Teacher Educators’ Use of Formative Feedback During Preservice Teachers’ Simulated Teaching Experiences in Mathematics and Science

Abstract

The purpose of this research study was to identify how teacher educators (TEs) attend to and use formative feedback as they work to support preservice teachers’ (PSTs’) learning. The formative feedback was provided to the TEs as part of recurring instructional cycles within their elementary mathematics or science methods course. In these instructional cycles, their PSTs prepared for, engaged in, and reflected on their ability to facilitate argumentation-focused discussions in a simulated classroom. After each cycle, the TEs received formative information about their PSTs’ discussion performance in the form of a feedback report and a scoring report. The study used qualitative content analysis to analyze and interpret key themes from TEs’ interview data to determine how they used this formative information. Findings suggest the TEs used the formative information provided in the feedback and scoring reports: (a) to gauge their PSTs’ instructional capabilities, (b) to reflect on and make changes to their practice, (c) to evaluate their PSTs’ understanding and interpretation of the feedback reports, and (d) to attend to specific features of their PSTs’ practice. Study results highlight the usefulness of providing TEs with formative information about their PSTs’ ability to engage in specific aspects of a core teaching practice, especially to support identification of areas for improvement and inform future instruction.