Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1987

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education

Major Professor

Jerry J. Bellon

Abstract

Practical knowledge of teaching is gained through the experience of teaching within specific contexts. This study's focus was on the practical knowledge held and used by a student teacher as she experienced success in classroom lessons she taught. The study explored how a student teacher formed her perceptions of success, what these perceptions meant to her, and what she knew (or learned) how to do to enact such lessons with the pupils in her class.

The informant for this research was selected from among those student teachers who were to begin their 16 week student teaching experience in August, 1986. Several data sets were collected over the course of student teaching. A repertory grid was completed prior to and at the conclusion of student teaching; stimulated recall interviews were held; and classroom observations followed by interviews were held. Analysis involved multiple comparisons between and among the data sets and included thematic examination, and the identification of metaphoric segments from the interview data. One unique aspect of analysis was that the student teacher coded her own stimulated recall transcriptions into the categories identified from her repertory grids.

Findings indicated that the student teacher held a limited number of constructs that she used to frame success in classroom lessons. Furthermore, her interactive teaching behavior seemed limited to those activities, in this case didactics and practice, for which she could anticipate or expect specific results. It was these results that she then identified as indicators of success.

Additional findings were:

1. The student teacher developed planning strategies which represented her practical means for achieving success in classroom lessons;

2. An implicit image of Lesson As Journey was identified in metaphoric interview segments; and

3. The interactive teaching of this student teacher was minded by her image of success. Representations of this image were present in both the classroom observation data and the stimulated recall data.

The study offers eight hypotheses that were generated from the data sets. In general, these hypotheses suggest that student teachers have a holistic aspect to their practical knowledge which frames their perceptions and gives them meaning. They have (or learn) the know-how to do those things which will result in successful lessons, and they have (or learn) the know-how necessary to be able to expect what will happen when they perform certain acts. The practical knowledge of success held and used by student teachers therefore appears to have three components: expectations, specific teaching techniques, and an implicit, metaphorically expressed image.

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