Toward Improved Instructional Decision-Making: Engaging Teachers in Analyzing Classroom Instruction

Practitioner Insights

Teaching involves making minute by minute decisions about instruction - what questions to ask, of which students; when to let students grapple with a problem on their own, and when to step in with hints or explanations; when to move on to the next activity, etc. Providing mathematics/science teachers with opportunities to analyze classroom practice - their own or that of someone else - is one strategy employed in professional development to give teachers practice in considering the affordances of different instructional moves so they will be better prepared for their future instructional decisions.

Experienced program leaders offered some insights about engaging teachers in the analysis of classroom practice which are described below. After reviewing these insights, you will be provided with opportunities to share your own experiences with using this strategy in professional development. The information you provide will be analyzed along with the insights and examples from other practitioners as the website is periodically updated.

Content knowledge is a prerequisite—Teachers need to have an understanding of the mathematics/science content prior to analyzing how classroom practice is intended to develop students' understanding.

Professional development programs may include having teachers analyze videos or transcripts of classroom instruction, either those they prepare themselves, or examples provided in professional development materials. Experienced program leaders noted that there are a number of prerequisites for teachers to be able to make progress in analyzing classroom instruction. Teachers should themselves have a good understanding of the targeted mathematics/science concepts, and they should understand how the student tasks used in the instances of practice they will analyze are intended to develop those concepts. In addition, teachers should be aware of how students typically think about the ideas. Toward that end, program leaders suggested that teachers should first work on the tasks themselves and then examine artifacts of instruction before thinking about potential instructional "moves." This approach will allow teachers to focus on how the instruction they are analyzing is and is not developing student understanding.

Create a safe space for learning—Teachers should analyze classroom practice of unknown teachers before analyzing their own practice or that of their colleagues.

In teachers' early experiences analyzing instruction, program leaders recommended using instructional episodes—whether videos, transcripts, or cases—from teachers that are unknown to those participating in the professional development. Analyzing instruction implemented by someone external to the group avoids defensiveness about what a teacher did and did not do in a lesson, and allows the facilitator time to create both a focus on mathematics/science content and a positive culture of professional reflection. In addition, the program designer can select rich teaching episodes that focus on important mathematics/science content, those which provide evidence of how students are thinking about the content and how they are reacting to instructional moves. Using these episodes, teachers can develop sensibilities and skills that can be applied to future analyses. As teachers gain these skills and become comfortable with the process, the sessions can shift to examining the teachers' own mathematics/science instruction. When teachers are at this point, program leaders suggest that professional development progress carefully, having teachers initially describe their mathematics/science instruction and bring in artifacts from that instruction such as student work samples before introducing videotapes of a teacher's instruction.

Lean on me—Teachers need time and support to develop the analytic skills to examine instruction critically and productively.

Experienced program leaders emphasized that teachers need to have continuing support and practice in building the mindset and skills necessary for instructional analysis. One program leader described how teachers' talk developed with this type of support in a professional development program:

Teachers asked each other questions about how they got their students to talk about or share their thinking. As the year progressed, teachers changed what they brought in terms of the detail of student work and the types of conversations they had about teaching. We had to work hard through our facilitation to get teachers to detail the strategies [students used] enough to differentiate them (beyond "they used counters" - to how they used counters and so on). As time went on, teachers did the detailing more automatically.

Frame the learning—The examination of instruction should include scaffolding to focus teachers on how student learning of the targeted mathematics/science concepts is or is not supported.

Program leaders recommend that the experience of analyzing teaching episodes (either video or lesson vignettes/descriptions) should be structured to focus participants on aspects of the lesson that did or did not promote student learning. The sessions, according to these experts, should include an analytic frame for considering how the teachers' instructional moves supported the students' learning of mathematics/science and consider why tasks did or did not play out as intended. For example, the Task Analysis Guide is a frame that has been used in mathematics professional development to structure analysis of how teachers do or do not maintain high cognitive demand of tasks they assign their students.†

Consider critical junctures—Analysis of classroom practice should focus on instructional decision points.

Experienced program leaders recommended focusing teachers on decision points in instruction. For example, they suggested that teachers be given practice in describing how students might respond to particular tasks and identifying which responses they would select to be presented, and in what order, to help develop student understanding of the mathematics/science concepts. They also recommended focusing on the questions that might be asked of students regarding particular solutions. A program leader described one such approach as follows:

After they solved the Orange Juice Task from Connected Mathematics Program, I had teachers analyze the 12 solutions produced by students. The solutions highlighted a range of approaches (unit rate, scale factor, percent, tables, pictures), levels of sophistication, and correctness. The work provided a rich context for talking about ways of comparing ratios as well as what constitutes a good response, how to orchestrate a discussion of varied responses so as to highlight the key mathematics, and for determining the questions that can be asked in order to assess and advance students' thinking...I have asked teachers in their lesson planning of similar tasks to indicate how they expect students to respond to particular tasks and to identify the responses they would select in order to launch a discussion of the mathematics.

Another experienced practitioner noted that it is important for professional development to address what teachers are most likely to see from students in response to certain tasks and prepare teachers to respond appropriately:

It's certainly fun for teachers to look at "interesting" examples of student work, and this is exactly what we see in much professional development. (In some unfortunate cases of professional development, this is all we see.) But it's more important, and more instructive for teachers, to see examples of what is typical (both right and wrong), as well as unusual approaches or interpretations, so teachers can be prepared to respond in ways that will move students forward toward richer understanding.

Now It's Your Turn...

Would you like to comment on or provide an example of any of the insights listed above based on your own experiences engaging teachers in analyzing mathematics/science classroom instruction as a strategy for improving their instructional decision-making? If so, click here to share comments or provide an example from your own practice.

Would you like to share any insights (in addition to the list above) from your own experiences in engaging teachers in analyzing mathematics/science classroom instruction to improving their instructional decision-making? If so, we invite you to add your insights here.

If you are interested in how these practitioner insights were collected and analyzed, a summary of the methodology can be found here.

† Stein, M K., Smith, M. S., Henningsen, M. A., and Silver, E. A. (2000). Implementing standards-based mathematics instruction: A casebook for professional development. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.