How Preservice Teachers Learn through a Pedagogy of Enactment in a Middle School Mathematics Methods Course

Abstract Concerns about the disconnect between what goes on in teacher preparation programs and school classrooms have led to a greater emphasis on opportunities for preservice teachers to engage in the practice of teaching during their teacher education programs. Pedagogies of enactment have been shown to provide opportunities for preservice teachers to enact teaching practices and to learn from that enactment. However, little is known about how preservice teachers learn from pedagogies of enactment. This study examines how preservice teachers learn through the implementation of a pedagogy of enactment, the Bellringer Sequence, in the context of a middle school mathematics methods course. The results of the study show that preservice teacher learning takes place through rich generative conversation centered on preservice teachers’ contributions and collaboratively negotiated interactions with those contributions. The study identified communication that prompted learning (learning prompts), 16 speech events that characterized conversation in the learning prompts, and three stages of learning in the learning prompts—Initiation, Precisification, and Equilibration. The study provides insight into how preservice teacher learning can be supported through intentional use of pedagogies of enactment.