Grantee: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA Project Summary: Effective classroom communication requires that teachers can effectively apply their knowledge and skills in real time. In this 4-year project, we study a theoretical model for improving classroom communication in the context of sharing student work. The model explicitly moves away from viewing teachers as executors of practiced approaches towards a framework in which teachers are thinkers and effective decision-makers. We support the cultivation of teacher thinking in terms of usable knowledge, conceptualized as fostering an internal model of classroom communication allowing for fast and effective decision-making. To improve usable knowledge, the thinking teacher explores, trying new approaches and techniques to find what works in different situations, and reflects on the outcome of this exploration to build awareness of their own internal model. This learning cycle of exploration, reflection, and awareness builds usable knowledge to improve decision-making in the next class. It forms the core of a 3-year intervention study (Year 1 baseline, Years 2 and 3 intervention) of 150 elementary school teachers (100 intervention and 50 control teachers). Each year, we collect measures of teachers’ curiosity and exploration behavior, reflection and awareness ability, usable knowledge and communication practices captured by videotaped sharing segments coded for effective classroom communication. To evaluate the usefulness of the teachers as thinkers model, we will investigate relationships between teachers’ exploration and curiosity behaviors, usable knowledge and knowledge enactment reflected in their sharing practice at baseline and investigate the impact of the intervention on changes in teachers’ internal models of classroom communication and practice.
Project Lead: Nicole Kersting, Ph.D.
Grant Title: Teachers as Learners – Teachers as Thinkers: Improving Classroom Communication in Mathematics
https://doi.org/10.37717/220020586
Program Area: Understanding Human Cognition
Grant Type: Teachers as Learners
Year Awarded: 2020
Amount: $2,500,000
Duration: 5 years