Keeping it complex: Using rehearsals to support novice teacher learning of ambitious teaching

Lampert, M., Franke, M.L., Kazemi, E., Ghousseini, H., Turrou, A.C., Beasley, H., Cunard, A., & Crowe, Kathleen. (2013). Keeping it complex: Using rehearsals to support novice teacher learning of ambitious teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(3), 226-243.


As a teacher educator, I have long struggled with the challenge of how to make professional education coursework as authentic as possible so that teacher candidates can feel they have “learned how to teach” in my course. At the same time, I also want them to be conscious of the theoretical underpinnings of the strategies they implement with children in the classroom. I want them to know why they do what they do in the classroom rather than just looking at their work as organizing and implementing a set of “fun” activities. In addition to that, I want to challenge the status quo of what my students often see in typical classrooms, and show teacher candidates how they can implement instruction that assumes that all children can learn at high levels, and that scaffolds those children so that they can reach those high levels. The Common Core Standards now point to that higher level of learning and teaching (which the authors here would call “ambitious”), but as a teacher educator I still hear about and see examples that tell me that the kind of teaching that typically occurs in classrooms is often not ambitious.

Lampert and her colleagues describe a model for teacher education that might address some of the challenges I struggle with. The model, called the Cycle of Enactment and Investigation (CEI) was designed for mathematics methods courses with field components where teacher candidates were working concurrently at elementary school sites. I can see how it might be adapted for other methods courses, including the reading methods courses I teach. The model has four phases, which are centered on teacher candidates’ enactment of specific teaching strategies, called Instructional Activities (IAs). In the first phase, Observation, candidates observe the IA being implemented, either “live” or on video. In Phase 2, Collective Analysis, the teacher educator and candidates have an analytic discussion about the IA and it elements and underlying principles. In Phase 3, Preparation, candidates prepare and plan to teach the IA to the specific students they are working with in classrooms. These first three phases are not so different from what I have always done when introducing various teaching strategies in my reading methods courses. It is the fourth phase of Lampert’s model that seems the most innovative and that intrigues me the most.

In Phase 4, Rehearsal, which seems to be the core of the model, candidates “rehearse” their plans in front of peers and a teacher educator, and the teacher educator plays two roles, as a “coach” who sometimes interjects feedback and may even “stop the action” for that, and also as a “student” who sets up challenges that the candidate may face from actual students. Peers also may play that “student” role. This differs from typical “microteaching” activities where teacher candidates do sort of a “dry run” with peers before they teach a lesson with children. Here, there is a dynamic, individualized, active teaching and learning process going on. In microteaching, most feedback goes on after an uninterrupted teaching demonstration. In Rehearsal, the feedback occurs immediately and in context, almost like a “coaching” model.

I have at times enacted a process like what Lampert et al describe, so I already know that it has great potential and seems very authentic and “hands-on” to teacher candidates. There is a much more collegial, “we’re in this together” feeling than the traditional microteaching procedure affords. The teacher educator takes on a collegial, “consultant” role when it is done well. That being said, the “rehearsal” idea presents challenges. The idea that the lesson will be paused for feedback needs to be fully discussed beforehand, and the idea that it is natural and normal to need feedback as a beginner must be explored. The teacher educator must be skillful at tactfully providing the “coaching” and at interrupting appropriately and in ways that teacher candidates (who are often hyper-sensitive about anything they consider criticism, no matter how much they need it) can accept. The example provided in the article shows how this can be done in a sensitive and skillful way. It would help me to read even more examples, and perhaps even view some videos.

The model’s last phases follow logically in the sequence, and resemble activities that are often seen in methods courses (mine included). In Phase 5, Classroom Enactment, the candidates actually implement the plan with students, videotaping the enactment. In Phase 6, Collective Analysis, the enactment is discussed and analyzed, again as a group. The authors do not provide details about how long each cycle (CEI) took, or how many cycles were typically completed within a course term. In my own courses, I could see this happening about twice per semester, along with other course content, but of course the number of cycles would depend upon the structure and content of a particular course.
As stated above, I have already been doing some of the things Lampert et al suggest, albeit in a less structured and deliberate way. I am considering trying the CEI model in my reading methods courses to see if the added structure is helpful for me and my students. I’ll also follow the work of Lampert and her colleagues to see how the model is further developed and validated.