Assessing Practical Thinking of Teachers for Use in Teacher Education,

Abstract

This study investigated practical thinking in elementary school teachers (known as invisible practice) evoked through the on-line monitoring method of thinking aloud and the off-line monitoring method of report writing, and relationships between practical thinking and teaching experience. Results indicated that during on-line monitoring, participating teachers spoke more frequently about the actions of students and the content of learning, and made more inferences. During off-line monitoring, teachers more frequently reported on the overall lesson structure and their thinking consisted of more impressions. Teaching experience influenced the perspective of participating teachers: novice teachers focused on the lesson as whole, mid-career teachers attended to teacher-student interactions, and long-career teachers focused on actions by both students and the teacher.