What are dispositions for teaching?

When we think about what teachers need to know and be able to do, it lends itself to thinking about the head and the hands of teaching: content knowledge (head) and pedagogical skills (hands). Dispositions fleshes out this body by adding the heart and embodiment of teaching in relationship to others. Viewed this way, dispositions are the more intangible aspects of teaching – sometimes referred to as the “moral dimension” of teaching.

To be a successful teacher, you must be knowledgeable about content and pedagogy, skillful in how you translate knowledge and facilitate learning for your students, and committed to forging relationships and building a classroom community so that all students learn at the edges of their abilities.

The commitments you make as a classroom teacher are evident in the pedagogical choices you make, the curriculum you write, your interactions with students, teachers, colleagues, families, and community members, and in the ways you carry yourself as an educator. We call these dispositions for teaching.

During a teacher licensure program, all teacher candidates are assessed on knowledge, skills, and dispositions. Supervisors, methods instructors, common content instructors, and cooperating teachers all serve as dispositional coaches and the MnEDS system is intended to facilitate coaching and communication across all of these educators.

Can dispositions be developed?

Because dispositions are often rooted in lived experiences, historical and cultural knowledge, and relationships with others, they are not fixed. While some people may be more likely to enter into teaching with teaching dispositions that promote more equitable and successful learning environments for their students, each of us carry misconceptions, biases, and blindspots. MnEDS intends to both highlight and hone the dispositions a teacher brings that allows students to experience high degrees of success. The MnEDS system also aims to recognize and change the dispositions that create environments where students may be marginalized, ignored, or harmed.

In recent years, teacher education has become more sophisticated in its understanding and practices of framing dispositions as professional commitments to children, not as political stances or religious values. Teacher education is working through what it means to assess these dispositions in careful, robust ways for beginning teachers. In 1997, the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education assembled a task force to explore the role of dispositions in teacher education programs. Their work was sustained through the years, and in 2006 this task force began work on a publication that resulted in the 2010 book Teaching as a moral practice: Defining, developing, and assessing professional dispositions in teacher education. The authors conclude:

Dispositions are neither invisible aspects of a teacher’s psyche nor fixed personality traits. They are commitments and habits of thought and action that grow as the teacher learns, acts, and reflects under the guidance of teachers and mentors in a preparation program and in the first year of practice. They are visible in a teacher’s decisions and actions over time and especially in the teacher’s reflections about the consequences of those decisions and actions. Because dispositions are interdependent with knowledge and skills, their cultivation is tied to the conceptual understanding, refinement of skills in guided application, and thoughtful reflection on practice. (pp. 14-15)

As humans, we are always changing as we come into contact with different ideas, environments, peoples, and knowledge. MnEDS views this as a powerful potential to continue to develop dispositions that support humanizing, fascinating, and empowering learning spaces for learners--in particular those who have not had consistent access to equitable educational experiences. Such learning spaces reflect students’ languages, ways of knowing and learning, and community-cultural histories in the curriculum. They also take up pedagogical designs that draw out multiple perspectives and pathways to making sense of the world.

What do we mean by the “moral” dimension of teaching?

We use “moral” similar to John Dewey (1909), in that moral dimensions of education involve constantly asking questions and facing the implications of those answers to adapt and shift our teaching and learning practices. This includes figuring out

➔ the purposes of education, in the immediate and life-long timeframes

➔ the hopes for school climate felt by those who spend the greatest amount of time in schools

➔ the desires for the kind of instruction that will engage, fascinate, and challenge

➔ the content of the curriculum to represent, provide multiple perspectives, and to challenge thinking and assumptions

➔ the psycho-social impact of learning and agency of thinking in schools.

Teacher candidates bring with them their early constructions of their professional identities—how they see themselves in the role of teacher and what they ought to do. Teacher preparation must help these candidates to understand how their ethical agency—what they choose to do in classrooms—is part of how they build respectful relationships with learners and take on responsibilities of being a teacher. You will see in the following strands and rubrics descriptions of these commitments and responsibilities to learners and colleagues, designed to provide guidance for educators in their cultivation of dispositions toward teaching for greater equity in schools.

MnEDS™ Research Group