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How do Student Teachers Elicit theirMentor Teachers' Practical Knowledge?Anneke Zanting a , Nico Verloop a & Jan D. Vermunt aa Leiden University, The NetherlandsPublished online: 25 Aug 2010.

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Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, Vol. 9, No. 3,August 2003

How do Student Teachers Elicit theirMentor Teachers’ Practical Knowledge?ANNEKE ZANTING, NICO VERLOOP & JAN D. VERMUNTLeiden University, The Netherlands

ABSTRACT The present study focuses on how student-teachers attempt to elicit thepractical knowledge of the mentor teachers who supervise their practical training. Havingaccess to the practical knowledge of their mentors means, among other things, thatstudent-teachers have access to the cognitions underlying teaching that can help them tounderstand their mentors’ teaching style, advice, and feedback. The analysis of 29interviews with student-teachers revealed three self-initiated activities for this access: (1)observing a mentor’s lesson; (2) asking specific questions about lessons observed; and (3)discussing the student’s lesson or teaching and education in general. Not all the activitiesmentioned by the student-teachers elicited what is called ‘practical knowledge’ in theliterature. As practical knowledge is an important element of the learning-to-teach process,it was concluded that the stimulation of activities aimed at exploring this knowledge couldmake a valuable contribution to teacher education. The instruments used in the researchon teacher knowledge and beliefs could be helpful for attaining this objective. Implicationsof this research for teacher education and suggestions for further research are presented.

Introduction

One of the popular topics in the research on teacher education is the subject of themental states and processes of teachers, such as teacher knowledge and beliefsabout teaching, their thinking before, during, and after lessons, the practicalarguments underlying their teaching repertoire, and their (changing) conceptionsof learning and teaching (Schon, 1983; Shulman, 1987; Carter, 1990; Kagan, 1990;Fenstermacher, 1994; Calderhead, 1996). This interest follows from the idea that itwould be valuable to include cognitions in the research in order to preventreducing the complexity of the process to (effective) teaching actions (see Doyle,1990). With this in mind, research on teacher education has, from the 1970sonwards, developed in the same way as psychological research that shifted frombehaviour oriented to cognition some decades earlier. Various researchers havecontributed to the description of the nature and content of teacher knowledge,beliefs, and thinking processes. These researchers have used various terms todescribe the cognitive baggage of teachers and the different interpretations.

In the present article, several descriptions of the nature of teachers’ thinking and

ISSN 1354-0602 (print)/ISSN 1470-1278 (online)/03/030197-15 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/1354060032000116602

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their knowledge and beliefs about teaching will be discussed. The content of thesethinking processes, knowledge, and beliefs will also be described. A more exten-sive overview can be found in Carter (1990), Fenstermacher (1994), Meijer (1999)or Meijer et al. (1999).

The Nature of Teacher Knowledge and Beliefs

In the overview described in the present article, the term ‘knowledge’ does notrefer to an objective, scientifically proven knowledge base, but to the personalknowledge constructed by individual teachers. An illuminating distinction be-tween objective and personal knowledge has been made by Fenstermacher (1994),who described the ‘formal knowledge of teaching’—that is, knowledge generatedby educational researchers—versus the ‘practical knowledge of teaching’—that is,knowledge generated by teachers as a result of their experience in the classroom.This practical knowledge has become the subject of scientific research as well:research can be used to reveal what teachers know.

Connely and Clandinin (1990) and Elbaz (1981) stressed the individual andunique character of teacher knowledge using the term ‘personal practical know-ledge’. They examined this knowledge as it manifests itself without relating it toa formal theory, using research methods such as ‘narratives’ or ‘teachers’ stories’.

Several investigators have used the term ‘tacit knowledge’ in order to describeteacher knowledge as implicit and hard to articulate (Schon, 1983; Carter, 1990;Berliner, 1992; Brown & McIntyre, 1995). In addition, this knowledge has beencharacterised as situated (i.e. embedded in activities and situations) (Brown et al.,1989). Schon (1983, 1987) originated the terms ‘reflection-in-action’ and ‘reflection-on-action’. Reflection-in-action indicates the knowledge of professionals asdemonstrated in their actions. Reflection-on-action refers to the process ofreflecting on their actions in order to broaden their knowledge. Thus, Schondistinguished knowledge as a state and reflection as a process by which know-ledge can be acquired, adjusted, or expanded. This notion of reflection hasstrongly influenced the education of student-teachers and the professional devel-opment of already certified teachers.

Teachers’ knowledge has also been described as knowledge that guides day-to-day actions in the classroom (Brown & McIntyre, 1995). According to this view,the explication of teachers’ ‘professional craft knowledge’ can be of additionalvalue to observations of their lessons. This knowledge can, for example, refer toplanning lessons, choices or possible changes during lessons, dealing with variousteaching situations, reactions to pupils, and so on.

Expert–novice studies have also added insight into the nature of experiencedteachers’ knowledge; however, an experienced teacher should not be confusedwith an expert teacher. In spite of this, these studies have shown differencesbetween novices and more experienced professionals in a specific domain. Theknowledge of experts is specialised and domain specific, often tacit, and or-ganised; stored in patterns, scenes, and procedures (see Carter, 1990).

In the present article, the term ‘practical knowledge’ is used as, and considered

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How do Student Teachers Elicit Mentor Teachers? 199

to be, an amalgam of all teachers’ cognitions, such as declarative and proceduralknowledge, and beliefs and values that influence their pre-active, interactive, andpost-active teaching activities. Practical knowledge, as described by various au-thors, is assumed to be personal, unique, often tacit, organised, and intertwinedwith teaching actions.

The Content of Practical Knowledge

So far, only the nature of practical knowledge has been described. Researchershave also examined its content. Shulman’s categories of teacher knowledge arewell known:

• content knowledge;• general pedagogical knowledge, with special reference to those broad principles

and strategies of classroom management and organization that appear totranscend subject matter;

• curriculum knowledge, with particular grasp of the materials and programsthat serve as ‘tools of the trade’ for teachers;

• pedagogical content knowledge, that special amalgam of content and pedagogythat is uniquely the province of teachers, their own special form of professionalunderstanding;

• knowledge of learners and their characteristics;• knowledge of educational contexts, ranging from the workings of the group or

classroom, the governance and financing of school districts, to the character ofcommunities and cultures; and

• knowledge of educational ends, purposes, and values, and their philosophicaland historical grounds (Shulman, 1987, p. 8).

Using Mentors’ Practical Knowledge in Teacher Education

The research on teacher knowledge, beliefs, and thinking processes not onlycontributes to a clearer understanding of teaching on a theoretical level, but canalso be useful for teacher education. When being supervised by mentor teachersduring practical training, accessing their practical knowledge can be valuable forstudent-teachers. The inquiry of explicated practical knowledge can serve severalfunctions for students learning to teach and their understanding of the nature ofteaching. A few explanatory remarks on these functions must be made. A moredetailed explanation can be found in Zanting et al. (1998). The first function is toobtain information about teaching that is ‘new’ to student-teachers and that can beapplied during practice teaching. Practical knowledge is professional knowledgethat is often more specific and pragmatic than what is learned at the academy(Leinhardt et al., 1995).

The second function, understanding a mentor’s thinking on teaching, has to dowith their knowledge and beliefs about teaching and their thinking before, during,and after the lessons. These cognitions show the considerations that underlie

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teaching and a mentor’s preference for a teaching style (for example, Rodd, 1995).In this way, these elicited cognitions can complement classroom observation.

The third function is understanding a mentor’s role. Student-teachers can betterunderstand the evaluations of their lessons and the mentor teacher’s advice whenthey have formed a picture of their mentor’s knowledge of and beliefs aboutteaching. After they have explored the practical knowledge, they are better able tovalue their mentor’s way of teaching.

The final function, integrating theory with practice, can be illustrated in aquotation by Leinhardt et al. (1995) describing the integration of practical pro-fessional knowledge with the professional knowledge of the academy: ‘Studentteachers would be encouraged to learn to observe, predict, critique, generate, andanalyze component practices in the teaching performance of excellent mentorteachers, of their colleagues, and of themselves’ (p. 405; original emphasis). Whenstudents predict, criticise, and analyse their mentor’s teaching, they start to‘theorise practice’. This is a starting point for connecting theory to reality. A firstpre-condition is the elicitation of the mentor’s practical knowledge that influencestheir observable teaching. An individual mentor teacher’s practical knowledge canthen be compared with theory.

Eliciting Mentors’ Practical Knowledge

The literature shows that student-teachers commonly do not explore their mentorteacher’s practical knowledge of their own accord (Brown, 1995; Penny et al.,1996). They are inclined to focus on their own teaching. They expect their lessonsto be evaluated by mentors on the basis of their teaching experience, and to gettips, advice, and suggestions to improve their techniques. To a lesser extent, theyfocus on the mentor’s teaching skills. Observation of mentor’s lessons is a way ofgathering examples of how to teach. Not all student-teachers hold themselvesresponsible for understanding their mentor’s style of teaching by finding out theirmentor’s knowledge and beliefs underlying the actions in the classroom (Zantinget al., 2001). For example, in a study by Penny et al. (1996), it appeared thatstudent-teachers rarely asked questions about lessons given by the mentors. Inaddition, mentors themselves are not inclined to explicate the teaching knowledgeand beliefs that underlie their teaching style (Edwards & Collison, 1995). Brown(1995) prompted this questioning by student-teachers, who later reported that thishad helped them understand what was happening during their mentor’s lessons.Other possibilities for student-teachers exploring mentor knowledge and beliefsare interviewing, discussing mentor’s concept maps, conducting stimulated recallinterviews after the mentor’s lessons, and discussing the content of mentor–stu-dent conversations (Zanting et al., 1998). In these ways, elicitation techniquesalready used in the research on teacher education can actually be applied inteacher education.

Research Question

Preceding interventions of that kind in teacher education, the present study was

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How do Student Teachers Elicit Mentor Teachers? 201

conducted to gain more insight into activities student-teachers undertake of theirown accord to elicit their mentors’ practical knowledge. Little is known about thiskind of knowledge acquisition, while other ways of acquiring knowledge havebeen extensively described in the literature, including acquiring knowledge byteaching and reflecting on it (Valli, 1992), studying theories (Eraut, 1994), or byreceiving feedback and practice-based advice from mentors (Borko & Mayfield,1995).

It is not clear what kind of activities they undertake or forget to undertake inorder to access this knowledge. Perhaps, they undertake activities that do notmeet this objective. Therefore, the research question addressed in the presentstudy was: In what way do student-teachers of their own accord attempt to accessthe practical knowledge of the mentor teachers who supervise their practicaltraining?

Method

Context

The student-teachers in the present study attended a postgraduate teacher edu-cation programme at Leiden University, The Netherlands. The 1-year courseconsists of alternating theoretical and practical components. During the theoreticalmodule, student-teachers acquire knowledge about teaching methods and educa-tional theory. They practice their teaching skills at the teacher education institute.The student-teachers received their practical training at two different schools.They were being trained to teach at the high school level (pupil age 15–18 years)in the specific subject areas of language (Dutch, English, German, French, Clas-sics), science (mathematics, biology, physics, chemistry), and social science (his-tory, art history, social studies).

Participants

The student-teachers were interviewed during their second practical trainingperiod and could, therefore, answer questions about their experiences with twomentor teachers. Thirty student-teachers, 11 male and 19 female, volunteered toparticipate. One female student-teacher had only attended one practical trainingbecause she had been offered a job. For that reason, she was excluded from dataanalysis. The other 29 student-teachers were, on average, 27 years old (standarddeviation � 3). The division of the students into the three main subject areas in thesample nearly represented those of the population of the 60 full-time student-teachers during the 1995–1996 academic year. In this population, 31 student-teach-ers (52%) had studied languages, 18 of them (30%) had studied science and 11(18%) social sciences. In the sample, 17 (57%) student-teachers had studiedlanguages, eight (27%) of them science, and five (17%) of them social science.

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Interview Schedule

The research question addressed in the present study was embedded in an overallstudy exploring student-teachers’ experiences with their mentors during practiceteaching. Structured interviews with a fixed set of questions about several aspectsof mentor supervision were used to examine these experiences. These questionsconcerned, among others, the frequency, content, and changing topics of mentor–student conversations before and after lessons given by the student-teachers, andthe roles the mentors had actually played compared to the students’ expectations.The part of the interview relevant to the present research question concerned theaccess to mentors’ practical knowledge. Before the student-teachers were inter-viewed, the questions were tried out on students at the same teacher educationinstitute who did not participate in the actual study. On the basis of the trialinterviews, some questions were restated in a more transparent way.

The student-teachers in the present study were asked to indicate what differ-ences they had experienced based on their own knowledge of teaching and thatof their mentors. In order to elicit the students’ self-initiated activities to accesstheir mentors’ practical knowledge, they were asked if they had ever tried, ontheir own initiative, to find out what their mentors knew about teaching. Ifstudents answered affirmatively, they were asked: ‘In what way?’. If necessary,they were prompted with further questioning. In order to prevent social-desirableanswers as much as possible, the student-teachers were also asked to illustratetheir answers with examples.

Procedure

All the student-teachers were interviewed in a separate and quiet room at theteacher education institute by the same interviewer. Before the interviews, thestudent-teachers were given an introduction in which they were informed of thegoal, significance, and procedure of the interview. They were reassured that theprocess was unrelated to any form of evaluation and that the interviews would behandled anonymously. All interviews were audio-taped. Each interview lasted anaverage of 75 minutes.

Data Analysis

The interviews were initially transcribed verbatim. The categories were developedon the basis of these transcripts. After 14 transcripts, no new categories werefound. Five interviews were added for transcription to check the assumption thatsaturation had been reached. Because no new categories were found, it wasdecided to end the verbatim transcription and to analyse the other interviewsusing the audiotape. If new categories emerged when listening to the tapes, theverbatim transcription would be continued.

The development of the categories was done systematically in response to thedata; that is, this development and the study of the data were alternated andintertwined. This procedure can be associated with the ‘grounded theory’

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How do Student Teachers Elicit Mentor Teachers? 203

approach in which continuously cycling back between developing categories andstudying the data is stressed (Strauss, 1987).

The process of analysis can be described as follows. Nineteen interviews wereselected at random, and five of those 19 transcripts were selected for thoroughanalysis. The five transcripts were selected because they contained clear andqualitatively different statements with regard to the research questions. Thisfacilitated the process of developing initial categories. Relevant statements hadbeen selected individually for each participant. The coding units were easy todefine. The units were all answers to the specific interview question regardingstudents’ activities undertaken to access practical knowledge. When student-teachers mentioned more than one activity, a coding unit was defined when thenext activity was mentioned.

The student-teachers’ statements were compared for similarities and differencesacross individuals. This comparison led to the formulation of various categoriescontaining activities for the access of practical knowledge. After developing initialcategories from the first five transcripts, a new set of four interviews was studiedand, when necessary, the categories were adjusted.

The tentative subcategories were then discussed with a second rater andrefined. With the adjusted version of the coding system, both raters coded all 19transcripts. Both raters in consultation had identified the units of coding. Thecoding system appeared to be workable when the two raters coded the data and,therefore, no further alterations were made. No new subcategories were found. Itcould therefore be concluded that saturation had been reached during the analysisof the 19 transcripts. The inter-rater reliability of the coding of the transcripts was0.76 (on the basis of 168 coding units).

The last ten interviews were analysed to validate the categories. As mentioned,the difference between these interviews and those analysed in the first round wasthat these interviews were not described verbatim. They were analysed whenplaying the tape back and then coded by two raters. Neither rater had listened tothe audiotapes before and did not consult each other during coding. During thissecond round of analysis, it appeared that the categories could be applied to theinterviews on the tape, and that all coding units could be classified with thedeveloped subcategories. The inter-rater reliability was 0.77 (81 units). The resultsof the analysis will be described in the results section in terms of the categories.

After the development of the categories, all the interviews were coded. The nextstep in analysing the data was the determination of the frequencies of thecategories. This was done to give some impression of more or less frequentlymentioned activities. It must be taken into account that this was a small-scalestudy and, therefore, the results cannot be generalised.

Results

Student-Teachers’ Activities to Access Mentors’ Practical Knowledge

Before being questioned about how they had tried to elicit practical knowledge,

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the student-teachers were asked to describe their mentor’s knowledge aboutteaching. They referred to several topics their mentors had knowledge about;namely, knowledge about: (a) how to act like a teacher in a classroom, includingself-knowledge; (b) adolescents and group processes; (c) individual pupils andclasses; (d) interaction with pupils; (e) subject matter; (f) teaching methods; and (g)the school context (e.g. school organisation, school culture, school-leaving examin-ation requirements). How did the student-teachers elicit their mentors’ knowledgeabout teaching? This was the research question addressed in the present study.Nearly all the student-teachers (27) mentioned activities that they perceived as ameans of gaining access to their mentors’ practical knowledge. Such activitieswere mentioned 43 times. The data analysis revealed three qualitatively differentactivities: (1) observing a mentor’s lesson; (2) observing and exploring a mentor’slesson; and (3) having conversations with a mentor.

Observing Mentor Teacher Lessons. One activity reported was observing lessonsgiven by mentors. Some student-teachers thought that observation was sufficientfor the access of practical knowledge. They explained that they had been shownhow lessons can be given, had acquired ideas for their own teaching, and hadexpanded their teaching repertoire. Others realised that this does not elicit under-lying thoughts and considerations, but were not interested in pursuing it:

Well, I observe. I make notes and I think: ‘it was like this.’ I am not veryinterested in anything deeper. You just see what works and what doesn’twork. And well, what is he thinking then? And what works for him,doesn’t work for me. Asking ‘why did you do it this way?’ That issomething I can do without. I make notes and get something out of itwhen I think: ‘that’s nice, I can try it out, not now, perhaps in the future’.(ST 15)

Observing and Exploring Mentor Teachers’ Lessons. The student-teachers who wentmore in depth not only observed their mentor’s lessons, but also talked about itafterwards. The initiative of talking over lessons could be taken either by thestudent-teacher (e.g. by complimenting the mentor on the lesson) or by the mentor(e.g. by asking what the student thought about the lesson). Some studentsexplained that this helped them to access their mentor teacher’s practical know-ledge. Other students said that they had accessed their mentor’s practical know-ledge by observing their lessons and subsequently questioning them about thelessons. For example, they asked why a mentor had dealt with something a certainway.

You are giving that lesson too, for yourself and at a certain point you seesomething happen and you think: ‘I would have done that in a differentway’ or ‘I had not expected that.’ Then, you just want to know why hedid this at that point and not something else … If he has a good expla-nation, it can be reasonable to maybe try it out in a similar situation. You

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How do Student Teachers Elicit Mentor Teachers? 205

first try it according to your own strategy and if the situation comes upagain, you can try out what your mentor did. (ST 13)

This questioning had a clear focus, an event in a mentor’s lesson, was specific, andgot to the heart of the matter: the understanding of the mentor’s teaching. Thatquestioning can be useful is exemplified by a student-teacher who indicated that,after being encouraged to question her mentor, she understood his teaching better.For example: ‘Why he said some things to some pupils and not to others’ (ST 11).This understanding cannot be derived from only observing lessons.

In some cases, student-teachers went deeper after observing mentors’ lessons,but not by questioning. These student-teachers gave their own opinion on theirmentor’s teaching accompanied by alternatives. They were not primarily inter-ested in their mentor’s practical knowledge, but wanted to articulate their ownknowledge and beliefs about teaching.

Conversations with Mentor Teachers. Conversations with mentor teachers werementioned as activities that helped them access mentors’ practical knowledge. Onthe one hand, they might be conversations focused on teaching and education ingeneral. They were mostly informal discussions, like corridor chats or talks duringlunch breaks. On the other hand, they could also be conversations about thestudent-teachers’ lessons focused on improving their teaching. Most of theseconversations evaluated lessons given by the student-teacher.

When student-teachers questioned or presented problems to their mentor teach-ers, they gathered information practicable for their own teaching and, accordingto some of them, at the same time; they gathered information about their mentors’practical knowledge. When asked if she had tried to access her mentor’s know-ledge about teaching, one student answered: ‘Yes, I did. I mainly do that when Ineed it myself. When I am at a loss for something and don’t know how to dealwith it, I ask and just take it for granted that she can answer me’ (ST 8).

An Exceptional Case. One specific activity was not mentioned at the start of theresult section, because it was rather exceptional. It was only mentioned by onestudent-teacher during the interviews. This activity falls, strictly speaking, outsideof the scope of the research question because it was not initiated by a student-teacher. This question was in what way student-teachers attempted to accesspractical knowledge of their own accord. In the case described, a mentor hadprompted his student to gain access to his practical knowledge. Despite this, wewill describe this case because it shows how a student can elicit practical know-ledge and how this exploration of unobservable cognitions can help her tounderstand her mentor teacher’s actions in the classroom.

The student concerned said that initially she did not ask her mentor questionsabout his lessons spontaneously, because his teaching seemed so natural andappropriate to her. She liked the lessons and just listened. However, prompted bythe expectations of her mentor, she decided to explore the cognitions motivatinghis teaching behaviour. She actually started to study his practical knowledge by

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using stimulated recall techniques. She videotaped two of his lessons and exam-ined the videotapes with him. The mentor explained what he was thinking duringthe lessons and why he did what he did. Then, the student discovered that hereally thought about his mannerisms and about what he said during his lessons.Although his teaching seemed so self-evident to her initially, it became clear thather mentor, while giving lessons, was busy thinking about a variety of issues, suchas stimulating the pupils, controlling an outburst of anger, correcting pupils’answers without dismissing them, and so on.

Preconditions for the Access of Practical Knowledge

The student-teachers also mentioned circumstances that had, on occasion orthroughout the training, prevented them from intentionally exploring practicalknowledge. For example, a student-teacher could have the impression that amentor was not receptive to sharing his/her practical knowledge, that the mentorwas not able to put it into words, or had already been explicit enough. Further-more, one student-teacher stated that asking mentor teachers why they teach theway they do was just not done. ‘Not in the way that you as a student-teacher ask:“Why did you do it that way?” That looks a bit arrogant’ (ST 15). It might notoccur to a student-teacher to access a mentor’s practical knowledge because it iswas not required by the educators at the institute; or the student might thinkabout it while observing a lesson, but forget to ask questions afterwards.

A student-teacher could also think that accessing mentor teachers’ practicalknowledge was not useful for the learning-to-teach process; for example, becausethe student judged his/her own teaching style incompatible with that of thementor teacher. Ultimately, if there was a conflict between the student and thementor teacher, there was no room for exploring a mentor’s practical knowledge.

Discussion

The research question investigated in the present study was: In what way dostudent-teachers attempt to access their mentor teachers’ practical knowledge oftheir own accord? Nearly all the student-teachers mentioned activities that theyperceived as eliciting practical knowledge: observing their mentor’s lessons withor without talking them over or asking questions, having conversations abouttheir own lessons and teaching problems, or about teaching and education ingeneral. In this section, the activities mentioned will be tested using the criterionthat these activities are basically suitable for the elicitation of the cognitionsunderlying teaching.

First, observing a mentor’s lesson was mentioned as an activity to elicit practicalknowledge. Can practical knowledge be elicited by observing a mentor’s lessons?Calderhead (1988) stated that observation cannot give access to practical knowl-edge. According to him, when student-teachers observe, they perceive theirmentors’ lessons mainly as a way to detect criteria for their own teaching

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How do Student Teachers Elicit Mentor Teachers? 207

performance. A deeper analysis of the underlying cognitions that have influencedtheir mentors’ lessons is often absent.

Furthermore, observing is only registering what can be noticed by the sensesand is, consequently, unsuitable for describing mental states or processes such aspractical knowledge. From psychological research we can learn that when observ-ers try to make sense of what they have recorded, they start to interpret theirenvironment and others subjectively. They select and organise information in apersonal way and, as a result, construct their personal ‘world’ (for example,Lewin, 1964). People are inclined to involve their experience with previous,similar situations or actions that influence their interpretations of the current ones(Kelly, 1972). For example, student-teachers who have experienced group work asrather chaotic during their own school time as a pupil may be inclined to interpretpupils working together as being turbulent and not concentrating on their taskwhile, in fact, the pupils can be discussing their task constructively. Consequently,the same situation can be interpreted and experienced in different ways bydifferent individuals. Gonzalez and Carter (1996) found that student-teachersoften interpreted classroom events totally different from their mentors. Thus, wecan conclude that observing mentors’ lessons can be informative for exploring howthey teach but not for exploring the cognitions underlying their teaching (i.e. theirpractical knowledge).

Second, the present study also showed that some students did not pay anyattention to practical knowledge at all. They observed lessons but not with theintention of eliciting practical knowledge. To them, just watching the mentorteaching was enough. They just observed some teaching actions that ‘work’ andthey could possibly use for their own lessons, and were not interested in thecognitions underlying teaching. This reasoning is not in line with the current viewon learning to teach. Learning to teach is not just ‘learning by doing’ or, in the caseof observation, ‘learning to be modelled’. Critically thinking about the strengthsand weaknesses of the lesson just given and about the possible causes andsolutions, and formulating intentions for future lessons is widely accepted ascrucial in learning to teach (Calderhead, 1989; Valli, 1992; Kubler LaBoskey, 1994).This ‘reflection’ is an essential aspect of teacher education. Consequently, it is notacceptable that student-teachers should not look beyond observable teachingactions. They should also explore the cognitions underlying their mentors’ lessonsand reflect on these.

Third, some activities mentioned by the student-teachers could possibly lead tothe articulation of practical knowledge, such as conversations with the mentor.During conversations, mentors can explain the cognitions underlying their teach-ing, but they can also just provide tips or advice without explaining the accompa-nying reasoning. It cannot be judged on the basis of the interview data whatconversations student-teachers had with their mentors. Generally, the studentsreferred to evaluative conversations concerning their lessons or informative dis-cussions on teaching problems or the school context. It seemed that these conver-sations focused on the students’ improvement of their lessons and did not explorethe underlying reasoning regarding the mentors’ teaching (i.e. practical knowl-

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208 A. Zanting

edge). This is in line with the conclusion of Ben-Peretz & Rumney (1991) whostated that in, teacher education, teaching performance is stressed rather thanreflection on teaching.

Fourth, some student-teachers mentioned activities that were really aimed atclarifying the mentors’ teaching by asking for arguments and reasons for the wayit was done. Asking questions after lessons, especially why questions, is a way toelicit a part of the mentor’s practical knowledge. Mentors can then articulate thereasons and motives they have for their choices and decisions; for example,choosing group work instead of whole-class instruction. In other words, student-teachers then focus not only on the performance, but also on understandingteaching (Tomlinson, 1995). Brown (1995) induced this type of questioning in herstudy and it appeared that this had elicited practical knowledge.

In summary, it can be concluded that not all the activities mentioned by thestudents really helped them to gain access to practical knowledge. Sometimes theyneed some assistance or help, as they did in the Brown (1995) study. Unexpectedlyand unintended, one case in the present study comprised such a stimulation orintervention: the case of the student-teacher using stimulated recall. After thestimulated recall interviews, she was convinced of the value of this instrument. Ithad elicited thoughts of the mentor when he was teaching, even at moments sheassumed that he was not thinking at all.

Implications for Teacher Education

In the Introduction, it was argued that accessing mentors’ practical knowledgecould help students to learn to teach. The results of the present study show thatstudents perceived some of their activities as ways of accessing practical know-ledge, while, in fact, they are not. This means that not all student-teachersspontaneously choose the right activities for accessing practical knowledge. There-fore, at least some student-teachers should be directed to real elicitation activities.

For example, observation assignments are a common activity in teacher edu-cation. When giving these, student-teachers should not only be required toobserve mentor teachers’ lessons, but also to explore the practical knowledgeunderlying these lessons. This can be achieved in several ways. Asking whyquestions after the lessons is one possibility.

Another possibility is more complex, but may be very powerful. The case of thestudent-teacher using stimulated recall shows how this instrument elicited a partof a mentor’s practical knowledge. Therefore, it may be worthwhile experimentingwith these stimulated recall interviews in teacher education. Of course, thisrequires several conditions. Using stimulated recall requires time and variousskills on the part of both mentor and student-teacher. Furthermore, the analysis ofthe data is rather complex and time consuming.

There are more possibilities for helping mentors to articulate practical knowl-edge and student-teachers to access it, such as using concept maps, interviews,repertory grids, or narratives (Kagan, 1990; Bezzi, 1996; Meijer, 1999). The use ofinstruments used in the research on teacher knowledge and beliefs in the context

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How do Student Teachers Elicit Mentor Teachers? 209

of teacher education is innovative. These instruments might help mentors toarticulate and students to explore the content of practical knowledge morespecifically. In this study, the student-teachers indicated topics their mentor hadknowledge about. It seems more difficult, in general, to indicate what exactly theyknow and think. Of course, this is due to the instrument used in the present study:the interview. The student-teachers talked in rather general and abstract termswhen describing their mentors’ knowledge about teaching. Despite this, thespecific articulation of mentors seems to be a more general problem, not only forstudent-teachers. Carter (1990) stated that researchers on teacher knowledge alsostick to rather general descriptions about what teachers know instead of indicatingthe precise teachers’ cognitions. Not only do student-teachers have difficulties ineliciting the substance of practical knowledge, researchers have also experiencedthese problems. Carter (1990) stated:

There is still a tendency in studies of teachers’ knowledge to focus oncharacteristics of what teachers know (e.g., their knowledge is complex,diverse, idiosyncratic, rich, holistic, personal) or on topics about whichthey think (e.g., they know about routines, students, images, curriculum).Less attention is given to the substance of that knowledge, to whatteachers actually know or need to know about classrooms, content, andpedagogy and how that knowledge is organized. The latter task isconsiderably more difficult but is likely to be quite productive. (p. 307)

Thus, the elicitation of the substance of practical knowledge seems to be ratherproblematic but is, at the same time, a research topic worth exploring.

Suggestions for Further Research

Further research should be directed to stimulating student-teachers to exploretheir mentors’ practical knowledge. This conclusion raises various points ofdiscussion about the instruments to be used, the pre-conditions, and the results.

What instruments can be used by student-teachers for eliciting practical know-ledge in such a way that it helps them learn to teach? In the research on teachers’thinking and knowledge, several instruments or methods have been describedand applied; for example, the practical argument, short-answer tests, metaphors,and concept mapping (Kagan, 1990; Meijer et al., 1999). Could these be the basisfor developing instruments or aids to be used by student-teachers in an educa-tional setting? The present study learned that stimulated recall was successfullyused by one student-teacher to access a part of her mentor teacher’s practicalknowledge. We do not know, however, if this instrument would be useful forstudent-teachers in general. Further research should explore the research questionof what kind of instruments can be used by student-teachers to elicit theirmentors’ practical knowledge.

One consideration for further research is the amount and kind of guidancestudent-teachers need in order to be able to tap their mentors’ practical know-ledge. For example, when using instruments such as an interview, student-

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210 A. Zanting

teachers will need to be trained in conversational techniques. They should also bemotivated to ask about their mentors’ practical knowledge, because a seriousinvestigation is time consuming.

A second important research question is what aspects of practical knowledgecan be derived with the aid of these instruments. For example, does the elicitedpractical knowledge really differ from what has already been explicated duringcommon conversations with the mentor? Is it possible that student-teachers, withthe aid of an instrument, elicit practical knowledge that mentor teachers normallydo not talk about in a structured way?

A third and final research question is what the elicitation of practical knowledgecontributes to the learning-to-teach process of student-teachers. What thinkingprocesses are induced by the elicitation of mentors’ practical knowledge? Thus,further research should reveal more information about potential instruments forthe inquiry of mentor teachers’ practical knowledge, the outcomes, and educa-tional value of this exploration by student-teachers.

Correspondence: Dr Anneke Zanting, Erasmus MC, University Medical CentreRotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, Ff2-23, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Tel: � 3110 408 7300; Fax: � 31 10 408 9477; E-mail: a.zanting@erasmusmc.nl

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