TESSA Cases: Design and Use

In the TESSA environment, a case does not refer to a video, but rather a complete set of instructional materials, including one or more videos of classroom teaching, reflection questions (also known as prompts), one or more teacher reflection videos, access to selected peer responses, and access to related teaching resources (e.g., lesson plans, links to relevant URL’s).

The design elements around which TESSA cases are constructed include the following:

1. Contextualized Teaching Episodes – In recent years, content and methods courses have attempted to include opportunities for preservice teachers to experience learning science in ways that reflect various aspects of reform-oriented pedagogy. While these science learning experiences are powerful in that preservice teachers are engaged in ways that are often very different from how they learned science in schools, the connection to children and classrooms is still absent. The purpose of having contextualized teaching episodes drive the TESSA online environment is to provide preservice teachers with a shared experience with classroom practices that emphasize giving priority to evidence and explanation in science teaching to serve as the foci of discussion and reflection.
2. Scaffolded Reflection – The literature suggests that novice teachers’ reflections are often superficial because they experience difficulty focusing on the substantive aspects of teaching and learning in complex classroom environments. Reflection questions associated with each case are intended to assist preservice teachers in attending to fundamental aspects of teaching science as argument.
3. Monitoring Learning – TESSA users have the opportunity to make modifications to their responses to the reflection questions over time, as new information comes to light. For example, Modification 1 is not available until the preservice teacher views the Teacher Reflection Video(s). Various iterations of each user’s responses are saved and available for review when drafting modifications. In this way, preservice teachers can monitor changes in their own thinking across the development of a case.
4. Access to More Experienced Others – The development of the TESSA environment is heavily influenced by the notion of communities of practice. Each teaching video is connected with a teacher reflection video that highlights the classroom teacher discussing aspects of her lesson that are related to giving priority to evidence and explanation in science teaching. In this way, novices have access to more expert thinking and decision-making – an aspect of learning to teach that is typically transparent and unavailable for consideration. Another way in which preservice teachers have access to other members of the teaching community is by viewing selected peer responses. Instructors identify and make public particular responses based on their potential to promote lively discussion and advance the thinking of the group.

Constructing Cases

Unlike many multimedia case resources, TESSA cases are designed to be flexible in ways that allow instructors to intentionally intervene at various points in preservice teachers’ development with tailored support for learning to teach science as argument. Cases can be constructed using the following:

• Individual lesson or an episode from that lesson
• Multiple lessons that vary by content and/or grade level
• Multiple lessons from a particular unit of instruction

Moreover, cases can be constructed to reflect the following emphases, which reflect differing instructional purposes:

• Demonstrate a particular “best practice” associated with teaching science as argument;
• Highlight a “critical incident” (issues commonly associated with teaching science as argument);
• Provide illustrations of classroom practices that require the user to inductively generate fundamental “themes” associated with teaching science as argument.

Instructors must approach the Case Constructor tool with a particular pedagogical purpose in mind. They can either select from a library of existing cases, modify an existing case to suit their needs, or construct a new case. To build a new case, the instructor uses the Case Constructor tool to guide the process described below:

• Search the video library for one or more examples aligned with instructional goals;
• Select prompts from the collection that support the focus of reflection for the case, and/or develop unique prompts for the case;
• Select reflection video(s) from the library that are related to the teaching videos in the database; and
• Select additional teaching resources that are related to the purpose of the case.

This image depicts the TESSA online environment for a sample case in which one classroom teaching episode is used to focus preservice teachers on the ways in which a teacher can engage students in developing claims that are supported by evidence collected through their investigations of air and air pressure.