Using Performance Tasks within Simulated Environments to Assess Teachers’ Ability to Engage in Coordinated, Accumulated, and Dynamic (CAD) Competencies

Simulations as practice‐based spaces to support elementary teachers in learning how to facilitate argumentation‐focused science discussions

“…Working from our construct definition, which we described in the theoretical framework section, we then developed task materials for both the PSETs and for the interactors that would create situations to elicit evidence of teachers' proficiency across our five core dimensions of argumentation‐focused discussions (Mikeska et al, 2019). For dimension five (engaging students in argumentation), each task needed to provide reasonable and tangible opportunities for the PSETs to engage productively in the practice of engaging students in scientific argumentation.…”

“…We started by generating and revising, as needed, our construct definition using research literature and input and feedback from our advisory board and content experts. In defining the construct, we developed an evidence model that included five core dimensions, or features, that can provide observable evidence of this teaching competency (Mikeska et al, 2019): (a) attending to students' ideas, (b) facilitating a coherent and connected discussion, (c) encouraging student‐to‐student interactions, (d) developing students' conceptual understanding, and (e) engaging students in argumentation. Each of these dimensions are consistent with notions of high quality discussions described in the educational literature (Shaughnessy & Forzani, 2012; TeachingWorks, 2015), and key aspects of academically productive discussions (Boerst, Sleep, Ball, & Bass, 2011; Cartier et al, 2013; Cazden & Beck, 2003; Hadjioannou, 2007; Parker & Hess, 2001; Walshaw & Anthony, 2008).…”

“…We conceptualize this teaching competency—facilitating argumentation‐focused discussions—as one that is coordinated, accumulated, and dynamic (Mikeska et al, 2019), as it requires PSETs to attend to multiple, competing considerations simultaneously, is visible across a pattern of student and teacher interactions occurring over time, and requires the PSET to be responsive to the frequently changing nature of the discussion and students' responses. As such, in our task design we developed a task model to elicit evidence showing how PSETs take up and manage a set of competing ideas during the discussion, how PSETs engage (or fail to engage) students in direct interaction across time to build toward a more robust conceptual understanding, and how PSETs respond to distinct student thinking profiles that can shift in response to the teacher's facilitation during the discussion.…”

“…Technologically mediated simulations are one possible solution to providing practice‐based spaces where novices can approximate the work of facilitating argumentation‐focused science discussions to learn how to engage in this ambitious teaching practice (Mikeska, Howell, & Straub, 2019). Recent work has begun to explore the use of simulations as approximations of teaching practice with some efforts leveraging technological advances in the field to create reasonably authentic interactive simulated classroom environments for teachers to engage in (Chazen & Herbst, 2012; Cil & Dotger, 2015; Dotger, Masingila, Bearkland, & Dotger, 2014; Levin, Chumbley, Jardine, Grosser‐Clarkson, & Elby, 2018; Walker & Dotger, 2012).…”

“…The PSETs do not see the interactor during the discussion; instead, the student avatars appear on a television screen, and the PSETs interact with them in real time, similarly to how they would with real students in a classroom. Standardization of tasks occurs not by constraining what the teacher can do or say but by setting clear guidelines for interactor responses and intensive interactor training (Mikeska et al, 2019).…”