How beginning teachers develop in their understanding of what and how their students are learning: A longitudinal study of teacher development

A pivotal factor in learning to teach is a teacher's level of understanding about what students actually are learning. Thus, the primary research question of this study was, “How do beginning teachers develop in their understanding of student learning over a three year period?” Data from three teachers who had enrolled in a 9-month, post-Bachelors elementary credential program consisted of: a baseline interview, classroom observations, post-observation interviews, and professional journals. The data were collected from the beginning of these teachers' preservice program through their second year of inservice teaching. For data analysis, I devised a coding matrix, based on these cases, that consists of four conceptual strands and six developmental levels. I also analyzed the baseline interviews and traced changes in teachers' cognitive attention.; The primary finding was that there was a specific developmental sequence in how teachers understood student learning over time. Teachers shifted from focusing on student interest, to on-task behavior, to academic performance, to general learning (or “Did they learn?”), to conceptual knowledge (or “What did they learn?”), to levels of conceptual knowledge and various ways of knowing (or “How did they learn?”). All of the teachers progressed through this sequence, although not all of them reached the most advanced levels. Teachers' thinking about assessment of student learning paralleled this sequence. Additional findings were: (1) each teacher continued to develop over all three years; (2) teachers' thinking became more complex, integrated, and student-focused over time; (3) the rate of development was accelerated during either the teacher's preservice year or the first year of teaching and was slowest during the second year of teaching; (4) there were often differences between a teacher's thinking and her practice, with thinking usually being at a higher level than observed practice; (5) there were two ways of shifting cognitively: through the resolution of contradictions in one's thinking, and through the gradual connecting of schematic parts; and (6) the variables from the baseline interview that seemed correlated with subsequent development were having an awareness of student learning and being reflective. Furthermore, I discuss changes in each teacher's cognitive attention and influences on development.