ABSTRACT

The lesson segment discussed in this chapter was the first episode of classroom instruction analyzed by the University of California, Berkeley’s Teacher Model Group (TMG). It was brought to our attention by Daniel Zimmerlin, a TMG member and the Academic Coordinator of Berkeley’s secondary mathematics and science teaching program, the Masters and Credential in Science and Mathematics Education (MACSME). Mark Nelson, a student teacher in MACSME, had taught the lesson as part of his student teaching assignment. Zimmerlin had observed the lesson, which was videotaped for purposes of Nelson’s reflection. Nelson was unhappy with one segment of the lesson, and told Zimmerlin that he wanted to think more about it. The two of them first discussed the lesson segment in a post-lesson debriefing, with discussions continuing in Zimmerlin’s campus-based Supervised Teaching Seminar. Many of the issues that arose in those conversations echoed issues that were being considered in the TMG, and Zimmerlin suggested that the TMG might want to analyze the tape of Nelson’s lesson. We did so, with Zimmerlin playing an active role in the analyses and with Nelson serving as informant. The first analysis of the lesson segment was written up by Zimmerlin and Nelson (1999). This chapter builds on the analysis in that paper and a subsequent analysis in Schoenfeld (1998b).