On Research on Teaching: a Conversation with Lee Shulman

On Research on Teaching: A Conversation with Lee Shulman

Stanford Professor Lee Shulman reflects on the matter, or context, you're likely to get limitations of generalizations about a set of principles much like those of effective effective teaching. I think they are teaching and describes how case histories reasonable and warranted — although specific stories about classroom experience I'd offer several caveats. For example, those principles were can enrich our collective "wisdom of practice." developed from studies in which teachers were observed 5 or 10 times during a school year, and then the data from all 10 times were aggregated. A teacher of mathematics might be introducing the topic of estimation on day one, having the kids do guided practice on factoring on day two. preparing the kids for a quiz on the topic of expo nents on day three, and so on. So, when you collapse all that together, you're putting into the same pot a lot of very different teaching situations, even for teaching mathematics to 2nd graders. Then the researcher would correlate I the frequencies with which the teachers did a variety RON BRANDT of things in all of those sessions against the performance of the ~jpt the early 1980s, educators were Well, I think we began to realize the students two to nine months later on a i excited because we seemed to limitations of that kind of research. standardized achievement test. That's J. have the beginnings of a firm We realized that it provided answers to why the research is called "process- knowledge base for our profession. a particular kind of question, but we product" research. Barak Rosenshine and Jere Brophy, were interested in asking other ques Dave Berliner, and you were among tions, too. If you ask what in general Would you explain that term a little those who summarized this "effective characterizes good teaching; if you're more completely? teaching" research. But in the last looking for a general set of descrip Sure. The term was originated by five or six years we haven©t heard tions and practices that apply no Donald Medley and Harold Mitzel and much about it. What happened? matter what the grade level, subject elaborated by my colleague Nathaniel

14 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP Gage. The notion is that you meticu ences that could be attributed to question. Several states and a lot of lously describe all the processes you teaching. ' school systems offer staff development possibly can that teachers and kids courses built around the effective engage in and then relate those That was exciting but why aren ©t teaching research that you say the processes to products: to outcomes — researchers doing more of that research researchers have moved beyond. We attitudinal. cognitive, affective — now? What happened? said most of that research was designed that you can measure at some later Well, it may be that we learned as to establish the lands of teaching time. much as we were going to learn from behaviors that produce higher test asking that kind of question. And of scores. If we now believe that those /Votv, you were beginning to explain course we entered an era in which we tests do not measure very well the some problems with that kind of became painfully aware of the limita outcomes we value most, then is any of research, and I thought you were going tions of standardized tests. that research valid? How much of it to say that a big problem is that it©s all should we be teaching to teachers? measured by standardized tests Are you saying we weren ©t aware of because many educators feel that those those limitations at the time? tests don©t fully measure the outcomes We weren't as sensitive to them then, we ©re looking for. no. We were at a point in the late '60s Yes. 1 was about to get to that. The and early '70s when we had to demon I get concerned when other flaw is the criterion measure — strate that something worked — that but let me remind you that in the '60s we made some sort of difference — districts not only and early '70s when this kind of and standardized tests were all we had. research was pioneered, it was really But anyway, in the last 10 years, teach effective creative, a brilliant piece of research we've learned to ask a new ^et of teaching principles design. It permitted us to get a questions. handle on what people had claimed in staff development was ineffable: the nature of good Let©s talk about that in just a minute. programs but also teaching. You began by saying that not only are Remember that in the late '60s we these process-product results dependent translate them into had the Coleman Report. We had on standardized test scores, but they are the instruments Jencks; we had Jensen. We had a also very generic. You were saying that number of authorities arguing that when researchers brought these data through which they schools didn't make a bit of difference collected at various points together, they evaluate teachers. — and if they didn't, neither did created a kind of idealized model of the teachers or curriculum. That was the teacher, but that there really wasn ©t any policy environment in which the single teacher who necessarily did process-product research was done. everything just that way. We had a group of very creative Yes. And that's one of the reasons Well. I don't think it's doing too much researchers who said. "That's got to be why there is now as a counterweight a harm — although we may be boring nonsense. We've got to refute that burgeoning literature of case studies of some very good teachers occasionally. claim. Let's measure variations in the individual teachers. Once we began to But I suspect the problem is not with ways teachers teach and meticulously establish these very general principles the principles of effective teaching. document those variations." So they of teaching, lots of us began to see that The problem is in the implicit claim used variations in types of ques what was true perhaps in general and that those who practice them have tioning! wait time, in the frequency for the most part wasn't necessarily achieved sufficiency. I get especially with which teachers used praise, and true in particular and in special concerned when districts not only so on. And they demonstrated that circumstances. teach the principles of effective with the criterion measures mostly teaching in their staff development widely accepted in the policy arena — I©d like to talk more about that, but first programs but also translate them into standardized tests — there were differ let me ask you a very important the instruments through which they

APRIL 1992 15 For most of us as teachers, the evaluate teachers, as if to imply that if unit of instruction for? Will you have enough content teachers are enacting these general knowledge to distinguish a sound that principles they are effective and even is not the lesson; means "a" from a sound that means excellent teachers, and that we need the lesson is "b"? I can tell you that you should not ask any more questions about their gather information in such a way that teaching. just a piece of within the first two or three minutes Let me be clear on this point. I you've got two firm alternative diag have no doubt that teachers who something larger. nostic hypotheses to work with. employ anticipatory set are better than The better we get That's great. But in comes a patient, teachers who never do. I have no and how do you know which doubt that teachers who get feedback as teachers the hypotheses to generate? and knowledge of results regularly more we think about It's like telling a teacher to begin from students are better than teachers with an anticipatory set. All right, I'm who do not. I don't want to give the how our lessons, teaching a unit on the Civil War. impression of denying the usefulness hang together. What's the anticipatory set that makes of those generic principles entirely. the most sense? Which kinds of set are likely to lead to the broadest and Perhaps many of them are useful, but most useful kinds of learning? And Lauren Resnick,lfor example, says that which will be ineffective, because some aspects of the effective teaching teachers as "expert" and then treat even though they grab the students' research are in fact counter to what we everything they do as "expert interest, they lead to distorted notions really want. For example, asking many teaching." Most teachers are better at of what the Civil War was about? short, focused questions does not some things than at others; they teach You come in with your generic eval necessarily lead to higher-order some topics better than others, or uation form to evaluate my teaching thinking. some kids better than others. They do on the first day of my unit on the Civil But that's clear. It's quite consistent a better job on some days than others. War. But you've been trained as a with what we've already said: stan I like to talk about "the wisdom of math teacher. I give an anticipatory dardized tests don't measure higher- practice" rather than the "wisdom of set that's clearly identifiable as antici order thinking very well. If when the practitioners," because I think we patory set, but from the perspective of effective teaching research was first should be talking about good teaching good history teaching, it will loop the developed, it had been communicated regardless of who does it. student into deep left field. Now if with a little more modesty, we there had been no anticipatory set at wouldn't have this problem. Can you give an example of "wisdom of all, odds are the teaching would have practice"? been even worse, so the point is that You©ve been talking about effective As you know, I've done a lot of it's not a bad idea; it's just that it takes teaching. David Berliner has been research on medical education, so let you only so far. doing research on what he calls me use an analogy from medicine. In "expert" teachers. How do your terms some ways the generic teaching Let©s turn, then, to some of the research "good" and "effective" relate to research is like whatever research on teaching that researchers are doing "expert"? there might have been that produced now. What I worry about is the technical the general model for how you do a Okay. Two approaches are being used use of the term "expert" and the tech medical work-up. There are certain increasingly. They're similar except nical use of the term "effective," both well-established principles basic to for the relationship between who's of which come out of research litera taking a patient's history, to physical doing the research and who is being tures that in one way or another label diagnosis, to using the laboratory, and studied. First, we're seeing more certain teachers as being in those cate I can teach you those principles in a detailed case studies of teaching. This gories, and then ask how their two-day workshop. I can teach you is very different from the earlier behavior is different from the masses. how to listen to the heart, for example research where the researcher would I think it's a mistake to label some — but will you know what to listen drop in at 10 different times during the

16 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP year randomly selected anywhere names that come to mind here are a lish an anticipatory set unless you from two days to three weeks apart number of colleagues at my former know of the content and something and document what the teacher was home at Michigan State: Maggie about the way students are probably doing on those occasions. In a case Lampert and Deborah Ball in elemen thinking. Now do the case studies study, the researcher wants to examine tary mathematics. Kathy Ross in teach us new propositions? No. What a natural segment of instruction, elementary science, and Suzanne they often do is tell us stories; they . including its beginning, middle, and Wilson in elementary social studies provide us with telling examples. end — because there's something are just a few examples. And there are For example, some researchers were dramaturgical about teaching; there's a secondary school examples, as well. studying the teaching of "light and narrative or plot. For most of us as These university faculty members vision" in 5th grade, helping kids ,1- teachers, the unit of instruction is not negotiate a relationship with a public understand the relationship between ^ the lesson; the lesson is just a piece of school and public school teacher, and the presence or absence of light and something larger. The better we get as they take responsibility for a chunk of the ability to see. They taught the teachers, the more we think about how the curriculum. They go in; they teach principle that light comes from a light our lessons hang together. In fact, that chunk of the curriculum. The source, bounces off the thing we're when most teachers think about our teaching is documented in a variety of looking at. and then bounces into our instruction, we think in large chunks ways: videotape, audiotape. journals, eye. which then receives this bounce first and only then begin to decompose observations, and so on. and it of light, making vision possible. The them into individual lessons. becomes an object of inquiry. And kids all passed,the test. Then they did Parenthetically, that's one of the some of that work is astoundingly clinical interviews with the kids and problems with the earlier effective good. found that most of them still believed teaching research. By sampling that the way we see is that our eyes teaching a lesson at a time, the I©m sure it©s fascinating but what are shoot out rays like Superman, the rays researchers implicitly defined the we learning from it? What do we now bounce off the.object we're looking at teaching as something that occurs know about teaching that we didn©t and bounce back to the eye — so it's primarily within individual lessons. know a couple of years ago as a result like sonar or radar or something. Hey. of this kind of research? it makes a lot more sense, doesn't it? So one big difference in today©s One of the things we've learned is to Well, now that the researchers research is more case studies. stop asking that question. When you recognized the prior knowledge that Yes. And the people doing the case ask the question that way. yqu beg for students brought to the situation, they studies are no longer doing "one general principles, but what we're worked with the teachers to develop lesson stands." In the case of a high learning from this kind of research some preparatory lessons in which the school English class, you get there in doesn't necessarily assume that prepo time for the beginning of Moby Dick, sitional form. Let me give you an and you don't leave until it's over. example. Now this not only changes the way Here are a couple of ways of you do the research; it changes the looking at the role of prior knowledge relationship between you and the in teaching. We've got a lot of general I find it very exciting colleague teacher. It changes how you research telling us that students bring a that more and more report the work. great deal of prior knowledge to the The second thing that is happening classroom and that that prior knowl researchers are — and 1 find this very exciting — is edge interacts with whatever you teach beginning to treat that more and more researchers are in ways that can often distort the beginning to treat their own teaching message you think you are transmit their own teaching as a proper object of research. They ting. Therefore, says the proposition, as a proper object themselves try to teach something pay more attention to prior knowl over an extended period of time in a edge. Now that's a good general prin of research. real school setting, and systematically ciple. The problem is that it ignores inquire into their own teaching. The how very difficult it often is to estab-

APRIL 1992 17 kids first offered their own preex they cope with every day. Example: a because there must be a reason why isting theories. The teachers explored young woman in our teacher training those are called noble gasses. but is those theories with them and then program has been writing some cases that the question the kid was really began to introduce the new ideas in of her own teaching — as are all the asking? Did he want the history of relation to the prior knowledge of students in our program. One of the chemistry at that point? The teacher the students. That way, the kids cases she wrote is about teaching the thought for a moment and asked, incorporated the new ideas much concept of the atom to her class. Now "What do you associate with people more effectively. in 8th grade general science, you've who are nobles?" The kids played Well, that's the story. It's a narrative. got to teach what an atom is. Okay, around with it and one of them said, The general principle still concerns how do you do that? It's interesting "They're rich." Then she asked them prior knowledge, but is that what you that, even if she solves all the generic what rich people need, and they said, learn from the story? No. I would problems of teaching — getting the "Not much, they have everything they argue that this story and others like it classroom running smoothly, doing need." And she said, "Well, noble are part of an emerging case literature general lesson planning — she's still gasses are that way too. They have all that will stay in our memories, become got to figure out how to teach the the atoms they need. They don't need part of our pedagogical intelligence in atom. So she writes about trying to to borrow from any other elements. waySjthat are much more productive teach what an atom is, and then That's why they're called noble than^he propositions standing up there teaching about the periodic table of gasses." End of story. kind of naked and alone. One of the elements, which helps students under Now, we need lots more stories like things, then, we have to be prepared to stand the way in which elements are that. We need a literature that focuses say is, "If you've got a few hours, let made up of different sorts of atoms, on the intersection of content and me tell you some stories." you know. pedagogy. Literature that brings Well, she gets to a point where she together the wisdom of practice on a But practicing educators are very busy describes telling the kids that in this topic-by-topic, idea-by-idea basis. I people. They don©t have a lot of hours column of the periodic table all of the don't want to lock us into a 19th to spare. elements are what we call "noble century organization of the disciplines, Let's not assume that everybody has gasses," and a kid asks, "Why?" Now, but it has to be particular. to read all of the great books. If I'm what kind of knowledge does she a 3rd grade teacher having a devil of need? Well, you could say she needs This intersection of content and a time teaching introduction to frac knowledge of the history of chemistry. pedagogy is what you call pedagogical tions. I don't want to read all the case content knowledge, isn©t it? A concept literature of teaching. I want some that finally puts to rest the arguments good cases of fraction teaching. And we©ve had through the years about I'll tell you something. If I'm having whether process or content is more trouble teaching fractions and you important. It helps explain why not give me a set of cases of fraction We need a literature everybody with a degree in physics is a teaching, you won't have to motivate good teacher of physics. Teachers have me to look at them, because my self- that focuses on the to know a lot about how to explain respect is on the line tomorrow. intersection of physics. Yes. Here's another story. One of the Thai brings us again to the importance content and pedagogy, enduring problems of math teaching is of content-specific pedagogy. For trying to teach kids about dividing by years you©ve been that brings together saying that the zero. Of course you can get kids to generic research is useful, but that the wisdom of practice say that when you divide something teachers need more specific by zero the result is — not zero — but professional on a topic-by-topic, knowledge. undefined. But what does that mean? Well, that's obvious, isn't it? You idea-by-idea basis. Well, one of the case studies we leam about it from working closely looked at last week was on that topic. with practitioners and seeing what Suzanne Wilson, one of my former

18 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP We of the education community have gotten students who is now on the faculty at is within our purview and get smarter Michigan State, turned this problem into a very bad habit; about it: read some of this literature, into a story. She said that if you we have become read some of these cases, and so divide by smaller and smaller on. But the solution is not to try to numbers — first by 1, then by .9, consumers and rely solely on general pedagogical then by .8 and so on — as you keep knowledge. on asking how many times the not critics. shrinking denominator can go into For years we educators have talked the number on top, the kids realize about "putting research into practice," that as you get closer and closer to but from what you©re saying, that zero, it just sort of explodes. How I teach a course for secondary phrase is taking on a different meaning. big does it explode when it gets to education majors in every one of the Yes. I hope so. First, we're coming to zero? Well, it's — undefined. content areas where we prepare recognize that as 1 said earlier, I thought I knew about dividing by teachers, but I try to teach generically research answers the questions you zero before, but when she told that through particulars. The first day of ask. and that we of the education little narrative. I understood at class we read a case of a teacher trying community have gotten into a very another level. A story had enriched to teach Romeo and Juliet to a recalci bad habit: we have become consumers my understanding. Now if that story trant group of 10th graders. So that and not critics. could be added to the case knowledge the class doesn't lose sight of how My late, great teacher Joseph of teachers of mathematics — along very difficult it is to teach Rorrfeo and Schwab, in his work on science with lots of other stories — it would Juliet. I pass out a copy of the first act. teaching, asked us to keep in mind the be immensely helpful to them. Sure, and I purposely ask two of the math distinction between a rhetoric of it would be pretty imposing after a majors to read aloud, beginning with conclusions and a narrative of inquiry. while: we'd have to learn to arrange the prologue, which talks about "star- We in the educational practice it — but people in law have learned crossed lovers." community accepted the results of how to take lots and lots of stories After we've worked on that partic research on teaching as a rhetoric of they call cases and organize them. ular case together. I ask how typical conclusions. We permitted the We can. too. the teacher's problem is. Almost answers to be divorced from the ques every time I can expect a young tions. We have to become a much But wait a minute. Suppose I©m a woman in social studies to raise her more critical and aggressive group of principal or director of staff hand and say. "It reminds me of my consumers who regularly ask, "What development. I don©t know French, class yesterday." And the discussion were the questions to which these are and I don©t know much about biology takes off from there with my asking. the answers?" If we do that, we can or art. I©m a generalist. What am "What were the similarities? What see where the research on effective I supposed to do with all of this were some very particular differ teaching is useful and ought to be content-specific research? How are ences?" I think there is room for incorporated into our work, and where generalists supposed to supervise generalists — at some level we're all we need to look for other kinds of teachers, all of whom have generalists — but we have to be research that may provide answers to specialized interests? sensitive to our limitations. We have different questions. Well. I guess I'd quote Whitehead, to begin collaborating much more 'R. Brandt. (December 1988). "On who advised us to "seek generaliza actively with more specialized Learning Research: A Conversation with tions and distrust them." I think you colleagues. And quite frankly. I think Lauren Resnick." Educational Leadership have to engage in some very reflective many of us have to take some time to 46: 12-16. soul-searching to examine what it is study and read more. I'm very you are competent to do as a gener serious. Most of us who are general alist, and what you can responsibly do ists ought to decide that one of the Lee S. Shulman is Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education. Stanford Univer only in collaboration with colleagues ways we might understand more sity. School of Education. 330 Bonair who know more about particular about teaching would be to pick an Siding. Stanford. CA 94305-3084. Ron things than you do. area that we find interesting and that Brandt is ASCD's Executive Editor.

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