Extending Ideas on Improving Teaching

Abstract

Thanks to the editors of the journal for inviting responses to our earlier article, and thanks to Lampert; Lewis, Perry, Friedkin, and Roth; and Zeichner for accepting the invitation and clarifying, extending, and questioning the ideas we proposed. We begin by gratefully acknowledging the responders for reinforcing a number of primary points we tried to make and for amplifying them through useful extensions. Some of these extensions suggest settings in which the work we propose for improving teaching could thrive and achieve the preferred scenarios imagined by Lampert (2012). The useful settings described by the responders include creating inquiry communities from the beginning of teacher education (Zeichner, 2012), designing guidance systems in which the work of improving teaching can occur (Lampert, 2012), and providing instructional supports that enable teachers to engage in this work (Lewis, Perry, Friedkin, & Roth, 2012). The three supports identified by Lewis et al.--high-quality teacher manuals, teacher learning within practice, and collegial learning-echo many of the points in our article and add a richness of detail by describing the lesson study process common in Japan. We hope to continue the conversation about improving teaching by focusing on two points that deserve further consideration: the willingness or motivation of teachers to engage in the work of improving teaching and the prioritizing in teacher education of improving teaching versus training teachers. The willingness of teachers to work directly on improving teaching is underdeveloped in our article, but we see our position as quite consistent with the more complete treatment given this point in the responses, especially by Lampert. We argue briefly in our article (Hiebert & Morris, 2012, p. 95) and more forcefully in Morris and Hiebert (2009, 2011) along with others (Lampert & Graziani, 2009; Lewis et al., 2012; Gallimore, Ermeling, Saunders, & Goldenberg, 2009) that working directly to improve teaching as part of a professional community provides the most authentic and rewarding intellectual challenge that can keep teachers engaged in the profession. The compelling motivation is twofold: (a) seeing the effects of improving teaching, even in small ways, on changes in students' learning (Gallimore et al., 2009; Stigler, 2010) and (b) teachers seeing themselves as contributors to a professional knowledge base from which others can benefit (Lampert & Graziani, 2009; Morris & Hiebert, 2011; Stigler & Hiebert, 1999). The key is for teachers to see themselves, along with researchers and curriculum writers, as coauthors of the methods and materials they use and continue to improve. As Lampert (2012) points out in her response, the will to teach, and teach well, is a cultural rather than individual trait. We believe the development of this culture is driven by a professional ethos that places the study and improvement of teaching in the hands of teachers. Lampert appears to support the point we have made often in this regard: shared learning goals (and associated values) create the demand to produce and to use effective teaching methods that are shared and eagerly received by other teachers. This demand arises naturally when many teachers are trying to help their students achieve the same learning goals. Excellent examples of the development of this professional ethos are found in Lewis et al.'s (2012) description of lesson study, in Lampert and Graziani's (2009) description of an Italian language school, and in the University of Delaware mathematics education group's description of their teacher preparation program (Berk & Hiebert, 2009; Hiebert & Morris, 2009; Jansen, Bartell, & Berk, 2009). The second point we want to make amounts to an elaboration of the central thesis of our article: there are significant benefits in foregrounding direct attention to studying and improving teaching, and then treating the learning of teachers as a natural outcome of this work. …