Abstract
Classroom professional vision is a teaching skill that refers to the ability of teachers to rapidly notice information in class and engage in knowledge-based reasoning about the noticed information. Knowledge-based reasoning includes three interrelated processes: description, explanation, and prediction. The present study aimed to examine how pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and school principals differed in these three reasoning processes after viewing classroom photographs with varying presentation time and interactional complexity. A 3×2×4 factorial design was used. Teacher expertise (pre-service teachers vs. in-service teachers vs. school principals) was a between-group factor, presentation time (1 sec vs. 3 sec) and complexity (teacher vs. dyad vs. small group vs. whole class) were within-group factors. Analysis of verbal reports suggested that in-service teachers and school principals used significantly more episodic knowledge, content knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge in their reasoning than pre-service teachers did. Explanations with mathematical content knowledge were more frequent for in-service teachers, for shorter rather than longer presentation times, and for photographs showing the teacher only. Explanations with pedagogical content knowledge were more frequent for in-service teachers, for shorter rather than longer presentation times, and for photographs showing a small group. Across time and complexity, school principals verbalized less frequently what they noticed. In-service teachers and school principals verbalized significantly more self-monitoring and more predictions of teacher actions than pre-service teachers. The study findings contribute to the growing body of evidence on classroom professional vision, teacher noticing, and visual teacher expertise, and provide initial evidence on expert teachers’ frequent metacognitive self-monitoring.
Highlights
Classroom professional vision is the ability of teachers to rapidly notice information in class and engage in knowledge-based reasoning about the noticed information (Van Es and Sherin, 2008; Sherin et al, 2011; Seidel and Stürmer, 2014; Gegenfurtner, 2020)
The present study examines how the latter component of professional vision—knowledge-based reasoning—differs between pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and school principals who were tasked to view classroom situations of varying complexity and presentation time
The notion of professional vision was later used in research on teaching and teacher education to frame how teachers perceive and observe what happens during class
Summary
Classroom professional vision is the ability of teachers to rapidly notice information in class and engage in knowledge-based reasoning about the noticed information (Van Es and Sherin, 2008; Sherin et al, 2011; Seidel and Stürmer, 2014; Gegenfurtner, 2020). The study contributes to the growing body of evidence on classroom professional vision and teacher expertise. Meschede et al (2017) showed that professional vision and pedagogical content knowledge were highly interrelated. These studies frame professional vision as a teaching competence necessary for achieving high levels of teaching quality in schools. Research shows that pre-service teachers’ professional vision improves following practical school training (Weber et al, 2020) and videobased courses on effective teaching (Stürmer et al, 2013)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
