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To cite this article: Robin Averill, Michael Drake, Dayle Anderson & Glenda Anthony (2016):
The use of questions within in-the-moment coaching in initial mathematics teacher education:
enhancing participation, reflection, and co-construction in rehearsals of practice, Asia-Pacific
Journal of Teacher Education, DOI: 10.1080/1359866X.2016.1169503
Article views: 36
Download by: [University of Sussex Library] Date: 09 June 2016, At: 12:06
ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2016.1169503
CONTACT Robin Averill robin.averill@vuw.ac.nz Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Kelburn,
Wellington, 6140, New Zealand
2016 Australian Teacher Education Association
2 R. AVERILL ET AL.
Within initial teacher education settings, the use of public teaching rehearsals with in-
the-moment coaching by teacher educators has been shown to be eective for devel-
oping student teachers use of interactive, discourse-rich mathematics teaching practices
(e.g., Lampert, Beasley, Ghousseini, Kazemi, & Franke, 2010; Lampert et al., 2013). Such
rehearsals simulate classroom teaching through student teachers teaching their peers,
providing approximations of practice. Typically, rehearsals foster student teacher learn-
ing through them being able to enact and modify their teaching using guidance from a
teacher educator provided during the rehearsal (in-the-moment) as instances worthy of
comment or modication occur. However, apart from Lampert et al.s (2013) detailed
analysis of interactions within rehearsals, there has been little examination to date of the
practice of coaching within initial mathematics teacher education contexts. As part of a
wider project with a partner teacher education institution exploring implementation of
practice-based pedagogies (e.g., Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, 2009; Hiebert,
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Morris, Berk, & Jansen, 2007; Zeichner, 2012), our team of four teacher educators
implemented rehearsals and in-the-moment coaching within a range of initial teacher
education courses in our own institution over 4 years. Our in-the-moment coaching
within teaching rehearsals focussed on assisting student teachers as they practised
teaching a preset Instructional Activity (see Lampert et al., 2010) or similar, to, among
other things, promote and support diverse learners to participate in group and whole
class mathematical thinking and discussion.
A major concern in adapting our courses to include student teacher rehearsals and
coaching was that the tight timeframes in our programmes would not enable us to
provide each student teacher with an individual in-class public rehearsal opportunity,
let alone multiple opportunities to be coached. Our design concern was therefore to
look to maximise the involvement of all student teachers in reection and pedagogical
discussion and decision making in the limited number of rehearsal opportunities. To do
this, we purposely adopted a coaching approach that focused on using questions, often
addressed to the wider student teacher group, as opposed to directive or feedback
statements directed to the presenter alone. In this article, we explore the nature and
eectiveness of this practice by describing results from our study which examined:
How do coaching questions used within in-class teaching rehearsals of practice support the
development of student teachers capabilities with, and condence in, promoting mathe-
matical thinking and managing mathematical classroom discussions?
In exploring our coaching approach, we discuss the use of questions posed by the
teacher educator during rehearsals, including examples of leading questions that guide
student teachers to a specic area of consideration, and open questions that may have
more than one suitable response or that do not indicate an expected response. Our
analysis focuses on the nature and substance of the coaching exchanges, adding to the
existing literature on coaching during rehearsals of practice in initial teacher education
settings (e.g., Lampert et al., 2010, 2013) and literature that to date has been largely
associated with eld-based experiences in the school (e.g., Bahr, Monroe, & Eggett, 2014;
Jones & Ryan, 2014).
We begin with background regarding practices associated with ambitious mathe-
matics teaching focused on practices that promote learners mathematical thinking and
communication and previous studies of coaching within initial mathematics teacher
ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 3
education. We provide a rationale for prioritising the use of questions rather than
predominantly directive instructions or feedback statements within the coaching
exchanges. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative analysis of coaching of student
teachers teaching and their perceptions of the coaching, we provide exemplars from
our study that indicate how using questions within in-the-moment coaching can result
in rich discussions and practice opportunities associated with learning the work of
ambitious teaching. We conclude with recommendations for initial teacher education
and highlight further useful areas of exploration.
(Hynds et al., 2013). Thus, the implementation of teaching rehearsals, we hoped, would
also aord opportunities for student teachers to develop practices associated with co-
construction in their classrooms. This is particularly pertinent given that traditional
transmission-style learning environments, which many of our student teachers have
experienced, particularly in their often recent university study, do not provide strong
examples of co-construction.
Our implementation of Instructional Activities and in-class coaching was informed
by the work of Kazemi, Franke, and Lampert (2009) and Lampert et al. (2010) that was
conducted with elementary student teachers in American university teacher educa-
tion settings. Lampert et al.s (2013) analysis of coaching exchanges in 90 videos of
rehearsals across three sites coded coaching exchanges by the substance (the focus)
and the structure (the nature) of each interaction. Rehearsals were on average
between 12 and 15 mins long, with around 14 coaching interactions in each. Given
the complexity and the multifaceted nature (Lampert et al., 2013, p. 231) of
ambitious teaching, Lampert and colleagues were not surprised to nd that coaching
interactions in their study spanned a range of focus areas, and thus multiple sub-
stance codes were used to describe the aspects of practice being developed in many
coaching interactions. Across 16 substance codes, the most common focus areas of
coaching interactions in Lampert et al.s (2013) study were elicit and respond,
representation, and student engagement, all featuring in over 20% of coaching
interactions and 85% of rehearsals. Their coaching interactions were predominantly
directive and evaluative feedback statements (roughly 61% and 28% of interactions,
respectively), with questions used to facilitate discussion constituting only 17% of
interactions.
In summary, mathematical discussions involving co-construction are important for
student learning of mathematics and for promoting equitable access to achievement,
but are challenging to manage, particularly for novice teachers. Rehearsals of the use of
Instructional Activities enable student teachers to practise using approaches consistent
with ambitious mathematics teaching, particularly when the student teachers are coa-
ched as they practise. Eective coaching requires strong relationships between those
involved, reection, and reciprocity. Questions can promote reection and make oppor-
tunities for all to contribute.
Next, we describe our context and the study, and then report on our results.
ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 5
The study
Within our mathematics methods class we utilised the use of rehearsals of a range of
pre-planned instructional activities (see Anthony & Hunter, 2013; Hunter, Hunter, &
Anthony, 2013). Our in-the-moment coaching involved a teacher educator pausing
rehearsals to ask a question or questions of the student teacher teaching their peers
or of the whole student teacher class (generally between 10 and 25 student teachers).
This process was intended to position student teachers as active participants in the co-
construction of knowledge for teaching, involving them in reection and discussion, and
to enable the student teacher presenter to explain or modify/retry their teaching
approach. Design study (Gravemeijer & Cobb, 2006) was chosen as appropriate for our
development of this work as it aims to support the constitution of an empirically
grounded local instructional theory that underpins that instructional sequence (p. 45).
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Carried out within the complexity of the learning setting, design studies involve the
study of instructional strategies and tools in relation to learning goals, seeking to
provide systematic and warranted knowledge about learning (Confrey, 2006, p. 136).
Hence, incorporating rehearsals and in-the-moment coaching in our courses was a
collaborative process using informal and formal trialling, personal and group reection,
and regular discussion within our team and with our partner institution colleagues. As a
result of the collective ongoing reection and analysis within the project, our local team
approach to coaching focused on eorts to initiate most of their coaching exchanges
with questions rather than statements or instructions. Around 10 rehearsals were con-
ducted for each student teacher group. In all but one course, one rehearsal with
coaching was included in every teaching session. For the remaining course, due to the
large size of the cohort, rehearsals were voluntary and conducted in four sessions
outside of the usual teaching times.
Our use of coaching was explained and modelled by teacher educators taking the roles
of presenter and coach at the start of each course, and all student teachers in these courses
were invited to participate in the study. Full ethical approval was gained for this study and
all participants gave informed consent. It was explained that those declining to be involved
in the study would participate in rehearsals but would not be videoed or contribute other
data. No student teacher declined involvement in the study. A small number of students
declined to be videoed but participated in other data collection. For recorded rehearsals, the
camera was arranged to capture board work, interactions between the presenting student
teacher and the coach, and the voices of non-presenting student teachers.
To examine our in-the-moment coaching in relation to assisting novice teachers to
promote mathematical thinking and discussions, videos of our coaching in rehearsals
were collected from the four teacher educators work across three initial teacher educa-
tion programmes over the 4 years of the study. Participants included 180 student
teachers across three programmes of study, with roughly half in 1-year programmes
(towards elementary or high school teaching) and half in their nal year of a 4-year
programme towards elementary and high school teaching. Across the group, roughly
three-fourths were female and one-fourth male, and most were in their early 20s.
Altogether, the data set included 27 videos of elementary and high school student
teacher rehearsals, 42 student teacher surveys (30 from elementary student teachers and
12 from elementary/high school student teachers), and 3 audio-recorded student
6 R. AVERILL ET AL.
and responses). To check our coaching focus aligned with our teaching about ambitious
practices, instances of coaching interruptions linked to Chapin and OConnors (2007)
talk moves and Stein et al. (2008) practices for orchestrating mathematical discussion
were noted. Also recorded was the length of each rehearsal to enable comparison of
practice across our team and with Lampert et al.s (2013) work. The collaborative analysis
of 10 rehearsals established consistency across the team. Further rehearsals were coded
individually with consistency maintained by all coders coding a small number of the
same rehearsals to check codes and conferring across the team when unsure.
To examine student teachers perspectives of their learning through the rehearsals and
coaching, Likert scale and open response questions were used in end of course surveys for
all groups, and individual semi-structured debrief interviews were conducted with a small
sample of presenters. The survey responses from the most recent year of coaching have
been used for this article in order to reect student teachers experiences of our most recent
and thus fairly established rather than developing coaching approaches.
Results
To discuss the nature of our rehearsals and coaching practices, including how they
diered from Lampert et al.s (2013) work, we present a range of examples of coaching
questions and student teacher responses. We show how student teacher decision-making
can be made explicit and illustrate how coaching questions can lead to question clusters
(linked questions during an extended coaching exchange). In comparing our results with
Lampert et al.s (2013) results, we also note dierences in relation to the length of
rehearsals and the focus areas of the coaching exchanges. Excerpts from rehearsal
transcripts are used throughout to illustrate the ndings. Response and italics are used
to indicate statements made by non-presenting student teachers. All names are
pseudonyms.
Analysis of our student teacher rehearsal videos showed that 90% of our coaching
exchanges began with questions. This result surprised us, because although we had
deliberately set out to use questions, we initially found them more dicult to frame in-
the-moment than instructional or feedback statements.
ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 7
In instances such as this, both the coach and class have the opportunity to comment or oer
ideas in relation to the presenter response, and the presenter has the opportunity to seek
feedback on her pedagogical decision or to continue as planned. In this episode, the
question aorded an opportunity for the coach, presenter, or class to discuss suitable talk
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moves (Chapin & OConnor, 2007) to promote mathematical talk. The exchange also
illustrates that promoting learner talk is considered in relation to other pedagogical deci-
sion-making (in this case, maintaining the momentum of the activity and attending to
perceived student condence to participate), rather than in isolation.
A question was used in another coaching pause to highlight to the class that a
presenter had deliberately chosen a student to report an incorrect solution and explore
why this might be a productive teaching move:
Coach: You obviously did some thinking about why you chose this specic response.
Can you share that?
Presenter: Im really trying to get students to think and share in pairs and to realise that
they dont always have to have the right answer, but that their thinking is
work in progress. I wanted to give them the opportunity, I thought maybe
when they were explaining it, they might have thought, Oh, I know what it is
now, it is meant to be such and such.
Excerpts such as this indicate that using questions to initiate coaching exchanges
extends the rehearsal of practice beyond the presenter to the entire class of student
teachers. Within the discussion about possible next teaching steps, we see class mem-
bers assuming a role of coach and illustrating reciprocity of roles and co-construction of
the lesson decision-making. As the student teachers became more experienced with
rehearsals, there were instances of the student teachers themselves (presenters and non-
presenters) initiating a coaching pause to highlight practice, question, or comment.
The next rehearsal excerpt involved an examination of patterns within Pascals
triangle (Figure 2).
Once the context and pattern had been introduced, learners were given 3 mins to
work in pairs to nd the next two rows of the pattern. At this point, the coach called for
a coaching pause to ascertain whether or not the presenter had deliberately not shared
the learning purpose of the activity:
Coach: (to presenter) Please can we pause? When Peter was presenting (reference to
earlier rehearsal) we talked about sharing an idea of the lesson purpose at the
start. Did you deliberately not tell us?
Presenter: I deliberately told people about the context as I knew they would think that
was a bit dierent. I didnt want to say much more than patterning. It [my
decision making] was a balance between giving away the full mathematical
purpose but I want them to play around [with the mathematics] rst so I
didnt want to say much more.
ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 9
(a) (b)
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Figure 2. Student teacher board work: Ball pathway diagram and pattern recording.
Here, we see that the coaching question enabled the student teacher to justify his
teaching decisions in-the-moment and by doing so, demonstrated the coachs respect
for the presenters planning and delivery. Moreover, the question enabled other student
teachers to reect on the presenters decision-making in light of an earlier discussion
regarding a common dilemma of how much guidance to give learners when problem-
solving. Given that the coach had identied that the learning purpose was missing from
the introduction to the activity, a contrasting directive coaching move could have been
to direct them to include the learning purpose. However, we retrospectively surmise that
a directive coaching move that may have strongly encouraged the student teacher to
use a specic pedagogical practice not of their choosing may have disrupted their
pedagogical decision-making, potentially undermining their condence in their ability
to make suitable pedagogical decisions and the ow of their teaching.
Coach: (to presenter) Pause please. You told learners half of the balls are going to
end up here and half are going to end up there. Was there another way you
could have done that?
10 R. AVERILL ET AL.
Presenter: Yes, I could have asked them, but I didnt because in every lesson on
practicum I went over time, and I wanted that just to be the starter. I like
using lots of questioning, but for me it is a balance, making sure they get to
the mathematical target part of the task.
Coach: (to all) Thanks Tere, so what is another strategy Tere just used to help keep
the pace of the lesson going? Because there is something else he just did that
helped with that.
Response: Give a time limit.
Coach: Yes, thats it.
The next excerpt again shows how coaching with questions can enable student teachers
to exercise authority while bringing specic coach-selected aspects of teaching practice
to the fore. Consistent with Stein et al. (2008) practices for orchestrating mathematical
discussion, the coach in this episode aims to draw out ideas around sequencing the
reporting of paired work:
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Presenter: I saw some really good work. Helen or Hamish, please could one of you come
up to the board and show us your thinking for the next two lines?
Coach: (to all) So how do you think Delia (presenter) made a decision about who to
invite up to the board?
Hamish: She saw that I hadnt written any of the work. I had contributed ideas but I
hadnt written anything.
Coach: I thought there might be a strategic mathematical reason?
Helen: She recognised that we knew the strategy. She doesnt want us coming up if we
are going to get it all wrong.
Presenter: Thats part of it; with my Year 9 class I would have picked the weakest overall
pair who got it right they are the ones not used to being good at maths, so
that was why. You were right, I had seen you got it right, but I gave you the
choice of Helen or Hamish.
In answering the coaching questions, the class members shared possible rationale
relating to gathering formative assessment information (about a students written
mathematical argumentation) and choosing someone who knew a solution method.
Once the class had oered their ideas, the presenter explained her pedagogical decision
making of selecting students for reporting based on their mathematical thinking.
Moreover, the presenter discussed her intention of positioning the particular student
as a successful mathematics learner, encouraging the students mathematical autonomy.
Through the discussion, the coach is able to evaluate the student teachers under-
standing of practice and highlight further practice-based links with coursework and
course materials. In this case, the coach armed the presenters positioning of the lower
achiever as achieving and highlighted the consistency of the presenters rationale with
Stein et al. (2008) practices, discussed earlier in the course.
Next, we discuss our exploration of using Lampert et al.s (2013) substance codes to
further investigate the focus and nature of our coaching exchanges.
rehearsal compared with 14), but, as would be expected with a higher proportion of
questions for facilitating discussion, many exchanges lasted several minutes. Three
factors linked to our use of questions for initiating coaching exchanges contributed
to these dierences: 90% of coaching exchanges were initiated with questions;
coaching questions were most often asked in clusters (several linked questions
within the same coaching interruption used in around 65% of coaching exchanges);
and some questions led to discussions of related ideas.
When coding our coaching exchanges using Lampert et al.s (2013) substance
codes, like Lamperts team, we also found that multiple substance codes were
needed for many coaching exchanges, and that elicit and respond (p. 232) was
the most frequent focus of coaching exchanges. Other similarities between our
results and Lampert et al. included that student engagement was another highly
used substance code (third most frequent in both studies), and that a wide range of
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codes was needed to analyse all coaching exchanges. Dierences included that a
higher proportion of our coaching focussed on attending to the Instructional
Activity than in Lampert and teams study, perhaps not surprising given our student
teachers were exposed to fewer rehearsals overall and therefore were relatively new
to using these. In summary, our results indicate that coaching using questions
enabled a wide range of aspects of teacher practice to be discussed, and that
these aspects were similar to those in the study that used more directive and
evaluative statements and fewer questions than ours. Combined with the result
that many of our coaching exchanges exhibited substance related to multiple
codes, these results suggest that using questions in coaching does not compromise
the ability to expose and address the complexities of ambitious teaching.
Analysis showed that Stein et al. (2008) practices for orchestrating mathematical
discussion were discussed in at least one coaching exchange in approximately half of
the rehearsals, with all ve practices present across the rehearsals. Wait time, revoi-
cing, and linking mathematical reasoning to that of others were the talk moves
(Chapin & OConnor, 2007) mentioned most often across the coaching interactions.
These results indicate our intent to support our student teachers capacity to notice
opportunities for encouraging learners to restate and build on other learners
responses.
Further evidence of co-construction in the rehearsals and that they were useful to
both presenting and non-presenting student teachers is apparent in their descriptions of
the opportunities aorded by the rehearsals for reection on their own and others
practice:
As for the comments above, most learning identied by the student teachers from their
experiences with the coached rehearsals was expressed in a general rather than specic
way. They reported learning about teaching strategies in general, their own teaching,
the use of Instructional Activities, and about mathematics. They stated that the rehear-
sals helped me identify issues I didnt realise I had and provided the opportunity to
discuss variations such as grouping, [including a] competitive element, specic [teach-
ing] steps, and using questions. Learning identied included the explicit inclusion of
Learning Intentions and Success Criteria, use of materials, new ideas for engaging
learners, and using recording methods that facilitate learning (e.g., incorporating
dierent colours when writing equations). Student comments included that the rehear-
sals helped them to think about what to do next/build on from, ways to use an
activity, and how a task can be extended and developed. Several students described
their learning about questioning, including comments about question types and provid-
ing support to learners:
[The rehearsal] made me consider my verbal prompts, direct questioning, use of specic
language, and phrasing of questions and explanations.
Others described learning to remember to ensure whole class was involved; one, in line
with our intention of modelling the equity-based approach of co-construction, stating the
rehearsals made me more aware of how I can promote an inclusive classroom. Students
appreciated being able to work with and experience variations to the quick images and
choral count Instructional Activities and other fantastic, rich maths activities that encou-
rage group discussion. Responses included matters relating to lesson planning such as the
importance of thinking carefully about what numbers are used for choral counts, and,
consistent with Stein et al. (2008) practices, being made aware of more connections in
maths and realising how eective highlighting these connections is.
Evidence from one student teacher that a rehearsal with coaching helped her to
successfully use an Instructional Activity to promote mathematical discussion on practi-
cum is found below. The student teacher had taught using a choral count, skip counting
in 5s from 7:
Student Teacher: The children came up with quite a lot of patterns, so it was quite rich
actually. It was something [their teacher] had not thought of doing as she hadnt seen it
before. . . and she said that was really cool, that thing that you did. . .
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Teacher Educator: And are there any skills that we talked about [in the coaching] that you
remember transferring into what you were doing?
Student Teacher: Yes, Having done it with the pauses and the coaching, I was very aware,
for example, of getting us to count together in chorus, much more than when I did it the
rst time. Id had a chance to reect on that with you, try it again a little bit, see the
dierence, and I really noticed it when I was teaching. I was thinking this is working really
well. . . I felt I had used all of the things that we paused on. . . overall I found [the coaching]
really instructive, clarifying about strategies. . . I felt more in control of my strategies, more
aware . . . like being clear [in my instructions].
However, the student teachers responses were not universally positive. Mixed responses
were more prevalent in the class in which some uncomfortable within-class relationships
existed and student teachers most often assumed the role of coach. The responses from
this class group included comments such as interruptions during teaching sessions
didnt help, and that they saw some fantastic lesson examples and some not so
fantastic. One student teacher in this group commented that it was nerve wracking
being judged by teaching peers. People were very critical, picking up on negatives more
than looking for positives.
Such responses reinforce the importance for the coaching of rehearsals of respect,
reciprocity, and sound relationships across the class as well as between the coach and
the presenter. They indicate the importance of safe and comfortable learning environ-
ments for coaching successfully in general as well as for coaching using questions to
ensure the student culture is safe, and students dont feel judged or uncomfortable.
It is very pleasing that the student teacher responses were largely positive of their
learning through coaching using questions despite most of their explanations of their
learning lacking specicity. We deliberately did not ask particular survey or interview
questions in relation to Chapin and OConnors (2007) and Stein et al. (2008) work in
order to gauge whether or not these would emerge from the data without prompting.
Given our focus on these strategies through the courses and their prevalence in the
rehearsals, it was somewhat disappointing and that student teachers did not directly
refer to the talk moves or practices for orchestrating mathematical discussion in their
responses. It may be (and it is our hope) that these had been adopted to such an extent
that they were such familiar ways of managing mathematical discussions, that student
teachers no longer identied them as new learning.
14 R. AVERILL ET AL.
practice that involved the presenter and the class. The approach enabled co-construc-
tion, with more student teachers able to be active participants in pedagogical discus-
sions and decision-making than in rehearsals with short relatively directive coaching
exchanges initiated by the coach and directed to the presenter.
Limitations of the study could include that the coaching exchanges in the video data
were drawn from our early coaching attempts through to our recent coaching, thus
spanning the development of our coaching skills. Similarly, our early coaching coincided
with our rst introduction of the practices for orchestrating mathematical discussion
(Stein et al., 2008) and talk moves (Chapin & OConnor, 2007) in our courses. Over the
duration of the study, our use of these tools of ambitious mathematics teaching for
informing student teacher practice has also developed. In hindsight, it could have been
useful to probe students thinking about their learning in relation to these strategies in
follow-up data collection. However, our results do show that aspects of the work of
Lampert et al. (2013), Stein et al. (2008), and Chapin and OConnor (2007) can be usefully
brought together within coaching exchanges in rehearsals of Instructional Activities. Our
examples illustrate how coaching questions can increase student teacher exposure to
such theory within rehearsals of practice.
In addition, we have illustrated how reciprocity, relationships, and reection on
aspects of practice (e.g., Bearwald, 2011; Knight, 2011; Robertson, 2008) can be
promoted within rehearsals of Instruction Activities through coaching exchanges
initiated and developed using questions. Coaching questions that directed student
teachers to pedagogically useful matter to consider in relation to the teaching in the
rehearsal were at times identied by student teachers and at times by teacher
educators. Open questions, in particular, appeared to encourage student teachers to
consider the presenters thinking and practice and reect on their and others
responses. Our analysis shows that the spread of types of content (substance)
attended to in our coaching exchanges is similar to that of Lampert et al.s (2013).
Similar coverage indicates that the complexity of ambitious teaching was not
obscured through our approach and that using questions to initiate rehearsals does
not negatively limit the range of focus areas able to be identied for student
teachers learning through rehearsals.
Our study adds to the coaching and mathematics education literature in several ways.
Firstly, we have shown that using coaching questions in rehearsals of practice resulted in
ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 15
involving student teachers in multiple roles within each rehearsal (student, student
teacher, and coach), maximising reciprocity (e.g., Bearwald, 2011; Knight, 2011;
Robertson, 2008) and the impact of each rehearsal across multiple participants. Using
questions to initiate coaching exchanges usefully involved the presenter, other student
teacher participants, and the coach in reection and discussing practice consistent with
ambitious mathematics teaching. Secondly, the use of questions within coaching of
rehearsals allows modelling and student teacher experience of co-construction of learn-
ing, a teaching and learning approach important for promoting equitable teaching
(Bishop et al., 2003; Ministry of Education, 2011, 2013). Implications of these ndings
include that for programmes where coaching has been considered but rejected on the
basis of having insucient time to coach every student teacher, and this decision should
be reconsidered.
Thirdly, we have shown that student teacher autonomy can be preserved by using
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coaching exchanges initiated with single or clustered questions. Student teachers were
able to explain and justify their practice and continue as planned or use reection or
coach or peer discussion to guide them in altering their teaching. In all cases, the
pedagogical decision-making in each rehearsal began and remained with the presenting
student teacher, showing respect for their planning, pedagogical decision-making, and
control of the lesson. The questions enabled discussion of alternative pedagogical
choices including providing opportunities for linking to course materials and previous
rehearsals. Implications of these ndings include that such coaching enables practice-
theory links to be made explicitly in ways that empower student teachers to use and
reect on ambitious teaching practices.
Our informal reections on our use of rehearsals and in-the-moment coaching and
the results from this study have led us to ensure that coaching using questions is
integral to all of our initial mathematics teacher education courses. While we value
the strengths of coaching that uses more, shorter, and more direct instructions, we
believe that the use of questions to initiate coaching exchanges oers a complementary
approach to in-the-moment coaching of future teachers of mathematics, particularly for
programmes with tight time constraints. Further exploration will help deepen under-
standing of how to maximise the eectiveness of in-the-moment coaching through
strategic use of shorter and longer coaching exchanges and of open, leading, and closed
questions, question clusters, and directed coaching moves. Through such practice, we
are modelling how our student teachers can be ambitious mathematics teachers co-
constructing learning with their own students, towards developing strong and exible
mathematics understanding and learning.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative fund administered by
the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. It is grounded in the collective work of the
Learning the Work of Ambitious Mathematics Teaching project, led by Glenda Anthony and
Roberta Hunter and whose members are Jodie Hunter, Peter Rawlins, Roger Harvey, Tim
Burgess, and the authors. We are grateful to these colleagues for our partnership and ongoing
discussions and learning over the length of this study. Particular thanks go to Roger Harvey for his
collaboration in the teaching and data gathering that have contributed to this article. Thanks also
to Farzad Radmehr for assistance with managing the data.
16 R. AVERILL ET AL.
Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative [grant number
3000018986].
Notes on contributors
Robin Averills research interests include exploring equitable approaches within mathematics
education and school leadership, particularly in relation to practices culturally responsive to
indigenous Mori learners.
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Michael Drakes research examines eective teaching and learning of mathematics, and teacher
learning within initial teacher education and professional development.
Dayle Andersons research encompasses mathematics and science education, with a particular
focus on the nature and inuence of teacher beliefs and development of knowledge for teaching.
Glenda Anthonys research focuses on the challenge of designing professional learning experi-
ences for mathematics teachers and teacher educators towards improved classroom practices
productive for student learning.
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