From  ‘Good  Student’  Towards  Adaptive  Teacher:    

Learning  to  Stay  Engaged  in  the  Discomfort  of  Adaptive  Challenges    

 “If  leaders  expect  real  learning,  critical  thinking,  and  change,  then  discomfort  should  be  normalized.  I  always  tell  my  students,  ‘If  you’re  comfortable,  I’m  not  teaching  and  you’re  not  learning.  It’s  going  to  get  uncomfortable  in  here  and  that’s  ok.  It’s  normal  and  it’s  part  of  the  process.”    

(Brown,  2012,  pp.  198-­‐199)    “Your  classes  pulled  me  out  of  my  comfort  zone  and  into  a  place  of  learning  and  growing  through  failure  and  trying.  I  think  that  is  what  I  needed  to  help  transition  me  into  a  teacher.”  

(Teacher  candidate  unsolicited  written  feedback)        Introduction  –      Working  with  a  group  of  secondary  teacher  candidates  prior  to  moving  into  their  internship,  I  asked  what  questions  were  most  pressing  for  them  at  this  juncture.  Several  surprised  me:    

• “How  can  I  better  control  my  stress?  This  is  something  that  I  really  need  to  work  on.”  A  comment  from  one  of  the  strongest  teacher  candidates  in  the  group.  

• “How  do  I  remain  confident  in  the  face  of  horrible  mistakes?”  • “I  feel  confident  in  my  creativity  and  ‘teacher  intuition,’  problem  is,  I  fail  to  hold  back  

fear  and  doubt  in  these  situations.”    These  comments  should  not  have  surprised  me.  Learning  to  teach  in  ways  that  are  responsive  to  the  diverse  strengths  and  needs  of  students  in  schools  today,  aligned  with  professional  and  community  expectations  (Bransford,  Derry,  Berliner,  &  Hammerness,  2005),  and  in  alignment  with  what  we  are  passionate  about,  -­‐  what  we  value  and  love  as  educators  (Ayers,  2001;  hooks,  1994;  Palmer,  1993;  Palmer  &  Zajonc,  2010;  Rendon,  2009)  is  an  incredibly  complex  endeavor.  It  typically  requires  novices  to  transition  from  an  identity  as  “good  student”  (Author,  2007),  -­‐  highly  focused  on  getting  good  grades  and  accustomed  to  somewhat  linear,  cognitive,  externally-­‐referenced,  and  organized  learning  within  a  classroom  setting  –  towards  an  identity  as  adaptive  teacher  engaged  in  nonlinear,  emotional,  self-­‐regulated  learning  riddled  with  ambiguity  within  the  complexity  of  contextualized  practice  and  the  process  of  inquiry  (Bransford  et  al.,  2005).  Thus,  novices  are  shifting  towards  engaging  within  the  dynamic  classroom  system  where  change  is  the  norm  and  not  the  exception”  (Bransford  et  al.,  p.  50)  and  conflicting  values  and  contextual  constraints  must  be  navigated  (Heifetz,  1994;  Heifetz,  Grashow,  &  Linsky,  2009;  Soslau,  2012).  Novices  frequently  describe  this  identity  transition  alongside  initial  experiences  in  the  classroom  as  chaotic  (Author,  2007;  Britzman,  2003;  Cochran-­‐Smith  &  Feiman-­‐Nemser,  2008;  Hammerness  et  al.,  2005).  Despite  this,  I  had  forgotten  the  discomfort  novices  navigate  as  they  transition  from  ‘good  student’  into  adaptive  teaching.    

 Candidates’  description  of  this  transition  as  chaotic  seems  apt  and  warrants  attention  as  it  is  only  through  an  encounter  with  the  unknown,  -­‐  what  we  are  unable  to  predict  or  detect  as  orderly  -­‐  that  we  can  recreate  ourselves  (Wheatley,  2006).  The  transition  from  ‘good  student’  towards  adaptive  teacher  results  in  just  that  as  novices  are  actively  engaged  in  work  that  prompts  a  recreation  of  oneself.  Within  Western  culture,  it  is  easy  to  forget  the  central  role  of  encountering  the  unknown  during  transitions  from  one  state  to  another.    

 “…the  experience  [of  the  unknown]  is  a  profound  loss  of  meaning  –  nothing  makes  sense  in  the  way  it  did  before…growth  always  requires  passage  through  the  fearful  realms  of  disintegration…We  [in  Western  culture]  believed  there  were  straight  lines  to  the  top.  If  we  set  a  goal..,  we  would  get  there,  never  forced  to  descend  into  confusion  or  despair.  These  beliefs  led  us  far  from  the  processes  by  which  newness  is  created”  (Wheatley,  p.  119).  

 Thus,  in  this  manuscript,  I  explore  novices’  transition  from  ‘good  student’  towards  ‘adaptive  teacher’  through  the  nuance  of  their  experiences  as  they  navigate  the  self-­‐described  discomfort  of  learning  to  teach  adaptively.  Furthermore,  I  explore  those  factors  that  emerged  as  significant  in  helping  candidates  learn  to  relate  to  the  nonlinearity  and  confusion  they  inherently  experience  during  this  transition.  Below,  I  make  the  case  for  this  research  focus  by  exploring  what  we  know  about  adaptive  teaching  along  with  why  people  often  fail  to  adapt  when  they  face  adaptive  challenges.  This  section  paints  a  picture  of  what  candidates  accustomed  to  being  ‘good  students’  must  move  towards  in  order  to  teach  adaptively  so  teacher  educators  can  better  support  candidates’  movement  towards  adaptive  teacher  during  their  time  in  licensure  programs.    Situating  the  Study  within  the  Literature      Adaptive  Teaching.  Although  adaptive  teaching  has  been  identified  as  the  “coin  of  the  realm”  in  teacher  education  (Bransford  et  al.,  2005;  Cochran-­‐Smith  &  Feiman-­‐Nemser,  2008)  and  as  the  ’gold  standard  for  learning’  in  How  People  Learn  (National  Research  Council,  2000)  it  remains  an  under-­‐researched  concern  within  the  literature  (Soslau,  2012).  We  know  little  about  the  best  ways  to  help  novice  teachers  become  adaptive  teachers  and  opportunities  for  teaching  novices  to  develop  practices  of  adaptive  teaching  during  field  experiences  are  seldom  mentioned  in  the  literature  (Soslau).  Despite  this,  field  experiences  are  well-­‐known  to  support  novice  teachers’  development  of  adaptive  teaching  (Britzman,  2003;  Hammerness  et  al.,  2005;  Soslau,  2012).      Soslau  (2012)  provides  a  working  definition  of  adaptive  experience:  In  her  words,  “adaptive  experts  learn  to  

• Question  what  seems  to  be  familiar  and/or  recognizes  the  novelty  of  problems  • Prepare  for  future  learning  by  being  aware  of,  articulating,  and  assessing  their  own  

instructional  decision-­‐making  • Develop  into  a  self-­‐regulated  learner  engaged  in  learning  from  their  own  teaching  

• Experiment  with  instructional  decisions  in  the  classroom  while  managing  adverse  effects  to  pupils…  

• Develop  the  understanding  that  an  effective  solution  for  one  particular  situated  problem  may  not  necessarily  suit  another  (p.  770).”  

 Bransford  et  al  (2005)  emphasize  that  prospective  teachers  must  be  supported  in  preparing  for  the  tasks  of  adaptive  teaching  by  developing  “inquiry  skills  that  support  ways  to  look  at  student  learning  and  adapt  accordingly”  (p.  77).  Setting  conditions  for  novices  to  grow  as  adaptive  teachers  also  depends  on  novices  “encountering  novel  problems  continuously,…  being  freed  from  urgent  external  need  to  perform,”  and  developing  a  worldview  that  recognizes  learning  may  be  complex,  messy,  and  unexpected  (Verschaffel,  Luwel,  Torbeyns,  &  Van  Dooren,  2009,  p.  348).  In  what  follows,  I  more  fully  unpack  adaptive  teaching  and  how  teacher  educators  can  set  conditions  for  novices’  growth  in  this  domain.    Adaptive  teaching  entails  efficiency  and  innovation  as  complementary  opposites  rather  than  discrete  entities  working  against  each  other.  Bransford  et  al  (2005)  discuss  adaptive  teaching  as  having  two  dimensions,  efficiency  and  innovation.  Adaptive  teaching  is  an  upward-­‐trending  line  that  is  a  balance  of  efficiency  and  innovation  over  time.  Although  efficiency  and  innovation  could  be  perceived  as  oppositional  to  one  another,  the  literature  clearly  emphasizes  the  complementary  nature  of  these  perceived  opposites  along  with  the  relationship  between  efficiency  and  innovation.  Thus,  it  is  imperative  that  teacher  candidates’  learning  happen  along  both  dimensions  throughout  their  time  in  licensure  programs  and  beyond  as  “movement  along  one  dimension  alone  is  unlikely  to  support  the  development  of  adaptive  expertise”  (p.  51).    If  efficiency  becomes  the  predominant  focus,  novices  are  likely  to  become  routine  experts,  who  excel  at  solving  particular  types  of  problems  but  fail  to  learn  from  adaptive  challenges  throughout  their  careers  (Verschaffel  et  al.,  2009).  Thus  learning  and  transfer  must  be  reconceptualized  “as  something  more  than  the  ability  to  apply  previously  acquired  skills  and  schemas”  once  in  context  (Bransford  et  al.,  p.  51)  towards  an  ability  to  “participate  on  the  ever  moving  flows  of  activities  and  knowledge”  (DML  Research  Hub).  Within  the  context  of  adaptivity  in  mathematics  education,  this  concept  is  elaborated  further.    

“It  is  inappropriate  to  think  of  strategies  as  ready-­‐made  methods  or  techniques  that  are  available…waiting  to  be  selected  and  applied  in  a  particular  situation.”  Instead,  “flexible  mental  calculation  can  be  seen  as  an  individual  and  personal  reaction  with  knowledge,  manifested  in  the  subjective  sense  of  what  is  noticed  about  the  specific  problem.  As  a  result  of  this  interaction  between  noticing  and  knowledge,  each  solution  ‘method’  is  in  a  sense  unique  to  that  case,  and  is  invented  in  the  context  of  a  particular  calculation…It  is  not  learned  as  a  general  approach  and  then  applied  to  particular  cases…The  ‘strategy’  (in  the  holistic  sense  of  the  entire  solution  path)  is  not  decided,  it  emerges”  (Threlfall,  2002  in  Verschaffel  et  al.,  2009,  p.  344)  

 

Thus,  teacher  education  that  focuses  on  how  to  teach,  -­‐  methods  -­‐  as  “mechanistic  applications”  limits  teacher  candidates’  exploration  of  the  “messy  questions  of  what  to  teach  and  why  particular  methods  are  suitable”  and  consideration  of  “the  curriculum  and  its  presentation…in  dialogic  relationship  to  the  lives  of  students  and  teachers”  (Britzman,  2003,  pp.  62-­‐63).  Novices’  encounter  with  these  sorts  of  questions  and  relationships  require  ways  of  engaging  that  starkly  contrast  those  many  candidates  have  constructed  as  ‘good  student’  (Author,  2007).  If  novices’  growth  as  adaptive  teachers  is  valued  we  must  consider:  What  efficiencies  contribute  to  the  development  of  adaptive  teaching  rather  than  setting  conditions  for  novice  teachers  to  become  fixed  in  their  routines?    Innovation  requires  an  ability  to  work  within  ambiguity  and  uncertainty  along  with  failure.  Novice  teachers’  growth  as  adaptive  teachers  is  connected  to  growing  within  both  the  innovation  and  efficiency  dimensions.  And  learning  to  teach  innovatively  “often  requires  the  ability  to  ‘unlearn’  previous  routines,…includes  the  ability  to  ‘let  go’  of  previously  held  beliefs  and  tolerate  the  ambiguity  of  having  to  rethink  one’s  perspective”  (Bransford  et  al.,  2005,  p.  51).  Various  educators  speak  to  the  inherent  need  to  tolerate  ambiguity  and  uncertainty  in  order  to  engage  in  teaching  and  learning  adaptively  (Alhadeff-­‐Jones,  2009;  Bransford  et  al.,  2005;  Britzman,  2003;  Hammerness  et  al.,  2005).  True  innovation,  then,  is  inherently  vulnerable,  risky,  and  emotional  in  nature.  Few  are  willing  to  take  the  types  of  risks  required  for  real  innovation  (Brown,  2012)  or  to  experience  the  consequences  associated  with  stepping  outside  of  what  is  socially  and  culturally  different  (Keller,  1983).  Hammerness  et  al  (2005)  support  this  perspective  stating  that  “lifelong  learning  along  the  innovation  dimension  can  be  highly  emotionally  charged,  and  the  capacity  to  consider  change  without  feeling  threatened  is  an  important  ability”  (pp.  360-­‐361).  Yet,  as  Heifetz  (1994)  explains  “the  ultimate  impediment  to  adaptive  change”  is  often  that  the      

“distress  generated  by  the  challenge  and  the  changes  demanded  is  too  great,  leading  people  to  resist  the  pain,  anxiety,  or  conflict  that  accompanies  a  sustained  interaction  with  the  situation.  Holding  onto  past  assumptions,  blaming  authority,  scapegoating,  externalizing  the  enemy,  denying  the  problem,  jumping  to  conclusions,  or  finding  a  distracting  issue  may  restore  stability  and  feel  less  stressful  than  facing  and  taking  responsibility  for  a  complex  challenge.  These  patterns  of  response  to  disequilibrium  are  called  work  avoidance  mechanisms”  (pp.  37-­‐38).      

In  working  with  teacher  candidates  over  the  years,  common  work  avoidance  mechanisms  I  have  observed  include:  getting  mad  at  the  professor  when  working  with  students  becomes  challenging  or  when  there  are  no  easy  answers  to  questions  and  blaming  students  for  challenges  encountered  and  turning  them  into  the  enemy.  Thus  Heifetz’s  (1994)  work  reinforces  the  importance  of  intentionally  helping  novices  learn  to  work  with  ambiguity,  uncertainty,  and  nonlinearity  as  a  normal  part  of  learning  to  teach  since  the  vast  majority  of  challenges  novices  face  are  adaptive.  His  work  also  indicates  that  considering  change  without  feeling  threatened  does  not  happen  automatically.    Innovation  also  relies  on  exploration  and  play  with  one’s  teaching  practice,  -­‐  “to  practice  in  the  musical  sense  rather  than  just  practicing  (in  the  mimicry  sense)  what  has  been  held  up…as  a  model;  teachers  must  create  classrooms  often  in  ways  and  situations  that  their  

teachers  could  not  have  anticipated”  (Ricca,  2012,  p.  45).  In  order  to  explore  one’s  teaching  practice,  take  risk,  and  entertain  the  uncertainty  and  necessary  failure  associated  with  this  sort  of  learning,  candidates  “need  to  feel  a  level  of  trust,  support,  and  confidence  from  their  instructors  and  from  their  supervisors.”  (Clarke,  Erickson,  Collins,  &  Phelan,  2005,  p.  172)  and  be  “freed  from  urgent  external  need  to  perform”  (Verschaffel  et  al.,  2009,  p.  348).  Without  this  “space  of  safety  and  permission,”  little  exploration  or  play  can  happen  and  candidates  may  be  less  likely  to  consider  their  teaching  practice  as  a  site  of  learning,  where  they  make  mistakes  and  adjust  accordingly.  Further,  without  a  sense  of  comfort  in  exploring  one’s  teaching  practice  “you’re  going  to  feel  an  amazing  state  of  anxiety”  (DML  Research  Hub).  Thus,  valuing  adaptive  teaching  also  requires  us  to  consider:  How  do  we  explicitly  support  novices  in  learning  to  innovate  and  create  within  the  uncertainty,  ambiguity,  discomfort,  and  nonlinearity  of  their  own  teaching  practice?      Since  much  of  what  is  required  of  adaptive  teachers  diverges  from  habits  and  beliefs  of  ‘good  student’  an  explicit  focus  on  the  discomfort  novices  consistently  experience  as  they  make  this  transition  is  critical  if  we  want  candidates  to  move  into  their  internship  more  fully  as  ‘adaptive  teachers’.      Theoretical  Framework  –    Theoretically,  this  study  is  grounded  within  applications  of  complexity  science  (Gell-­‐Mann,  1994)  within  the  fields  of  organizational  management  (Palmberg,  2009;  Wheatley,  2006)  and  leadership  studies  (Heifetz,  1994;  Heifetz  et  al.,  2009)  alongside  several  educational  theorists’  work  with  complexity  theory  (Clarke  et  al.,  2005;  Davis,  2003;  Davis  &  Sumara,  2006;  Jones  &  Corner,  2012;  Ricca,  2012).  Complexity  theory  is  well  suited  to  an  exploration  of  candidates’  transition  from  ‘good  student’  towards  adaptive  teacher  since  “the  critical  stake  associated  with  a  complex  way  of  thinking  requires  being  able  to  tolerate  the  continuous  negotiation  between  order  and  disorder”  (Alhadeff-­‐Jones,  2009,  pp.  62-­‐63):  ‘good  student’  being  traditionally  associated  with  order  and  adaptive  teacher  being  associated  with  a  capacity  to  navigate  the  disorder  and  uncertainty  one  regularly  encounters  in  teaching.  Within  a  complexity  frame,  the  emphasis  is  on  the  nonlinear,  dynamic,  and  varying  connections  and  interactions  between  interdependent  agents  within  a  system  (Palmberg,  2009).  It  is  important  to  note  that  a  “learner  can  be  considered  simultaneously  a  coherent  system,  a  complex  of  interacting  unities,  or  a  part  of  a  grander  unity”  (Davis  &  Sumara,  2006,  p.  14).  In  other  words,  learners  are  complex  adaptive  systems  working  within  other  complex  adaptive  systems.  This  frame  is  particularly  important  within  the  field  of  education,  which  tends  towards  an  “overwhelming  commitment  to  linearity  and  linear  causality,  inscribed  in  institutional  structures,  classroom  resources,  developmentalist  theories,  curriculum  intentions,  and  pedagogical  methods”  (Davis,  2003,  p.  44).    In  what  follows,  I  describe  key  principles  of  complex  adaptive  systems  (CAS)  relevant  to  this  study  and  provide  a  sense  of  the  potential  of  studying  teacher  candidates’  transition  from  ‘good  student’  towards  ‘adaptive  teacher’  using  complexity  theory.    Complex  Adaptive  Systems  (CAS)  Overview.    

There  is  insufficient  space  within  this  study  to  examine  all  relevant  features  of  complex  adaptive  systems  as  they  apply  to  teacher  education.  The  following  essential  attributes  of  CAS  inform  this  study.      

“A  CAS  can  only  be  understood  in  the  context  of  its  environment.  It  is  by  contemplating  the  whole,  and  the  relationships  and  interactions  between  agents,  that  one  understands  a  system;  not  by  absolute  knowledge  about  each  agent…CAS  are  not  predictable  in  detail,  because  of  their  interdependencies  and  nonlinearity.  However,  it  is  still  possible  to  find  inherent  order  in  the  complex  systems”  (Palmberg,  2009,  p.  485).  

 Three  significant  concepts  are  unpacked  further:  1)  Within  CAS,  how  agents  in  a  system  connect  (relationships)  tends  to  be  more  important  than  the  agents  themselves  (Jones  &  Corner,  2012),  2)  It  is  possible  to  detect  order  within  CAS  even  though  incredible  complexity  is  initially  perceived,  and  3)  When  working  to  understand  CAS  we  must  learn  to  sense  wholeness  and  maintain  complexity  rather  than  working  to  reduce  it.    Relationships  matter  more  than  individual  agents.  Within  CAS,  the  relationships  among  “elements  of  the  system  are  fundamental  to  the  system  itself”  (Jones  &  Corner,  p.  398).  Thus  in  this  study  the  focus  is  not  on  the  attributes  of  the  individual  teacher  candidates  participating  in  this  study  nor  on  my  attributes  as  the  teacher  educator.  Instead,  I  focus  on  the  processes  of  connection  between  and  among  candidates,  myself,  and  the  experiences  we  shared  together.  This  approach  allows  for  an  exploration  of  1)  the  dynamic  process  of  learning  to  teach,  2)  the  nature  of  relationships  that  contribute  to  learning  to  teach  adaptively  rather  than  engaging  as  ‘good  student’,  and  3)  candidates’  relationship  to  the  discomfort  associated  with  this  transition.    Detecting  order  within  CAS  depends  on  the  simple  rules  structuring  the  CAS.  Complexity  theory  helps  us  look  at  how  order  and  new  behaviors  emerge  from  very  complicated,  nonlinear  systems  “and  conversely,  how  complex  behavior  and  structure  emerges  from  simple  underlying  rules”  (Cooke-­‐Davies  et  al.,  2007,  p.  52  in  Jones  &  Corner,  2012).  These  simple  rules  are  neither  too  constraining  nor  too  limiting  (Davis  &  Sumara,  2006)  and  make  it  possible  for  a  CAS  to  “handle  varying  environments…filled  with  obstacles  without”  the  need  for  external  directives  or  control  mechanisms  (Palmberg,  2009,  p.  486).  Further,  these  rules  “determine  only  the  boundaries  of  the  activity,  not  the  limits  of  possibility”  (Davis  &  Simmt,  2003,  p.  154).  The  key  concept  here  is  that  simple  rules  can  lead  to  complex  behaviors  that  are  inherently  ordered.  More  importantly,  these  complex  behaviors  arise  from  “interactions  among  agents  rather  than  being  imposed  upon  the  CAS  by  an  outside  agent  or  explicit,  detailed  description”  (Zimmerman  et  al.,  1998,  p.  26  in  Palmberg,  2009).      Connecting  this  principle  to  teacher  candidates’  transition  from  ‘good  student’  towards  ‘adaptive  teacher’,  then,  it  becomes  apparent  that  the  complex  behaviors  of  many  novice  teachers  often  cited  as  perennial  problems  within  teacher  education  (Soslau,  2012)  are  a  reflection  of  the  simple  rules  structuring  their  participation  in  the  CAS  of  teacher  education  as  a  whole  (field  experiences,  campus  based  coursework,  etc.).  It  is  possible,  then,  to  create  

a  new  set  of  simple  rules  that  leads  novices  towards  different  complex  behaviors,  -­‐  those  more  aligned  with  adaptive  teaching.  This  is  one  of  the  primary  thrusts  of  complexity  theory:  it  “compels  researchers  [and  teacher  educators]  to  consider  how  they  are  implicated  in  the  phenomena  that  they  study”  (Davis  &  Sumara,  2006,  p.  15).  Segall  (2002)  encourages  an  examination  of  the  simple  rules  at  play  within  teacher  education  in  asking  teacher  educators  to  consider,  “How  and  what  are  student  teachers  positioned  to  learn?  How  is  the  process  of  coming  to  know  related  to  the  knowledge  being  produced?”(p.  81).  This  principle  helps  me  explore  those  simple  rules  that  emerge  as  relevant  in  helping  candidates  stay  engaged  with  the  transition  towards  adaptive  teacher  in  this  study.    CAS  requires  maintaining  wholeness  and  complexity  rather  than  reducing  it.  Complexity  requires  a  capacity  to  contemplate  whole  rather  than  a  primary  focus  on  analyzing  the  parts.  Within  complexity  science  a  complex  phenomenon  is  understood  to  be      

“irreducible.  It  transcends  its  parts,  and  so  cannot  be  studied  strictly  in  terms  of  a  compilation  of  those  parts.  It  must  be  studied…at  the  level  of  its  emergence.  Classrooms  aren’t  just  collections  of  students,  schools  aren’t  just  collections  of  classrooms.  As  such,  complexity  science  provides  a  means  to  read  across  cognitive,  social,  situated,  critical,  cultural,  and  ecological  discourses  –  without  collapsing  them  or  their  particular  foci  into  unitary  or  coherent  phenomena”  (Davis,  2003,  p.  43).  

 So,  the  art  in  research  grounded  in  complexity  science  is  to  maintain  and  manage  the  complexity,  rather  than  reducing  it,  while,  at  the  same  time,  seeing  through  the  complexity  to  the  “underlying  structures  generating  change”  (Senge,  1990,  p.  290).  Learning  to  sense  the  wholeness  of  a  system  and  maintain  its  complexity  is  difficult  and  requires  “new  perceptual  techniques.  A  systems  world  cannot  be  understood  by  looking  only  at  discrete  events  or  individuals”  and  our  “traditional  analytic  skills  can’t  help  us”  (Wheatley,  2006,  pp.  140-­‐141).  Instead  we  must  learn  to  “move  past  cognition  into  the  realm  of  sensation”  by  allowing  ourselves  to  “pick  up  impressions,  to  notice  how  something  feels,  to  sit  or  with  a  report  and  call  upon  intuition”  (Wheatley,  2006,  p.  140).  Sensing  the  whole  of  a  system  might  also  be  accomplished  by  learning  to  “hold  our  attention  at  two  levels  simultaneously”  by  inquiring  into  the  part  while  holding  “the  recognition  that  it  is  participating  in  a  whole  system”  (p.  141).  This  principle  informs  my  data  presentation  and  analysis  and  shapes  the  implications  that  emerge  from  this  study.    Methods  I  and  guided  teaching    This  study  is  based  on  Secondary  Master’s  in  Teaching  candidates’  experiences  in  a  first  quarter  methods  course  (Methods  I)  and  field  experience  (guided  teaching),  which  was  an  integral  component  of  Methods  I.  In  Methods  I,  candidates  from  various  disciplines  engage  with  lesson  planning,  formative  assessment,  culturally  responsive  pedagogy,  and  standards-­‐based  instruction  within  the  context  of  guided  teaching.  The  structure  of  this  course  has  been  intentionally  and  collaboratively  designed  to  foster  teacher  candidates’  growth  as  adaptive  teachers  (building  efficiency  in  some  of  the  technical  processes  of  teaching  and  providing  a  space  for  candidates  to  innovate  and  experiment  within  a  safe  environment).  Candidates  learn  to  plan  for  instruction  by  observing  students’  responses  

and  generate  adaptations  based  on  ongoing  observation  of  student  response.  They  also  analyze  student  learning  and  identify  next  instructional  steps  based  on  these  analyses  to  inform  their  planning.      Within  guided  teaching,  candidates  are  intentionally  situated  in  dialogic  relationship  (Britzman,  2003)  with  students  in  contexts  where  they  can  experiment  and  adapt  to  students’  responses  without  being  overwhelmed  by  the  complexity  of  whole  class  dynamics.  In  guided  teaching  the  entire  Methods  I  group  of  secondary  teacher  candidates  are  paired  up  and,  with  this  partner,  co-­‐teaching  a  small  group  of  diverse  students  (approximately  4-­‐8)  within  a  public  school  classroom.  Candidates  work  with  their  small  group  of  students  over  5-­‐7  teaching  days  spread  throughout  the  quarter.  All  candidates  in  Methods  I  are  working  towards  the  same  final  learning  aims  and  performance  task  (Wiggins  &  McTighe,  2005),  allowing  us  to  use  class  time  on  campus  in  ways  that  support  candidates’  construction  of  instructional  plans  based  on  what  they  are  learning  from  their  students.  These  broad  learning  aims  and  performance  task  are  collaboratively  generated  by  the  cooperating  teachers  and  myself  at  the  outset  of  the  quarter.  Candidates  are  responsible  for  generating  learning  targets  specific  to  each  teaching  day  while  working  within  the  broader  aims  and  towards  the  final  performance  task.  In  this  version  of  Methods  I,  candidates  worked  with  students  to  help  them  learn  to  distinguish  between  fixed  and  growth  mindset  (Dweck,  2006;  Johnston,  2012)  and  share  personal  stories  of  the  power  of  growth  and  fixed  mindset  in  their  own  lives.    In  a  growth  mindset  frame  individuals  relate  to  challenges  by  continuing  to  learn  from  them  rather  than  perceiving  failure  as  a  measure  of  self-­‐worth  (Mindset  Works  Inc.,  2002-­‐2011,  p.  5).  Methods  I  and  guided  teaching  are  intentionally  designed  to  mutually  influence  one  another:  the  field  experience  influences  and  shapes  the  direction  of  the  course  and  the  course  influences  and  shapes  the  nature  of  the  field  experience  (Ricca,  2012).    Based  on  dialogue  with  teacher  candidates,  candidates  frequently  experience  Methods  I  and  guided  teaching  as  one  would  culture  shock.  The  structures  they  are  accustomed  to  within  the  classroom  and  that  typically  help  them  feel  safe  are  fundamentally  different  within  this  experience.  Learning  is  assessed  formatively  (including  self  and  peer-­‐assessment)  rather  than  reported  as  grades  on  assignments  throughout  the  quarter.  The  professor’s  role  is  as  a  facilitator  of  inquiry  into  student  learning  and  teaching.  Candidates  are  guided  through  naming  their  own  learning  and  questions  rather  than  being  told  what  they  must  do  or  know.  In  light  of  this,  I  have  learned  to  help  candidates  see  the  structures  at  play  in  this  inquiry  experience  so  they  can  begin  feeling  safe  within  this  new  set  of  structures,  -­‐  which  are  often  invisible  to  them.  When  using  Figure  2  with  candidates  on  the  first  day  of  class,  I  asked  candidates  to  share  previous  inquiry  experiences  they  had  experienced  with  others.  Initially,  I  received  no  response.  After  defining  inquiry,  one  candidate  shared  an  inquiry  experience  which  other  candidates  could  use  as  they  worked  in  groups  to  compare  and  contrast  inquiry  and  traditional  learning  environments.            

                           

 Figure  2  –  Structures  at  play  in  inquiry  vs.  traditional  learning  environments  

 After  this  class,  I  left  with  the  distinct  impression  that  candidates  were  working  to  build  a  language  to  talk  about  inquiry  because  it  was  very  unfamiliar  to  them.  Some  of  the  words  they  used  to  describe  inquiry  in  contrast  to  a  traditional  learning  environment  included:  time  never  ending,  less  fear  of  being  wrong,  productive  discourse  (in  process  vs.  final  outcome  &  individuality  matters),  challenge,  democracy,  active  engagement,  have  to  want  it,  intrinsic  

(extrinsic  matters  but  isn’t  the  direct  focus),  mutual,  humility.  I  then  asked  candidates  to  review  the  course  syllabus  and  label  course  structures  that  supported  learning  as  inquiry.  I  hoped  that  by  explicitly  naming  the  structures  in  place  candidates  would  be  able  to  maintain  a  sense  of  safety,  even  without  traditional  structures  in  place.      Further,  we  constructed  class  norms  tied  to  attributes  of  successful  inquiry  learning  environments  (see  Figure  3).    

 Figure  3  –  Generating  norms  in  an  inquiry  learning  environment  

 Candidates  co-­‐created  the  following  norms:    

• Take  risks  and  be  vulnerable.  We’ve  got  your  back!  • Embrace,  respect,  and  learn  from  different  experiences  &  emotions.  • Ask  for  help/humility/be  realistic/be  kind  &  gracious  to  yourselves.  • Be  open  to  changing…our  learning  is  never  finished.  

   These  norms  were  distinct  from  previous  quarters  when  I  was  not  as  explicit  about  inquiry  or  adaptive  teaching  within  the  course.      

As  the  course  instructor,  I  was  learning  how  to  better  support  candidates’  learning  within  an  inquiry  environment.  A  couple  of  decisions  made  diverged  from  my  work  with  candidates  in  previous  quarters.  First,  because  this  is  a  methods  course,  part  of  my  work  is  to  help  candidates  become  familiar  with  a  variety  of  instructional  strategies  and  assessments.  The  challenge  previously  was  that  candidates  grasped  for  strategies,  which  felt  certain,  rather  than  staying  creatively  engaged  with  student  feedback  and  thinking,  which  felt  less  solid.  So,  in  Methods  I/guided  teaching,  I  asked  candidates  to  observe  and  analyze  student  feedback  and  thinking  after  each  teaching  day  and  this  informed  our  collaborative  planning  sessions  in  Methods  I.  In  addition,  I  created  an  online  bank  of  resources  and  encouraged  candidates  to  relate  to  strategies  as  tools  to  respond  to  what  was  emerging  in  context,  -­‐  what  they  knew  about  their  students  -­‐  rather  than  right  answers.  Another  modification  made  was  a  fundamental  shift  in  the  nature  of  feedback  given  (Brown,  2012)  in  relation  to  standards  outlined  in  high-­‐stakes,  standardized  assessments  within  our  program  (e.g.  edTPA).  Whereas  I  previously  used  feedback  to  help  candidates  align  their  actions  with  professional  standards,  this  quarter  I  used  feedback  to  accomplish  two  aims:  articulating  candidates’  strengths  that  were  unique  to  who  they  are  and  what  they  value  as  teachers,  and  helping  candidates  leverage  their  strengths  while  working  with  professional  expectations  to  strengthen  their  teaching  practice  and  clarify  what  they  want  as  teachers.  This  was  a  difficult  step  for  me  to  take  as  a  professor  within  a  highly  standardized  environment.  Often  I  had  to  literally  stop  myself  in  the  act  of  giving  feedback  intended  to  help  candidates  ‘do  it  right’  and  reframe  my  intention.  I  wanted  my  feedback  to  help  these  candidates  step  into  their  potential  as  educators,  -­‐  into  their  coherence  as  complex  adaptive  systems  (Davis  &  Sumara,  2006).  When  I  observed  candidates  fearfully  complying  with  my  feedback  and  becoming  overwhelmed,  I  encouraged  them  to  trust  themselves  and  try  out  their  ideas.      Mode  of  inquiry  and  data  sources    Study  design  At  the  outset  of  Methods  I,  I  did  not  intend  to  conduct  research.  However,  course  evaluations  were  noticeably  higher  than  previous  quarters,  encouraging  me  to  dialogue  further  with  candidates.  I  was  curious  why  there  was  a  significant  shift  in  their  response  to  Methods  I  and  guided  teaching  and  had  a  hunch  that  candidates  more  successfully  navigated  the  discomfort  of  this  experience  than  previously.  I  conducted  focus  group  dialogues  approximately  8  weeks  after  candidates’  completion  of  Methods  I  when  candidates  were  enrolled  in  Methods  II.  According  to  candidates,  in  Methods  II  they  were  creating  unit  plans  that,  for  many,  were  disconnected  from  their  practicum  and  most  were  primarily  observing  in  their  practicum.  This  emerged  an  important  contrast  and  shaped  candidates’  perceptions  of  Methods  I  and  guided  teaching.    All  ten  candidates  from  Methods  I  were  invited  to  participate  in  2-­‐hour  focus  group  dialogues.  Seven  participated.  One  provided  written  responses  to  focus  group  questions  since  she  forgot  to  attend.  All  of  the  candidates  from  Methods  I  self-­‐identified  as  Caucasian;  most  had  attended  upper-­‐middle  class  schools.  One  of  the  women  had  attended  school  in  Eastern  Europe  while  growing  up  and  mentioned  many  times  how  stressful  it  was  to  learn  in  a  way  where  the  teacher  was  not  giving  answers  from  the  podium  up  front.  Candidates  

were  broken  into  two  small  groups  for  these  dialogues  in  order  to  create  space  for  all  to  engage  substantively.  In  addition  to  data  from  focus  groups,  I  draw  on  materials  I  used  and  received  in  teaching  Methods  I  (e.g.  candidate  work,  photographs  from  class,  observations  of  candidates’  work  with  students,  teaching  materials  I  developed).  I  also  draw  on  my  experiences  in  teaching  Methods  I  in  previous  quarters.    I  facilitated  focus  groups  since  the  knowledge  generated  during  Methods  I  was  integrally  connected  to  the  relationship  candidates  and  I  shared  within  the  context  of  guided  teaching  (Clarke  et  al.,  2005).  Thus,  I  could  engage  with  candidates  (Kamberelis  &  Dimitriadis,  2005)  in  a  way  an  outsider  would  not  have  been  able,  -­‐  using  “language  grounded  in  shared  experiential  context”  (Guba  &  Lincoln,  2005,  p.  195).  The  dialogue  candidates  and  I  shared  can  be  considered  narration;  together  we  were  creating  “plots  from  disordered  experience,  giving  reality  a  ‘unity…that  the  past  [did  not  possess]  so  clearly’”  (Riessman,  2003,  p.  334).  Focus  groups  allowed  candidates  and  I  to  engage  in  a  relational  process  of  inquiry  as  a  means  of  imagining,  exploring,  naming  together  the  potential  in  what  we  had  experienced  (Kamberelis  &  Dimitriadis,  2005).  Focus  groups  also  created  potential  for  us  to  “take  the  interpretive  process  beyond  the  bounds  of  individual  memory”  (Kamberelis  &  Dimitriadis,  2005,  p.  903),  which  felt  important  in  detecting  the  underlying  complexity  or  wholeness  of  the  experience.  During  the  focus  group,  I  worked  to  decenter  my  role  as  researcher  and  asked  questions  intended  to  help  candidates  synthesize,  rather  than  fragment  their  experiences  (Riessman,  2003)  by  encouraging  them  to  stay  connected  with  both  their  intuitive  and  analytic  capacities  (Rendon,  2009).  For  example,  I  asked  candidates,  What  moments  with  your  students  felt  most  alive?  Further,  I  practiced  staying  open  to  what  questions  I  might  need  to  ask  that  were  not  pre-­‐planned  based  on  what  was  emerging  in  the  focus  groups.      Learning  from  and  with  the  data  In  working  with  the  data,  I  initially  transcribed  the  voice  recordings  of  focus  group  dialogues  word-­‐for-­‐word.  Next,  I  read  through  all  of  the  data  multiple  times  and  began  memo-­‐writing  about  significant  moments  in  the  focus  group  data.  My  process  was  similar  to  Charmaz’s  (2006)  description  of  ‘incident  to  incident  coding’,  -­‐  comparing  segments  of  candidates’  stories  that  were  both  similar  and  different.  I  paid  particular  attention  to  the  language  employed  by  candidates  throughout  analysis,  since  I  left  the  focus  group  with  the  impression  that  candidates  were  actively  working  to  generate  language  to  describe  the  somewhat  foreign  experience  of  Methods  I  and  guided  teaching.  Also,  during  initial  coding,  I  re-­‐visited  all  course  materials  (e.g.  Announcements  posted  to  Blackboard,  course  presentations  and  handouts)  and  re-­‐read  candidates’  work  (e.g.  end  of  quarter  learning  synthesis,  analyses  of  student  learning,  observations  of  students  and  corresponding  instructional  adaptations)  to  reconnect  with  the  nuance  of  our  time  together.    After  initial  coding  and  memo-­‐writing,  I  revisited  key  features  of  complexity  theory  to  generate  categories  well-­‐suited  to  trends  in  the  data.  I  cut  apart  key  incidents  and  grouped  them  into  the  complexity  categories.  In  so  doing,  it  became  apparent  that:  1)  the  most  powerful  stories  shared  by  candidates  often  contained  elements  of  multiple  categories,  and  2)  I  needed  to  find  a  way  to  present  the  data  that  allowed  for  a  means  of  honoring  the  wholeness  of  candidates’  experience  alongside  helping  the  reader  notice  the  nuance  of  

these  incidents.  At  this  point,  I  created  an  untreated  found  poem  (Butler-­‐Kisber,  2010;  Glesne,  1997),  as  a  means  of  “representing  holistically  what  otherwise  might  go  unnoticed”  (Butler-­‐Kisber,  p.  234).  This  research  methodology  aligned  well  with  the  conceptual  framework  of  complexity  theory  since  research  poetry  is  a  “whole  that  makes  sense  of  its  parts;  and  a  poem  is  parts  that  anticipate,  shadow,  undergird  [sic]  the  whole”  (Richardson,  1997,  p.  297).  Thus,  found  poetry  allowed  me  as  a  researcher  to  manage,  rather  than  reduce  the  complexity  of  the  data  that  emerged  in  this  study  to  make  it  easier  for  the  reader  to  engage  in  the  complexity  without  getting  bogged  down  in  lengthy  prose  (Lahman  et  al.,  2011).      Several  rules  shaped  the  creation  of  this  untreated  found  poem.  First,  I  used  words  taken  verbatim  from  the  focus  group  interviews.  I  kept  only  those  words  that  best  depicted  candidates’  relationship  with  the  discomfort  of  the  transition  from  ‘good  student’  to  adaptive  teacher.  And  I  maintained  the  intactness  of  candidates’  stories  through  chunking  within  the  poem  rather  than  mixing  candidates’  words  up  line  by  line.  Throughout,  this  process  I  learned  by  listening  to  candidates’  words  and  working  with  these  data,  the  literature  on  adaptive  teaching,  and  complexity  science  to  see  what  emerged  and  how  they  drew  one  another  out  into  a  greater  whole.  This  is  also  well-­‐aligned  with  the  principles  of  complexity  theory  that  conceptually  ground  this  work.    Upon  completion  of  this  poem,  I  sent  it  to  all  participants  to  seek  feedback  and  their  perceptions  of  this  poem.  I  received  a  couple  of  emails  from  candidates  congratulating  me  on  completing  the  poem  but  none  offered  feedback.        Data  analysis    This  found  poem  is  intended  to  provide  a  sense  of  the  wholeness  of  what  emerged  within  the  Methods  I  and  guided  teaching  CAS  to  help  us  explore  1)  candidates’  relationship  to  the  discomfort,  nonlinearity,  and  distress  encountered  during  this  transition  and  2)  the  simple  rules  that  shaped  candidates’  capacity  to  stay  engaged  within  discomfort  and  nonlinearity.  Within  this  poem,  the  headings  juxtapose  factors  at  the  heart  of  ‘good  student’  and  adaptive  teacher  that  contributed  to  the  onset  of  discomfort  and  distress  for  candidates.  My  comments  are  in  italics.  Throughout,  candidates  reference  what  they  describe  as  “chaos”  and  “chaotic”  as  they  encounter  the  nonlinearity  of  teaching.  Although  they  use  these  terms  in  ways  that  diverge  from  how  complexity  science  defines  chaos,  I  have  left  their  word  choice  intact.  A  synonym  for  chaos  in  this  poem  might  be  discomfort,  confusion,  or  candidates’  experience  of  nonlinearity.  I  invite  the  reader  to  take  a  step  back  while  reading,  to  sense  the  order  within  the  complex  whole  that  candidates  share.      Found  Poem      Does  anything  stand  out  as  unusual  about  our  time  together?  It  was  unusual  to  have  this  feeling.    Like  getting  a  little  lost.  I  really  value  it  now  

Yeah,  the  uncertainty  of  it  all.    Constant  state  of  confusion  -­‐    Almost  cyclical.    ‘Ok,  we’re  going  to  do  this.    I  don’t  really  know  what  I’m  doing.’    Try  to  do  it.  You  would  rein  us  back  in  with  feedback  Then  try  again    and  then  keep  getting  confused,    not  confused  in  a  bad  way,    lost  or  confused.    However  you  want  to  put  it.  

 On  a  yo-­‐yo  all  quarter,    ‘Ah,  I’m  falling.  I’m  going.’    You  rein  us  back  in.    We  talk  each  other  down  And  then    ‘Nope,  I’m  falling.’    A  sense  of  constant  chaos.    The  first  week  I’m  used  to  getting  a  sense  What  does  the  professor  want?    Where  are  we  going?    I’ve  figured  out  the  order  of  the  class.  Now  I  know  what  to  do.    And  get  comfortable.  that’s  not  what  happened  there  is  no  comfortable.    ‘Ok,  I’m  not  the  only  one  who  feels  like  this’.    Everyone’s  feeling  this  We’re  [not]  the  crazy  cohort  who  can’t  figure  this  out.    This  is  normal    Work  with  the  chaos.    I  feel  like  in  [the  campus-­‐based  course  this  quarter]    I’m  doing  better  on  the  assignments.    I  [emphasis  on  I]  feel  better.    But  your  class  creates  the  kind  of  teacher  I  would  rather  be.    I  don’t  want  to  plan  to  teach  [students]  how  to  write  an  intro  paragraph    and  then  we’ll  write  it  [as  planned]  That’s  not  going  to  happen.    Ever.      From  Perfectionism  To  Learning  Through  Taking  Risks  &  Experimentation  On  a  pedestal  

I  put  myself  there.    So  perfect    and  it’s  comfortable  here.    I  feel  so  good  about  myself.    And  then  suddenly,  ‘Oh,  it’s  not  true.’    You  have  to  understand  Other  stuff  counts.    Look  at  yourself.    Don’t  [put]  too  much  pressure    on  your  negatives.    Don’t  look  for  negatives  negatives  negatives.    Don’t  think  about  failure    like  it’s  the  end  of  the  world.    You  have  to  work  through  that.  In  a  way,    you  discover  yourself.    It’s  something  new  to  me.    I  have  never    been  exposed  to  classes  like  that.    Being  true  to  yourself.    You  want  to  do  it.    Doesn’t  depend  on  anybody  else.      We  look[ed]  at  our  own  mindsets.    ‘Yeah,  I’m  a  perfectionist…’    I’m  going  to  mess  up.    There’s  nothing  perfect  about  [teaching].    A  big  weight  off.  It’s  nice  that  happened  right  away      I  have  to  be  where  I  am  and  grow  from  it.    This  attitude  let  me  get  over    Feeling  of  needing  perfection  Allowed  me  to  embrace  learning      [Methods  I]  was  just  this  genuine  educational  experience    Where  it  wasn’t  the  grade,    It  wasn’t  making  the  teacher  happy,    Just  how  much  am  I  willing  to  put  in    How  much  am  I  willing  to  learn?    It  was  me  trying  to  force  the  ‘4’  [when  self-­‐assessing  on  the  rubric]    When  really  I  knew  it  was  a  ‘2’    Trying  to  justify  it  was  my  ‘ah-­‐ha’  moment.    ‘I’m  not  here  to  make  a  4    

or  to  make  [professor  first  name]  happy.    I’m  here  to  learn  something    To  become  a  better  teacher  through  this  process.’  ‘Yeah,  we’ve  been  learning  about  growth  mindset    for  how  many  weeks    and  I’m  still  trying  to  push  a  4.    What  am  I?’  How  do  you  think  it  would  have  been  different    if  you  weren’t  teaching  growth  mindset?  [With  no  hesitation]    Oh,  it  would  have  been  completely…  I  don’t  think  I  would  have  come  to  the  same  conclusions  at  all.    Learning  What  I  Want  as  a  Teacher:  From  External  to  Internal  Referencing  ‘Oh  my  gosh.    How  do  we  do  this?    I  want  to  know    I’m  going  to  get  a  good  grade  on  this.’  We  stopped    Who  is  [professor  first  name]?    not  the  person    here  to  grade  us    tell  us  how  to  do  something  specifically    This  is  the  essence  of  learning  I’m  doing  this    as  a  fulfillment    of  my  own  destiny,    of  what  I  want  to  do    what  I  want  to  be    and  how  well  I  want  to  do  this  myself.    Obviously  you  give  us  a  grade,  but  knowing    you’re  the  kind  of  person  that  doesn’t  care  about  that    was  really  nice  for  us  to  realize  and  experience.    A  place  where  you  can    move  forward    together    without  panic,    which  is  what  I’m  used  to.      To  help  me  trust  myself    You  trusted  us  to  do  something.    If  we  brought  something  to  you    you’re  open,    ‘Hey,  we  want  to  try  this’    You  would  be  like,    

‘I’ve  got  your  back.    Yeah,  let’s  make  it  work.    Definitely.’    Knowing  I  can  do  that    because  I  have  your  support  in  it    has  helped  me  know  I  can  maybe  not  in  all  situations    I’m  not  always  going  to  have  someone    like  a  superior    that’s  ok  with  me  trying  something  new.    But  knowing  that  there’s  an  open  space    did  let  me  trust  myself    at  least  for  a  while    during  that  class.    Day  5  planning    worrying  that,  it’s  crazy  saying,  you  wouldn’t  be  ok  with  it  somehow.    It  might  have  been  seen  [as]  lazy  like  we  had  failed    and  so  we’re  just  going  to  let  it  go    and  [the  kids]  can  just  do  whatever  they  want.    In  reality    it  was  us  finally  realizing    maybe  [the  kids]  needed  more  control.    Very  intentional.    Not  superficial  failure  and  giving  up.    That’s  what  I  was  afraid  you  would  see.    And  then  you  were  like,    ‘Sure.  Great.  Go  with  it.’    Obviously  that’s  what  we  need.    Opportunity  in  the  first  quarter,    –  not  where  there’s  no  bottom  -­‐  to  be  able  to  fail,    especially  when  we’re  teaching  growth  mindset.  Not    ‘I’m  not  sure  it’s  going  to  work  and  maybe  you  should…’    Just,  ‘Sure.  Try  it.  See  what  happens.  I’m  excited.’    That’s  what  we  got  from  you.    Over  and  over  and  time  and  time  again    There  was  opportunity  for  trust    It’s  on  us.  Was  that  a  weird  thing  to  get  from  a  teacher?    A  normal  thing  to  get  from  a  teacher?  It  was  all  very  very  new  to  me.”  

 It’s  totally  ridiculous.    that’s  part  of  the  reason  we  were  so  confused  last  quarter.    We  knew  we  loved  you  and  your  class    ‘It’s  a  good  feeling  going  into  the  class’  It  was  so  different    from  what  we’re  used  [to].    We’re  used  to  grades    and  not  distrust  but  expectations.  having  to  prove  yourself.    From  ‘The  Perfect  Lesson  Plan’  to  Using  Student  Response  to  Plan  How  do  you  think  your  experiences  with  your  kids  would  have  changed  if  you  had  been  more  prepared  going  into  the  experience?    It  would  have  been  very  different.    The  first  quarter  would  have  been,    ‘Oh,  it’s  nice  and  normal’    and  then  I  would  have  gotten  to  the  second  quarter  and  been  like,    ‘Oh,  I  know  how    to  do  lesson  plans,    Let’s  go  do  this’    and  then,  ‘AHHHHH!’    It  would  have  been  frustrating,    ‘Oh,  I  get  lesson  plans’    and  then,  ‘Oh,  I  don’t  actually’    because  now  there’s  these  kids    and  it’s  chaotic    and  I  thought  I  had  this  all  under  control.    It’s  nice  [to  get]  the  initial  reaction    to  chaos  out  of  the  way.      It  was  so  useful  to  experience  with  the  kids    and  use  that  to  inform  my  feedback  as  I  was  learning  how  to  use  lesson  plans.    I  almost  wish  we  were  doing  more  of  that  with  our  unit  plans  for  [Methods  II].      I  feel  the  same.    I  think  about  how  much  I  learned  last  quarter    and  how  much  I’m  learning  [in  Methods  II]    I’m  not  learning  nearly  as  much    Because  I’m  not  involved  in  it.    I  can  take  all  this  information    that  I’m  putting  into  my  unit  plan,    but  there  it  goes    

and  there  it  stays.    It’s  not  going  anywhere.    It’s  not  connected    to  my  practicum.    so  it’s  just  kind  of  there    Feels  clunky  and  weird.  Something  doesn’t  feel  so  real  about  it.  Like  a  hypothetical  classroom.    We’re  just  now  [past  mid-­‐quarter]  thinking  about  student-­‐based  evidence.    I  should  constantly  be  thinking  of  it,    yet  when  it  came  to  unit  planning    it  wasn’t  even  part  of  my  thought  process  really.    It  wasn’t  real,  you  know.    But  in  the  moment  of  that  going  on  last  quarter,    I  totally  didn’t  like  it.    But  now  I  can  see    it  was  necessary    to  throw  us  in  there    and  then  respond  and  learn  that  way.    That’s  better  for  me  as  long  as  the  environment…  being  in  those  small  groups    was  a  safe  place  to  do  that.    And  the  topics  we  had…  it  wasn’t  like  you  could  mess  it  up.    I’ve  struggled  with  confidence    most  of  my  life.    I  came  out  of  your  class  less  confident    but  in  a  good  way  I  felt  awkward  in  front  of  the  kids    I  didn’t  know  how  to  do  things    And  it  was  a  good  thing    Giving  me  a  direction.    I  knew  where  I  was  going  now.    More  confidence  that  I  can  get  there.      From  ‘I  Need  to  Know  Ahead  of  Time’  to  ‘I  Can  Remain  Engaged  Moment  to  Moment’  Most  important  is  definitely    dealing  with  the  chaos.    Obviously    I  wasn’t  particularly  comfortable  with  [it]  four  months  ago  just  being  able  to  function  with  it    Not  let  it  get  me  down.    This  is  how  [teaching]  is    

and  being  able  hang  onto  that.    A  lot  of  things  we  learned  about  were  good    but  being  able  to  hang  onto  that    in  all  the  uncertainty.  Very  valuable    to  get  me  to  let  go    Loved  that  we  were  actually  in  a  classroom    First  quarter.    Not  necessarily  a  comfortable  class.    Yeah,  chaotic.    Dealing  with  the  uncertainty    Hardest  for  me.    Being  in  a  dark  hole  is  not  something  I  enjoy.    I  felt  it  was  so  harsh,    but  I  got  the  idea.    You  have  to  be  there    to  actually  understand  how  to  figure  out  stuff  in  the  moment,    which  is  kind  of  interesting.    As  Jared  and  I  were  planning  lessons,    we  were  like,    ‘I  think  they’d  like  this.    I  think  they’d  respond  to  that’    [At  some  point],    ‘We’re  never  going  to  know.    We’re  just  going  to  have  to  do  it    See  how  it  goes.’  Do  the  best  we  can  to  figure  something  out  The  [last  teaching  day]    was  the  only  time    we  got  out  of  the  bubble    of  thinking  we  knew    how  they  would  respond.    We  thought  there  had  to  be    so  much    structure    control    we  had  to  be  leading.    And  when  we  let  them  go    Weren’t  worried  about  the  outcome,    We  trusted  them  in  the  process.    From  Learning  as  Intellectual  Towards  Learning  as  Holistic  I’m  thinking  that  [Methods  II]  takes  the  emotion  out  of  it.    

[Methods  I]  got  us  thinking    in  the  moment:    adaptability,    being  flexible,    thinking  about  feedback,…  the  dynamics  of  the  classroom.    We  were  learning  those  progressions  and  stuff,    but  it  was  more  the  emotional,    How  I’m  going  to  react.    We  got  the  sense  of  what  it’s  like    to  be  a  teacher    The  things  you  have  to  do    external  from  lesson  planning.    I’ve  had  a  lot  of  classes  that  were  hard  work    intellectually  challenging    and  had  me  off  my  rocker  intellectually.    But  I  always  felt  very  in  control.    Like  back  in  my  box.    I’ve  never  had  [a  class]    that  messed  with  me    on  a  more  emotional  level.      How  do  you  think  teaching  growth  mindset  to  your  kids  influenced  your  experiences  in  Methods  I,  if  at  all?  It’s  interesting    I  see  it  in  little  tiny  moments.    Times  where  two  or  three  of  us  would    ‘Ahhh.    This  class  is  driving  me  crazy’    And  someone  would  make  a  flippant  comment    ‘You’re  showing  fixed  mindset.’    We’d  do  that  a  lot.    And  rather  than  continuing  to  complain    get  upset,    We  all  laughed    Started  talking  about  something  else.    It  came  up  a  lot    and  it  broke  the  tension.    We  weren’t  having  fixed  mindset  discussions,    just  little  comments  here  and  there.    Gosh,  we  did  throw  that  at  each  other  a  lot.    Yeah,  for  sure.  It  was  a  tool  to  interrupt  the  fear  cycle  That  happens  in  this  adaptive  environment?  I  think  so.  

It’s  funny  because  you  didn’t  have  to  do  it  seriously.    Yeah,  it  was  very  jokey  But  something  was  really  real  about  it  too    From  ‘I  Can’t  See  Anything  Happening’  Towards  ‘Even  If  I  Can’t  See  It,  Something  Might  be  Happening’  You  gave  feedback    Pointing  out  things    I  wouldn’t  see    as  being  evidence  of  something  happening.    Really  important  to  me,    I  didn’t  know  what  to  look  for    so  I  was  really  insecure.    Seeing  that  you  saw  things    that  I  didn’t  see    ‘Oh  yeah,  I  guess  that  did  happen.    I  just  didn’t  see  it’    that  has  changed  the  way    I  look    at  things.    I’m  not  so  insecure    When  I  don’t  see  anything  going  on  In  the  back  of  my  head  ‘Well  maybe  there’s  stuff  going  on    I’m  just  not  seeing  it,    I’ve  been  there  before  now.    So  I’m  going  to  keep  going.    It’s  not  that  I’m  horrible  at  [teaching].’    Maybe  I’m  not  seeing  the  whole  thing.    Discussion      Candidates’  Relationship  with  Discomfort  Encountered  in  Transition  to  Adaptive  Teacher.    Candidates  describe  their  relationship  with  the  discomfort  encountered  during  the  transition  toward  adaptive  teacher  as  an  oscillation,  -­‐  cyclical  or  like  being  on  a  yo-­‐yo.  In  one  moment,  they  believe  they  are  able  to  do  what  is  needed  and  engage  in  the  process  and  in  the  next  they  find  themselves  buried  in  doubt  and  fear,  -­‐  certain  they  cannot  do  what  is  needed  and  falling  back  into  trying  to  figure  out  what  the  professor  wants.  The  tasks  of  adaptive  teacher  felt  vague,  confusing  and  like  getting  lost.  Yet,  candidates  repeatedly  emphasize  that  these  feelings  were  important  and  valuable.  They  depict  the  uncertainty,  which  they  refer  to  as  chaos,  as  a  mediating  factor  in  their  engagement  with  technical  course  resources,  such  as  lesson  plans.  As  one  candidate  explains,  the  challenge  was  to  stay  connected  with  what  she  knew  and  what  she  wanted  in  the  midst  of  this  discomfort.  Further,  candidates  emphasized  that  they  had  learned  more  rapidly  within  the  discomfort  of  Methods  I  and  guided  teaching  than  in  a  more  comfortable,  decontextualized  Methods  II.  They  attributed  this  to  various  factors:    

 1)  being  involved  in  the  flow  of  feedback  and  information  from  students.  Rather  than  information  going  into  a  lesson  plan  and  staying  there  because  no  students  were  responding  to  it,  candidates  explained  that  this  information  had  served  as  a  catalyst  to  their  learning  in  Methods  I,  even  if  it  felt  unnerving.  They  felt  more  comfortable  with  tasks  of  learning  to  teach  that  were  less  contextualized,  but  explained  that  this  comfort  was  linked  to  their  ‘good  student’  identity  and  dislike  of  failure  rather  than  helping  them  become  an  adaptive  teacher.  Candidates  liked  the  co-­‐evolution  of  learning  with  students  and  relied  on  student  feedback  to  plan  lessons.  In  other  words,  student  feedback  became  a  catalyst  for  their  own  learning,  which  felt  uncomfortable  for  the  ‘good  student’  yet  necessary  for  the  ‘adaptive  teacher.’  However,  this  reliance  on  student  feedback  quickly  became  less  central  in  their  thinking  when  focusing  on  learning  teaching  techniques  out  of  context  the  following  quarter.      2)  being  engaged  as  a  whole  person  in  context  (Lave  &  Wenger,  1991),  which  required  them  to  navigate  more  than  the  intellectual  dimension  where  they  felt  safe  and  in  control.  It  required  them  to  navigate  the  emotional  dimension  of  teaching,  -­‐  identifying  what  they  wanted,  trying  it  out  with  no  guarantee  of  success,  and  learning  to  adapt  and  respond  in  the  moment  rather  than  implementing  a  plan  regardless  of  student  response,  and      3)  being  able  to  get  a  sense  of  what  teaching  really  entails  beyond  the  technical  dimensions,  which  helped  them  gain  a  realistic  sense  of  teaching  as  a  whole.  This  helped  give  them  a  sense  of  direction  that  resulted  in  confidence  for  future  learning.      Finally,  candidates  explained  that  had  they  postponed  learning  to  relate  to  the  discomfort  of  the  nonlinear  task  of  teaching,  -­‐  planning  out  of  context  during  their  first  quarter  –  they  might  then  have  had  a  harder  time  working  with  students.  Candidates  postulated  they  would  have  been  confident  in  their  ability  as  lesson  planners  and  perceived  students  as  getting  in  the  way  of  their  sense  of  control.  They  would  have  likely  perceived  students  as  the  source  of  the  unpredictability  they  would  have  encountered.  Similar  to  the  rigidifying  effects  of  believing  the  world  is  too  orderly  and  predictable  that  comes  with  routine  expertise  (Verschaffel  et  al.,  2009),  candidates  suggest  delaying  their  encounter  with  the  transition  to  adaptive  teacher  might  make  the  transition  out  of  ‘good  student’  more  distressing  for  both  candidates  and  students.  Instead,  candidates  came  to  experience  the  discomfort  of  adaptive  teaching  as  something  that  could  not  be  controlled.  They  could  not  plan  the  perfect  lesson.  They  could  not  know  ahead  of  time  how  students  would  respond.  But  they  could  work  with  this  nonlinearity,  -­‐  coming  to  accept  this  as  a  normal  part  of  teaching.    Simple  Rules  That  Influenced  Candidates’  Complex  Actions    In  addition  to  the  patterns  noted  above,  candidates’  words  in  the  found  poem  revealed  two  simple  rules  that  influenced  their  engagement  throughout  the  experience.  These  rules  surfaced  throughout  the  poem  multiple  times  and  in  multiple  forms,  which  leads  me  to  believe  these  rules  were  influential  in  shaping  candidates’  capacity  to  stay  engaged  in  the  discomfort  they  were  encountering.  Based  on  candidates’  description  of  the  centrality  of  

these  principles  in  shaping  their  response  to  encountering  and  adapting  to  discomfort,  I  have  identified  these  rules  below  as  follows:    It  is  through  experimentation  and  failure  that  I  learn.  It  is  safe  to  take  risks  and  fail.    Candidates  emphasized  repeatedly  the  importance  of  being  trusted  in  their  process  as  learners  and  given  a  safe  space  to  experiment  and  learn  from  failure.  At  the  same  time,  this  was  foreign  and  confusing  to  them.  While  having  this  space  and  support  encouraged  learning  through  experimentation  and  failure,  this  very  openness  was  disorienting  and  uncomfortable  for  candidates,  who  explained  they  were  more  accustomed  to  specific  expectations  and  an  environment  based  on  distrust,  proving  oneself,  and  panic  as  one  candidate  explained.  It  took  some  candidates  all  quarter  to  move  towards  more  consistent  engagement  as  adaptive  teachers  (learners)  and  away  from  ‘good  students’  (performers)  who  excel  at  figuring  out  and  doing  what  the  professor  wants  but  struggle  to  figure  out  what  they  want  as  teachers.    Nonlinearity,  unpredictability,  and  discomfort  are  part  of  teaching.  I  can  work  with  these  rather  than  using  work  avoidance  mechanisms  to  push  away  the  adaptive  challenges  I  encounter.  Teaching  growth  mindset  to  students  in  guided  teach,  emerged  as  significant  in  helping  candidates  stay  engaged  in  the  discomfort  of  adaptive  challenges.  When  candidates  encountered  discomfort,  they  shared  this  with  peers,  who  were  often  able  to  interrupt  the  work  avoidance  mechanisms  candidates  are  most  prone  to,  -­‐  judging  themselves  as  inadequate,  blaming  students  as  the  source  of  uncertainty  and  trying  to  control  students,  and  blaming  the  professor  for  lack  of  clarity  and  answers.  Instead  candidates  moved  out  of  the  certainty  associated  with  ‘good  student’  and  became  open  to  questions  and  uncertainty.  For  example,  one  candidate  explained  that  receiving  feedback  about  what  I  saw  as  evidence  of  learning  helped  him  stay  open  to  the  possibility  that  learning  might  be  going  on.  Initially,  he  would  have  judged  himself  as  a  horrible  teacher  because  he  did  not  know  what  he  was  learning  at  that  moment.  Later  he  became  able  to  stay  with  the  experience  without  knowing  what  was  coming  of  it  but  also  without  believing  he  was  doing  something  wrong.  Becoming  able  to  distinguish  between  growth  and  fixed  mindset,  then,  helped  candidates  keep  the  distress  of  transitioning  from  ‘good  student’  towards  adaptive  teacher  within  manageable  levels  in  ways  I  had  not  expected  or  observed  until  the  focus  group  dialogues.  It  helped  to  normalize  discomfort  as  a  part  of  learning  rather  than  associating  discomfort  with  a  ‘problem’  or  ‘something’s  wrong.’  Thus,  candidates’  work  with  growth  mindset  encouraged  them  to  relate  differently  to  the  discomfort  and  uncertainty  of  moving  towards  adaptive  teacher  than  they  would  have  as  ‘good  students.’  Much  more  consistently,  candidates  were  able  to  stay  engaged  when  facing  adaptive  challenges.      Contributions  and  significance    Several  implications  and  questions  emerged  from  this  study  that  inform  teacher  education.  First,  very  early  in  their  programs  of  study,  candidates  can  become  accustomed  to  learning  from  the  discomfort  of  adaptive  challenges  rather  than  maintaining  their  ‘good  student’  tendencies.  They  can  become  better  adapted  to  working  within  a  dynamic,  nonlinear  environment,  even  if  they  had  previously  constructed  their  identity  around  a  more  orderly,  

linear  environment.  However,  this  is  a  significant  and  challenging  transition.  Yet  it  is  essential  if  we  want  to  support  candidates’  learning  to  teach  in  ways  that  move  beyond  replication  of  the  status  quo.  Rather  than  mimicking  “existing  practices”  or  giving  up  when  attempts  at  transformative  practices  fail  candidates  can  develop  a  means  of  transforming  the  “vague  feeling  of  discontent”  they  will  regularly  encounter  and  that  often  leads  them  to  seek  answers  externally  (Britzman,  2003,  p.  213)  and  use  this  feeling  to  explore  creative  teaching  possibilities  and  become  clearer  about  what  they  want  as  teachers,  -­‐  an  important  step  towards  self-­‐regulated  learning.  Without  an  ability  to  transform  discomfort  into  a  clearer  sense  of  what  they  want  as  teachers,  novices  are  likely  to  seek  external  authoritative  measures  to  figure  out  what  to  do  and  to  ease  the  feelings  of  inadequacy  and  discomfort  they  experience.  The  well-­‐established  pattern  of  new  teachers  rapidly  becoming  enculturated  within  the  school  where  they  initially  teach  (Britzman,  2003;  Crawford,  2007;  McGinnis,  Parker,  &  Graeber,  2004)  suggests  that  we  should  take  seriously  the  learning  required  of  candidates  as  they  transition  from  externally  regulated  to  self-­‐regulated  learning.  This  includes  learning  to  perceive  discomfort  as  an  opportunity  to  learn  and  clarify  our  aims  as  teachers.  Within  the  highly  standardized  environment  of  teacher  preparation,  research-­‐based  practices,  expectations,  and  outcomes-­‐based  measures  can  easily  impede  novices’  transition  into  self-­‐regulated  learning  through  experimentation  and  failure  by  encouraging  them  to  ‘teach  the  right  way’  or  use  the  ‘right  strategy.’  These  data  suggest  that  significant  attention  should  be  spent  on  creating  a  safe  space  for  failure  and  learning  through  experience,  with  a  secondary  focus  on  strategies,  standards,  and  other  external  expectations  as  resources  and  tools  for  helping  teachers  accomplish  &  clarify  their  aims.  This  question  emerges  as  important,  then:  How  do  we  encourage  candidates  to  relate  to  outcomes-­‐based  assessments  and  research-­‐based  practices  in  ways  that  empower  their  transition  towards  adaptive  teachers  rather  than  fueling  their  identities  as  ‘good  students’?  This  question  is  especially  important  if  we  want  teachers  to  be  able  to  transform  the  systems  in  which  they  work  rather  than  comply  with  extant  school  culture  or  burn  out  by  holding  tightly  to  reform-­‐measures  learned  within  teacher  education  (Author,  2007).      Secondly,  this  study  provides  insight  into  novices’  tendency  to  become  more  custodial  and  teacher-­‐centric  in  their  induction  years  (Eick,  2002;  Kagan,  1992)  suggesting  that  candidates  who  enter  the  profession  having  engaged  in  field  experiences  disconnected  from  methods  coursework  and  focused  on  learning  strategies  for  later  application  will  be  less  able  to  work  with  the  discomfort  and  unpredictability  they  experience  within  the  nonlinear  space  of  adaptive,  self-­‐regulated  teaching  and  more  likely  to  perceive  students  as  the  source  of  the  unpredictability  they  initially  encounter.  There  are  serious  consequences  for  the  students  of  teachers  who  enter  their  induction  years  too  strongly  associated  with  the  ‘good  student’  identity.  Specifically,  these  teachers  are  more  likely  to  control  students  in  an  attempt  to  try  and  eliminate  the  discomfort  they  are  encountering,  -­‐  especially  detrimental  in  working  with  students  from  diverse  backgrounds  whose  distinct  cultural  values  and  ways  of  being  in  the  world  will  likely  challenge  the  teacher’s  own  beliefs,  values,  and  practices  (Sensoy  &  DiAngelo,  2011).  It  is  essential,  then,  that  teacher  education  programs  intentionally  design  field  experiences  that  support  candidates  in  using  student  response  to  inform  instructional  planning.  Although  candidates  were  less  comfortable  using  student  response  to  inform  their  planning  in  Methods  I,  they  also  explained  that  methods  courses  that  did  not  require  them  to  use  student-­‐based  evidence  to  shape  their  

planning  or  take  action  in  working  with  students  did  not  help  them  become  the  sort  of  teacher  they  wanted.  As  candidates  relinquished  the  belief  that  they  could  know  how  students  would  respond  to  their  instructional  plans,  they  became  willing  to  work  with  the  discomfort  of  transitioning  from  ‘good  student’  to  adaptive  teacher,  with  their  students,  and  with  themselves  as  learners.      Finally,  this  study  highlights  the  danger  of  working  with  those  learning  to  teach  in  ways  that  are  predominantly  intellectual.  As  candidates  described,  methods  courses  that  were  loosely  connected  to  field  experiences  did  not  include  the  emotional  aspects  of  learning  to  teach  they  faced  in  Methods  I/guided  teaching.  In  these  learning  experiences,  candidates  described  learning  as  purely  intellectual  experiences  that  allowed  them  to  maintain  the  illusion  of  being  in  control  and  the  comfort  of  ‘being  in  the  box’.  Learning  as  a  purely  intellectual  endeavor  runs  the  risk  of  becoming  pathological  knowledge  (Roth,  2005)  or  unresponsive  and  inappropriate  if  applied  in  community  (Orr,  2004)  without  a  deep  knowledge  of  that  context  (Meadows,  2005).  Intellectual  knowing  can  also  inhibit  adaptivity  when  there  is  too  great  a  sense  of  certainty  (Verschaffel  et  al.,  2009).  Yet  candidates  were  almost  completely  unfamiliar  with  learning  experiences  in  which  they  had  to  work  with  the  emotional  domain.  Thus,  intentionally  designing  field  experiences  where  candidates  feel  safe  taking  risks  and  letting  go  of  control  in  their  work  with  students  seems  critical.  The  context  of  guided  teaching  where  candidates  worked  with  a  partner  and  a  group  of  4-­‐8  students  felt  safe,  as  did  the  content  they  were  teaching.  They  perceived  growth  mindset  as  something  they  couldn’t  really  mess  up.  These  and  other  factors  contributed  to  candidates’  capacity  to  stay  engaged  with  the  emotional  aspects  of  learning  they  encountered  in  transitioning  from  ‘good  student’  to  adaptive  teacher.  These  data  encourage  me  to  consider  the  following:  Are  teacher  candidates  experiencing  learning  that  requires  them  to  navigate  both  emotional  and  intellectual  domains  in  their  learning  to  teach?  If  so,  I  should  expect  that  I,  as  a  teacher  educator,  might  necessarily  take  some  heat  as  candidates  become  willing  to  engage  in  the  adaptive  challenge  of  accepting  responsibility  for  their  own  teaching  practice  rather  than  relying  on  me  to  help  them  know  what  practices  will  help  them  maintain  their  sense  of  control  (Heifetz,  1994).  Furthermore,  these  data  encourage  me  to  construct  assessments  that  make  explicit  to  candidates  how  they  can  practice  relating  to  the  emotional  facets  of  learning  encountered  in  early  stages  of  the  transition  from  ‘good  student’  to  adaptive  teacher  (see  for  example,  Appendix  1).  Finally,  these  data  challenge  me  to  design  field  experiences  in  ways  that  help  candidates  manage  the  complexity  of  teaching  as  a  holistic  endeavor  rather  than  reducing  the  complexity  of  teaching  within  field  experiences.  With  field  experiences  designed  to  maintain  the  complexity  of  teaching  candidates  will  necessarily  be  working  with  both  the  emotional  and  intellectual  dimensions  as  they  work  through  adaptive  challenges  rather  than  approaching  learning  to  teach  as  a  technical  challenge  reliant  only  on  the  intellectual  dimension.    

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