Publications & Presentations

Teacher cognition during monitoring behavior: A case study

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Winter 2000

Abstract

Physical education teachers spend a significant amount of time silently observing the learning environment. This behavior is referred to as monitoring. Little is known about what instructors are doing cognitively as they monitor. The purpose of this study was to establish a means by which an instructor's thoughts could be sampled during monitoring behavior and to classify those thoughts. Data were collected over an eleven-week period during twenty-two classes. The subject was a twenty-three year old male. Two hundred and seventy-eight thoughts were sampled. The subject of this study was found to be very active cognitively while engaging in the behavior of monitoring. Most often the subject's thoughts were concerned with the Behavior of students (29%) and Performance (25%). The subject evaluated and planned Teaching (11%), was concerned with Motivation (8%) as well as the Management/Organization (8%) of the class. The subject thought about Other Teachers (6%) working in the school. Personal thoughts (8%) were generally related to some aspect of the learning environment. Observations were also made concerning the physical attributes (4%) of students. The subject was not cognitively active one percent of the time.

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