What Early Career Teachersí Evaluations of Video-≠-based Cases of Reading Lessons Reveal about Analytic Expertise.

Abstract

Supporting the development of expertise for teachers of reading, especially beginning teachers, is a significant need in our educational system (Snow, Griffin, Burns, 2005). Analytic expertise is one dimension of teaching expertise, involving the ability to 1) assess whether students achieve specified learning goals, and 2) identify how and why instruction did or did not affect this achievement (Hiebert, Morris, Berk, & Jansen, 2007). Systematic and guided lesson analysis is a promising approach to helping beginning teachers develop their analytic expertise (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Bransford, Derry, Berliner, Hammerness, & Beckett, 2005; Hiebert et al., 2007). However, little is known about beginning teachers’ analytic expertise in the context of reading instruction or how it develops through lesson analysis. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate beginning teachers’ analytic expertise in the context of lesson analysis. This dissertation study presents the analysis of four elementary teachers’ evaluations of their own early reading instruction and other teachers’ instruction using a lesson analysis tool, Cases Studies of Reading Lessons (CSRL). CSRL offers a set of tools designed to draw teachers’ attention to effective aspects of early reading instruction. Participants viewed and evaluated the effectiveness of lessons presented in CSRL. Before and after engaging with the CSRL cases, participants evaluated video-taped lessons of their own teaching, noting effective features and features that need improvement. Utilizing indices of analytic expertise established by prior expert/novice studies, evaluations of instruction were coded to investigate participants’ analyses. Most participants began the study exhibiting indices of less-developed analytic expertise. However, all four participants experienced shifts in indices of analytic expertise over the course of the study. For example participants (a) discussed more significant and relevant features of instruction, (b) discussed fewer features of instruction, and (c) provided more principles of teaching and learning. However, the least experienced participant’s analytic expertise shifted more than the other participants. The results of this study shed light on the nature of beginning teachers’ analytic expertise and on the role of analysis tools, such as CSRL, in supporting the development of this expertise.