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Beth van Es received her Ph.D. in the Learning Sciences from Northwestern University in 2004. She was a post-doc at Northwestern University from 2004-2006. Her research interests include teacher thinking and learning and the design of professional development. Specifically, she investigates teachers' "professional vision" - what stands out to teachers in their practice and how they interpret these events. In addition, she explores how pre-service teachers learn to examine and reflect on classroom interactions through viewing and discussing video records of practice. Recent publications by Dr. van Es have appeared in the Teaching and Teacher Education, Journal of Computing in Teacher Education, and Journal of Technology and Teacher Education. Beth is formerly a high school English and Communication teacher.
Project Summary
Classrooms are dynamic, complex settings. Preservice teachers enter teacher education programs with few observational skills (Star & Strickland, 2008), but are required to spend extensive amounts of time in the field observing teaching. In addition, given the brevity of teacher education programs, future teachers need to learn how to analyze their own teaching so they can learn from their own practice (Hiebert, Morris, & Berk, 2007). I propose that preservice teachers need to “learn to notice,” to develop a keen eye for attending to and reasoning about teaching and student learning. The important question becomes: How does a future teacher gain those skills? This study examines how a preservice teacher education course that utilizes video records of classrooms can help future secondary mathematics teachers learn to notice. Video captures much of the complexity of classrooms, can represent the kind of teaching envisioned by reform, and can be reviewed several times from multiple perspectives. The two central questions for this study include: (a) What is the nature of preservice teacher noticing and how does it develop over time? and (b) How does providing preservice teachers with a model for learning to notice help them learn to observe and analyze mathematics teaching and student learning?
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“Teacher education programs are brief. Future teachers can’t learn all that they need to know in a one or two year credential program. I use video to help future teachers develop skills they can take with them once they begin teaching so they can continue learning from their practice.”
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