Adam Lefstein
Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Education, Faculty Member
- Classroom Interaction, Linguistic ethnography, Literacy, Genre, Pedagogy, Education, and 11 moreEducational reform, Teachers' professional development, Discourse Analysis, Classroom Discourse Analysis, Dialogue, Dialogic Pedagogy, Classroom Discourse, Rhetorical Strategies, Threshold concepts in Rhetorical Grammar, Grammar of Schooling, and Education Policyedit
Better than Best Practice offers a new way of thinking about classroom practice, professional development, and improving teaching and learning. This companion book and website together offer a selection of rich and realistic video-based... more
Better than Best Practice offers a new way of thinking about classroom practice, professional development, and improving teaching and learning. This companion book and website together offer a selection of rich and realistic video-based case studies, context and narrative, step-by-step guidance through key issues, and commentary and debate from a range of expert contributors.
Carefully chosen video clips from primary school literacy lessons show real teachers in a variety of often knotty situations: classroom conversations that take unexpected turns; grappling with assessment; managing disagreements, to name a few. The book explores the educational potential of classroom talk and, in particular, the promise and problems of dialogic pedagogy.
With an emphasis on the complexity and ‘messiness’ of teaching, Better than Best Practice considers how to learn from observing and discussing practice in order to develop professional judgment. It offers practical advice on how to organise and facilitate video-based professional development in which teachers share their practice with colleagues in order to learn from one another’s challenges, problems, dilemmas and breakthroughs. The book argues that critical discussions of practice, which highlight dilemmas instead of prescribing solutions, help to develop and support thoughtful, flexible, and insightful practitioners, who exercise leadership in directing their own professional development: an approach that is better than best practice.
Carefully chosen video clips from primary school literacy lessons show real teachers in a variety of often knotty situations: classroom conversations that take unexpected turns; grappling with assessment; managing disagreements, to name a few. The book explores the educational potential of classroom talk and, in particular, the promise and problems of dialogic pedagogy.
With an emphasis on the complexity and ‘messiness’ of teaching, Better than Best Practice considers how to learn from observing and discussing practice in order to develop professional judgment. It offers practical advice on how to organise and facilitate video-based professional development in which teachers share their practice with colleagues in order to learn from one another’s challenges, problems, dilemmas and breakthroughs. The book argues that critical discussions of practice, which highlight dilemmas instead of prescribing solutions, help to develop and support thoughtful, flexible, and insightful practitioners, who exercise leadership in directing their own professional development: an approach that is better than best practice.
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Research Interests: Psychology and Pedagogy
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Supplemental material, Appendix_B_JTE841895 for Teacher Face-Work in Discussions of Video-Recorded Classroom Practice: Constraining or Catalyzing Opportunities to Learn? by Dana Vedder-Weiss, Aliza Segal and Adam Lefstein in Journal of... more
Supplemental material, Appendix_B_JTE841895 for Teacher Face-Work in Discussions of Video-Recorded Classroom Practice: Constraining or Catalyzing Opportunities to Learn? by Dana Vedder-Weiss, Aliza Segal and Adam Lefstein in Journal of Teacher Education
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In this brief commentary, Lefstein reflects on the narratives about the purposes of East Asian science education in light of Neil Postman’s The End of Education. He identifies two narratives that dominate the chapters in this book: (a)... more
In this brief commentary, Lefstein reflects on the narratives about the purposes of East Asian science education in light of Neil Postman’s The End of Education. He identifies two narratives that dominate the chapters in this book: (a) the global competitiveness story, according to which science and technology education are critical to the development of a globally competitive workforce, and (b) the scientific literacy for civic participation story, which views science education as critical for a healthy deliberative democracy. These two narratives are compared to a third narrative, “the Fallen Angel,” offered by Postman, which sees in the learning of science a moral and epistemological opportunity to reflect on human fallibility and the dangers of dogmatism. Such a vision has the potential to inspire the learning of science for its own sake, as a topic which is an end in itself, since it is intricately tied to our humanity and its perfection. Lefstein argues that East Asian countries’ lofty standing at the top of the global league tables presents an excellent opportunity to engage in more critical and metaphysical reflection.
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What images come to mind when you think about in-service teacher learning? If you imagine a continuing professional development workshop, attended by teachers, facilitated by an outside expert, about the latest teaching policy or practice... more
What images come to mind when you think about in-service teacher learning? If you imagine a continuing professional development workshop, attended by teachers, facilitated by an outside expert, about the latest teaching policy or practice - then your thinking is safely in the mainstream of practice in the field. Though this mainstream practice has been widely criticized (TNTP, 2015), and its effectiveness questioned (Yoon et al., 2007), it remains the most common way of thinking about and enacting in-service teacher professional development (Darling-Hammond et al., 2009).
Research Interests: Sociology and Mainstream
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Supplemental material, Appendix_D_JTE841895 for Teacher Face-Work in Discussions of Video-Recorded Classroom Practice: Constraining or Catalyzing Opportunities to Learn? by Dana Vedder-Weiss, Aliza Segal and Adam Lefstein in Journal of... more
Supplemental material, Appendix_D_JTE841895 for Teacher Face-Work in Discussions of Video-Recorded Classroom Practice: Constraining or Catalyzing Opportunities to Learn? by Dana Vedder-Weiss, Aliza Segal and Adam Lefstein in Journal of Teacher Education
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Supplemental material, Appendix_A_JTE841895 for Teacher Face-Work in Discussions of Video-Recorded Classroom Practice: Constraining or Catalyzing Opportunities to Learn? by Dana Vedder-Weiss, Aliza Segal and Adam Lefstein in Journal of... more
Supplemental material, Appendix_A_JTE841895 for Teacher Face-Work in Discussions of Video-Recorded Classroom Practice: Constraining or Catalyzing Opportunities to Learn? by Dana Vedder-Weiss, Aliza Segal and Adam Lefstein in Journal of Teacher Education
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Background Research–practice partnerships (RPPs) are proliferating in education, generating increasing interest and posing many challenges. In this study, we shed light on the challenge of supporting practitioners> leadership and... more
Background Research–practice partnerships (RPPs) are proliferating in education, generating increasing interest and posing many challenges. In this study, we shed light on the challenge of supporting practitioners> leadership and building capacity in an RPP. In the RPP literature, practitioner leadership is often highlighted as both a way to improve design development and enactment and as imperative for capacity building and sustainability. However, cultivating leadership also creates challenges which have not yet been adequately explored. Purpose We explore these challenges and related dilemmas in a large-scale Israeli RPP designed to cultivate teacher leadership and build district capacity. We investigate how local actors asserted their leadership, the resources they drew upon, and the dilemmas this posed for us as researchers in an RPP. We critically reflect on how we addressed these dilemmas, and the consequences and implications of our courses of action. Setting This study e...
One influential way of thinking about teaching is to conceive of it as a clinical profession, similar in important ways to medicine. However, fundamental differences between doctors’ and teachers’ practice limit the usefulness of the... more
One influential way of thinking about teaching is to conceive of it as a clinical profession, similar in important ways to medicine. However, fundamental differences between doctors’ and teachers’ practice limit the usefulness of the medical model. How can we adapt our understandings of clinical practice in light of the unique aspects of teaching and the context of teachers’ work? In this article, we explore the requirements of the central clinical activities of diagnosis, treatment, and inference in teaching; how teachers tend to perform them; and how their performance is shaped by the context of teachers’ work. We elaborate each clinical activity’s characteristics and explore the unique features and limitations of teaching in relation to it. To account for teaching’s unique qualities, we propose adapting the clinical acts of diagnosis, treatment, and inference to include, respectively, prioritization and noticing, disciplined improvisation, and room to maneuver.
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Supplemental material, Appendix_E_JTE841895 for Teacher Face-Work in Discussions of Video-Recorded Classroom Practice: Constraining or Catalyzing Opportunities to Learn? by Dana Vedder-Weiss, Aliza Segal and Adam Lefstein in Journal of... more
Supplemental material, Appendix_E_JTE841895 for Teacher Face-Work in Discussions of Video-Recorded Classroom Practice: Constraining or Catalyzing Opportunities to Learn? by Dana Vedder-Weiss, Aliza Segal and Adam Lefstein in Journal of Teacher Education
Supplemental material, Appendix_C_JTE841895 for Teacher Face-Work in Discussions of Video-Recorded Classroom Practice: Constraining or Catalyzing Opportunities to Learn? by Dana Vedder-Weiss, Aliza Segal and Adam Lefstein in Journal of... more
Supplemental material, Appendix_C_JTE841895 for Teacher Face-Work in Discussions of Video-Recorded Classroom Practice: Constraining or Catalyzing Opportunities to Learn? by Dana Vedder-Weiss, Aliza Segal and Adam Lefstein in Journal of Teacher Education
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Dialogic pedagogy aims to promote deliberative democratic skills, virtues and practices within an equitable and empowering classroom environment. This article problematizes the practice of setting ...
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This study examines teachers’ justifications for their student sorting decisions in two Israeli secondary schools. Combining descriptive statistics and micro-ethnographic discourse analysis of 281 ...
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Classroom videos can make instructional practice public, cultivating collaborative, critical teacher discussions. However, video-based learning also involves a risk—the risk of hurting one’s own or a colleague’s public image, or face. In... more
Classroom videos can make instructional practice public, cultivating collaborative, critical teacher discussions. However, video-based learning also involves a risk—the risk of hurting one’s own or a colleague’s public image, or face. In this study, we investigate the role of face threat and face management in teacher professional learning in 16 cases of video-based discussions in six school-based teacher teams. We present findings about the prevalence of face-work, which inhibits or mitigates face threat, as well as an account of various face-work strategies. We illuminate the role face-work plays in shaping opportunities for teacher learning, by analyzing in detail one video-based discussion. This linguistic ethnographic analysis suggests that face threat and face-work in video-based learning are inevitable and have the potential to both catalyze and constrain productive pedagogical discourse. The study demonstrates the critical role of face-work in video-based teacher learning, a...
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Academic concepts, methods and research knowledge are often criticised as irrelevant or useless for addressing problems of educational practice. Liat, a full-time Science teacher and part-time Masters student, expressed this sentiment in... more
Academic concepts, methods and research knowledge are often criticised as irrelevant or useless for addressing problems of educational practice. Liat, a full-time Science teacher and part-time Masters student, expressed this sentiment in a recent seminar on ‘Discourse, Teaching and Learning’: ‘I’m four years into this degree [programme] and the academic world is truly irrelevant to that of the educational system. It’s all bullshit: research, research, research. Nothing at all relevant to schools, nothing.’ (We have translated this and all other quotations from the workshops from Hebrew; the original transcripts are available upon request.) This chapter is about our attempt to address this challenge by introducing educational practitioners to linguistic ethnographic research of classroom practice.
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Teachers and researchers look differently upon what happens in classrooms. They notice different phenomena, bring different perspectives to bear on their interpretations, and highlight different issues as worthy of further thought and/or... more
Teachers and researchers look differently upon what happens in classrooms. They notice different phenomena, bring different perspectives to bear on their interpretations, and highlight different issues as worthy of further thought and/or discussion. This project is about what happens to those differences when teachers and researchers come together to talk about video-‐recordings of classroom practice in professional development activities. It is about how they think about and address the gaps between their perspectives. It is about ...