Noticing and Instructional Vision: A Reflection Tool to Support Pre-service Teachers' Development within Argumentation-Focused Discussions

Practice-based teacher education is an approach used to support pre-service teacher (PST) learning of core teaching practices by closely examining and engaging in the practices themselves. Digital simulations are one tool used in PBTE which enables PSTs to focus their attention on aspects of teaching outside of the full demands of classroom teaching. In this descriptive case study, we focus on a Reflection Framework Tool used to support PSTs to debrief their experience facilitating an argumentation-focused discussion in a digital simulation. We report on the ways in which the Reflection Framework Tool provided insight into two PSTs' noticing and instructional visions, as well as the features of the tool that supported their learning. The Tool articulated a vision of argumentation-focused discussions and provided PSTs prompts on which to reflect, focusing their noticing on important aspects of argumentation-focused discussions. We argue that the Reflection Framework Tool guided PSTs' noticing by asking them to provide evidence from their discussion videos of alignment to the vision as articulated. It also gave the teacher educator insight into their instructional visions: where they showed evidence of alignment and where they were still developing. Findings indicated that PSTs noticed evidence from their discussions of teaching moves that supported argumentation-focused discussions. Both PSTs were aligned to the vision in some ways, but their conceptions were still developing. The scaffolded reflection format around which this study centered can be useful to teacher educators who want to support their PSTs to reflect in meaningful ways.