Teachers' schemata for classroom events: The mental scaffolding of teachers' thinking during classroom instruction

Researchers have shown that experts and novices differ in their recall, representation, and analyses of problem situations. This study investigated whether such differences existed between novice and experienced high school teachers in their recall and analyses of problem events during interactive teaching. Experienced and inexperienced teachers (n = 10 in each group) completed cognitive ability tests and were interviewed after viewing three videotaped vignettes of interactive teaching. In contrast to novices, experienced teachers both recalled more classroom events and relied more on procedural knowledge and principles in analyzing classroom events. These differences may indicate that experienced teachers have better developed knowledge structures of "schemata" for classroom teaching than do novice teachers.