Karen Hammerness

Measure for Measure: The Relationship between Measures of Instructional Practice in Middle School English Language Arts and Teachers' Value-Added Scores

Over the past 2 years, educational policy makers have focused much of their attention on issues related to teacher effectiveness. The Obama administration has made teacher evaluation and teacher quality a central feature of many of its educational policies, including Race to the Top (RTTT), Investing in Innovation (i3), and the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grants. In response, many states and school districts are developing measures of teacher effectiveness to reward, tenure, support, and fire teachers. In response to these policies, many observers are raising questions and concerns about the measures of teacher effectiveness that inform high-stakes personnel decisions. Unfortunately, we have little systematic knowledge regarding the properties of most of these measures. This article has two goals: to explore elements of instruction that may be associated with improved student achievement and to examine the domains of teaching skills that are identified in the literature as important to high-quality teaching but that may not be highly correlated with value-added measures of teacher effectiveness.

Toward Expert Thinking: How curriculum case writing prompts the development of theory-based professional knowledge in student teachers

The present paper explores what, and how, student teachers may learn about theory and practice from writing cases, and examines some pedagogical features that may contribute to these results. Drawing on data collected from our course Principles of Learning for Teaching, including student cases from outline to final drafts and students course reflections, we found that students successive case drafts demonstrated a development from naïve generalizations to sophisticated, theory-based explanations of the issues at play in their cases. In particular, we suggest that students cases demonstrated some of the moves that Berliner (1986, 1991) identified as characteristic of more expert thinking about teaching. We propose that reading theory in context with writing cases, that sharing cases with peer readers, that specific, theoretically grounded, and concrete feedback from instructors, and that providing multiple opportunities for revision may have been most useful in helping student teachers learn to think like a teacher.

Unpacking the "Urban" in Urban Teacher Education: Making a Case for Context-Specific Preparation.

The literature on preparing teachers for urban schools provides a rationale for helping candidates understand the particular cultures of students. However, research has not sufficiently “unpacked” features of the setting that programs can address; nor has it discussed how programs tailor teaching approaches to their specific contexts. Drawing from program descriptions, syllabi, and interviews, we describe the “context-specific” approach of the University of Chicago Urban Teacher Education Program that prepares teachers for Chicago Public Schools and ways that it helps candidates make meaning of that setting. We present a framework to show how the program defines and then teaches as content essential knowledge about a district and its children—including community and neighborhood histories, district curricula, and policies—that must inform teaching and learning. We include examples of context-specific teacher preparation that illustrate how candidates learn about particularities of Chicago Public Schools and apply this knowledge to develop context-specific understandings and practices.

Toward a Pedagogy of Cases in Teacher Education

The use of cases is becoming a tradition in teacher education, as enthusiasm for the method has grown over the past two decades. Shulman’s (1985) Presidential Address to the American Educational Research Association, in which he called for teacher educators to develop a pedagogy of cases, helped to fuel renewed excitement about the case method. He argues that cases are particularly suited to teaching and teacher education because both are instances of transformation:

Examining Features of Teacher Education in Norway

Drawing upon recent research in the United States, this paper proposes that there are three key features undergirding powerful teacher education programs. The research suggests that in order to be powerful and effective, teacher education programs need to have a vision, be coherent, and provide opportunities to learn that are grounded in teaching practice. The author uses these features as a lens to examine programs in Norway – a country in which teacher education has been relatively under-examined. The analysis reveals several challenges for the Norwegian teacher education programs examined, such as a lack of shared vision among faculty responsible for teaching subject content and those teaching pedagogy, as well as few opportunities for student teachers to learn in the context of practice. Implications for strengthening programs are discussed.

When Context Has Content A Case Study of New Teacher Induction in the University of Chicago’s Urban Teacher Education Program

Reviews of research evaluating the impact of beginning teacher induction suggest that the mixed results may be due to the fact that the programs do not fully address school context. We examine how one induction program for urban teachers explicitly addresses teachers’ specific schools and students to illustrate how context becomes the content for teachers’ learning and work. We argue that the program’s “context-specific” supports may ease transition into the challenging role of urban teacher. In turn, this case suggests ways of addressing features of context that may help new teachers better understand and maintain a commitment to urban teaching.

Classroom Management in the United States: A View from New York City.

In the United States, an increasing number of new teachers are being prepared through alternative, or early entry, routes into teaching. These new forms of teacher preparation raise important questions about how and in what ways candidates are being prepared, particularly in key areas such as classroom management. To shed light upon these questions, this paper draws upon data from a larger study of teacher preparation in New York City which is engaged in examining the features of both alternative and traditional pathways into teaching. This paper uses qualitative data regarding preparation required by 31 childhood teacher education programs and survey data from 460 program graduates, to analyze new teachers preparation for classroom management in New York City. We found that less than half of the traditional programs required any coursework in classroom management. Early entry candidates were more likely to have had a course in classroom management. The paper also reports survey findings regarding teachers reports of their opportunities to learn, which suggest that teachers in traditional programs may encounter more foundational knowledge in such courses, while early entry teachers may have more opportunities to learn practical, concrete strategies.