On Research on Teaching: a Conversation with Lee Shulman
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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 I'd offer several caveats. specific stories about classroom experience 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.