Using mazes in teacher

education
Judith Kennedy

One of the most important requirements of a teacher's role is the ability to

make decisions. The study of teacher decision-making shows that such
decisions reflect the beliefs, attitudes, and values of the teacher, as well as
the context and constraints of their working environment. Many trainees
find the multitude of decisions they have to make when teaching over-
whelming. They have insufficient knowledge and experience of the likely
outcomes of certain decisions, and do not have time to consider those
decisions in any depth. The use of mazes is suggested as one way of
offering trainees on teacher education programmes an opportunity to
choose a particular course of action, and to reflect on its likely outcomes.

Introduction The class is working in groups. In one group a learner is dominating the
interaction, and not all of what is being talked about is relevant to the
task. The teacher decides to ignore the problem since the lesson is nearly
overnext time, the groups will be organized differently. Or perhaps
the teacher decides to intervenethis is not the first time that this
particular learner has 'mucked about' in group work, and the teacher
feels that by ignoring his behaviour she may lead him to feel complacent
about it. In both cases, the teacher chooses between two alternative
courses of actiona decision is made based on the teacher's beliefs
about the values of the different actions, and her estimation of their
different outcomes. As Eggleston claims
Teachers are constantly making decisions in their classrooms; indeed
decision-making is probably the central feature of the role of the
teacher . . . the decisions involve fine judgments of the capacities of
individual children, determination of their needs and evaluation of
their achievements. (1979: 1)
Such decision-making is inherent in the view that the professional
practice of teachers is rooted in reflection, experimentation, and
enquiry, based on teaching skills and an appropriate knowledge base.
Effective professional knowledge is grounded in action; practitioners
learn by reflecting on successful and unsuccessful actions, and in the case
of the latter by devising more successful ones. This is why most pre-
service teacher education programmes emphasize the importance of the
school experience component in enabling trainees to develop those
qualities that will enable them to make appropriate classroom teaching
decisions. But whilst not minimizing the value of school experience,
there is also room in teacher education programmes for developing
activities that will allow trainees the time to deliberate on and interpret

ELT Journal Volume 53/2 April 1999 Oxford University Press 1999 107
 teaching situations away from the immediate 'crisis management'
situation that many of them are confronted with in the classroom. One
activity that enables trainees to replicate some aspects of the decision-
making process in a supportive and reflective environment is the use of
mazes. To be effective, these need to be built out of the real school
experiences of traineeswe need to know what kind of decisions they
and experienced teachers make, and what kind of outcome results.

The nature of The relationship between teacher thinking and behaviour is a complex
teachers' decisions one, and not all teacher action can be rationalized as a process of
conscious decision-making. In many cases, teacher behaviour is guided
by routines and tacit or intuitive plans of action (Elbaz 1991) when
teachers may seem to be making decisions in a less than conscious way.
Whilst decision-making as a process may not provide a complete and
accurate picture of how teachers translate thought into action (Kwo
1994: 217), it is clearly an important aspect of teacher practice. This is
why we need to know how teachers develop routinized courses of action;
when they abandon them and why; and what kind of classroom stimuli
cause them to change their behaviour. A feature of all these cases is that
while decisions are taken by teachers, they may not be taken in a strictly
rational manner.

We can regard a decision as a course of action taken at a point when the

teacher is aware either explicitly or implicitly of alternative courses of
action. The basis for evaluating such alternative courses of action
depends on realizing and understanding their likely outcomes; on
whether such outcomes are valued by the teacher, the pupils, the school,
and the wider community; and on whether they are likely to be realized
in the short or long term. Such decisions are taken at different
timesbefore and after, as well as during the lessonand can concern
materials, methods, class relationships, pupil assessment, and evaluation.
Also, novice and experienced teachers will differ in their approach to
decision-making. Calderhead (1985) describes how most approaches to
teacher decision-making have either been psychological or sociological
in focus. The former is closely allied to the emphasis in teacher
education on teacher thinking, and how it influences action. Thus, at the
planning stage, teachers will make many decisions about activities and
materials'who is going to do what, when, where and with which
materials' (ibid.: 135), These decisions will be complex, though not
necessarily systematic. In fact, McCutcheon (1980) found that teachers
often planned their lessons while doing other things, such as having a
bath, or watching television.

Sociological approaches to decision-making are just as important as

those taken from the psychological perspective, because they focus on
how teacher decision-making is context-dependent, and influenced as
much by the institution as by the culture. So whilst teachers may make a
decision about materials based on whether they think they will interest
the majority of their pupils, whether they are appropriate, and whether

108 Judith Kennedy

 they can lead to meaningful activities, they will also consider the context
they operate in. Most decisions are not matters of great design so much
as small adjustments, which are nevertheless decisions which will have
consequences.
Student teachers need to recognize that actions and outcomes arising
from particular decisions usually lead to further choices having to be
made. When the tape recorder fails in a listening comprehension lesson,
the teacher evaluates different courses of action: read the text aloud;
give the text to the pupils; abandon the lesson originally planned. If the
teacher chooses the first action and reads aloud, some interactive and
intonational features of the original tape may be lost. Activities which
were going to be based on them will no longer be feasibleand the
teacher will have to decide what to do.

Why mazes? Mazes are a way of presenting structured alternative actions. The trainee
has to make a choice between them. Each action results in a particular
change in the situation, which requires another decision to be made, as
in the example below.
The class text (provided) is a moral fable about selflessness. This is a
word which is used in the text and which you think the learners will
not know. Which of the following actions will you take?

la. You quickly explain the word in the mother tongue before the
learners read the text. (Go to 4)
or
lb. You decide that after the learners have read the text they will
probably be able to deduce the meaning of the word. (Go to 7)

Trainees who choose alternative lb. will go to No. 7 as follows:

7. The learners have read the text but it is evident that for many
learners the word selflessness is being confused with selfishness.
7a. At this level, this is not a distinction which particularly worries
you so you decide to leave it. (Go to 9)
or
7b. You decide to give two examples to briefly illustrate the
difference. (Go to 5)

The design and The principle behind the mazes I have constructed is that they should be
construction of rooted in reality, being based as far as possible on real classroom data,
mazes rather than on incidents imagined or recalled by tutors. The data has
been obtained over a period of many years from supervisors, as they
have given detailed and anonymous descriptions of 'critical' incidents in
lessons. All involved a decision taken by a trainee which affected the

Using mazes in teacher education 109

 success of the lesson. (For a fuller description of this work see Kennedy
1995.) To a certain degree, the selection of these incidents reflects the
trainers' own beliefs regarding effective classroom practice. However,
they are not primarily intended to draw trainees' attention to 'good' or
'bad' classroom practice, but rather to allow them the opportunity to
discuss and reflect upon the chosen incidents, and in the process
uncover, perhaps, their own beliefs and attitudes regarding classroom
practice.
The 300 or more incidents so far identified have been grouped into
areas, such as planning, classroom control, relationships with pupils,
teacher's use of language, organization of group and pair work, and
lexis. An example of an incident concerning the planning stage of a
lesson on note taking is given below.

Critical incident, as described by supervisor.

X was still on note-taking/report-writing this week, but had at least
thought of getting kids to report to the class on results of
questionnaire and others to take notes and write it up. Good in
principle. First problem was X showed a sample questionnaire
which caused derision in the class, as it was on how teenagers spent
their money (according to X's imagination), and did not accord with
how these teenagers actually spent their money.

Comment: At the pre-teaching stage, the trainee had two choices. He

could either present the results from a questionnaire he had already
prepared, or he could incorporate the questionnaire into the actual
lesson. In this case, the trainee chose the first action, which led to the
students voicing strong suspicions about the questionnaire's authenticity.
Individual incidents or groups of incidents can then be used as the basis
for alternative choices within a maze.

The construction of Mazes have been used in ELT materials, in areas of management
the maze training, and they are popular in some kinds of children's fiction.
However, there is little published material on how to construct them.
Mazes can be constructed in a very organized manner with the help of a
'maze frame'a series of boxes arranged in a branching pattern (the
author's preferred mode). They can also be constructed as a series of
narratives which are then interlocked one with the other. Some writers
construct maps by drawing up lists of alternative actions and their
outcomes, which they then manipulate into the appropriate branching
format; others prefer a method which involves arranging strips of paper
on a master sheet.
As an example, the critical incident described on the note-taking lesson
can be incorporated into a maze with the starting situation briefly
described, as follows:

110 Judith Kennedy

 You have been asked to give a lesson which gets students to practise
asking questions about habits and activities; it will also involve them
in writing a short report. You decide to base your lesson on a
questionnaire. The data obtained from the questionnaire can then
be used to write the short report.
You have a single lesson lasting 45 minutes. You enter the class,
greet the students and settle them down. You decide that for this
lesson they will work in pairsthere are 31 students in the class.

The trainees are then given a series of alternative teacher actions to choose
between; each choice leads to another pair of alternatives as follows:

a. You tell the students they are going to design a questionnaire.

(Go to 1)
b. You put a bar chart derived from a questionnaire concerned
with imaginary students' spending habits on the board (you have
previously prepared this). (Go to 2)

We will assume the trainees choose alternative b., so they are then
directed to 2, as below:

2. There is an immediate outcry from the class as people show

amazement at the spending habits your bar chart demonstrates.
You realize that some of the facts it shows are obviously
ridiculous, e.g. according to your chart, students are spending 60
per cent of their money on food which is mainly provided by
their family. You also realize that many things are not even
mentioned, e.g. magazines, going out with friends, etc.

a. Ask the students to quickly write down how they spend their
money. (Go to 5)
b. You don't want to spend too long on this part of the lesson so tell
them it is only an example. Get them to write down what
questions they think were originally asked and then get them to
think of two more questions each they would ask on spending
habits. (Go to 6)

(A full version of this maze is given at the end of this article.)

To ensure that the maze retains its validity as a practical tool for realistic
reflection, it is important that all the choices are derived from real
classroom practice rather than contrived by the trainer. The length of
the maze varies depending on the topic but in the author's experience
mazes with between 5 and 9 decision points work best.

Using mazes in teacher education 111

 Using the maze Many trainees are not familiar with mazes, and initially it is a good idea
to present a simple two choice activity, or a very short maze. Short
mazes can be very effective, and initially are easier to prepare. Once
trainees are familiar with the format and operation of mazes, they can be
used in different ways. Trainees can be asked to work on their own
initially, mapping out the decision they would take, and why.
Subsequently they can negotiate with a partner or group to reach a
consensus. The emphasis is not on the best way through a maze because
in most cases there is not a right or wrong answer, but any choice can be
defended and its consequences debatedthe discussion engendered by
mazes is often of greater value than the actual content of the maze. In
many cases trainees will protest that neither course of action presented is
one they would takewhich in itself opens up further opportunities for
critical analysis and reflection on the maze choices themselves.

Conclusion Trainees benefit in that mazes enable them to engage in debate with
their peers about classroom actions, free from the immediate stress of
the classroom situation. They can see the complexity of teaching and
how even seemingly trivial decisions can sometimes have unforeseen
consequencesin this respect they can provide an opportunity for
trainees to reflect-on-action (Schon 1987).
The cause-effect nature of mazes mirrors one level of reflectionthat of
recognizing and explaining the if-then relationships of teaching.
On the affective level, mazes tend to provoke argument amongst the
participants and yet also create a certain bond of sympathy with the
'teacher' in the maze. This feeling of sharing with the 'teacher' is
important. Trainee teachers in the classroom are relatively isolated
such privacy can protect them, but it can also mean that they perhaps
feel they are alone in having a lesson where the tape failed, or where
group activities led to chaos, or where they could not remember what a
word meant.
Trainers benefit equally. Constructing mazes based on real classroom
incidents means a careful observation of what trainees do in classrooms.
Trainers then have to look carefully at their observations after the event,
and think in more depth about the choices the trainee made and what
results they had. It is sometimes salutary to read an account of what the
trainees did and to ask oneself how far their behaviour reflects on us as
trainers. Also, while trainers tend to evaluate (whether formatively or
summatively) trainees' performance, they are not always very organized
about incorporating the results of such evaluations into training courses
and materials. Mazes are the one way to encourage 'reflective'
classroom teachers, and the practice of designing the mazes can also
help trainers themselves to become more 'reflective'. Mazes highlight
the importance of classroom decisions for both trainees and trainers, and
they illustrate how teaching actions are interdependent and complex.
Received July 1998

112 Judith Kennedy

References
Bennett, N. and C. Desforges (eds.). 1985. Recent
Advances in Classroom Research. British Jour-
nal of Educational Psychology Monograph
Series No. 2. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic
Press.
Calderhead, J. 1985. 'Teachers' decision-making'
in Bennett and Desforges (eds.).
Carlgren, I., G. Handal, and S. Vaage. 1994.
Teachers' Minds and ActionsResearch on
Teachers' Thinking and Practice. London: The
Falmer Press.
Eggleston, J. 1979. Teacher Decision-Making in
the Classroom. London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul.
Elbaz, F. 1991. 'Research on teachers' knowledge:
the evolution of a discourse'. Journal of
Curriculum Studies 23/1: 1-19.
Kennedy, J. 1995. 'Working with teachers who are
struggling to survive'. The Teacher Trainer 9/1:
10-14.
Kwo, O. 1994. 'Learning to teach: Some theore-
tical propositions' in Carlgren, Handal, and
Vaage (eds.).
McCutcheon, G. 1980. 'How do elementary
schools plan? The nature of planning and
influences on it'. The Elementary School Journal
81: 4-23.
Schon, D. A. 1987. Educating the Reflective
PractitionerTowards a New Design for Teach-
ing and Learning in the Professions. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
The author
Judith Kennedy is a lecturer and teacher trainer at
the Centre for English Language Teacher Devel-
opment at the University of Warwick. She has
worked in language teaching and teacher educa-
tion in many overseas contexts. Her current
interests are in teacher development, and the
language learning process. Her ambition is to see
all teacher trainers regularly returning to the
classroom as classroom teachers.
E-mail:<j.kennedy@warwick.ac.uk>

Appendix
Decision Point Maze No. 2
You have been asked to give a lesson which gets students to practise asking
questions about habits and activities, and which will also involve them in
writing a short report. You decide to get the students to compose a
questionnaire. They can then use data obtained from the questionnaire to
write a short report.
You have a single lesson lasting 45 minutes. You enter the class, greet the
students, and settle them down. You decide that for this lesson they will
work in pairsthere are 31 students in the class.
a. You tell the students they are going to design a questionnaire. (Go to 1)
b. You put a bar chart derived from a questionnaire concerned with
imaginary students' spending habits on the board (you will have
prepared this previously). (Go to 2)
1. One of the students asks you what the questionnaire should be about.
a. You tell them it can be about anything. (Go to 3)
b. You ask the students for suggestionssay you want the questionnaire to
be about something people of their age will be interested in and know
something about. (Go to 4)
2. There is an immediate outcry of noise from the class as people show
amazement at the spending habits your bar chart demonstrates. You
realize that some of the facts it shows are obviously ridiculous. For
example, according to your chart, students are spending 60 per cent of their
money on food which is mainly provided by their family. You also realize
that many things are not even mentioned, such as magazines, going out
with friends, etc.

Using mazes in teacher education 113

 a. Ask the students to quickly write down how they spend their money. (Go
to 5)
b. You don't want to spend too long on this part of the lesson, so tell them it
is only an example. Get them to write down what questions they think
were originally asked, and then get them to think of two more questions
each they would ask about spending habits. (Go to 6)
3. Some pairs immediately get down to work writing questionsother pairs
seem to be totally lost, and obviously cannot think of a topic to ask
questions on.
a. Quickly get the attention of the whole class, and ask for suggestions on
topics from anyone. (Go to 4)
b. Go round to the pairs in difficulty, trying to suggest some suitable topics,
and tell them to start composing the questions. (Go to 6)
4. The following suggestions are made: a questionnaire on sporting activities;
on different kinds of foods eaten; on how and when English is used at home
and at school; on kinds of TV programmes watched; on transport; on how
holidays are spent.
a. You write all of the suggestions on the board, and tell the students to go
ahead and design a questionnaire on any of them. (Move to Maze 5)
b. You feel that some of these are not suitable topics, so you leave them
out. Decide which ones you would leave out, and why. (Go to 10)
5. You quickly ask a few students to volunteer their answersyou write their
answers on the board.
a. Ask the students why they think the original questionnaire didn't get the
right answers. (Go to 11)
b. Tell the students that questionnaires depend on asking the right
questions. (Go to 6)
6. You ask for volunteer questions, and write about 6-8 questions on the
board.
a. You make language corrections to the students' volunteered questions so
that a correct version can be written on the board. (Go to 7)
b. You do not correct the students' volunteered questionsso some
questions read, for example, 'How much money you spends on music
cassettes every week?' (Go to 8)
7. Ask the students what they notice about the form of the question.
Unfortunately, the students do not really give you the answers you want.
Why do you think this happens, and what would do you do next? ( End)
You may now continue with Maze 5.
8. You ask the students if they notice any mistakes. Some students do indeed
pick out the right mistakesothers, however, point to a correct question and
say it is wrong.
a. Quickly pass over those who say the correct form is wrong. (Move to
Maze 5)
b. Ask them to explain why it is wrong. (Go to 9)
9. You suddenly realize that time is passing! Go back to the beginning and
see if you could have moved this part of the lesson along a bit more quickly.
10. Do you think it would have been better to have had a. a list of possible
topics prepared b. 2/3 sample questionnaires prepared. (Move to Maze 7)
11. The students suggest that perhaps the right questions were not asked.
(Go to 6)

114 Judith Kennedy