Research on teaching and the education of teachers: Brokering the gap

A few thousand years ago, Aristotle pointed out a gap between academic (research) knowledge and practical knowledge. The former is abstract, a generalization based on careful reasoning from evidence. The latter is speci ﬁ c, context-speci ﬁ c. Consequently, factors other than research knowledge come into play when teaching and when preparing teachers. A brief history of research on teaching highlights some of its rich contributions to the understanding of teaching. However, its contribution to educating teachers has, following Aristotle, limitations. Much more is involved in contextualized decisions about teaching action than research can address. Research knowledge is limited, for example, in its ability to inform teachers when and how to act in a situation. It is also limited in its ability to inform teachers as to how they should act considering the moral and ethical consequences of that action. Teachers need and use practical knowledge. Imparting that kind of knowledge is central to educating teachers. The job of teacher educators is to bridge the research-practice gap in preparing new teachers and enhancing capacity of practicing teachers. In a sense, teacher-educators are brokers in a trading zone between research and practice. Brokers should be recognized and trained in that role to advance the education of teachers. This said, preparing brokers ﬂ uent in teaching practice and scienti ﬁ c research has its challenges. These challenges include convincing the public and policymakers that more than scienti ﬁ c evidence is needed in preparing and supporting teachers, and convincing higher education institutions that doing so is legitimate and should be respected along with other professional programs such as medicine, law, business, and architecture.


Introduction
About 2,300 years ago, Aristotle distinguished theoretical reasoning and argumentation from practical reasoning and argumentation (e.g., Fenstermacher, 1986).Theoretical reasoning involves both logical (a priori) and scientifi c (a posteriori, empirical or inferential) reasoning.Theoretical arguments focus on knowledge production and its justifi cation.Practical arguments involve action and the justifi cation for such action.Practical arguments depend not only on theoretical reasoning but also on contextual and ethical reasoning.Science, by its very nature, cannot be all that is needed to contribute to the improvement of professional practice.
My recognition of the difference between theoretical and practical argument and its consequence for empirical research informing practice is not new; obviously, Aristotle beat me to the punch a few years ago.Nevertheless, the point has also been made in various ways, especially by the philosopher, Gary D. Fenstermacher (1986; see also Berliner, 2020;Schön, 1983).Yet, somehow, the distinction gets lost in academic and policy discourse.Academia is all about theoretical knowledge, reasoning, and argumentation.Policy discourse purportedly seeks evidence-based or scientifi cally based education improvement (e.g., Shavelson & Towne, 2002).Policymakers and the public fear anything that lets the proverbial camel's nose under the tent, carrying a bag of Research on teaching and the education of teachers values.Nevertheless, evidence-based education and scientifi c research carry their own bags of values.Debates about research fi ndings and empirical models, for example, often resolve themselves into debates over hidden values (Shavelson, 2017).There must be more than research, then, to improving practice.
I begin this paper1 by selectively pointing out contributions that research on teaching have made to the education of teachers.I go back to the 1970s and 1980s, the heyday of research on teaching.The third edition of the Handbook of Research on Teaching (Wittrock, 1986) (Berliner, 1979) showed that the greater the amount of time students spent on academic tasks the higher their achievement.Research further refi ned these fi nding to show tasks of moderate diffi culty were most impactful.Indeed John (Jack) Carroll argued that time, and not achievement, was the most important factor in student success.An implication for teachers is that students need focused time on academic tasks that are within their grasp but a short stretch.
Walter Doyle (1986) among others opened the fi eld to the sociology and organization of classrooms in his research program.Activity structures, Doyle claimed, form the basic unit of classroom organization.An activity structure was defi ned as a short block of classroom time (10-20 minutes) in which number of students in the activity, physical arrangement in the classroom (e.g., seatwork, reading group) and shared behavioral expectations came packaged.Teacher behavior is systematically related to the affordances and limitations of the types of structures used in the classroom.Once a structure was identifi ed, the processes carried out were predictable.(Think of a primary school reading group sitting in a semi-circle around a teacher and activities therein.)Moreover, classroom management was embedded in activities; activities give classrooms «order,» time allocation and predictability (Doyle, 1986).Pre-and in-service teachers, then, might learn to distinguish and use, as appropriate, varying activity structures in their lessons.
Other research programs dealt with knowledge and structures of knowledge in a discipline.Researchers studied conceptions, misconceptions, and their implications for teaching science, mathematics, history, and so on.Pre-and in-service teachers, then, might come to understand untenable «mental models» (things fl oat because they are light; sink when heavy) and move students to increasingly defensible explanations.
The teacher cognition and decision-making program (e.g., Shavelson & Stern, 1981) recognized that other paradigms treated teachers as «black boxes»; the programs' focus were external to teachers' thinking, reasoning, decision-making leading to observable action.These programs only caught the emergent action.This program argued that the technical skills of teaching ignored teacher thinking and decision-making.What was important was the teacher's decision as to when to use which skill.Within this paradigm Shulman (1986, p. 26) formulated a version of his now famous pedagogical content knowledge framework: «I shall distinguish among three kinds of knowledge: content knowledge …, pedagogical knowledge … [and] curricular knowledge» (soon to become pedagogical content knowledge in his AERA presidential speech).Teachers, in-and pre-service, then, might be given opportunities to link content and pedagogy together in deciding what and how to teach in their lesson planning and their enactive teaching (e.g., Borko & Shavelson, 1983).
An important concept underlying this research program was that of «bounded rationality.»Human rationality is bounded by the brain's capacity to handle information.Tversky and Kahneman (1974) showed that people used judgmental heuristics to reduce this information overload.The cognition and decision-making program applied these ideas to teachers and their capacity to handle the vast and fast-moving informa tion in the classroom (e.g., Shavelson & Stern, 1981).For example, teachers had massive information about students garnered from their everyday interactions.Teachers had to orchestrate instruction taking into consideration goals, content, activities, and individual differences among students.And teachers operated within a classroom and school environment, environments that came with their own constraints and affordances.In order to handle information overload, we found that teachers fi ltered this information according to, for example, their beliefs about student capacity to learn and how one should teach, conceptions of the subject matter, and ability to handle cognitive complexity.They reduced instructional information overload by attending to or selecting some information and ignoring other information.Operating on information attended to, teachers reached judgments about (a) students' ability, motivation, and behavior, (b) content (e.g., content selection, student grouping, and activity selection, diffi culty level, and pacing) and (c) affordances and constraints within an institutional context.
Almost 25 years after the publication of the 3 rd Handbook, Seidel and Shavelson (2007) asked: «What do we now know about teaching effectiveness?»That is, we asked: «What teaching processes are likely to lead to positive student outcomes?»We compared two «theories»-research programs-as to their capacity to account for the link between teaching and student outcomes.One was Gage's process-product program of the 1970-1980s, and the other was a current (at the time) cognitive-modelsof-teaching-and-learning program.The former typically used teaching behavior that is distal from the central student process of learning while the latter used variables («executive processes») closely linked to student learning.We found that components of teaching that were distal to executive processes (domain of learning, organization of learning, social context, time for learning, goal setting, etc.) were not highly predictive of learning.However, as the components moved close to executive functions (execution of learning), they became more predictive of student learning (constructive learning, domain specifi city, social construction, goal directed, evaluative, and regulated).Focusing the enhancement of pre-and in-service education on cognitive teacher and student cognitive components directly related to learning, then, might very well improve teaching and learning.
Recently, discussion of teaching effectiveness has turned to teacher competence.The focus is on the teacher.The defi nition has been hotly debated.The question is: What is teacher competence?Is it a set of dispositions (cognitive, affective, and volitional) that underlie teaching?Is it actual, observable performance?Is it a capacity to reason practically and make decisions?Is it some combination?Blömeke, Gustafsson, andShavelson (2015a, 2015b;Blömeke & Kaiser, 2017) found a way through the debate recognizing that teacher competence is not binary but rather the defi nition falls along a continuum from dispositions to performance mediated by situation-specifi c perceptual, interpretative and decision-making skills.The model proved to be generative.Indeed, it has led to a great deal of research on teacher perception, interpretation, and decision-making.So, it stands as a modern-day extension of the teacher cognition and decision-making research program begun in the early 1970s.
Teacher perception of classroom behavior («withitness» in earlier days) using videos has infl uenced teacher education programs.Teaching videos and simulations inviting alternative interpretations and possible decisions about action have found their way into research on teaching and teacher education.
Research on teaching, then, has provided considerable academic knowledge for the preparation of teachers and for enhancing in-service teachers' competencies.Moreover, as the walk through the teacher cognition and decision-making program suggests, research has increasingly focused on teachers' impact on students' learning.Finally, the research and applications of this research have become increasingly situation specifi c-the application of (say) decision making in context.Yet not every situation can be incorporated into the preparation or enhancement of teachers' competencies.Other factors must be taken into consideration when acting practically and professionally.
There is a gap between generalizable academic knowledge and its practical application in context.

Suspicions that research alone is not going to improve teaching practice
In the late 1960s and early 1970s as a doctoral student at Stanford and a few years later a faculty member, I learned from my mentors that the link between psychological research and professional action was as follows: We did the research and built theories.Teachers took our theories and put them into practice.When our theories did not work well in context, we concluded that teachers had failed to translate, adequately, our research into practice.We ignored teachers' complaints that the theories did not meet practical needs.In late 1970s and 1980s we assumed that the «fi x» to the gap between research and teachers' implementation of it was a communication problem: Perhaps saying what we knew simpler (and lauder!) was the answer.David Krathwohl and later Lauren Resnick, as Presidents of AERA, established journals or projects that attempted to translate research into practice-the journals and projects were short lived.In the late 1980s and early 1990s I wondered whether the researcher's role in closing the research-practice gap was to change the «mindframes» of policymakers and practitioners (Shavelson, 1988).Perhaps research, by changing how a teaching or policy situation is viewed, could change practitioners' perceptions and decisions and, consequently, their actions.None of these attempts to bridge the research-practice gap succeeded in the end.Why might that be?Could it be that the challenge was thornier than we, the researchers, thought? 4 Others' claims that research alone is not going to improve teaching practice The answer has always been: «Yes, if we had only listened.»Aristotle had answered the question a couple of thousand years ago.Others throughout the ages sounded similar alarms.Embedded in their alarms came hints about ways forward in bridging the gap.John Stuart Mill (1882) sounded the alarm in the 19 th century: The art proposes to itself an end to be attained, defi nes the end, and hands it over to the science.The science receives it, considers it as a phenomenon or effect to be studied, and having investigated its causes and conditions, sends it back to art with a theorem of the combination of circumstances by which it could be produced.(Mill, 1882, p. 476) Note that, having received scientifi c wisdom and empirical fi ndings, Art examines these combinations of circumstances, and according to whether any are or are not within human power, pronounces the end attainable or not.Only one of the premises that Art supplies is the original major premise, which asserts that the attainment of a given end is desirable.Finding it also practicable, Art converts the theorem into a rule or precept.
Mill is trying to fi nd a way to determine whether science could warrant a specifi ed range of human action.The hint from Mill lies in the recognition of the interplay between Science and Art-both with equal standing.
William James (1983), at the turn of the 20 th century, sounded the warning about imposing psychological science on teaching: [Y]ou make a great, a very great mistake, if you think that psychology, being the science of the mind's laws, is something from which you can deduce defi nite programmes and schemes and methods of instruction for immediate school-room use.Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves.An intermediate inventive mind must make that application, by using its originality.(James, 1983, p. 15, bolding mine) James' hint is bolded in the quote.An intermediate inventive mind, one that knows the science and one that knows the professional practice.That inventive mind needs to be original.Every context is different, and cookie-cutter practical solutions or normative scientifi c statements are insuffi cient to the challenge.
Mid way through the 20 th century, Lee Cronbach (1975) observed: The special task of the social scientist in each generation is to pin down the contemporary facts.
Beyond that, he shares with the humanistic scholar and the artist in the effort to gain insight into contemporary relationships, and to align the culture's view of man with present realities.To know man as he is is no mean aspiration.(Cronbach, 1975, p. 126 (Brown, 1992, p. 141), iteratively working closely with a practitioner.This is intriguing but there are many teachers in the world, in many classrooms.Is this practical?Do such studies generalize (Shavelson, Phillips, Towne, & Feuer, 2003)?
Possible links between academic knowledge and practical knowledge Fenstermacher (1986, p. 43 The bridge between scientifi c research and practical action is suggested in the practical argument.For any teaching situation: 1.First ask pre-or in-service teachers «What do you believe should be done in the situation?»The question asks for a statement of their major premise for action.2. Next, ask them to justify their major premise.a) Probe their beliefs: What have they and other colleagues experienced as working in their classrooms?b) Then probe their scientifi cally justifi ed knowledge: What, if any, scientifi c literature supports their recommendation?3. Finally, probe further as to whether another major premise might be explored.Scientifi c research, then, is only one component of the practical action calculus.The practical action calculus includes (a) teachers' prior beliefs that exert a strong infl uence on teachers' actions, (b) signifi cant others' (teachers, administrators, teacher educators) practical experience in somewhat similar contexts, and (c) moral consequences of actions.Science supports or does not support a teacher's major premise for action; it can also infl uence what possible major premises a teacher considers.
So, the big question now is: «How to impact teachers' practical reasoning?»

6
What might teacher educators do to bridge research and context?
Attempts have been made to bridge research on teaching and professional practice.Many bridging practices survive in teacher education and enhancement programs because they appear to be useful, although their scientifi c justifi ability varies greatly.This is not surprising given the magnitude of the enterprise; wisdom of practice is an important ingredient in the practical argument.Hence, what I have to say here is likely to have been tried and either worked or rejected in one or another teacher education program.I begin with what does not work and then move to conjectures about what might.

What has not worked to improve teaching practice?
Most large-scale attempts to improve practice have not, to my knowledge, endured; they did not bridge scientifi c knowledge and practice in a practical, supportable way.Fenstermacher and Berliner (1983) pointed out years ago the untenability of the assumption (bridge) that teachers can transfer what is learned in their education program or professional development workshop to their local teaching context.Continuous, consistent follow-up in the teacher's classroom context is essential.Moreover, teachers need detailed feedback on how to improve performance.Maintaining such a systematic approach proves to be costly in time, money, and expertise.
A second doubtful bridge is to assume there is one best way to teach.A closely related bridge is to assume that all teachers should be prepared to teach this way.(Notice the practical argument with a major premise and decision but without the supporting evidence!)Such assumptions ignore teachers' beliefs and abilities and their students' beliefs and abilities.Enhancement of pre-and in-service teachers' competencies needs to consider teachers' dispositions, students' dispositions and adapt to them.Otherwise, I have found that teachers learn the vocabulary of change (e.g., vocabulary of guided inquiry science) and use it to describe their unchanged teaching practice (e.g., Shavelson, 2008;Shavelson et al., 2008).A third doubtful bridge is to create some form of researcher-practitioner partnership.University-school and researcher-practitioner partnerships are examples.Such partnerships tend to be short lived with little evidence of impact for a high cost in time, cost, and expertise.A fourth bridge that has not worked is to create research-based texts and other material to inform teachers of innovations.AERA presidents' attempts, as noted above, were short lived.

What might work?
So, what might work?I have a couple of ideas that I have mulled over for years.One idea comes from Fenstermacher's work on the practical argument.A second idea comes from the work of a physicist and historian of science.What follows is a set of conjectures that need testing.
Conjecture 1: Practical argument I wonder if the elements of the practical argument might provide a useful framework for improving (student) teachers' thinking and action.Suppose in university classes or teacher-enhancement workshops, (video) labs, and classroom practice teaching, (student) teachers are asked to justify and perhaps change the contents of their practical arguments.In a series of settings, they would be asked about their: -major propositions underlying action in a setting, -beliefs about teaching in this setting, -experience and that of peers in the setting, -scientific evidence (if any) that supports or not the proposed action, -moral consequences of the proposed action, -consideration of alternative courses of action.
Conjecture 2: Brokers working in a trading zone 5The second conjecture follows from William James noting that «Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves.An intermediate inventive mind must make that application, by using its originality» (James, 1983, p. 15, bolding mine).What might this intermediate, inventive mind look like?
Before answering this question, I need to sketch the notion of a trading zone.Galison (1997), a physicist and historian of science, noted that physicists working in the same area but in different research programs were like different subcultures speaking different languages.Even so, somehow, they develop «an interlanguage that could serve to bring theoretical commitments into contact» (Galison, 1997, p. 815).So, two cultures that think and speak to one another quite differently but that are highly motivated by the same general problem, develop a means to communicate.He noted, … anthropologists who regularly study unlike cultures that do interact, most notably by trade.Two groups can agree on rules of exchange even if they ascribe utterly different signifi cance to the objects being exchanged; they may even disagree on the meaning of the exchange process itself.Nonetheless, the trading partners can hammer out a local coordination despite vast global differences.In an even more sophisticated way, cultures in interaction frequently establish contact languages, systems of discourse that can vary from the most function-specifi c jargons, through semi-specifi c pidgins, to fullfl edged creoles … (Galison, 1997, p. 783) Suppose, then, that scientifi c researchers and teachers are two subcultures that think quite differently but share the goal of improving students' education.They fi nd themselves in a trading zone as each has something of value for the other.Coming together in a trading zone, they just might develop a common language to communicate even if it is a pidgin.This said, typically the two subcultures have not come together.
What is needed for this to happen?I believe a catalyst is needed to engage researchers and teachers in the trade of ideas and «goods.»What might such a catalyst look like?
In part, the catalyst might be James' inventive, original intermediary.Such a person must, as Galison suggested, have an interest in and understanding of both subcultures.That person would be able to broker the development of a pidgin to enable communication and trading.That person would engage in trading work: an exchange of ideas and values among social groups (researchers and practitioners), requiring «local coordination despite vast global differences» (Galison, 1997, p. 783).Such a person, then, would live between the world of research and the world of teaching with a fi rm grasp of both.She/he would be able to explain research fi ndings in a language the practitioner could understand and engage in a discussion of how generalizable scientifi c knowledge might be applied in a particular situation.(1983, p. 15) called an «inventive mind [to] make that application [of science to practice], by using its originality» and, I would add, experience.The brokers would be recognized for their excellence in both teaching and research (e.g., inquiry into classroom practice) and hold joint appointments in schools and the university.However, such teachers might be diffi cult to fi nd and diffi cult to recruit to a joint appointment.Even if found, those holding a fi rm understanding of research and its fi ndings and who can also apply it in a practical calculus for action would most likely be few.
Perhaps education faculties should consider a teacher-educator program that would prepare brokers.That is, perhaps faculties of education should seek outstanding teachers and former teachers in school and district leadership positions.These teachers would be invited to a degree program focused on preparing them at the university to understand, in practical ways, research and evaluation methods, and fi ndings and interpretations.They would be encouraged to explore their practical knowledge in explicating the role of research knowledge in the practical argument.Cases, videos, and the like would be used for discussion and guided practice emphasizing alternative ways to handle myriad teaching situations.At the master's level, the program might culminate in a product or a performance that demonstrates their capacity to broker the development of preservice teachers or practicing teachers.Graduates holding the master's degree might fi nd jobs spanning the schoolhouse and the university.They might take a leave from school for two or three years to teach in a university teacher-education program.Some may choose to continue their studies culminating in an Education Doctorate (EdD) rather than a PhD. 6At the doctoral level, students would conduct practical research on teaching, joining research faculty, teacher educators and brokers in doctoral training.
In the end, perhaps a new generation of teacher educators would evolve as well as a knowledge base for justifying practical arguments not only to colleagues but also to the public and policymakers.Concluding comment: Vision of a broker What might a broker look like?I recently read a recommendation letter for the appointment of a pediatrician to the faculty in a prestigious medical school.The letter is from a pediatrician who, as a student, was mentored over a 4.5-year period (from intern to fellowship resident) by the candidate.The letter captures the essence of what a teacher-education broker having received an EdD might look like.The letter writer describes the context in which trainees work long, overnight shifts under the tutelage of «attendings» (on-duty physicians responsible for mentoring trainees as well as treating patients): One of the side effects of having attendings in-house overnight, as is the case with many programs that staff this way, is that there can be a gradual loss of autonomy for the residents … Given this, one of the things that has always stood out about Dr. KSS, and also one of the things that I liked best about working with her, is that she would empower us to act autonomously within the appropriate limits of our stage of training.I use the word «empower» specifi cally because through a communication of expectations, thoughtful clinical discussions, facilitated contingency planning, and making herself available for debrief, the net result of working a shift with her was that I was typically aware of some amount of personal growth.
The letter writer goes on to describe the candidate's ability to develop the trainee's capacity to reason clinically: As a trainee, sorting out substance from style in a supervisor's clinical decision making can be a signifi cant challenge.Whenever I would bring a clinical question to Dr. KSS, or if we were debriefi ng about something that didn't go as well as it could have overnight, she was always very clear about what was evidence-based and what was a more stylistic issue.The fact that she could do this in a way that never felt judgmental is a testament to her professionalism and skill as a teacher.
The letter writer then turns attention to personal diffi culties of a trainee in a small, elite program.The trainee sometimes felt … like my early training blunders or struggles are hard to move on from.With Dr. KSS, I have always felt like she was only looking at my growth.Knowing that she trusted me was always considered the highest compliment.And I know from talking with my co-residents that this was a common sentiment.
The writer concludes with refl ections on a session at a fellowship conference where excellent clinical teachers/role models were identifi ed: Of course, the context and support in which teacher educators work is not the same as in medicine.Nevertheless, the characteristics of Dr. KSS serve as a vision of what to stimulate this explosion of research, especially in the U.S., Great Britain, Europe, and Australia.I cannot do justice to the over 1000 pages of the 3 rd Handbook.Consequently, my focus in summarizing the activities at the time will be on the teacher cognition and decision-making program.I do so because it has re-emerged today as a guiding force in teacher education.However, before giving an overview of this research program and its fi ndings, a brief sketch of the range of activity at the time and its relevance to teacher education today seems appropriate.
refl ects this high intensity research period.(To date, fi ve editions of the Handbook have been published. 2) However deeply involved colleagues and I were, research seemed insuffi cient to me.I briefl y sketch some of my suspicions.If these suspicions are halfway accurate, I ask what then are possible links between research knowledge and practical knowledge and action?I conclude by suggesting how teacher educators, trained as «brokers» in a knowledge trading zone might bridge the researchcontext gap.I am careful to suggest how to justify their actions to skeptical academics and policymakers.I conclude with a story of one such broker, albeit from medicine. 32 Contributions of research on teaching As mentioned, the 1980s (and 1970s) ushered in a fl ood research on teaching.(Note that this was research on teaching and not, as is popular today, research on teacher education.)So, this is where I looked for research's contribution to teaching.Nathaniel Gage's (1963) fi rst edition of the Handbook of Research on Teaching and especially his chapter on «Paradigms for Research on Teaching» was the major stimulus behind this activity.Both the emerging research programs and the research infra-structure came together

research bears on practice as it alters the truth or falsity of beliefs that teachers have, as it changes the nature of these beliefs, and it adds new beliefs
.» 4 Moreover, teaching is a moral act in context; scientifi c arguments alone do not bear on this aspect of teaching.Professional action, then, draws upon but rests on a different logic from theoretical (logical and scientifi c) reasoning.know this from my own and colleagues' practical experience in various circumstances.-I know this from what the scientifi c literature has suggested as a generalization although it is not a contextualized knowledge warrant.-Decision: I'll reframe the problem that the class is working on and see if the class gets back on track.

How might we move the practical argument agenda forward?
That same person would, in turn, translate -Incentives for the scholarship of teaching pre-service and in-service at the university (e.g., promotion, tenure, recognition of value and merit).-Financial support for creating joint research on practice among researchers, teacher educators, and teacher brokers.I wonder what it would take to prepare a cadre of «brokers» who could work in the «trading zone» between academic knowledge and practical knowledge.Such brokers would understand research evidence and have what William James Attributes mentioned included: knowledge, demonstration of clinical skills, excellent communication, having integrity, honest, provides feedback, setting expectations, enthusiasm, encouragement, creation of a positive learning environment, commitment to growth, models professionalism, and can adapt to learners needs.It is my sincerest hope that I have been able to convey above that I think Dr. KSS embodies all of these characteristics.