Using Mentoring to Develop Professional Teaching Knowledge for Problem-based Historical Inquiry

Abstract

This case study examined how mentoring experiences might encourage teachers to consider and adopt a problem-based historical inquiry (PBHI) framework for teaching. We mentored six teachers over 15 months as they planned and implemented PBHI teaching, reflected on their experiences, and then engaged in peer mentoring of other teachers. Data included surveys, planning artifacts, interviews, and observations. Qualitative analyses of data found all teachers' conceptualizations of practice were affected to varying degrees by mentoring experiences. Results suggest promise for using modeling and scaffolding to assist teachers in linking theory to practice, but suggest that teachers must ground these supports in their own experience before they become fully accessible. Findings support claims that mentoring and collaboration may encourage teachers to de-privatize their knowledge and use each other as resources for making connections to common principles that build a professional knowledge base of wise practice.

Using Lesson Study to Develop a Shared Professional Teaching Knowledge Culture among 4Th Grade Social Studies Teachers

“…Yet, the adoption of issues-centered instruction has remained rare (Saye & Social Studies Inquiry Research Collaborative, 2013), in part due to the differing views of knowledge held by classroom teachers and academics (Hiebert, Gallimore, & Stigler, 2002;Saye, Kohlmeier, Brush, Mitchell, & Farmer, 2009). …”

An analysis of three different approaches to student teacher mentoring and their impact on knowledge generation in practicum settings

“…More recently, other research has focused on the study of practical knowledge (Shulman 1986). Most of the work studies the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) that is revealed to STs under mentoring in specific content areas: in mathematics (Alvermann et al 2011), science education (Appleton 2008;Bradbury, Upson, and Thomas 2007;Choi and Ramsey 2009), English language (Ware and Benschoter 2011) and history (Saye et al 2009). Another emerging branch of research focuses on the technological pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) - (Meerbaum-Salant and Hazzan 2009;Nistor, Baltes, and Schustek 2012;Polly et al 2010).…”

Problem-Based Learning and the Training of Secondary Social Studies Teachers: A Case Study of Candidate Perceptions during their Field Experience

“…Wynn and Mosholder (2016)  use this knowledge to develop resolution alternatives;  recognize that on-going changes will challenge any stability or solution reached and will often produce a tension-to-resolution-to-tension cycle dynamic. Saye et al, (2009) posited that teachers rarely utilize problem/issue-based instruction due to lack of models that allow them to envision the related successful student outcomes, and further attributed its rarity to teachers' reliance on "craft teaching knowledge" (p. 7) -that is, knowledge generated by practitioners in the authentic context of classrooms -and their tendency to discount theory-based knowledge and related instructional practices. Saye et al, (2009) also attributed teacher resistance to using PBL practices to "teacher dispositions; beliefs about knowledge, teaching, and learning, and pragmatic concerns such as class sizes, isolation from peers, and the time, energy, and cognitive demands required by such practice (Onosko, 1991;Rossi, 1995;Saye, 1998;Schlechty, 1993;Windschitl, 2002)" (p. 7).…”

“…Saye et al, (2009) posited that teachers rarely utilize problem/issue-based instruction due to lack of models that allow them to envision the related successful student outcomes, and further attributed its rarity to teachers' reliance on "craft teaching knowledge" (p. 7) -that is, knowledge generated by practitioners in the authentic context of classrooms -and their tendency to discount theory-based knowledge and related instructional practices. Saye et al, (2009) also attributed teacher resistance to using PBL practices to "teacher dispositions; beliefs about knowledge, teaching, and learning, and pragmatic concerns such as class sizes, isolation from peers, and the time, energy, and cognitive demands required by such practice (Onosko, 1991;Rossi, 1995;Saye, 1998;Schlechty, 1993;Windschitl, 2002)" (p. 7). Saye and Brush (1999, 2002, 2007) have studied how to support teachers in the implementation of PBL in secondary social studies classrooms and found that modeling, scaffolding, and collaboration were effective in assisting teachers to utilize PBL and to link a holistic theory-based framework to the practice of problem-based historical inquiry.…”