“Like a Ball and Glove”: Teachers’ Conceptions of the Promise and Challenges of Conducting Classroom Inquiry

ABSTRACTTeacher inquiry holds promise in teacher education, but only if student teachers take up inquiry practices as they leave preservice and transition to teaching. As they learn to conduct inquiry during preservice, student teachers may begin to internalize dispositions that promote ongoing inquiry experiences. Through analysis of questionnaires conducted at preservice and inservice, and through a focus group discussion, the authors sought to understand how teachers who had experienced one scaffolded, student-focused, and data-based preservice teacher inquiry model conceptualized the relationship between teaching and inquiry. Analyses revealed that teachers’ conceptions cast inquiry overall as a tight fit with teaching in three ways: by fostering a focus on students, by generating metacognitive knowledge about inquiry as a useful classroom process, and by deepening teacher knowledge about ways to respond thoughtfully to diagnosed student need. Analyses suggest program model elements may have seeded th...