Abstract
The nature of knowledge and how it is developed have been debated in philosophy and research for centuries. In the literature on teachers’ knowledge, two perspectives have been particularly visible. One perspective stresses cognitive processes and deliberate knowledge acquisition. Another perspective stresses the situated nature of teachers’ learning and knowledge development through awareness. This theoretical article proposes that uniting both epistemological perspectives is beneficial for developing teachers’ contextualized knowledge of how to teach at all phases of career development, and especially early on. In so doing, action and reflection are positioned as central to the development of teachers’ knowledge, and affordances from both the deliberate and the aware perspectives are articulated. Specifically, this article explains why uniting the two perspectives supports better sense-making, more refined instructional planning, and more responsive teaching, before offering a united reflection model. These processes are then discussed in the context of video coaching interventions for early-career teachers. After presenting a blueprint for video-based reflection and key design features that could support teachers’ learning, important differences compared to other reflection models are discussed and implications for (the design of) teachers' professional development based upon this united perspective are presented.
Highlights
Epistemology is the field of philosophy concerned with “the possibility, nature, sources and limits of human knowledge” (Sumner 2006, p. 94)
A deliberate perspective positions individual teachers’ cognition as based on their acquisition of collective knowledge of teaching and learning, which serves as a frame of reference for developing their professional practice
Collective knowledge consists of commonly accepted truths about teaching and learning, within and across teaching domains, which have been developed by experts and practitioners, and have been verified in different contexts (Carlson and Daehler 2019)
Summary
Epistemology is the field of philosophy concerned with “the possibility, nature, sources and limits of human knowledge” (Sumner 2006, p. 94). Connected to constructivist perspectives, this view positions knowledge as truth that is constructed within specific contexts and explicitly linked to the individual knower (Sumner 2006) This perspective acknowledges that much of teachers’ knowledge is personalized (Carlson and Daehler 2019), can only be developed in and through practice (Depaepe et al 2013), and is sometimes tacit. More closely connected to rationalism, these meetings feature no a priori standards that are used to view practice; rather, teachers are guided to focus on and understand student (mathematical) thinking, and thereby developing the ability to notice salient features of classroom practices (Sherin and van Es 2009) Both video coaching approaches have value for the development of teachers’ knowledge, but an integrated approach might offer additional value. Two perspectives on knowledge and how it develops: - Cognitive processes yielding deliberate knowledge acquisition - Situated knowledge development through awareness
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