596828

research-article2015

JTEXXX10.1177/0022487115596828Journal of Teacher EducationKnight et al.

Editorial

School-Based Teacher Learning

Journal of Teacher Education

2015, Vol. 66(4) 301303
2015 American Association of
Colleges for Teacher Education
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DOI: 10.1177/0022487115596828
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Stephanie L. Knight1, Gwendolyn M. Lloyd1, Fran Arbaugh1,

David Gamson1, Scott P. McDonald1, James Nolan Jr.1,
and Anne Elrod Whitney1
The theme of this issue of Journal of Teacher Education (JTE)
focuses on theory, people, processes, and outcomes related to
teacher learning in school-based settings. Teacher educators
and researchers agree that externally driven, isolated workshops and conferences have produced little impact on inservice teacher learning and change (Gallimore, Erneling,
Saunders, & Goldenberg, 2009; Hawley & Valli, 1999). In
contrast, when professional development is school-based and
embedded in the daily work of teachers, learning is more
likely to occur (Desimone, 2009; Garet, Porter, Desimone,
Birman, & Yoon, 2001). Similarly, teacher education rooted
solely in university coursework has had minimal impact on
preservice teacher (PST) learning. School-based approaches
have been extended to PST learning with an increased focus
on field experiences as a valuable element of PST education
(American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education
[AACTE], 2010). However, more research is needed to understand how multiple variables work together in these settings to
affect teacher learning (Opfer & Pedder, 2011). Of particular
interest is the role of the school workplace in both inservice
and PST learning and the interplay between the two.
The call for manuscripts for this issue recognized that much
of what teachers learn about teaching and learning occurs in
school-based contexts and that opportunities for teacher learning occur along the professional continuum, from preservice
field experiences to a multitude of opportunities for inservice
teachers to engage in job-embedded learning. In addition,
school-based teacher education is supported by various types
of teacher educators, including mentors, university supervisors, peers, instructional coaches, administrators, district-level
supervisors, university faculty, and other professional development providers. The articles published in this issue focus on
what teachers and PSTs learn in school-based settings; theories, concepts, frameworks, approaches, and models that are
powerful in explaining and guiding teacher learning in school
contexts; and how school-based teacher educators work
together to affect their own and others learning.

school settings as beginning teachers, but from very different

perspectives. Both consider the context of the use of valueadded to student achievement measures (VAM) to determine
effectiveness of teacher preparation programs (TPPs). JTE has
published theme issues and articles related to the use of valueadded models to determine the effectiveness of TPPs (Volume
63:5), with mixed reactions. Although researchers provide some
support for the potential of the approach to provide feedback to
policymakers and educators on the achievement of students
taught by teachers in different TPPs (Gansle, Noell, & Burns,
2012; Plecki, Elfers, & Nakamura (2012), the potential of using
VAM for teacher preparation is diminished by the complexity
and limitations of the approach (see Floden, 2012; Goldhaber &
Cowan, 2014; Henry, Kershaw, Zulli, & Smith, 2012; Lincove,
Osborne, Dillon, & Mills, 2014). Ronfeldt and Strom provide
additional perspectives on the topic in this issue.
Matthew Ronfeldt, author of Field Placement Schools
and Instructional Effectiveness, investigates whether and
how schools serve as organizations for teacher learning. More
specifically, he examines the relationship between teachers
inservice instructional performance measured by VAM and
characteristics of field placement schools where they did their
student teaching. Do teachers who were interns in schools
characterized by greater collaboration, effectiveness in raising student achievement, and less school turnover perform
better in their initial positions? His findings indicated that
math teachers who had previously learned to teach in field
placements with better achievement and more collaboration
were better at raising students math achievement. However,
there was little evidence that teachers performed better when
they were prepared in schools that matched the hiring school
on the three characteristics. Other characteristics, including
level and proportion of low-income students, predicted performance when matched. Surprisingly, he also found that
lower performing, harder-to-staff, and less collaborative
schools were more likely to be used as field placements.
1

Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA

Highlights of the Theme Issue

The first two articles address the relationship between PST
learning in field schools and learning in subsequent

Corresponding Author:
Stephanie L. Knight, Pennsylvania State University, 278 Chambers Building,
University Park, PA 16802, USA.
Email: slk44@psu.edu

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Journal of Teacher Education 66(4)

In contrast to the Ronfeldt article, Kathryn Strom, author

of Teaching as Assemblage: Negotiating Learning and
Practice in the First Year of Teaching, presents a framework
that counters the linear/transactional conception of teaching
underlying reforms that use VAM as a measure of accountability. She presents rhizomatics, a theoretical lens that
emphasizes the interrelationship of multiple interacting variables in a given situation such as teaching and uses the tool
of assemblage as a means of theorizing about the non-linear connections between preservice learning and first-year
classroom practice. Strom presents a case study examining
how a science teacher negotiates his preservice learning
within the first-year teaching environment as he constructs
his practice. She finds that an assemblage of teacher beliefs,
classroom environment, and the school context collectively
work to shape teaching practice and that preservice preparation is only one element of the assemblage. Because no direct
linear relationship between preservice preparation and firstyear teaching practice exists, linking preparation program to
outcomes is vague at best.
The third theme article, Unraveling the Complexity of
Student Teacher Learning in and From the Workplace by
Leeferink, Koopman, Beijaard, and Ketelaar, focuses on how
student teachers practical experiences in the workplace are
transformed into learning experiences. Similar to Strom,
they view the connection between experiences and learning
as a complex system. Using a narrative approach, they collected stories of student teacher learning through digital logs
and in-depth interviews. They learned that many learning
experiences took place in transition situations that differ
from workplace situations (e.g., mentor feedback or reaction
to student behaviors) and that interactions in these situations
are an important element in learning from practical experience. Student teachers also learned from prior experiences in
other contexts but only rarely mentioned previous teacher
education experiences. In addition, different kinds of workplace situations lead to different chains of activities and
experiences that lead to different kinds of learning. Most
learning experiences occurred outside the workplace as students moved back and forth between present and past experiences that resulted in learning. An exemplary feature of the
study was the use of an independent researcher so that student teachers could speak freely and remain anonymous.
Although the first three articles highlighted student teacher
learning in school-based settings, the next three articles focus
on specific models or approaches to accomplish certain kinds
of learning. The fourth and fifth articles are similar in that
they use specific work-embedded approaches to teacher
learning, and they consider the role of collaboration within
the model. The fourth article, From Experience to Expertise:
The Development of Teachers Learning in Lesson Study by
Candice Bocala, studies how school-based learning in the
form of lesson study (LS) contributes to both individual learning and collective performance. Bocala considers LS to
reflect the ideal of school-based professional learning because

it incorporates the five characteristics of effective professional development: focus on content/pedagogy, active learning, use of data, continuous and work-embedded, and
collaborative. Using interviews and observations, she investigated how teams participated in LS and how teams with more
or less experience differed. She found that members of novice
teams focused primarily on the novelty of observing other
teachers instruction and on what they were learning individually. However, members in experienced teams focused on
how demonstration teachers elicited and listened to evidence
of student thinking. They were less occupied with the professional learning routine and more willing to experiment with
thinking. The findings suggest that to move from experience
to expertise, teachers need deliberate practice with purposeful
participation in the routine, extended time participating, and
feedback on performance.
The next article, Problems Without Ceilings: How
Mentors and Novices Frame and Work on Problems of
Practice by Thompson, Hagenah, Lohwasser, and Laxton,
uses observations, interviews, and Facebook postings in a
design-based research approach conducted over 2 years. The
researchers investigated cooperating teacher (CT) and PST
dyads as they learned about reform-based practices in science and solved problems related to those practices. Several
studies focusing on core practices (ambitious teaching) have
been featured previously in JTE (see, for example, Forzani,
2014; Lampert et al., 2013; McDonald, Kazemi, &
Kavanaugh, 2013). This study extends the previous work by
looking at how the CTPST dyads orient toward implementation of teaching practices, the tools and routines they
develop, and how they shape the framing of problems of
practice. Of particular interest is whether certain frames provide PSTs the opportunity to appropriate ambitious teaching
practices. Findings identified three orientations toward the
practices exhibited by the dyads: developing novice teachers,
improving teaching, and improving student learning. Based
on the findings, the authors conclude that just having an
accomplished mentor teacher is not enough for PSTs to
become proficient in the practices. They propose three process measures that can be used to gauge the success of the
dyad: (a) the quality of student discourse that the CTs and
PSTs support, (b) the quality of their discussion about student ideas, and (c) the quality of newly created routines and
tools.
In the final theme article, Teaching, Learning, and
Leading: Preparing Teachers as Education Policy Actors,
Heineke, Ryan, and Tocci describe a teacher education program to promote teachers active roles in education policy.
They use a model typically reserved for the practice-based
teacher education described in the Thompson et al. article
and apply it to learning around education policy in field settings: replication of practice, decomposition of practice, and
approximation of practice. They examine how PSTs understand the relationship between policy and practice and what
structures facilitate understanding.

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Knight et al.
In addition to the six theme articles described above, this
issue continues a discussion in the form of a commentary that
is a response to a previous commentary. Gargani and Strong
(2014) published a study in JTE in which they describe a
classroom observation instrument designed specifically to
predict teachers ability to raise student test scores. They present the results of seven validation studies that use the Measure
of Effective Teaching project findings as benchmarks for comparison. In a subsequent commentary, Rating Teachers
Cheaper, Faster, and Better: Not So Fast, Tom Good and
Alyson Lavigne provide a strong response to Gargani and
Strongs claims that a six-item observation system that requires
only 4 hr of observer training can be used to reliably and validly assess classroom instruction and improve practice. They
point out problems with internal, face, content, predictive,
external, and ecological validity in relation to the instrument.
In addition, they criticize the study for its ahistorical stance
and point to others who have done considerable work in relating classroom observations to student outcomes. The commentary by Strong and Gargani in this issue, Response to
Rating Teachers Cheaper, Faster, and Better: Not So Fast: Its
About Evidence responds to each of the criticisms.
We hope that the articles in the School-Based Learning
theme issue of Volume 66 stimulate your thinking about the
specific topics discussed and provide ideas for future
research. We invite you to participate in conversations about
the implications of the findings of these studies for your own
research and practice and for education policy. We look forward to receiving manuscripts from you in the future as well
as your ideas directed toward improvement of the JTE.
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Forzani, F. (2014). Understanding core practices and practicebased teacher education: Learning from the past. Journal of
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