A descriptive study of experienced and novice teachers’ interactive instructional thoughts and actions

The goals of this study were: (1) to develop a methodology for describing competent classroom teaching performance; and (2) to-analyze components of competent classroom decision making to be used in improving preservice and iaservice teacher training programs. The study investigated differences in: (1) experienced and novice teachers ' reports of cue influence during interactive instruction; (2) actions evoked by cues; (3) goals pursued; and (4) associations betieen categories of cues and actions. Stimulated. recall data were collected from three experienced and five novice teachers during small group instruction settings at a university laboratory school. Results showed that, while both experienced and novice teachers attended to the same number of cue categorieg, experienced teachers used twice as many kinds of instructional actions and considered a greater variety of goals while exhibitin