Academicians as Teachers: Nurturing Teaching Experience

Abstract

Four academicians volunteered to teach 5th grade mathematics for one year in a Turkish public school. Academicians met every week for 40 weeks where they discussed what to teach, how to teach and reflected on implementation of their shared planning. Videotapes of first six Regular Meetings and six weeks of Research Meetings were analyzed. The focus of qualitative analyses was on how the knowledge of teaching was constructed differently in those two settings. References evidencing academician teachers’ knowledge of students, instructional strategies and assessment were found to occur more frequently during the Research Meetings compared to Regular Meetings. Academicians discussed more frequently what questions to ask in the classroom and exchanged comments about students’ thinking with more evidence. Using learning theories and framing planning and reflection discussions with a focus on research appeared to be a productive way of nurturing teaching experiences of academicians as teachers.