Recent years have seen a continued call for teacher education that focuses more directly on the practice of teaching (author, 2009; Grossman et. al., 2009; Lampert & Graziani, 2009). This research argues for teacher education that prepares beginning teachers to do key aspects of the work, not just talk about doing it or analyze someone else’s doing of it. Such increased attention to performance creates a need for assessments that evaluate the enactment of practice; teacher education cannot rely solely on assessments that focus on pre-service teachers’ plans for or analyses of their practice, as has historically been the case.

Designing and implementing assessments of enacted practice is challenging for a number of reasons. First, designing such assessments requires parsing and articulating the complex work of teaching, which is difficult due to the underconceptualized knowledge base on teaching and teacher education (Hiebert & Morris, 2009; Grossman & McDonald, 2008). Once focal practices are identified, a second challenge arises: developing assessment tasks that can elicit the intended practices (Authors, 2008). The work of teaching is often ephemeral, making it difficult to capture and evaluate. Furthermore, teaching practices are often contingent on one another. Thus if an initial practice is not implemented well, assessment of the contingent practice can be impeded (Authors and colleagues, 2011). A third challenge is ensuring that assessments of enacted practice are fair with respect to what being appraised (mathematics and teaching practices) and the teaching contexts in which they are appraised (which can be highly variable). For example, if an assessment involves a pre-service teacher leading a classroom discussion during a mathematics lesson in her field placement classroom, the enactment is influenced by factors such as the difficulty and “discussability” of the content of the lesson and students’ familiarity with participating in mathematics discussions. Other challenges of developing assessments of enacted practice relate to determining the threshold for competent beginning performance, developing a shared understanding of the practice amongst teacher educators, and supporting diverse teacher educators in giving feedback. Lastly, implementing assessments of enacted practice is challenging because such assessments can take significant amounts of time to evaluate.

In sum, assessments of enacted practice are difficult and time-consuming to design and implement well. They also require careful study to understand the ways in which pre-service teachers respond to the assessment, have ways of characterizing performance that tie to key facets of teaching practice, and prepare for validation work that will help teacher educators know whether performing well on the assessment corresponds to high-quality instruction and student learning. Such study provides rich opportunities for conversations among teacher educators about mathematics and teaching, which in turn supports the professional development of teacher educators (Sztajn et al, 2006). As such, it is fitting to hold a work session at the Research Presession focused on specific examples of performance assessment tasks and pre-service teacher performance on those tasks.

Since in 2004, we have been developing and using performance assessments in our mathematics methods and content courses, as well as in our teacher education program more broadly. These assessments take a range of forms, from university-based simulations to videos of teaching children in actual classroom settings. In this proposed working session, we explore one type of performance assessment: enacted practice simulations. These are standardized performance assessments that focus on the enactment of mathematics teaching in light of contextual factors, but do not need to be implemented with students in K-12 classrooms. While it is crucial to assess pre-service teachers’ work with actual children, we argue that some teaching practices can be assessed outside of this context. In addition, enacted practice simulations allow for the control of some contextual factors that can impact the fairness and interpretation of an assessment, as they enable teacher educators to select both the mathematics content and teaching context of the assessment. In addition to developing the tasks, we have also developed grading tools that enable in-the-moment scoring, which alleviates some of the time commitment required for evaluating assessments of enacted practice.

Design of the work session

Framing (5 min). We will frame the need for assessments of enacted practice and the challenges inherent in their design.

Overview of the assessment (10 min). We will share three parts of an enacted practice simulation that is focused on eliciting and analyzing student thinking about mathematics in which pre-service teachers:

• analyze a set of simulated student responses to fraction computation problems;
• interview a “standardized” student about a sample of mathematics work; and
• interpret and apply the information they were able to elicit from the student during the interview.

Analysis and discussion of pre-service teachers’ eliciting performance (25 min). Participants will watch videos of pre-service teachers eliciting thinking from a standardized student and use transcripts to support small group discussion of the features of the performance and the nature of the assessment. Participants will then discuss the first two focal questions: What aspects of teaching practice are observable in the simulation? How might the simulation be modified to better capture the intended practice or mathematics?

Analysis and discussion of pre-service teachers’ interpretation performances (40 min). Participants will collectively watch video records of pre-service teachers’ performance on the assessment using grading tools we have developed and discuss the challenges of evaluating assessments of enacted practice. Following this participants will analyze pre-service teachers’ written interpretations of the simulated student responses to fraction computation problems and compare the different affordances of the two types of evidence of interpretation.  

Discussion of the idea of assessment simulations (10 min). We will conclude with the whole group discussing the third focal question: What are the challenges and benefits of performance assessment simulations of enacted practice?

Contribution

This session will stimulate discussion about designing and implementing assessments of enacted practice simulations and explores the idea of developing performance assessment simulations. This work will be of interest to elementary and secondary methods and content courses instructors, and the working-group format will enable us to get feedback on our work.