Pilitsis, Vicky Kathryn. Exploring preservice teachers' development of awareness of student thinking. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3R211T5
DescriptionNumerous reports have emphasized the need to engage students with the practices of scientific inquiry, specifically model-based inquiry in which students develop models to explain phenomena. A key factor in implementing this practice is the ability for teachers to attend and interpret student learning to guide instructional design. Research shows that experienced teachers’ understanding of learners influences their instructional design; however the research on preservice teachers (PT) has mixed results. For example, several studies have reported that PTs foresee few student learning difficulties when planning lessons while other studies found that PTs do acknowledge the importance of student ideas. Further, even when PTs do acknowledge student thinking, they are not clear what to do to ameliorate these misunderstandings. Being able to attend and respond to student thinking is based on the construct of noticing, which is the ability to notice and interpret significant interactions in the classroom. Due to the complex and dynamic nature of the classroom, it is difficult for PTs to develop these skills in real time due to the logistics involved in obtaining videos of PT instruction and the cognitive load involved in attending to the messy contexts of the real classroom environment. To circumvent this problem, teacher educators can focus on the precursors of noticing including framing and developing an awareness of student thinking; therefore, this dissertation focuses on the development of these precursors. The findings from these three studies will provide teacher education researchers with a clearer picture of where PTs are still struggling in their development; thus, they will be able to design and implement appropriate interventions that can help enhance these practices.