Melissa L. Shirley Stephanie B. Philipp University of Louisville

1. CHARACTERISTICS OF PRE-SERVICE MIDDLE AND SECONDARY SCIENCE TEACHERS’ WHOLE-CLASS QUESTIONING PATTERNS Melissa L. Shirley Stephanie B. Philipp University of Louisville

2. FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT (FA) • The process used by teachers and students to recognize and respond to students’ learning in order to enhance that learning, during the learning (Bell& Cowie, 2001) • The gathering of assessment data & teacher use of assessment information to modify their work to improve their teaching effectiveness (Black, 1995; Black & Wiliam, 1998). • FA can include whole-class questioning strategies 2

3. PREVIOUS WORK • Conceptual model of formative assessment • Analytic framework to characterize levels of formative assessment practice

4. LONG-TERM RESEARCH GOAL: • How do teachers acquire and use sophisticated FA? • Characterize levels of performance across a range of experience/ability levels • What do teachers believe about FA? • What FA strategies do teachers employ? • What do teachers learn about student understanding? • How do teachers use data gathered through FA?

5. CURRENT WORK • An initial step toward the long-term goal • What skills for FA through whole-class questioning do pre-service teachers have? • What do pre-service teachers notice about their own questioning?

6. PARTICIPANTS • Middle/secondary science methods students • Enrolled in Fall 2009 semester • Traditional Certification Program • 30 hours field placement • Alternative Certification Program • Full-time employment, often in high-need school

7. METHODS CLASS ASSIGNMENT • Record and transcribe ~10 minutes of class • Prefer whole-group discussion • Choose two aspects of questioning to analyze • Describe and give results of analyses • Reflect on your questioning skill • Propose strategies to improve questioning • Describe what you learned about your teaching and student learning

8. TODAY’S PRESENTATIONS • Two studies on different aspects of this assignment • Use student-generated transcripts to analyze whole-class questioning strategies as in Shirley (2009) • Use student reflection papers to uncover what students think about classroom questioning skills

9. RESEARCH QUESTIONS • Do alternative and traditional certification candidates differ in questioning depth? • Do alternative and traditional certification candidates differ in the cognitive level of questions they ask?

10. DATA SOURCES • This study uses the student-generated transcripts • Some data were excluded because some traditional certification students observed the mentor rather than record themselves teaching • Final data set: • 5 traditional certification • 9 alternative certification

11. DATA ANALYSIS • Analysis as in Shirley (2009) • Definition of Assessment Episode (AE) • Initial question, response, follow-up (QRF) • Include subsequent questions, responses, follow-ups if they pertain to the initial question • Break transcripts into individual AEs • Characterize depth of questioning • Apply a priori codes to each phase of the AE • Cognitive level of initiating questions

12. RESEARCH QUESTION 1 • Do alternative and traditional certification candidates differ in questioning depth?

13. ASSESSMENT EPISODES IN 10-MINUTE SAMPLE

15. RESEARCH QUESTION 1 • Do alternative and traditional certification candidates differ in questioning depth? • Average Number of Assessment Episodes per PST • Alternative certification = 7.9 • Traditional certification = 5.4 • Average Iterations Per Assessment Episode • Alternative certification = 2.7 • Traditional certification= 2.4 • Alternative certification students appear to both initiate more AEs and engage in deeper questioning cycles (more iterations).

16. RESEARCH QUESTION 2 • Do alternative and traditional certification candidates differ in the cognitive level of questions they ask?

18. QUESTIONING COGNITIVE LEVEL

19. RESEARCH QUESTION 2 • Do alternative and traditional certification candidates differ in the cognitive level of questions they ask? • For most categories, alternative and traditional certification students asked similar numbers of questions • Alternative students asked more (average 3.2) comprehension questions than traditional certification students (average 1.4)

20. LIMITATIONS • Students may have defined “~10 minutes” differently • Comparisons of number of questions may not hold • Traditional certification students may have only taught 1 or 2 lessons up to this point • Lower comfort level? • Less knowledge of the classroom?

21. REMAINING QUESTIONS • Are these students representative of other pre-service teachers? • Longer AEs may reflect “treading water” rather than effective questioning • Is there a peak/optimum questioning depth? • How can these too-long AEs be identified? • How much of questioning practice is dependent on the particular lesson segment analyzed? • Most of these lessons were reviewing homework or bellringers

22. FUTURE DIRECTIONS • Improved assignment for 2010 • All students must record one complete lesson • Students will choose segment from that lesson • Other methods classes giving same assignment • Study entire lesson or unit sequence • Are questioning patterns consistent by teacher? • How do questioning patterns change through a unit or with different classes? • How do experienced teachers question students?

23. QUESTIONS? • Thank you for your comments and/or questions!