Whose Judgment Matters in Determining Whether Teachers Have Changed Their Classroom Practices? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Whose Judgment Matters in Determining Whether Teachers Have Changed Their Classroom Practices? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Whose Judgment Matters in Determining Whether Teachers Have Changed Their Classroom Practices?

by larrycuban

I am drafting a chapter on access and use of computers at Las Montanas high school that will be in my next book. I did a study of computers there in 1998-1999 when there were stationary labs and returned in 2008-2010 when the school had 1:1 computing and mobile labs (see posts of August 7, 2010 and February 18,2011). In drafting this chapter, I have run into a dilemma that has bothered me for many years as both a practitioner and scholar. The issue is about what researchers see and what teachers see when it comes to changes in practice.

An example. What does a researcher make of the teacher who says with passionate confidence that she has made a 180-degree shift in her teaching of science to fourth graders from wholly teacher-centered activities to student-centered ones; she cites as evidence the different materials and practices that she uses in daily lessons. Yet after observing these lessons, the researcher sees those very same new materials and practices are being used in ways that undercut the purposes intended by the designers of the reform and the policymakers