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How Do Instructors Explain their Thinking When Planning and Teaching?

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Abstract

In this exploratory study we compare and report two ways in which instructors describe their teaching: (a) thinking about a course they are teaching, (b) thinking about specific classes within that course. Extensive interviews over an extended time provided the data for analysis. At the course level, we analyzed comments about teaching decisions asked at two times: before instructors taught a course and after it was completed. At the class level, we analyzed comments about specific teaching decisions asked prior to and shortly after a particular class; of importance is that in part of the post-class interview, a video of the class helped to stimulate recall about specific class actions. The analysis, which focused on goal setting and knowledge use, demonstrated variation in levels of specificity for both goals and knowledge. In situating this study in the literature on teacher thinking, we conclude that the variation in specificity of teacher thinking in the course and class interviews represents intermediary levels between teaching conceptions and teaching actions. Our proposed model of thinking distinguishes yet provides links among conceptions, thinking related to decisions at the course and class levels, and teaching actions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

    L. Mcalpine, C. Weston, D. Berthiaume & G. Fairbank-Roch

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  1. L. Mcalpine
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  2. C. Weston
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  3. D. Berthiaume
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  4. G. Fairbank-Roch
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Correspondence to L. Mcalpine.

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Mcalpine, L., Weston, C., Berthiaume, D. et al. How Do Instructors Explain their Thinking When Planning and Teaching?. High Educ 51, 125–155 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-004-6381-x

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