What to look for and what to do: Novice teachers' abilities for noticing and responding to their students' in-class inquiry

Inquiry-based teaching requires that teachers pay attention to their students' ideas and reasoning, and adapt their instruction accordingly. We analyzed 16 80-minute science lessons from 42 pre-service elementary teachers working in groups, in order to investigate "teacher noticing and responding" (TNR) abilities relating to student inquiry. Findings suggest that the pre-service teachers were able to identify and respond to a variety of aspects of their students' inquiry, although we identified disagreements between what they responded to and what we considered important aspects of student inquiry. These findings highlight an ongoing disagreement with prior research, which suggests that teachers' TNR abilities develop with time and teaching experience. Consequently we propose a general need for a better understanding of teacher cognition and development.