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Learning to Make Systematic Decisions

How do communities deal with the needs of a growing population? How do they manage limited resources like land, energy, and water? How do they balance the needs of humans against the needs of native ecosystems? Our curriculum approach confronts these questions and more by embedding science learning in the context of realistic societal decisions. This approach uses decisions as a context to motivate and guide science learning, while simultaneously teaching students to make systematic decisions about issues with societal implications. In this article, we describe why a teacher may want to use decision making as a teaching strategy, outline a structure for teaching decision making, and provide an example of how we have integrated decision making with content in an environmental science curriculum. We use the following example: How would your community respond if the only suitable location to build a new school is the habitat for a threatened species of tortoise?

Edelson, D.C., Tarnoff, A., Schwille, K., Bruozas, M., & Switzer, A. (2006). Learning to Make Systematic Decisions, The Science Teacher, 73(4), 40-45.

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What John Wooden can teach us: Was the 'greatest coach of the 20th century' a crafty wizard, or a master teacher?

Case studies are a useful form of evidence. They are a source of new lines of investigation, and they provide a way of testing general propositions. If researchers offer "all things equal propositions" about the improvement of teaching, for example, then a case study of a master teacher ought to reflect at least some confirmatory evidence. Coach John Wooden is considered the greatest teacher of basketball and was named Coach of the Century in 2000, and a candidate for a case study of a master teacher. In 1974-75, together with Roland Tharp, Gallimore observed team practices. Four years ago, together with Swen Nater, he began conducting a series of interviews with Coach. Coach says he learned to coach by applying what he learned as a high school English teacher. Coach believes the principles of teaching are the same for classrooms and courts. Based on this 30+ year case study, the researchers concluded that what Coach did to improve his teaching accords well with contemporary standards for professional development. This article also describes some of the parallels between Coach's pedagogy and contemporary views on teaching mathematics. Though the analogy is imperfect because the subject matter differs in fundamental ways, examining similarities may sharpen the appreciation of his approach.

Gallimore, R. (March 1, 2006). What John Wooden can teach us: Was the 'greatest coach of the 20th century' a crafty wizard, or a master teacher? Education Week, 25(25), 30-31.

Researching teaching: The problem of studying a system resistant to change.

The goal of a strong research base for education is now the law of the land. To realize an evidence-based education, many barriers must be overcome. Although the chronic lack of funding is presumably going to be addressed by new sources, the existing research base is perceived by many to be so limited that it will take years to build an adequate one (Feuer, et al., 2002). There is a fair degree of agreement that one formidable barrier to the goal of an evidence-based education is the difficulty of changing teaching. In one way or another, at least a temporary change in teachers' practices is necessary to address many critical research questions. Others require stable changes over extended periods; for example any study that has as a dependent variable the high-stakes tests NCLB mandates to assess adequate yearly improvement in student achievement. The development of an evidence-based education will require the barrier to be repeatedly overcome, since it's hard to study what you can't change. This chapter describes some of the reasons teaching is so difficult to change, and some of the barriers this presents to rigorous designs and methods. We then offer a solution in the form of an alternative vision of educational research. The means to this different end is a re-organized R & D system that supports teacher professional development and creates opportunities for ambitious educational research, including more frequent use of randomized experimental trials-a system that enlists the efforts of practitioners as well as researchers and takes advantage of emerging technologies. Such an R & D system might enable the nation to achieve the transformations of teaching that are required to achieve the NCLB goal of an evidence-based education.

Gallimore, R. & Santagata, R. (2006). Researching teaching: The problem of studying a system resistant to change. In R R. Bootzin & P. E. McKnight (Eds.). Strengthening Research Methodology: Psychological Measurement and Evaluation (pps. 11-28) Washington, D.C.: APA Books

Mathematics Teaching in Italy: A Cross Cultural Video Analysis.

This study investigates the cultural nature of teaching.  It compares a sample of 39 videotaped Italian lessons to German, Japanese, and U.S. lessons videotaped in TIMSS.  It expands on earlier work that was based on a smaller sample; analysis is also extended to the nature of mathematical contents presented.  The results confirm the existence of an Italian cultural pattern for mathematics teaching and outline some of its features.

Santagata, R. & Barbieri, A. (2005) Mathematics Teaching in Italy: A Cross-Cultural Video Analysis. Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 7(4), 291-312.

Practices and Beliefs in Mistake-Handling Activities

Although psychological theories assign to mistakes a fundamental role in the learning process and suggest ways to deal with them, only few studies have analyzed ways teacher-student interactions surrounding mistakes occur in actual classroom settings. This study focuses on such analysis. The data include a sample of 30 Italian and 30 U.S. videotaped eighth-grade mathematics lessons.  The differences observed in Italian and U.S. lessons are interpreted as a complex interplay of two elements: beliefs about learning and culturally-specific instructional practices.

A Knowledge Base for the Teaching Profession: What Would It Look Like and How Can We Get One?

The authors suggest that to improve classroom teaching in a stead, lasting way, the teaching profession needs a knowledge base that grows and improves. They claim that in spite of the continuing effort of researchers, archived research knowledge has had little effect on the improvement of practice in the average classroom. The authors explore the possibility of building a useful knowledge base of teaching by beginning with practitioners’ knowledge. They outline key features of this knowledge and identify the requirements for it to be transformed into a professional knowledge base for teaching.

Hiebert, J., Gallimore, R., and Stigler, J.W. (2002) A knowledge base for the teaching profession: What would it look like, and how can we get one? Educational Researcher, June/July, 3-15.

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Closing the Teaching Gap: Assisting Teachers Adapt to Changing Standards and Assessments

The authors describe the need to accumulate and share a professional knowledge base for teaching. Presented also are a design and some hypotheses for a technology-enabled knowledge base.

Gallimore, R. and Stigler, J. (2003). Closing the Teaching Gap: Assisting Teachers Adapt to Changing Standards and Assessments. In C. Richardson, Ed., Whither Assessment. London, England: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.

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Multimedia and Pre-Service Teacher Education: An experience with LessonLab Software

This article describes the first year of implementation of a pre-service mathematics professional development module focused on lesson analysis. The authors summarize the results of a pre- and post-test assessment of teachers' ability to analyze instruction. We gratefully acknowledge Università e Scuola for allowing us to post this article to our website.
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Santagata, R. & Zannoni, C. (2003). Multimedialità e formazione dei futuri insegnanti: resoconto di un'esperienza con il software LessonLab, Università e Scuola, 1/R, 9-19.

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Lesson Analysis and Pre-Service Teacher Education

This article summarizes the experience of a group of teachers who participated in the Lesson Analysis Pre-Service Program working on-line, independently, from home. We gratefully acknowledge Tecnologie Didattiche for allowing us to post this article to our website.

Santagata, R. (2003). L'analisi di lezioni nella formazione iniziale dei docenti, Tecnologie Didattiche, 29, 32-39.

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What a Coach Can Teach A Teacher 1975-2004: Reflections and Reanalysis of John Wooden's Teaching Practices.

This paper revisits a 1970s study of Coach John Wooden's teaching practices in light of new information. Using qualitative notes recorded during the original study, published sources, and interviews with Coach Wooden and a former UCLA player, the authors reexamined the 1970s quantitative data to better understand the context of Wooden's practices and philosophy.

Gallimore, R. & Tharp, R. (2004). What a coach can teach a teacher 1975–2004: Reflections and reanalysis of John Wooden's teaching practices. The Sport Psychologist, 18(2) 119-137.

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Teaching is a Cultural Activity

The authors present the notions of cultural activities and cultural scripts and, in this context, discuss mathematics teaching in Japan and the United States.

Stigler, J. W. and Hiebert, J. (1998). Teaching is a cultural activity. American Educator, 22(4), 4-11.

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Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices Related to Mathematics Instruction

In this article the authors examine the coherence among teachers’ beliefs about mathematics and motivation, and the associations between teachers’ beliefs and their observed classroom practices and self-reported evaluation criteria.

Stipek, D. J., Givvin, K. B., Salmon, J. M., & MacGyvers, V. L. (2001). Teachers’ beliefs and practices related to mathematics instruction. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(2), 213-226.

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The Value (and Convergence) of practices Suggested by Motivation Researchers and Promoted by Mathematics Education Reformers

In this article the authors discuss convergence between instructional practices suggested by research on achievement motivation and practices promoted in the mathematics instruction reform literature, and assess associations among instructional practices, motivation, and learning of fractions.

Stipek, D., Salmon, J. M., Givvin, K. B., Kazemi, E., Saxe, G., & MacGyvers, V. L. (1998). The value (and convergence) of practices suggested by motivation research and promoted by mathematics education reformers.  Journal of Research in Mathematics Education, 29(4), 465-488.

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Are You Joking or Are You Sleeping?

This study investigates the role of cultural beliefs and practices in teaching. Analyzed are teacher-student interactions surrounding mistakes videotaped in Italian and U.S. eighth-grade mathematics lessons.  Italian and U.S. students have different experiences with mistakes that largely depend on how teachers organize instructional activities and frame classroom participant roles.  Mistake-handling activities may be understood as culturally specific interplays of beliefs and practices.

Santagata, R. (2005). "Are you joking or are you sleeping?" Cultural beliefs and practices in Italian and U.S. teachers' mistake-handling strategies. Linguistics and Education. Vol 15/1-2 pp 141-164

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The Use of Videos for Teacher Education and Professional Development

This chapter begins by reviewing research on the use of videos for teacher education and professional development. It describes how the use of videos has been influenced by psychological theories of learning prevalent in each given historical moment and it presents selected research findings.  The second part of the chapter discusses how although video today offers promising directions for dealing with the challenges of improving teaching, still barriers will need to be overcome.

Santagata, R., Gallimore, R., & Stigler, J. W. (in press). The use of videos for teacher education and professional development: Past experiences and future directions. To appear in C. Vrasidas & G.V.Glass (Eds.) Current Perspectives on Applied Information Technologies (Volume 2): Preparing Teachers to Teach with Technology. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

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Researching teaching: The problem of studying a system resistant to change

In this chapter, the authors describe some of the reasons teaching is so difficult to change, and some of the barriers this presents to rigorous designs and methods. They then offer a solution in the form of an alternative vision of educational research: a re-organized R & D system that supports teacher professional development and creates opportunities for ambitious educational research. This system would enlist the efforts of practitioners as well as researchers and would take advantage of emerging technologies.

Gallimore, R. & Santagata, R. (in press). Researching teaching: The problem of studying a system resistant to change. To appear in R R.  Bootzin & P. E. McKnight (Eds.). Measurement, Methodology, and  Evaluation: Festschrift in Honor of Lee Sechrest.Washington, D.C.: APA  Books. R. R. Bootzin & P. E. McKnight (Eds.) Measurement, Methodology, and Evaluation: Festschrift in Honor of Lee Sechrest. Washington, D.C.: APA Books.

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Practices and Beliefs in Mistake-Handling Activities

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Although psychological theories assign to mistakes a fundamental role in the learning process and suggest ways to deal with them, only few studies have analyzed ways teacher-student interactions surrounding mistakes occur in actual classroom settings. This study focuses on such analysis and examines also the cultural factors that inform teacher mistake-handling.

Santagata, R. (in press) Practices and beliefs in mistake-handling activities: A video study of Italian and U.S. mathematics lessons. Teaching and Teacher Education.

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Mathematics Teaching in Italy

This study investigates the cultural nature of teaching.  It compares a sample of 39 videotaped Italian lessons to German, Japanese, and U.S. lessons videotaped in TIMSS.  The present study expands on earlier work that was based on a smaller sample; the analysis is also extended to the nature of mathematical contents presented.  The results confirm the existence of an Italian cultural pattern for mathematics teaching and outline some of its features.

Santagata, R. & Barbieri, A. (in press) Mathematics teaching in Italy: A cross
cultural video analysis. Mathematical Thinking and Learning.

Article available shortly.

What Can Pre-Service Teachers Learn from the Analysis of Videotaped Lessons?

This paper summarizes two studies, in which a module on lesson analysis for pre-service mathematics teachers was implemented as part of a teacher education program at the University of Lazio, Italy. Two questions were addressed: 1) What can pre-service teachers learn from the analysis of videotaped lessons? And, 2) How can teachers’ analysis ability, and its improvement, be measured? 

Santagata, R., & Zannoni, C. & Stigler, J. (under review). What can pre-service teachers learn from the analysis of videotaped lessons?

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Local Knowledge, Research Knowledge, and Educational Change

Reforming schools depends on the interplay between research and local knowledge.  This article uses examples from a multi-year project to improve reading achievement of Spanish-speaking children.

Goldenberg, C., & Gallimore, R. (1991). Local knowledge, research knowledge, and educational change: A case study of early Spanish reading improvement. Educational Researcher, 20(8), 2-14.

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