- Year 2022
- NSF Noyce Award # 1757249
- First Name Raúl
- Last Name Orduña Picón
- Institution University of Massachusetts Boston
- Role/Position Postdoctoral Project Director
- Workshop Category Track 4: Noyce Research
- Workshop Disciplines Audience Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics
- Target Audience Co-PIs, Evaluators/Education Researchers, Higher Education Institution Administrators, Noyce Master Teachers, Noyce Teaching Fellows, Other Faculty/Staff, Project PIs, Undergraduate and/or Graduate Noyce Scholars
- Topics Track 4 Research Results: Sharing New Findings on Teacher Preparation
- Session Length 30 minutes minutes
Goals
By the end of this workshop participants will have:1.Knowledge of how teachers negotiate contradictions and bring about change2.An understanding of contradictions as sources of change3.An understanding of how the notion of contradictions as sources of change can help pre- and in-service teachers in resolving dilemmas and further developing their practice
Evidence
We will share our work and research related to a longitudinal project on how teachers’ assessment practices change over time. This proposed workshop is designed based on a study about teaching dilemmas as growth points for teacher development (Caspari-Gnann & Sevian, 2022), which was published in Teaching and Teacher Education. The authors of this paper carried out a multi-case study, using activity theory as a framework, to examine contradictions between aspects of the activity of teaching as sources of change in teaching practices. These contradictions served as positive motivators that were able to be characterized as four types of dilemmas that teachers face in their teaching practice: conceptual, pedagogical, cultural, and political dilemmas. The primary data for the study were retrospective interviews from a diverse set of seven teachers who taught math or science at different levels in high-need school districts. Data were analyzed through a process of thinking with theory (Jackson & Mazzei, 2011, 2013) to identify dilemma dimensions and change in teachers’ formative assessment practices. The study demonstrates that conceptualizing contradictions as sources of change to analyze dilemmas provides a change model that illuminates why teachers’ practices develop in certain ways over the course of their careers.
Proposal
The purpose of this workshop is to engage the audience in learning from a longitudinal project’s advancement of both theory and practice through studying how teachers’ assessment practices change over time when they persist in high-need school districts. We will share examples from the design and results of a research study on teaching dilemmas as growth points for teacher development. This proposed workshop will first provide an overview on: (a) how conceptual, pedagogical, cultural, and political dilemmas are theorized as contradictions within teacher activity systems, and (b) how contradictions can be sources of change on teaching formative assessment practices. After this overview, we will ask each attendee to choose one dilemma to explore more in depth. Attendees will form small groups based on common dilemmas. The small groups will engage in examining and reflecting on different ways in which teachers negotiated contradictions related to a particular dilemma that emerged from their teaching practice and brought about change. To generate a whole discussion, each small group will share the reasons behind their choice of dilemma, what they learned from examining how teachers negotiated contradictions that led them to change, and their reflections on how the notion of contradictions as sources of change can help pre- and/or in-service teachers in resolving dilemmas and further developing their practice.
