Exploring preservice teachers’ abilities to connect professional knowledge with lesson planning and observation

ABSTRACT

Preservice teachers often find it difficult to apply professional knowledge to their teaching practice. The ability to connect professional knowledge with one aspect of practice – lesson planning – was assessed with the Lesson Analysis and Plan Template in (N = 18) preservice teachers after one year of teacher preparation. Lesson plans were analysed using qualitative and quantitative analyses. The results suggest that the Lesson Analysis and Plan Template can reveal several aspects of preservice teachers’ attention to connecting professional knowledge with their lesson plans as well as areas in which they would benefit from additional support. Furthermore, preservice teachers’ connections were compared with their ability to connect professional knowledge with another aspect of practice – observations of teaching – using a validated instrument that assesses professional vision. The relationships found between planning and observation abilities suggest ways for teacher education programmes to bring professional knowledge closer to practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Lesson planning
• classroom observation
• analysis of teaching
• professional knowledge
• preservice teacher education

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr Elisabeth van Es for her feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript as well as to the anonymous reviewers of this journal for their constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

We have no known conflict of interest to disclose.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (01JA1801).

Notes on contributors

Adriana Zaragoza

Adriana Zaragoza is a PhD student in teacher education. Her research interests include lesson planning and evidence-based teaching.

Tina Seidel

Tina Seidel holds the Chair of Educational Psychology in the School of Education at the Technical University of Munich (Germany). Her research interests include professional vision in teacher education.

James Hiebert

James Hiebert is Robert J. Barkley Professor in the School of Education at the University of Delaware (USA). His research interests include analysis of teaching in teacher education.