4 PRIMARY TEACHERS WORK TO DEFINE CONSTRUCTIVISM AND TEACHER-DIRECTEDLEARNING - IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHER ASSESSMENT

In this article we analyze audiotaped and transcribed discussions amon g a group of teachers and a researcher working together to describe an d implement instructional conversations-a form of constructivist teach ing. The second author and 4 teachers began working together as part o f a larger university and school collaboration to improve language art s instruction at a predominantly Latino school in the Los Angeles area . 3 of the teachers taught in Spanish as part of the bilingual program for native Spanish speakers. We present here our analysis of the grou p's first 9 (of 30) meetings during a school year. The meetings consti tute a case of teachers grappling with how to conceive, understand, an d ultimately synthesize different models of teaching. The group's init ial goal was to develop curriculum and instruction that improved stude nts' literacy attainment and were consistent with the state's new lang uage arts framework. In the course of their work, the group discovered that the search for new teaching approaches does not require abandoni ng more ''traditional'' tools of the trade. To the contrary, the proce ss of defining traditional modes of instruction helped teachers concep tualize and operationalize the alternative to which they aspired. We r aise a number of critical issues related to conceptualizing frameworks for teaching and developing new teacher assessments. We argue that ne w assessments should reflect a comprehensive view of teaching that dra ws from a broad continuum of teaching models, synthesizing that which is often dichotomized.