Characterizing novice and expert teachers’ professional vision of classroom management

To manage a classroom efficiently, teachers need to perceive important classroom management events, interpret them, and decide on next strategies; in other words, they need a professional vision of classroom management. However, new teachers often struggle with these skills. This chapter presents a study of 20 novice and 20 expert teachers which was conducted to uncover differences between both groups. Teachers watched video clips of two instructional settings (whole-group instruction and partner work), and their verbal analyses of classroom management events were collected. Content analysis was conducted with respect to the events identified as important, the focus of comments, and the evaluation of the observed classroom management events. Instead of frequencies, proportions of codes were investigated in order to learn more about teachers’ priorities. Experts prioritized students more than novices, which in turn were more concerned with the teachers’ reactions to misbehavior. Both groups of teachers varied considerably in their evaluations of the observed classroom management events. Overall, the partner work setting was more challenging for novices. The study adds new insights beyond whole-group instruction by including partner work and beyond managing student behavior by including managing instruction and relations. Possible conclusions and implications for research and teacher education are discussed.