity problem. The school nurse and I are trying to come up with an action plan to help students that are obese and cannot participate effectively in the physical education setting. The next one is having parent involvement. I do not do a good job implementing this in my own program. The school does have a family fun night where it is encouraged that parents come and play with their child in the gym… When motivating students to lead a healthy lifestyle it cannot just be about getting a student to participate in an activity. Participation is very important but students need to know why as well. Week 16: He evaluates where he now stands: The most important thing that I learned is that teaching itself is a learning process. If a teacher does not continue to actively learn with their students, than they lose their ability to become or maintain being an inspiring teacher. I have always had this philosophy, but I do not think that I have actively done this in my career. Teachers need to make a conscious effort to strive toward excellence in their teaching and learning. This was not the focus point in any of the reports or research that I conducted, but when I sat down and seriously thought about what I learned this was my area of most significant learning… learned that teaching students how to deal with winning and losing will help them throughout their lives. I never really thought about this when teaching physical education. At the beginning of this course I used competition in my classes because that was just the thing to do and it was expected. I am obligated to incorporate competition in my classes following the curriculum for physical education in my district. Competition will never go away but I can now help students to be more motivated through competition… At the beginning of the class I never really put myself into the shoes of a student who is overweight or obese. I wanted those students to fit into the role of “just do your best.” This is the wrong way to teach the students who are obese. I remember telling a student all they needed to do was to give a good effort for the skill that was being taught. I never gave the student a goal to reach. Students who are obese see other students performing at a high level. Students need to have attainable goals which they can reach that will then increase their motivational level (Maehr & Pintrich). The students who are obese need to see the relevance of physical activity. I cannot tell them the relevance, they need to perceive the relevance for themselves. This is something that I learned from our discussions. Obesity is a growing epidemic in our youth and this course has me focusing more attention on those students who are obese.

Students who are obese may have the motivation to exercise but everything I teach in my class is in front of the other students. They do not want to risk being ridiculed, so they choose not to exercise. They are constantly being humiliated, so why would they subject themselves even more by trying to exercise? This only makes them less motivated to exercise which compounds their weight problem. I struggle almost every day trying to motivate students who are obese. Setting attainable goals, fostering positive verbal persuasion, having fun,


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and creating an environment so they are not humiliated are things I try and maintain in my classes to help motivate students who are obese. This is very difficult. I definitely do not have all the answers to motivating nor did I learn all of the answers, but I am now trying harder and much more aware… Every student, from the very skilled and physically fit to the students who are obese, need to be challenged. Students need to have something in front of them to strive to reach. Students learn best when challenged by high standards. This is something that I have tried to incorporate in my classes. I was constantly trying to have the lower end students catch up and not concentrating on all of the students. To be successful in physical education all students need to be challenged. This is also where setting goals in the classroom can help students increase their own motivation… I am not just teaching students how to throw a ball or play a game, I am saving lives. I believe that physical education is the most important subject in school. I know I am a little bias, but without your health it makes everything else pointless. The hard part is actually changing lifestyles so students can maintain their own personal fitness. At the beginning of this class, I was just focused on how to motivate students in my class only. I now realize that it takes more than just the physical education teacher to help students learn and maintain a healthy lifestyle. One of the neatest things about this class is the project that I started with the fitness club. The more people that are involved the higher the probability is that a student will change behavior.

CASE 3: Urban 3rd grade teacher. This represents the essence of 73 pages of writing. We followed one of her threads of belief concerning creating an optimal learning environment and what that means. This thread also includes her thinking about what an optimal learning environment can do for student thinking processes. Week 1: She begins by stating that she wants to learn how to create an optimal learning environment where all students are engaged and less students are disruptive. She does admit that she blames the students when they get disruptive and rarely looks at her teaching as part of the issue: My area of concern involves my ability to engage my students in meaningful lessons and activities during the school day. I am hoping to uncover ways to create a classroom in which all students are engaged in the learning taking place. I am concerned that if I am not able to engage students in learning then they will miss out on important information that is being taught. A great deal of the information taught in Third Grade lays down the groundwork for future learning… I feel that I need to learn about creating an optimal learning environment for all learners and eliminating distractions as much as possible… he assumptions that I have concerning students being engaged in learning in my classroom are ones that I am not very proud of having. I feel that if students aren't engaged in learning that it has something to do with them and not with my teaching style. While I know this unfairly puts the blame on the student and allows me to feel that it isn't my fault, it is unfortunately the assumption I held during my last year of teaching. The difficulty I had with my last class, on top of the comments from teachers who have had those students, allowed me to blame the students and not take responsibility for the tasks we didn't accomplish. I am not proud of this, but I truly believed that there was nothing I could do to resolve the problem… In a case where I believed that it was something other than a disruptive student, I assumed that the student had an attention problem. I would then start to document their actions and discuss it with the school psychologist to see if they should be tested. While there were signs that this could be an issue with a few of my students last year, the parents were often resistant to testing because they feared their child being labeled. The school psychologist would then make recommendations to me on how to help them in the classroom. Most of her recommendations were things that I had already been trying and that hadn't worked in the past. This caused a lot of frustration for all parties involved.


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If I had ruled out the student being disruptive or having an attention problem, I would then focus on what I was doing that was causing the child to lose interest. I would look at the child's ability level and check to see if there was a discrepancy between their ability level and their actual performance. If this were the case then I would assume I was teaching above or below the student's ability and that was causing them to either be lost (and therefore distracted) or bored (and therefore trying to find ways to entertain themselves). This was probably the only time I came close to taking responsibility for the student not being active in my classroom. I would then try modifications in my lessons to help the student to become engaged in the learning. The problem with this is that I had a hard time finding a way to make the modifications without isolating the student from the task the group was doing.

Week 5: In her quest to find the strategies for creating an optimal learning environment her research uncovers the link between assessment and instruction. While the discovery shakes some of her beliefs, the one about the students being responsible for disruptions is still there: In my research this week I have discovered the importance of having meaningful assessment to help shape the learning experiences in my classroom. I feel that rediscovering the importance of assessment and how it can guide me in creating meaningful lessons and activities has added another aspect to my area of concern. It is related to my previous area of concern closely. In addition to being concerned about my ability to engage my students in meaningful lessons and activities, I am now also concerned about using appropriate and useful assessment with my students. I am surprised that I often put very little thought into the appropriateness of the assessment I have been using in my classroom. The idea that I have been doing my lessons "upside down and backwards" by not starting with the type of assessment I plan to use absolutely fascinates me. It makes so much sense and I can't believe that I haven't heard of or thought of using assessment as the starting points for my lessons… Seeing how connected learning goals and assessment are really opened my eyes to how I viewed the use of assessment in my classroom. I was able to see that assessment can be used for so much more than just putting a grade on a report card or discovering if a student understood a concept. I am extremely interested in trying to implement student-involved classroom assessment and record keeping into my classroom…. I'm still not convinced that my students aren't to blame for not being engaged in learning in my classroom. However, I am starting to see that there are things I haven't tried that may help to encourage my students to become more involved in their learning. If students become involved in their learning through student-centered instruction and student-involved assessment they may be more inclined to stay engaged in the activities that are taking place… I am afraid that my initial assumption was that by the time they get to third grade it may be too late to change their thinking dispositions positively. Changing thinking dispositions in a negative way is probably always possible. Students can make a conscious effort at any time to stop exhibiting the thinking dispositions of good learners. Can they also change positively at any time? Will engaging instruction and ownership of learning be enough to help them develop good thinking disposition habits?… Looking at assessment in a new light will definitely lead me to try new things in my classroom. I am going to start looking at how I plan to assess my students before I develop my lessons to help me to more clearly see what it is that I am actually trying to achieve with the lesson. It's sort of embarrassing to think that I didn't do this before. Week 6: She begins to see that she can have a huge influence on how students think in her classroom but the doubt that she can actually change their thinking habits at this “late stage of the game” in third grade still hangs on:


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I looked at thinking dispositions and what instructional methods promote mindfulness in the classroom… Having read this, I thought, what teacher wouldn't want to promote mindfulness in their classroom?… To have students who are able to use information and be creative, but also retain important information would be a dream come true…. As I read about how to help students look at the process of their thinking, I started to think about whether or not I look closely at what I think and how I think. Do I have enough information before I come to a conclusion? Do I always understand the questions that my students are asking me? Looking back, I can identify times when I have given an answer to a question I have been asked that wasn't really the answer because I didn't really understand the question…. My assumption that it is my students who need to take responsibility for being engaged in learning in the classroom was once again challenged this week. It is possible, that a student who does not pay attention is not disposed to do so. I think that my studies this week have weakened my belief that there is nothing that I can do to change the student who does not want to become involved in the classroom. I think that if I change my teaching style in certain cases, for example try letting students work in small groups more, students who were once causing a distraction may actually become more involved in their own learning….My second assumption that was carried over from last week was one on thinking dispositions. I had the assumption that third grade may be too late for students to change their thinking dispositions positively,,, I have learned that the answer to my previous question ("Will engaging instruction and ownership of learning be enough to help them develop good thinking disposition habit?) is no, it won't. I can give them good models. I can help them give explanations for their thinking. I can give feedback and provide interaction. All of this will help students, but they must also have to inclinationand ability. This doesn't mean that I shouldn't continue to do all of the positive things that will help them improve their thinking disposition. It just means that I shouldn't expect miracles in third grade. Week 7: She takes a look at some research on cognitive development and also grapples with how to create and use rubrics in her classroom to enrich assessment and to help with self-regulatory thinking: I began my research this week by looking at Jean Piaget's developmental stages. I discovered that my students are more than likely going to be in the Concrete Operational Stage (ages 7-11). This is where they should be as long as they have gained the experience needed to put them at this stage. It is possible, though, that a few students may still be in the later part of the Preoperational Stage. I discovered some interesting things while looking at Piaget's stages. In the Concrete Operational Stage - which is the stage that I focused my study on this week - children begin to master the principal of conservation. That is to say they realize it is possible for something to change shape but remain the same object. They also gain the ability to understand the idea of reversibility. This is when a child realizes that it is possible to undo something by reversing the action that caused the change. I also discovered that children in this stage still need a lot of concrete examples such as visual aids, manipulatives, and familiar examples to explain complex ideas. Children at this stage are able to think more logically and are able to deal with open-ended questions that will stimulate their thinking. Even though children at this age are developing some logical thinking, I read that it is important to help them to consider all of the logically possible outcomes because they will not do it on their own…. My previous assumption was that it may be too late to help my students develop good thinking disposition habits by the time they reached third grade. I have discovered through my research on Piaget's developmental stages that third grade may be the optimal time to begin developing these habits! Looking at the characteristics of a student that would be in the Concrete Operational Stage, I found that this is when logical thinking begins to take place. Since the stage begins around age 7 and the majority of my students are ages 8-9, this is the perfect time to start helping them to consider all the logical possible outcomes of a problem. This is the stage where they are finally able to look at problems in different ways, therefore it would greatly benefit them to have a teacher who encourages them to do just that. Going back to the characteristics of a student with good


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dispositional thinking habits, I recalled that fostering an environment where students use creativity and the information given to solve a problem was the ideal goal that I wanted to attain. I was unsure that I could develop the inclination to do these things in my students. I now see that giving them the opportunity to do them in third grade will help to develop the inclination to do so in later grades. While they may not have to inclination to be creative and look at various logical solutions on their own now, by helping them to see that these are the habits that good learners have I can help them to develop them for later use.

Another assumption that I had been working on is that my students were the ones that needed to take responsibility for being engaged in learning in the classroom. I see now that my students need help to learn how to do this. They need to be guided on what is expected of them and how they can reach those expectations. I have also discovered that by getting my students involved in creating a rubric that will be used to score their work, I can create an opportunity for my students to gain more ownership of their learning. They will not only have a clearer view of what is expected of them, they will have identified good behaviors and good work on their own. This will make them see the behaviors and dispositions that they should be exhibiting…. discovering that this is the ideal time to help my students develop good thinking disposition habits has a huge impact on my practice as well as my original area of concern. I now see that it is important that I guide my students to use more critical thinking and look at all of the logical solutions rather than try to lead them into using the way I feel is best to solve a problem. By helping them to work out problems in a variety of ways, I will help them to develop the inclination to look at multiple solutions for problems they will face in the future. This is what education is really about - preparing our students to deal with and handle the problems and challenges they will face in the future.

The discovery also impacted my original area of concern because now I see that at the Concrete Operational stage students are just developing the ability to be more creative and think logically. I see now that it truly is more my responsibility to help them to develop these abilities rather than to expect them to know what to do with them. Creating the optimal learning environment where all students are actively engaged in learning will require me to seek out the students who are not able to harness these abilities and put them to use. After I have discovered the students who are having difficulty with these new skills, then I will be able to not only guide them to use them myself, but I will be able to use the student who have a firmer grasp on how to use them to help their peers to develop them. As I discovered while looking at thinking dispositions last week, interaction with other students promotes good thinking dispositions. With my new knowledge about the cognitive development of my students, I will be able to create interaction between students in a way that will help those without the inclination to use their ability to think logically with those who possess the inclination. This will create the opportunity for the students with out the inclination to see how and when to "turn on" their thinking. Week 8: As she continues to struggle to understand an optimal learning environment, she struggles to reconcile what is right—must she always to be a guide on the side in order to “do her students justice” or is it okay to provide direct instruction. In the past she seems to have blindly followed the latest workshop info and now she is coming to grips with the idea that all techniques are balanced in a LEARNING-centered environment: I am now concerned about creating a learning-centered environment for my third graders. In my undergraduate, graduate and in-service work I have been told that the best way to reach learners is to be the "guide on the side" as opposed to the "sage on the stage" when having students learn. I am now concerned that I may not be combining the two ideas to create the optimal learning environment that I am striving for in my classroom… I discovered that an optimal learning environment is one where students are given information as a resource in the beginning of knowledge construction. In an optimal learning environment,


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the students are then asked to use the information that they have been given to create understanding. This is done by combining the information they already have with the new information they were given. I have discovered that it is not a "bad" thing to present students with information rather than have them discover what you want them to learn. It is how you have them use that information that is most important…. I discovered, again, the importance of assessment as a learning tool when exploring the ideas of optimal learning environments and meaningful learning experiences. In order to help make an activity meaningful, it is important to have clear goals for the students. One way to help students maintain clear goals and an understanding of the purpose behind their learning is to involve them in the construction of rubrics that will be used for assessment. Students are more likely to succeed if they know what is expected of them. They are more likely to do their best if they had a hand in developing the criteria by which they will be judged. I've discovered that students will often set higher expectations that teachers will for them. Not only do they set higher expectations, but the reach them as well. This is an invaluable tool, as well as an excellent way to make learning meaningful and create the optimal learning environment…. he assumption that it is my students responsibility to be engaged in the learning taking place in the classroom is the one that was most challenged in this week's research. In looking at all of the different roles that I can take in the learning-centered classroom, I find that it isn't solely my responsibility or my students' responsibility to make sure that they are engaged in learning. It needs to be a combined effort. I must make sure that I am giving the students the tools that they need in order to successfully be engaged in the learning. My students must take on the responsibility of internalizing that information and use the tools that I have helped them to learn in order to become an active part of our learning environment. I am finding that we (students and teacher) must work together to create an environment where all students are actively learning.

This discovery that students and teachers both have responsibilities to create an environment where students are active learners reveals a new assumption. This assumption deals with the idea of motivation and I am sure I will research it when I look at self-regulated students and self efficacy. The assumption I have is that some students are not motivated to learn and will therefore not take on their responsibility in being actively engaged in the learning taking place in the classroom. This assumption leads me to want to discover why students may exhibit the characteristics of being unmotivated and what I can do to help change this….I feel that the main connection that I made this week with my learning and practice is that I may need to rethink my role in the classroom depending on what my learning goals for the students are in each lesson. I often felt guilty when doing a direct instruction lesson with my students because I felt that I was robbing them of an experience to discover for themselves. I know see that this is not the way that I should always teach, but it is an excellent way to lay groundwork for my students to have experiences in the classroom where they will use the knowledge I presented in new, relevant and realistic settings. Being drilled with the "guide on the side" role where the teacher is always trying to lead students to make connections has caused me to feel that I am doing my students an injustice when I teach them a specific way to do something or give them information without having them try to find it for themselves. I now see that there are benefits to being the "guide on the side", but that it is not necessary in every lesson. In the same respect, I have also discovered that being the "sage on the stage" will not work all the time and that I must combine the two if I want to create an optimal learning environment.

Knowing that the important part of learning is having the students take the information and apply it in realistic settings is also connected to my practice. I often try to do this with large skills that I can create a performance assessment to see if the student has gained from the lessons the knowledge that I intended. I am now thinking of trying to make sure that my students are applying all of the information that they receive in all areas of the curriculum. I know that I do this to a certain extent - for example telling them that spelling counts on a religion test - but now I am seeing that I should hold students accountable for the information that they have learned in all areas. They need to apply the information in other settings in order to construct knowledge.


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This is something that I plan to look at in my classroom and revamp in order to make sure that they are using the information they have gained

Week 9: She continues to chip away at the idea that it is up to the students to be engaged in the learning tasks taking place Looking at the ways that I can help my students to become self-regulated learners has continued to weaken my assumption that it is their responsibility to be engaged in the learning tasks taking place. After all, if their self-efficacy is low why would they want to be involved? By creating tasks to help build self-efficacy (tasks with a high success rate) I could help them to start to want to take that responsibility. But I see now, that it isn't solely their responsibility. This goes along with last weeks' discovery when it came to this assumption. That we truly need to work together and both take responsibility for the level of engagement in the classroom.

The second assumption that I dealt with last week was that some students are not motivated to learn and will therefore not take on their responsibility in being actively engaged in the learning taking place. I didn't prove or disprove this, but I did learn why it may happen and what I can do to help change that. Some students may not be motivated to learn because they have low self-efficacy…. I can see that there is something that I can do to help my students achieve a high level of self-efficacy in certain areas. Keeping in mind that self-efficacy is context specific, I believe that there are certain areas where I can help my students by developing small tasks for them to be successful. (setting them up for success) I also believe that there are areas where I can help them to become self-regulated and set their own goals and monitor their goals. This increases self-efficacy as well because it tends to be a lot less intimidating and students can see that they truly can do the small steps and therefore can do the larger task.

I plan to make some observations in my classroom to help target students who seem to have low self-efficacy in different areas. I will then work with those students to develop a goal and a strategy to help them achieve success. Hopefully, this will increase their self-efficacy and be something they can take with them as they progress through their educational career.

Week 12: She begins by talking about a student “Maria” who she always thought of as “lazy” feeding into her deep-seated belief that it is up to the students to engage in learning. She has recently discovered the idea of attribution theory and self-efficacy. In light of this new knowledge, she revisits the belief in Maria being lazy: The assumption that I had when it came to Maria's behavior and attitude during math was that she was (how do I say this?) lazy… I truly felt (and still do) that Maria was capable of success in math. I felt that Maria just didn't want to try and that she always found excuses for her failure. Looking at Maria's behavior in a new light has helped me to realize that her past performances in math may have caused her behavior. Maria set up a system for explaining her difficulty in math that would not hurt her self-esteem. Maria feels that she cannot control her performance in math and that she is going to fail because of external factors. This is the reason that she makes excuses. It isn't because she is lazy. My assumption was wrong. I'm not really that upset about it, though. I'm really interested in how I can help Maria to change her attitude and performance in math… I believed that it was my students' responsibility to be engaged in the learning tasks taking place. This assumption has changed dramatically since I began. Looking at self-efficacy helped me to see that I can help my students want to take responsibility by creating tasks with high success rates. With my knowledge of the attribution theory, I can now see what I'm up against as I try to do this. If a student attributes success or


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failure to something external, then in order to help them I will have to change their attributions by helping them succeed and turning their attributions into internal, stable, and controllable ones. The assumption that some students are just not motivated to learn and therefore will not take responsibility in being actively engaged in learning taking place was further explained through my discoveries about attributions. I see now that students may not seem motivated because they believe that the outcome of their work is going to be based on something that is external, unstable, and/or uncontrollable. I, personally, would not want to do anything that I wouldn't be able to do well at and succeed. Therefore, students will seem unmotivated if they feel that they cannot succeed based on things they cannot change…The research that I did in both areas showed me that there are other reasons for my students' wanting or not wanting to take responsibility for their learning. They may or may not want to take responsibility based on high or low self-efficacy just as they may or may not want to take responsibility based on the attributions they have when it comes to the learning taking place Week 14: She continues to chip away at the idea that it is up to students to work in the classroom and if they do not, then they are lazy or do not care: I had always thought that I was expected to have students help me set my goals for our classroom to help build their academic self-concept. While allowing students to give input into what they are learning does have value and help their motivation, I now see that it isn't my classroom goals that are the most important ones. Students need to have the opportunity to set their own personal goals for their own personal learning in order to help make motivation intrinsic. Students will set goals that they see value in. A student seeing value in something is the main reason motivation is intrinsic. A personal learning goal set by the student is just that, personal. If a student sets a goal for herself, it must be something that she feels she needs to do. This makes it important to her and something that she will put more effort into doing. Her goal can differ from other student's goals because it is what she sees as important to her…. I discovered while working on motivation and goal setting was my idea of what kind of goals students should be setting in a classroom. I had always believed that the goals that a student set were ones that would help to decide where the class as a whole was going to go while learning. For example, the students may set a goal that they want to learn how to write limericks after we read a book of limericks. I now see that goal setting can be personal for each individual student, as well as a whole class goal. Students can set goals such as, wanting to use commas correctly in writing. This goal may not be the goal of every student, but it can be a goal for a student who is having trouble with commas. The assumption that my students may not be motivated to learn and therefore will not take responsibility in being actively engaged in learning has been challenged this week. Learning about motivation has made me realize that it isn't that the student does not have motivation...it's the type of motivation that drives the student that causes them to not take responsibility for their learning. A student with intrinsic motivation to learn a task will surely be engaged and take responsibility for their learning. However, if the student has no intrinsic motivation for learning a task they will not have that same desire to be engaged and take responsibility for their learning. A student with extrinsic motivation for completing a task will not put forth the same amount of effort that an intrinsically motivated student will. This may cause them to seem irresponsible for their learning and distracted. By looking at what I can do to change the student and make them actively engaged and responsible, I see that helping the student to see how the activity will benefit them will help to change their motivation to do the task to intrinsic motivation. This change will then cause them to be more of the responsible, actively engaged learner that I want my students to be.


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Interim Report, Week 16: She comes to the conclusion that having an optimal learning environment where students are actively engaged is the shared responsibility of students and teacher: When students are actively engaged in learning they are not distracted and are focusing on the task at hand. It was always my belief that this responsibility rested with the student. It was up to the student to put forth the effort to be actively engaged because they cared about the learning. I felt that if the student didn't put forth the effort then that student didn't care about the learning. What could I do about that?

I found out what my responsibility is in getting my students actively engaged. I learned what I can do about the amount of effort the students put forth. Quite simply, the teacher needs to get the students involved in the decision making process of their learning and help them see personal connections between themselves and their learning. Bravo! This will help to motivate the students to become engaged in what is going on in the classroom. The teacher must also recognize the problems that the students are having and give them the tools to overcome those problems. Once the problem has been solved, the student can become engaged in the learning once again. It is still the responsibility of the student to put forth effort, but the teacher must also put effort into the students learning to show the students how they can become engaged and why it is important for that to happen. Having a teacher that cares about the students' learning will create students that care about their own learning. This is elegantly put.

I must share in taking responsibility for having actively engaged learners in my classroom is the exact opposite assumption than the one I had when I started this journey. The most valuable lesson that I feel I have gained through this TIL process is the knowledge that I am not powerless in any situation.


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Toward A Theoretical Model for Researching Educator Beliefs