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Teaching and Teacher Education

Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 2108– 2117

0742-05

doi:10.1

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journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate

Preparing preservice teachers to make instructional decisions:An examination of data from the teacher work sample

Frank Kohler a,�, John E. Henning a, Jaime Usma-Wilches b

a 150 Schindler Education Center, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0601, USAb Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 23 February 2007

Received in revised form

10 March 2008

Accepted 16 April 2008

Keywords:

Teacher work sample

Instructional decision making

Teacher preparation

1X/$ - see front matter Published by Elsevie

016/j.tate.2008.04.002

responding author. Fax: +1319 273 7852.

ail address: frank.kohler@uni.edu (F. Kohler

a b s t r a c t

The purpose of this American study was to examine student teachers’ ability to make

instructional decisions as they engaged in teaching. We examined the narrative accounts

provided by 150 student teachers within their teacher work samples (TWSs). Results

indicated that most student teachers were able to implement some aspects of

instructional decision making, such as noting a specific difficulty with student learning

and making an on-the-spot adjustment in their instruction. However, other elements of

instructional decision making were less likely to be implemented. For example, student

teachers relied on a limited range of formative assessment strategies and instructional

modifications, and very few provided a sound rationale for their choice of modification.

These results suggest that novice teachers may benefit from more opportunities to reflect

and critique upon authentic learning experiences as they complete their teacher

preparation programs. Finally, the TWS appears to represent a viable method for

examining the instructional decisions of student teachers.

Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction

The purpose of this study was to examine studentteachers’ ability to make instructional decisions. Researchindicates that teachers make a host of instructional decisionsbefore, during, and after the process of teaching (Shavelson &Stern, 1981; Stiggins, Conklin, & Associates, 1992). Decisionsmade prior to teaching might relate to organizing the contentmaterial or designing activities to maximize student interestand engagement. Decisions during teaching might focus onwhether students are learning or the types of adjustmentsthat are needed, and judgments made after teaching coulddetermine the types of feedback or grades that studentsshould receive or the need for follow-up activities. All of thesedecisions are influenced by the ongoing classroom context, aswell as a teacher’s experiences, values, and knowledge of

r Ltd.

).

content, pedagogy, and individual students (Bernstein-Colton& Sparks-Langer, 1993).

The act of making instructional decisions has been thesubject of considerable attention in the United States andabroad for the past 25 years. (For a recent internationalreview of related literature, see Villegas-Reimers, 2003.) Inan early chapter, Corno and Snow (1986) described a basicprocess of teaching that involves presenting information,soliciting information about student learning, and thenreacting or providing appropriate feedback to students.The second and third stages of this model provide aframework for understanding how teachers modify oradjust their teaching in accordance with students’ ongoinglearning and performance. The process of monitoring andresponding to student cues in the midst of teaching hasbeen referred to as interactive or improvisational teaching(Kagan & Tippins, 1991; Wilson, Shulman, & Richert,1987). Conversely, the act of making instructional deci-sions after teaching has been referred to as reflection-on-action because it enables teachers to reflect upon

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students’ learning and consider the best possible course ofaction (Schon, 1983).

The act of making instructional decisions during andafter the act of teaching requires several skills. First, teachersmust assess students’ ongoing performance and learning byobserving their responses, examining their writing, com-municating, or interacting with students, and providingmultiple choice, true/false, or similar forms of selectedresponse assessments (Stiggins, 2001). These methods offormative assessment, which can be planned ahead of timeor employed spontaneously, enable teachers to identifydifficulties with students’ participation and/or learning (Bell& Cowie, 2001; Leahy, Lyon, Thompson, & Wiliam, 2005;Shepard, 2005). Second, teachers must interpret and react toinformation about student learning by providing richerexplanations or demonstrations, altering students’ assign-ments, or adjusting their learning goals to add or subtractcomplexity from the lesson. Wilson et al. (1987) describethis process as ‘‘mediation’’ because the continuous adjust-ment of instruction enables the teacher to mediate students’current understandings and the goals of a lesson.

The ability to collect, interpret, and then adjust toinformation about student learning is a hallmark of expertteachers (Berliner, 1986, 1988, 2004). The latter part of thisprocess is especially complex because it requires teachersto consider and interpret student cues in as many ways aspossible. This is necessary for teachers to decide upon abest course of action, in this case, whether and how tomodify some aspect of instruction. Some researchers havesuggested that instructional decision making requires anetwork of interconnected knowledge that can beaccessed in new or original teaching situations (Borko &Livingston, 1989; Carter, Sabers, Cushing, Pinnegar, &Berliner, 1987; Peterson & Comeaux, 1987).

Research indicates that the processes of monitoringstudent learning and modifying instruction are difficult formany novice teachers. In a study examining how preserviceteachers learn to assess student learning, Kusch (1999)found that participants were influenced more by theircooperating teachers than students’ actual needs, character-istics, and performance. Similarly, Bachor and Baer (1999)found that preservice teachers’ instructional decisions wereoften based on intuition and insight rather than actualindices of student learning. Kagan and Tippins (1991) hadfive student teachers look at videos of their lessons in orderto recognize and interpret cues of student learning. As theyviewed the video, the student teachers were asked questionssuch as ‘‘Do you see anything that tells you whether theyunderstand the lesson?’’ At this level of prompting, thestudent teachers were able to recognize and interpretstudent cues. However, instead of using these cues tomodify their future instruction, the student teacherscontinued to measure the success of their lessons in termsof their own affective states while teaching. Westerman(1991) examined the thinking and actions of expert andnovice teachers as they planned, taught, and reflected ondaily lessons. When faced with unexpected difficulties instudent learning, the novice teachers were more likely tostay with their original lesson plan than make adjustmentsin their instruction. Finally, Borko and Livingston (1989)compared the planning, teaching, and post-lesson reflec-

tions of three student teachers with their cooperatingteachers. Results indicated that the novice teachers hadmore difficulty trying to construct on-the-spot explanationsto students’ questions and comments.

Numerous educators have suggested that the complexand situation-specific skills associated with instructionaldecision making are best developed through reflectivethinking (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Cochran-Smith & Lytle,1999; Korthagen & Kessels, 1999). In his original work onreflection, John Dewey (1933) noted that much ofteachers’ work is uncertain and requires deep andfoundational reflective practices. Dewey (1933) furthersuggested that the process of reflection begins when ateacher experiences a difficult or unexpected problem inthe classroom. Prompted by a sense of uncertainty andunease, the teacher steps back to analyze the situation.Schon (1983) later distinguished between two types ofreflection. Reflection-in-action involves making an im-mediate adjustment when encountering an unexpectedsituation, while reflection-on-action involves thinkingabout what has occurred after a lesson is completed. Theact of making instructional decisions involves both ofthese processes, because teachers not only interpret andreact to student cues on the spot, but also continue toconsider the impact of their actions and make furtheradjustments after the original teaching episode.

Educators across countries have also suggested that thedevelopment of reflective abilities is favored by engage-ment in rich and authentic experiences, coupled with thecontinual examination of what is learned in practice(Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2005; Korthagen & Kessels, 1999;Loughran, 2002; Montecinos et al., 2002). For example,Zeichner and Liston (1987) describe a program thatinvolves numerous teaching experiences and opportu-nities for inquiry as a basis for reflection. Other types ofexperiences for learning reflection include examininglesson plans, student work, videotapes of classroominteraction, teacher notes, and other artifacts of teaching(Ball & Cohen, 1999; Zeichner & Liston, 1996). Theseexperiences are most effective when they include threesteps. First, preservice teachers must be encouraged toexamine their beliefs through a process of writing orinteracting with others. Second, some effort must be madeto deepen preservice teachers’ insights by having themconsider teachers’ or students’ actions from a variety ofdifferent perspectives. Finally, preservice teachers must beencouraged to use their new insights to generate freshalternatives for action (Loughran, 2002; Rodgers, 2002).

The purpose of this study was to examine studentteachers’ ability to make instructional decisions duringand after the process of teaching. Each participant wasdirected to make and record two instructional decisionsduring a 2–3-week unit of their student teachingexperience. All instructional decisions were described orrecorded in a teacher work sample (TWS), a performance-based assessment tool that enables teacher educationprograms to provide evidence of student teachers’ abilityto meet state and national teaching standards (Girod,2002; McConney, Shalock, & Schalock, 1998; Schalock &Myton, 1988; The Renaissance Partnership, 2002). Thecurrent study was designed to provide a fresh account of

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the instructional decision making of novice teachers.Many prior researchers have used video simulations orinterviews in order to examine instructional decisionmaking. In this study, we employed a TWS, which requiresstudent teachers to design, assess, reflect upon, and revisea unit of instruction according to seven processes that arefundamental to high-quality teaching. One of theseprocesses is ‘‘instructional decision making,’’ and involvesdescribing two occasions where a teacher observes adifficulty with student learning and then makes somemodification. The structure of the TWS enabled us toexamine measures that have often been neglected, such asthe types of formative assessment used to read studentcues, the student teacher’s rationale for selecting aparticular improvisation, and the impact or outcome ofthe modification on students’ learning. A secondarypurpose of this study was to explore how a writtenaccount of instructional decision making can informefforts to educate teachers for reflective practice.

2. Method

2.1. Participants and setting

We examined the TWSs completed by 150 studentteacher participants during three different semesters (50per semester for spring of 2003, fall of 2003, and spring of2004). All participants were in the process of completingtheir student teaching experience within one of fivestudent teaching centers in Iowa. Our sample includedan equal number (75) of elementary and secondarycandidates who were in the final semester of their teachereducation program at the University of Northern Iowa(UNI). All 150 student teachers used a self-selectedteaching unit to complete the TWS during an 8-weekperiod. The TWSs examined in this study represented awide variety of content areas, including, music, art, andphysical education; however, math, language arts, science,and social sciences were the most prevalent content areasrepresented in the study.

Each center also included a faculty coordinator with4–12 years of experience supervising student teachers.The coordinators were responsible for introducing studentteachers to the TWS processes and providing assistance,guidance, and feedback for the initial steps of completingthis requirement. All of the coordinators had receivedinitial training and had acquired previous experience withthe TWS, which had been implemented for 2 yearsprevious to the first semester of data collection. (Seeauthor for further details on implementation of the TWSat UNI.) The coordinators did not teach their candidatesthe concepts needed to complete the TWS based on theassumption this instruction had occurred throughout thecandidate’s program of study.

2.2. The instructional decision-making prompt

For the purposes of this study we examined theInstructional Decision-making Section of the TWS. This

section of the TWS provided the following directions orprompt:

Think of two times during your unit when a student’slearning or response caused you to modify youroriginal design for instruction (the resulting modifica-tion may affect other students as well). Cite specificevidence to answer the following: (1) Describe thestudent’s learning or response that caused you torethink your plans. The student’s learning or responsemay come from a planned formative assessment oranother source (not the preassessment); (2) describewhat you did next and explain why you thoughtthat this would improve student progress towardthe learning goal.’’ (Suggested page length of 3–4)(The Renaissance Group, 2002).

2.3. Coding

A total of 314 instructional decisions from 150 TWSswere examined during this study. With relatively fewexceptions, the student teachers followed the prompt byproviding a description of two instructional decisions. Theprotocol that we developed for examining studentteachers’ performance was based on the requirementsspecified by the TWS prompt and the research literatureon instructional decision making. For example, theprompt asked for two modifications, each involving adescription of the student’s difficulty with learning orresponding, the modification that was made, and anexplanation for this course of action. In addition to codingthese items, our protocol also solicited additional in-formation to characterize the instructional decisions ofstudent teachers. For example, we recorded the type offormative assessments that were used by student tea-chers, as well as whether they assessed and reported theeffectiveness of their modification. Since many partici-pants provided this information without prompting, wetook advantage of the opportunity to include that data inour study.

Instructional decisions were conceptualized and re-corded as having three distinct parts: (a) an initialformative assessment of student learning, (b) an instruc-tional modification, and (c) a follow-up assessment todetermine the effectiveness of the modification. In thefollowing paragraphs, the coding of these instructionaldecisions will be described as it related to each of thesethree parts. For convenience of presentation and under-standing, they will be presented in this order: theinitial assessment, the instructional modification, andthe follow-up assessment.

2.3.1. Initial assessment

For the initial assessment prior to the modification, wewere interested in three aspects of the student teacher’sinstructional decision: (a) whether the student teacherdescribed a specific difficulty with learning, (b) what formof assessment was utilized to determine the need for aninstructional modification, and (c) whether specificexamples of all, some, or none of the student responseswere referenced. The forms of assessment are based on

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Stiggins’ (2001) work: they included observing students atwork, listening to students’ talk, giving quizzes or tests,examining students’ written work, and eliciting students’self-assessments. We also added another category toStiggins’ work, which we called ‘‘examining other pro-ducts.’’ Examples of other products of student work wouldinclude worksheets, drawings, and other types of studentwork which were not part of a test nor were they anexample of written work. This category was added todistinguish student writing such as essays and themepapers from work written on the board, fill-in-the-blankworksheets, short answers, and similar forms of studentresponses. When the assessment approach was not clearlydescribed, it was recorded in a category titled ‘‘Not Clear.’’

The following excerpt from a third grade classroomserves as an example of a TWS that provided a descriptionof all three components of the initial assessment ofstudent learning. (The sentences are successively num-bered for ease of reference.) In this excerpt three forms offormative assessment are present: observing students(sentences 2 and 4), listening to student talk (sentence 3),and examining other products (sentence 5). Each of thesethree forms of assessment is accompanied by a specificexample of a student response.

(1) One day I was reteaching how to divide by 2s and3s. (2) Three girls who are normally willing to speak inclass would not raise their hands to answer questions.(3) When I called on them they were unable to answerquestions about simple division facts. (4) I providedthem with prompts and cues and the girls still showeddefinite signs of confusion and frustration. (5) As Ichecked their work from the previous three days I sawthat the girls missed almost every problem on theirassignments. (6) I realized that if these three girls weregoing to be successful in this unit, they would needsome individual thought and attention, as well as someadaptations.

2.3.2. Instructional modification

In regard to the instructional modifications of studentteachers, we were interested in four aspects of the studentteacher’s instructional decision: (a) whether a descriptionof the modification was provided, (b) whether themodification was made for the entire class, a group, orone individual student; (c) what type of modification thestudent teacher made; and (d) whether the studentteacher gave a rationale to justify selecting this particularmodification. Modifications were placed into eight cate-gories including modifying the learning objective, adjust-ing the method of instruction, changing an academic task,teaching students to use learning strategies, modifyingstudents’ instructional materials, providing different le-vels of enhancement, modifying grouping arrangements,or changing methods of assessment. When studentteachers utilized multiple modifications, all were re-corded. These categories were taken from the work ofScott, Vitale, and Masten (1998), whose investigationshave focused on the modifications made by practicingteachers. For a full description of the eight types ofmodifications, see Fig. 1.

Below is an example of an instructional modificationinitiated in a fifth grade social studies class. After thestudent teacher asked her students to write a one-pagepaper on an explorer, she walked around the class as theyworked in groups and found that many students did notunderstand the assignment. She pondered the students’difficulty and introduced several modifications. Theyincluded modifying instructional materials (the list ofquestions in 1), changing students’ task or assignment(students asked to fill in the blanks before writing theirpaper in 2), and modifying instruction (the discussion andbrainstorming in 3 and 5).

(1) The next day I came in with a list of five questionsfor the students to answer about their explorers. (2) Ipassed out the lists and asked students to fill in theblanks before they began writing their papers. (3) As aclass, we read through the information and discussedhow these questions were ‘‘the meat’’ of their report.(4) After discussing this, I asked students if they hadany questions and they seemed to understand what Iwas looking for. (5) I also had the students brainstormother questions that they could answer about theirexplorer and we listed these on the board. (6) Theycame up with many ideas (date born, date died, familylife, etc.). (7) As I walked around the room observingthe students this time around, I could see that therewas much less confusion.

2.3.3. Follow-up assessment

For the assessment following the instructional mod-ification, we were interested in three aspects of thestudent teacher’s ability to assess the efficacy of theirinstructional modification, specifically (a) whether theyexplained if the modification resulted in improved studentlearning, (b) whether specific examples of studentresponses were included, and (c) what form of assessmentwas utilized to determine the efficacy of the instructionalmodification. The following TWS excerpt from a 10thgrade geography classroom includes all three componentstargeted for the follow-up assessment. In this particularlesson, the student teacher adjusted instruction byintroducing an analogy to explain the process of subduc-tion in the formation of the Andes. She asserts theimprovement in student learning by giving an exampleof their ability to explain the process of subduction (1) andby citing their scores on the post test (3).

(1) The profile drawing, logical reasoning, and analogyhelped the students understand subduction, and theywere readily able to explain the process back to me. (2)By restating my explanation in different terms, draw-ing, reasoning, using an analogy, and having studentsuse their hands, I was able to reach students of alllearning styles. (3) I was pleased to look back over theposttest and see that students scored very high onquestions relating to the subduction and mountainforming processes. (4) I also believe that studentsgained a greater appreciation for geography by seeingthat it is a science that explains the formation of theworld and not only where things are located within it.

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Modify learning skills or goals/objectives

Alter the learning goal or skill for one, some, or all students in the class. Examples would include situations when the student teacher decides to eliminate a learning goal for a struggling student or conversely adds a more challenging skill for advanced students.

Modify methods of instruction

Alter methods for providing instruction, e.g., giving explicit demonstrations, slowing or speeding up the pace of instruction, checking for understanding more often, asking different types of questions, giving different amounts of feedback, explaining concepts in a new fashion, or meeting with individual or small groups of students to provide remedial instruction.

Modify student tasks or assignments

Alter the assigned task, e.g., break it into smaller or larger steps, shorten or lengthen an assignment, or allow extra time to complete an assignment/task. Other examples of modifying student tasks include changing from one task to another (moving from a whole class discussion to a worksheet on a given topic), changing the sequence of two different activities (starting with the small group discussion instead of starting with the movie), and changing what students are supposed to do (e.g., sit and listen to the teacher read rather than reading a chapter themselves).

Teach learning or self managementmethods

Teach broad learning strategies that enable students to be successful, such as memory, self -instruction or self-monitoring strategies. (e.g., acronyms like COPS, FAST, etc.). Also, providing students with specific strategies that they could use to take notes, complete math problems, or otherwise deal with a specific assignment or difficulty.

Modify students’instructionalmaterials

Provide materials that students did not previously have, such as a calculator, multiplication table, self -correcting worksheet, self-monitoring checklist, a sample or model paragraph, or special pencil. Examples of smaller changes in student materials would include folding a map to fit on students’ desks or removing some materials so that students have to share.

Modify enhancement

Provide supplemental levels of praise, encouragement, or other reinforcement.

Modify GroupingArrangement

Have students participate in different types of grouping arrangements to learn their targeted academic skills or concepts (pairs instead of working independently). An example would be switching from an independent reading at home to paired reading and whole class discussion in the classroom. Another example would be making changes in students’ seating arrangement to solve behavior problems.

Modify method of monitoring students’progress

Modify the method of assessing student progress during the lesson, such as keeping tallies of participation. In some cases, the TWS may encompass subtle changes in assessing students’ knowledge (i.e., students write a composition instead of oral presentations). In these cases, the TWS must make specific reference to a change in assessment in order to code the modification in this category.

Fig. 1. Types of modifications (adapted from Scott et al., 1998).

F. Kohler et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 2108–21172112

2.3.4. An example instructional decision

The following TWS excerpt from a third grade readingclass provides an example of an instructional decision thatincludes the initial assessment, the instructional modifi-cation, and the follow-up assessment made for a singleindividual. In sentences 4 through 7, the student teacherdiscusses her initial assessment of Jeff’s learning byintroducing specific examples from Jeff’s writing and talkto identify his difficulties with meeting the learningobjectives. In sentences 9 and 10, she describes her firstinstructional modification, the use of a writing model(modifying students’ instructional materials); in sen-tences 11 and 13, she describes her second modification,the use of a questioning strategy (adjusting instruction);and in sentences 13 through 15, she describes her thirdmodification, the use of a graphic organizer (modifyingstudents’ instructional materials). In sentences 18–20, thestudent teacher provides a rationale for her modifications,and in sentences 21 and 22, she reports that the student’slearning was enhanced. She did not describe how sheassessed his writing when she made this inference, whichnecessarily precluded the possibility of a specific exampleof improved student performance.

(1) My first instructional decision was with a studentnamed Jeff. Jeff has always struggled with school dueto his ADD and is at a reading level of 1.4 (2) He usuallyneeds extra assistance in all tasks, and this assignmentwas no exception. (3) In order for him to achieve mysecond learning goal, I needed to rethink my plans. (4)

His response in the paragraph writing was very poor.(5) There was no structure to his paragraph, poorspelling, and no punctuation. (6) He attempted to usethe topic sentence from the board, but did notsuccessfully copy it correctly. (7) Jeff could not describewhy his character George had those feelings. (8) Basedupon his writing, I knew Jeff would need additionalassistance in order to be successful with this particularassignment. (9) Therefore, I chose to give Jeff a sampleparagraph example to look at and use as a guide. (10) Itwas a sample I had already created, and gave to him touse at his own desk. (11) While the other studentswere working, I had the opportunity to work throughthe directions and expectations with him for theassignment. (12) I asked questions to clarify what heneeded to do to make sure he did not have anyproblems. (13) Then I made a list of the feelings Jeffwanted to use in his paragraph in his notebook. (14) Inanother column, he told me why he thought hischaracter felt that way. (15) This would be a graphicorganizer for the simple paragraph he was to construct.(16) At this point I left him alone to do his work while Ichecked on the other students. (17) One of Jeff’s biggestchallenges is focusing on a task, so writing his foursentence paragraph took a lot of time and effort. (18) Ifelt this strategy would improve Jeff’s understanding ofa proper paragraph and lead him towards accomplish-ing the learning goal. (19) I think having a concreteexample in front of him helped to guide his writing.(20) This would eliminate frustration or leave him

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Table 1Types of initial and follow-up assessments

Percentage of formative assessments

where the student teacher

Initial

(%)

Range

(%)

Follow-

up (%)

Range

(%)

Listened to student talk 41 37–43 35 29–43

Observed students 33 26–37 36 28–45

Examined other products 13 8–18 13 9–13

Administered a test or quiz 4 2–7 9 9–10

Examined students written work 4 2–9 6 0–12

Invited students to engage in self-

assessment

1 0–1 1 0–2

F. Kohler et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 2108–2117 2113

feeling helpless in a task he thought was too big forhim to figure out correctly. (21) These few adaptationsproved successful for Jeff and really improved thewriting of his paragraph. (22) Through this activity, hemade great strides toward meeting Learning Goal #2.

2.4. Reliability

Inter-rater reliability was assessed on over 30% of theTWSs completed during each semester of this study. Inter-rater agreement was conducted by having the first twoauthors independently record and compare their responsesto all 10 aspects of the student teacher’s instructionaldecisions as described above. Reliability was calculated bycalculating the percent agreement on each individual code.This was determined by dividing the total number ofagreements (on each individual aspect) by the totalnumber of agreements plus disagreements and multiplyingby 100. Overall agreement averaged 90% for all 10 items,with a range of 88–93% across the three semesters. Inter-rater agreement on individual items ranged from 81% to100% across the individual items or aspects of our recordingsystem. Overall agreement was very high (mean of 98%) onthe number of modifications made within a TWS and 100%on Question 5 (whether the modification was made withthe whole class, group, or individual student). Averageinter-rater reliability on the remaining questions rangedfrom 81% agreement for Question 9 (range of 78–84%across semesters) to 99% agreement on Question 1 (rangeof 97–100% across semesters).

3. Results

A chi square analysis found no significant differencesbetween the frequencies for elementary and secondarypreservice teachers regarding the types of assessment,number of examples, types of modifications, and numberof rationales. Therefore, the findings will be reported anddiscussed for all 150 TWSs as a single group. A chi squareanalysis comparing the frequencies across the threesemesters found significant differences among the seme-sters in three areas: (a) the types of modifications, (b) thetypes of follow-up assessments, and (c) the number ofexamples in the initial assessments. Therefore, the rangeof scores across semesters for these three areas will bereported with the overall mean score.

3.1. Initial and follow-up assessments

Our results indicated that the student teachersattended closely to the TWS prompt in their instructionaldecisions. For example, student teachers averaged 2.1decisions per TWS (range of 2.0–2.2 across semesters),and 93% of these were based on student responding ratherthan extraneous events. Of the 314 total instructionaldecisions, 118 (38%) provided information about all threecomponents of initial assessment that were required bythe TWS (a difficulty with student learning, description ofassessment method, and specific example of students’performance). The number of TWSs that included two of

the three components equaled 227 (72%). A much smallernumber of 30 instructional decisions (10%) included allthree components of the follow-up assessment describedabove; 108 (43%) of the instructional decisions includedtwo of the three components.

Student teachers provided more information for theinitial versus follow-up assessment. During the initialassessment of student learning, 70% of the studentteachers provided clear information about the form ofassessment, and 40% provided a specific example ofstudent learning. In comparison, 66% of student teachersindicated whether or not student learning had improvedafter the instructional modification. During the follow-upassessment, 36% provided clear information about theform of assessment utilized, and 11% provided specificexamples of student learning.

Further comparisons between the initial and follow-upassignments reveal more similarities than differences.Most student teachers used one type of formativeassessment (means ¼ 1.3 and 1.2). The predominant formof formative assessments for both initial and follow-upassessment were listening to student talk (41% and 35%)and observing student behavior (33% and 36%). Studentteachers cited numerous cases of observing that studentswere inattentive, off task, or experiencing difficulty withan assigned task. Many student teachers also describedinstances of engaging in dialogue with students in orderto determine their understanding of content. Other formsof formative assessment were utilized less: examiningother products (13% and 13%), administering a test or quiz(4% and 9%), examining students’ written work (4% and6%), and inviting students to engage in self-assessment(1% and 1%). See Table 1 for a summary of the types ofinitial and follow-up formative assessments.

3.2. Instructional modifications

All 314 instructional decisions examined in this studyincluded a description of an instructional modification.Student teachers averaged 1.5 different modifications perinstructional decision; however, 220 (70%) of the instruc-tional decisions described a single modification. Of theremaining 94 instructional decisions, 75 described twomodifications, 16 described three modifications, and 3described four modifications. For example, after notingthat several students were unable to identify 901, 1801,and 2701 angles, one student teacher conducted aremedial lesson with a group of four students. In this

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case, the student teacher created a supplemental work-sheet for the students and then provided demonstrations,explanations, and feedback to enhance learning.

Most of the instructional modifications (80%) ad-dressed the entire class, while another 10% targeted asmaller group of students and another 10% an individualstudent. Both a whole class and a group of students wereinvolved in 7% of modifications. For example, a studentteacher might modify instruction by providing supple-mental instructions for an entire class and also modify thetask or assignment for a small group of students.

The most prevalent modifications were modifyingmethods of instruction (39%) and modifying students’academic tasks (35%). Typical examples of modifyinginstruction included giving detailed explanations or de-monstrations, asking more or different types of questions,or providing remedial instruction to students in a 1:1 orsmall group fashion. Common cases of modifying studenttasks were having students stop working on a worksheetand participate in large group discussion or altering therequirements for a paper or project. Changing grouparrangements (9%) and students’ materials (8%) were usedless often, followed by modifying learning skills or goals,modifying methods of progress monitoring, and modifyingenhancement (all less than 5%). Teaching students to uselearning or cognitive strategies was not used in any of the314 instructional decisions reported in this study.

Finally, 40% of the instructional decisions were accom-panied by an explanation of why that alteration might beeffective for improving student responding or learning.Therefore, a majority of the instructional decisions did notprovide a sound or clear rationale for modifying instruc-tion, in spite of an explicit prompt to do so. However, 207of the instructional decisions (66%) gave some indicationof whether or not the instructional modification waseffective, even though the TWS prompt did not require it.The methods of observing students and listening tostudent talk were reported most frequently. See Table 2for a summary of the number and types of modificationsmade by the participants of this study.

4. Discussion

The purpose of this study was to examine preserviceteachers’ ability to make instructional decisions during

Table 2Number and types of modifications made by the participants of this study

Form of modification Overall me

Number of different methods used in each modification 1.47

Type of modifications Percentage

Modify method of providing instruction 39

Modify student tasks or assignments 35

Modify grouping arrangement 9

Modify students’ instructional materials 8

Modify learning goals or objectives 4

Modify method of progress monitoring 3

Modify method of providing enhancement 1

Teach students to use learning or cognitive strategies 0

and after engaging in the process of teaching. Thisrequired the skills of assessing student learning, inter-preting cues or indices of student performance, and thenmaking on-the-spot or follow-up modifications. Ourresults indicate that the student teachers were morelikely to implement some elements of our model of theinstructional decision-making process, while other ele-ments were less likely to be implemented. These findingsare described next, followed by a discussion of how thisstudy supports the existing literature and sets an agendafor future research in teacher education.

Our first finding was that the student teacherswere able to attend to some aspects of instructionaldecision making better than others. For example, someparticipants responded to the TWS prompt by notingspecific difficulties with student learning. The formativeassessment strategies of observing students’ performanceand listening to talk were reported most frequently. Ourexamination of the TWSs also indicated that nearly allstudent teachers were able to make adjustments intheir teaching. Some of these decisions appeared tooccur after the lesson and involved making modificationsfor the following lesson. However, other decisions sug-gested that student teachers were able to interpret indicesof student learning and make on-the-spot improvisationsin instruction. The modifications of altering instructionand students’ task or assignment were reported mostfrequently. We also found numerous instructional deci-sions (30%) where two or more modifications werecombined.

Our results also suggested that certain elements ofinstructional decision making were less likely to beimplemented by student teachers. For example, severalmethods of formative assessment were rarely reported,such as examining writing or products, administeringtests or quizzes, or having students engage in self-assessment. Since these methods require more prepara-tion time, it appears that many student teachers usedthe more accessible approaches of observing and listen-ing to student talk. The majority of modificationsinvolved altering instruction or tasks, and there werefew occasions of modifying grouping arrangements,materials, learning objectives, methods of assessment,providing supplemental enhancement, or teaching stu-dents to use cognitive strategies. Finally, over three-quarters of the modifications were implemented with

ans Spring 2003 Fall 2003 Spring 2004

1.64 1.41 1.37

37 38 41

32 37 37

6 13 7

12 2 8

5 6 1

6 3 1

1 0 3

0 0 0

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the entire class rather than focusing on a small group orindividual student.

A secondary goal of this study was to examine how awritten account of instructional decision making caninform our efforts to educate teachers for reflectivepractice. John Dewey (1933) initially suggested thatreflection involves responding to a difficult or unexpectedsituation by stepping back to analyze the situation. Thus,the act of reflection requires that teachers not only react,but also critically examine their existing practices andbeliefs. Our findings suggest that novice teachers mayhave limited expertise with this process of reflection. Forinstance, only 40% of participants provided specificexamples of the student cues that precipitated theirinstructional decisions. This implies a lack of recognitionthat student cues are important to instructional decisionmaking, which seems like a critical element of reflection.Similarly, only 40% of student teachers gave a rationaleexplaining why their modification would improve stu-dents’ learning, even though the TWS gave a specificprompt to do this. Moreover, some of the explanationsthey did provide were ambiguous, poorly developed, ornot based on theory. Finally, more than one half ofparticipants stated whether their modification was suc-cessful, even though they were not prompted to do so.

Reporting on the effectiveness of a modificationinstead of supplying a rationale suggests that studentteachers may have relied on a trial and error approach tomaking instructional decisions. Lacking an explanation fortheir choice of a modification, the next best alternativemay have been simply to report that it worked. In part,this may have occurred because they lacked sufficientinformation for making a more reasoned judgment, asindicated by their limited range of formative assessmentsand low number of examples offered as evidence.However, the paucity of rationales may also indicate thatstudent teachers were unable to establish a logicalconnection between the results of their formative assess-ment and their instructional modification. In any case, itappears that many student teachers might have failed toconsider the consequences of different solutions to aninstructional problem, which has been described as amore developed form of reflection (Collier, 1999; Zeichner& Liston, 1987).

This study supports and extends the existing literaturein several important ways. First, it supports the literatureby verifying the recommendations of earlier researcherswho suggested that some aspects of instructional decisionmaking can be learned during the course of teacherpreparation (Borko & Livingston, 1989; Housner & Griffey,1985; Westerman, 1991). Our results also support priorresearch indicating that novice teachers have difficultyadjusting to unexpected student responses (Borko &Livingston, 1989; Fogarty, Wang, & Creek, 1983; Housner& Griffey, 1985; Leinhardt, 1983; Westerman, 1991).

This study also extends the previous literature byusing previous research on instructional decision making,teacher learning, and reflective practice as a basisfor analyzing student teacher decision making. Theanalysis in this study addressed measures of instructionaldecision making that have been lacking in many prior

investigations, such as the types of formative assessmentused to identify student cues, the modifications made tofacilitate student learning, the presence of a rationale forthose modifications, and the type of follow-up assessmentused to re-evaluate student learning.

This study also draws attention to reflective teachingand standards-based outcomes, which have been empha-sized at the international level over the past few years. Forexample, Stuart and Tatto (2000) examined the design ofteacher education programs in the United States, England/Wales, South Africa, Mexico, and Malawi. The authorsreported an increased emphasis on assessing traineeteachers on practical knowledge and experiences acquiredin real classrooms. The findings from this study suggestthat authentic, performance-based assessments like theTWS provide a rich and viable source of data for analyzingthe reflection and instructional decision making ofstudent teachers (see Montecinos et al., 2002; Stuart &Tatto, 2000; Villegas-Reimers, 2003).

This study also suggests a number of areas for furtherexploration of the instructional decision making ofstudent teachers. First, researchers might examine waysto ensure that prospective teachers learn to use a widervariety of formative assessments and instructional mod-ifications in the course of their teaching. For example, itwould seem logical to assume that extending and broad-ening opportunities for experiential learning wouldincrease the instructional decision-making abilities ofstudent teachers. Therefore, future studies might examinethe benefits of providing teacher education majors withopportunities to employ formative assessments, interpretstudent performances, and modify their instruction inauthentic settings. The purpose would be to determinewhether these activities would broaden the experientialknowledge of student teachers and increase the likelihoodthat classroom decisions will be informed and appropriatefor meeting their students’ needs.

Second, researchers might try to determine to whatdegree reflecting about their field experiences within astructured format helps student teachers to developthinking skills associated with reflection-in-action. Thefindings from this study have suggested that noviceteachers have a limited range of options when assessingstudent learning and modifying instruction. Future workcould investigate the efficacy of encouraging noviceteachers to generate multiple responses to their observa-tions of student learning when creating written and verbaldescriptions of instructional decisions. The purpose wouldbe (a) to create a habit of mind that would lead to fluidand automatic responses while immersed in the act ofteaching and (b) to promote more extensive associationsbetween formative assessments and instructional mod-ifications, Subsequently, this might help teacher educatorsdetermine how they could best help student teachersgenerate more substantive rationales for justifying theirmodifications.

Third, researchers could investigate the benefit ofproviding student teachers with continuous opportuni-ties to examine and critique their instructional decisionsthrough seminars, supervisory conferences, or peerdiscussion groups. Skilled facilitators should provide

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feedback and lead them in discussions for the purpose ofextending their descriptions of student learning to servetwo purposes: (a) as a means of multiplying availableinformation on which to base instructional modifications,and thus potentially increasing their insight into a specificand current problem, and (b) to encourage studentteachers to become more generally observant of studentcues, thus heightening their awareness of student perfor-mance while they are teaching. An important element ofthis process is facilitating the practical action and criticallevels of reflection discussed in the literature (Zeichner &Liston, 1987). Finally, future studies might follow pre-service teachers into professional practice in order todetermine what combination of classroom instruction,field experiences, and careful coaching from universitymentors and cooperating teachers provides the bestfoundation for the first few years of teaching (Joyce &Showers, 2002).

Over two decades ago, researchers conductedsome initial studies on the instructional decision makingof teachers and recommended that it be taught aspart of the teacher education curriculum. That recom-mendation has become a reality for teacher educationprograms that endorse reflective teaching and subscribeto standards-based, performance-based outcomes. Thedevelopment of the TWS and other performance-basedassessments offer the opportunity to continue this work.Through the continuous and systematic study of theircontents, we can better refine both our understanding andour methods for helping emerging teachers develop theirpractice.

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Further reading

Wandberg, R., & Rohwer, J. (2003). Teaching to the standards of effectivepractice: A guide to becoming a successful teacher. New York: PearsonEducation Inc.