ANALYSIS OF POST-OBSERVATION INTERVIEWS The post-observation interviews provided pertinent information on how the teachers felt they had performed during their teaching and how this synchronized with their expressed views during the initial interview. Although expressed differently, they all shared the view that they believed their teaching was consistent with their stated views about the importance of using LCI and how it should be implemented. This was in spite of the fact that all of them to some degree used strategies associated with traditional teaching. It seems to me that in their responses generally, they offered justifications for their actions. For example, Lamonte in responding to how her teaching had synchronized with her initial view that children should experience hands-on approach to learning which “a stated that includes and of the lessons were follow-up lessons and ‘trial error’ “some She went on to explain that the therefore the and aspects were not ‘trial error’ seen”. pupils engaged in and during the Language Arts lesson when they ‘trial error’ “were asked to identify pictures that began with a letter or to identify words that the teacher and also in the Mathematics called which began with the specific letter of the week”, lesson when they had to and “fold given shapes in half”, “cut given items in half on their own.” reply suggests to me that she was unclear as to the meaning of the term Lamonte’s From her response it seems that she interpreted this term as giving and ‘trial error’. an answer or attempting a task and correcting either if incorrect. However this term refers to a problem by experimenting with a number of different methods and arriving at the correct answer by learning from the errors. Similarly, Jean in responding to her earlier point that children should be allowed to stated that in two lessons discover, create and pupils were “observe, investigate” “the afforded the opportunity to discover the contents of an unwrapped package and a gift This answer suggests a misunderstanding of the terms as used in the context of bag”. LCI. When children they connections and build concepts through ‘discover’ “make interactions with people and (Kostelnik et al. 2011, p. 88) and use their objects” experiences to arrive at conclusions. This was not the case in lesson. Jean’s
ANALYSIS OF POST-OBSERVATION INTERVIEWS The post-observation interviews provided pertinent information on how the teachers felt they had performed during their teaching and how this synchronized with their expressed views during the initial interview. Although expressed differently, they all shared the view that they believed their teaching was consistent with their stated views about the importance of using LCI and how it should be implemented. This was in spite of the fact that all of them to some degree used strategies associated with traditional teaching. It seems to me that in their responses generally, they offered justifications for their actions. For example, Lamonte in responding to how her teaching had synchronized with her initial view that children should experience “a hands-on approach to learning which includes ‘trial and error’ stated that “some of the lessons were follow-up lessons and therefore the ‘trial and error’ aspects were not seen”. She went on to explain that the pupils engaged in ‘trial and error’ during the Language Arts lesson when they “were asked to identify pictures that began with a letter or to identify words that the teacher called which began with the specific letter of the week”, and also in the Mathematics lesson when they had to “fold given shapes in half”, and “cut given items in half on their own.” Lamonte’s reply suggests to me that she was unclear as to the meaning of the term ‘trial and error’. From her response it seems that she interpreted this term as giving an answer or attempting a task and correcting either if incorrect. However this term refers to a problem by experimenting with a number of different methods and arriving at the correct answer by learning from the errors. Similarly, Jean in responding to her earlier point that children should be allowed to “observe, discover, create and investigate” stated that in two lessons “the pupils were afforded the opportunity to discover the contents of an unwrapped package and a gift bag”. This answer suggests a misunderstanding of the terms as used in the context of LCI. When children ‘discover’ they “make connections and build concepts through interactions with people and objects” (Kostelnik et al. 2011, p. 88) and use their experiences to arrive at conclusions. This was not the case in Jean’s lesson.
FINAL%20DISSERTATION%20-%20MARCH%202017.docx