Beginning Teachers’ Regulation of Instructional Practices

Author(s):

Iffet Elif Yetkin Ozdemir(presenting / submitting)Pınar Yıldız Ramazan Gurel Erhan Bozkurt

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 06 D, Engaging with Professional Standards and Educational Goals

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-23

15:30-17:00

Room:

K5.07

Chair:

Angelika Paseka

Contribution

Purpose of the Study

Research has shown that beginning teachers have difficulties to accomplish teaching tasks (e.g., preparing material and physical setting, designing and applying instructional plans) compared to experienced teachers (Borko, et. al., 1992; Britt, 1997; Hebert & Worthy, 2001; Reynolds, 1992; Vennman, 1984; Wildman, et. al., 1989). In order to become successful teachers that could cope with these difficulties, it is important for beginning teachers to be “self-regulated individuals” who can control their cognition, motivation, and behaviors.

Teacher self-regulation can be defined as teachers’ direction and maintenance of their metacognition, motivation, and strategies to achieve effective instruction (Çapa-Aydın, Sungur & Uzuntiryaki, 2009). Research in this area mainly focused on teachers’ or pre-service teachers’ regulation before or after instruction (i.e., planning or reflecting the instruction) (e.g., Butler, et. al, 2004; Maat & Zakaria, 2010; Paris & Winogard, 2001). Little is known about how and to what extend beginning teachers regulate themselves during the instruction. Therefore, the current study addresses beginning mathematics teachers’ decisions and actions related to monitoring and controlling (i.e., regulating) of their instructional practices. For this purpose, we examined six beginning teacher’s instructional practices and the underlying regulatory processes (monitoring and controlling) behind their instructional decisions and practices. The following questions are addressed:

1) What did beginning teachers monitor (e.g., student learning, instructional behaviors) while teaching?

2) Whether and how did beginning teachers control their instructional practices?

Theoretical Framework

This study focuses on teachers’ instructional decisions and actions from the perspective of self-regulation. Zimmerman’s self-regulation model (Zimmerman, 2000, 2002) is mainly used to explain regulation of learning. This model presents self-regulation in terms of three cyclical phases: forethought, performance control, and self-reflection. Forethought is the phase, where individuals set goals and make plans to achieve these goals. Performance control phase involves making online decisions and acting in order to achieve the goals. Finally, self-reflection phase involves making judgments and reacting on the performances. The current study aims to apply this model to investigate teachers’ regulation as they engage in teaching practices. Therefore, the focus is given to the performance control phase of self-regulation. Two main processes related to this phase are self-control and self-monitoring (Pintrich, 2000; Zimmerman, 2000). Self-control involves selecting, adapting, or inventing strategies to accomplish the tasks. Self-monitoring, on the other hand, refers to deliberate attention to one’s own performance. In this study, “instructional practices” refers to the tasks related to teaching (e.g., providing explanations and examples, asking questions, evaluating student responses). Hence, self-control refers to teachers’ online decisions and strategic behaviors in order to perform instructional practices. On the other hand, self-monitoring refers to teachers’ deliberate attention to the aspects of the instructional practices (e.g., students’ performances, teacher’s own performance).

Method

Research Methods The study aims to investigate beginning teachers’ instructional practices and the underlying regulatory processes behind their instructional decisions and actions. For this purpose, instructional practices of six beginning teachers were observed and their decisions and behaviours were examined in terms of the self-regulation perspective. Hence, collective case study design was employed (Stake, 2000). Participants and Data Sources This exploratory case study was conducted with six teachers, who did not work more than five years . Ms. N had one year, Ms. A and Ms. O had two years, Ms. H had four years of teaching experience. Mr. S and Mr. E were their fifth year in the profession. Except Ms. A and Ms. O, participants work on urban areas. They were working in different schools located in three medium-sized cities in Turkey. All six school population consisted of students from low to medium SES families. Two schools were located on rural and four schools were located on urban areas. Data were collected by means of interviews, observations, and documents. 10 hours of video-taped classroom observations (grade levels: 5-8) were conducted with each teacher. Interviews conducted before the observations aimed to understand each teacher’s background, perspective to teaching math, and class routines. After each observation, researchers watched video-recordings and determined the instances that might be related to the teacher’s control and monitor behaviours. Interviews conducted after the observations were focused on these instances. Researchers reminded the teacher about the instance and asked her/him some questions in order to understand whether it involves any regulation related to teaching. Teachers’ lesson plans, notes, and resources were also examined. In order to analyse data, we first transcribed the interviews. Second, we watched the video-recordings and determined the instructional practices that teachers employed while teaching. Then, we reviewed the transcripts of interviews and searched for the instances (teacher’s statements, actions) indicating that she/he monitored or controlled her/his instruction. In terms of monitoring, we coded what the teachers monitored while teaching (i.e., students’ performance, factors affecting teaching) and what tools they used for monitoring (e.g., lecture notes). Teachers’ control behaviours were coded in terms of control over the content of the instruction (i.e., restriction vs. extension of the content) and control over the course of the instruction (i.e., ways to maintain the routines, ways to regulate when encountered an instructional problem).

Expected Outcomes

Results revealed the extent and nature of control and monitor behaviors of the participating teachers. In terms of monitoring, all teachers mostly attended to issues related to students (e.g., performance, interest). In particular, they kept track of students’ performances on procedural skills (e.g., using algorithms correctly) rather than conceptual understandings or higher level skills (e.g., problem solving). Teachers monitored their own instructional decisions and behaviours to a lesser extent. They usually monitored whether they covered the content and solved a variety of problems. While rarely, teachers monitored factors that influence the learning and teaching conditions (e.g., effect of manipulative). Findings also showed that beginning teachers did not use any systematic tools (e.g., checklists) to monitor. Teachers’ control over the content mainly aimed to cover the curriculum and to solve as many and a variety of tasks as they can. They occasionally made some changes on the content during the lesson. For instance, they included tasks, similar to the ones on standard tests and excluded tasks, if they would not appear on standard tests. Teachers also restricted the content when they believed that it is hard for the students or when they felt insecure about teaching it. In terms of control over the course of the instruction, in order to maintain their routines, they either excluded the tasks that were challenging for the students or took the responsibility to complete the task when students struggled. We also observed that beginning teachers provided superficial explanations when they felt incompetent with teaching the topic or when they found the topic unimportant of difficult for the students. When students had difficulty in solving a problem, teachers’ typical respond was to remind the procedure. To sum up, findings show that beginning teachers need to improve their self-regulatory skills before they start the profession.

References

Borko, H., Eisenhart, M., Brown, C. A., Underhill, R. G., Jones, D., & Agard, P. C. (1992). Learning to teach hard mathematics: Do novice teachers and their instructors give up too easily? Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 23(3), 194-222. Britt, P. M. (1997). Perceptions of beginning teachers: Novice teachers reflect upon their beginning experiences, Paper presented at the Annual meeting of the Mid-South Educational Research Association, Memphis, TN. Butler, D.L., Lauscher H.N., Jarvis-Selinger S., & Beckingham B. (2004). Collaboration and self-regulation in teachers’ professional development, Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 435–455. Çapa-Aydın, Y., Sungur, S., & Uzuntiryaki, E. (2009). Teacher self-regulation: Examining a multidimensional construct, Educational Psychology, 29(3), 345-356. Hebert, E., & Worthy, T., (2001). Does the first year of teaching have to be a bad one? A case study of success, Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(8), 897-911. Maat, S. M. B., & Zakaria, E. (2010). An exploration of mathematics teachers’ reflection on their teaching practices, Asian Social Science, 6(5), 147-152. Paris, S. G., & Winograd, P. (2001). The role of self-regulated learning in contextual teaching: principles and practices for teacher preparation. [Web]: http://www.ciera.org/library/archive/2001-04/0104parwin.htm#_ftn1. Pintrich, P. R., (2000). The role of goal orientation in self-regulated learning, Handbook of Self-Regulation, ed: Boekaerts, M., Pintrich, P. R., & Zeidner, M., New York: Academic Press, pp: 451-501. Reynolds, A. (1992) What is competent beginning teaching? A review of the literature, Review of Educational Research, 62(1), 1-35. Stake, (2000). R. E. (2000). Case studies. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.) Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 435-454). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Veenman, S. (1984). Perceived problems of beginning teachers, Review of Educational Research, 54(2), 143-178. Wildman, T. M., Niles, J. A., Magliaro, S. G., & McLaughlin, R. A. (1989). Teaching and learning to teach: The two roles of beginning teachers, The Elementary School Journal, 89(4), 471-493. Zimmerman, B. J. (2000). Attaining self-regulation: A social cognitive perspective, Handbook of Self-Regulation, Ed: Boekaerts, M., Pintrich, P. R., & Zeidner, M., New York: Academic Press, Pp: 13-39. Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Becoming a self-regulated learner: An overview, Theory into Practice, 41(2), 64-70. Acknowledgement. This work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK, Project No. 113K316) and Hacettepe University.

Author Information

Iffet Elif Yetkin Ozdemir (presenting / submitting)

Hacettepe University

Mathematics and Science Education

Ankara

Pınar Yıldız

Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Çanakkale, Turkey

Ramazan Gurel

Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, Burdur, Turkey

Erhan Bozkurt

Usak University, Usak, Turkey

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