Training of teachers in effective teaching. How to orient the observation and the change of practices in the classroom?

Abstract

The use of lesson study and microteaching as training methods based on both the observation and the change of teaching actions in the classroom is also beginning to appear in Italy. But, without a revision of the system of di-dactic concepts (mental frames, mind frames), knowledge and attitudes possessed by teachers and the presence of orientation references, this activity risks running aground or giving rise to dispersive and even conflicting practices, also taking into account the strong diversity of opinions on what is meant by good practice and also for the presence of naive practices and mythologies rooted in the school. In this paper, the authors intend to underline the importance of a preparatory path for observation in the classroom which must involve a preliminary critical review of the patterns and beliefs possessed, and then move on to the development of an observation and intervention procedure aimed at achieving specific changes. The phases of this path are described: all the teachers of the school first respond to a questionnaire that allows an immediate comparison between the assessments of widespread teaching practices with those emerging from the results of effective teaching in an evidence-based perspective. After first discussing the gap with respect to the theoretical model taken as a reference model, in subsequent meetings the reasons that may be at the basis of these differences are explored, an observation procedure focused on the canonical criticalities of the classroom lesson is shared, by explaining the implications that the observational data possess with the underlying theories and the same terminological ambiguities of which the observing and observed teachers must be aware.