Teacher understanding of student understanding: three teachers thinking about their students reading literature
Recent studies in mathematics education suggest an important relationship exists between teacher understanding of student thinking within a subject area and student learning (Carpenter, et al, 1988; Fennema, et al, 1993; Franke, et al, 1998; Peterson, Fennema & Carpenter, 1991). According to this research, student learning depends upon more than teacher subject matter knowledge or even teacher awareness of subject-specific teaching methods. Instead, these studies highlight a relatively understudied domain of pedagogical content knowledge---a teacher's ability to think with the minds of students, to recognize the incipient strategies students may bring to a task, and to develop instruction accordingly.Such "understanding of student understanding," however, has received scant attention in the English education community. While the research base around student on-line approaches to literature and writing has grown, studies of how teachers in fact conceptualize student understanding have been rare. This dissertation provides such an account. Using a qualitative case study approach, I examine the ways in which three English teachers understand their students' responses to literature. The following questions guided my investigation: How do three English teachers understand their students' responses to literature? What sources influence teachers' thinking about student literary response? How do such conceptions of literary understanding guide instructional planning?Findings from interviews and class observation suggest that English teachers are curious about how students think about literature but inadequately prepared to draw upon student understanding for instruction. The teachers in this study separated issues of reading from conceptions of literary understanding and were unfamiliar with the details of their students' reading processes. While the teachers had some vocabulary to talk about students' early responses to literature, they used general, non-disciplinary concepts for describing student performance with higher-level thinking processes. The study argues that prevailing conceptions of curriculum and subject matter knowledge play an important role in directing teacher attention away from novices' acquisition of disciplinary knowledge and toward content concerns. English teachers need opportunities to re-think their assumptions about curriculum, access to richer frameworks for understanding student thinking, contexts for examining artifacts of student understanding, and tools for connecting what they learn to classroom practice.
- Education - Seattle