Teachers Do Not Make Mistakes? Two Explorative Case Studies
Relationships Between Biographical Aspects, Thinking And Behavioral Patterns And
Experiences In Classes. First Results Of A Qualitative Study On The Aspect Of
Dealing With Mistakes
Benjamin Apelojg
Abstract
This article provides some insights into the complex relationships between thinking and behavioral patterns, bio
graphical aspects and teaching style. The data was analyzed in the Grounded Theory tradition and with the help of
ATLAS.ti. The results presented here offer preliminary findings only since the research is still ongoing. The focus is
on the ways teachers deal with mistakes. Based on two case examples, it will be shown how the fear of making
mistakes can lead to teacher-centered lessons, and thereby limiting pupils' possibilities to learn autonomously.
Keywords
Dealing with mistakes, personal development, learning, teaching, effects on pupils, ATLAS.ti
Introduction
The question of what good teaching constitutes has been subject to many studies in the past (cf. Hattie,
2009; Meyer, 2004; Ricken, 2011). Some of the studies focus for instance on the biography of teachers,
teaching styles or teacher-student relations.1 These studies focus either on the narrative aspects of a
teacher biography, or on different structural and situational contexts. Less reflected are questions like,
How do teachers develop a "teaching personality", how can a good teacher-learner relationships be
built, or why do teachers become unable to cope with certain classroom situations?2 The present study
therefore combines the narrative side in the form of biographical interviews with self-documented expe.
riences of daily school life. The objective is to find
out more about the relationships between the bio.
graphical aspects and the thinking and behavioral
patterns in the everyday teaching context.
The motivation for this study arose when I was
supervising student teachers during their internship
semesters. While working with these students I
began to wonder about the kind of developments
these students were undergoing during their
internships and their future professional lives. As
part of the supervision, I asked students to prepare
a collage or mind map about their personal model
of "the good teacher." I analyzed twenty of these
1 For an overview of studies on teacher biography, see for instance Kunze & Stelmaszyk (2008; for an overview of
teacher professionalization, see Wieser (2008).
2 What good teaching requires is a question that can hardly be answered and is not supposed to be discussed in this
article. In his didactical concept, the author focuses on the learners' autonomous learning and the teachers' process-
oriented support. This involves for instance inquiry-based learning (cf. Apelojg, 2015).
Figure 1: Sub codes of the category "Super teacher"
TEACHERS DO NOT MAKE MISTAKES? TWO EXPLORATIVE CASE STUDIES
collages using a simple content analysis approach. Figure 2 shows one of the collages, and my coding in
ATLAS.ti:
Figure 2: Student teacher model about being a "good teacher"
In total, the analysis revealed three types of teacher models. One model I named the Ten Points of
Professional Teaching. These points were developed by Hilbert Meyer (2004), a well-known professor of
Didactics in Germany. Thus, the students were familiar with it and used it to create their models. The
codes "structured lessons" and "individual promotion," for example, were part of this model. The
second model I named The Super Teacher. In this model, you can find personal characteristics of how
students want to be, such as "the motivator" or "being flexible". Figure 2 shows codes of both models.
They have in common that a reference to personal needs and characteristics is completely missing.
Therefore, I describe these two models as Teacher Models Without Practical Experiences.
The third model, in comparison, contained elements with reference to practical experience like "want to
become strict" or "working on relationships". Hence, it was named Model of Development. Elements of
this model only occurred in collages of students who already had practical teaching experiences. When
discovering this, I wanted to find out more about how students develop their thinking and behavioral
patterns in daily school life.
Methodological Approach
The overall study objective was to identify and compile links between a person's biography, work experi.
ence, thinking and behavioral patterns, education, as well as its consequences for the teaching process
and the teacher himself. Therefore, I designed it as a longitudinal study (> 5 years). Most of the partici.
pants are students in their teacher training and are supervised throughout their practical training periods
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TEACHERS DO NOT MAKE MISTAKES? TWO EXPLORATIVE CASE STUDIES
(SPÜ)3. So far, seven females and one male student from the internship semester, one female trainee in
the official internship, one female teacher and one female university lecturer have participated in the
study. The choice to begin with female participants was made spontaneously. However, in the long run, I
would like to compare both male and female student teachers in order to identify possible similarities and
differences within and across gender groups.
All participants were given dictaphones to record personal thoughts about their own teaching and
teaching experience. No further instructions were provided. The aim was that they record whatever they
felt was important with as little influence as possible by the researcher (cf. the self-regulated interview,
Apeloig 2013). The self-regulated interview gives every participant the option to individually determine
topics and questions, and to record their thoughts at self-selected times, one or several times a day, or on
different week days. The recordings were made during the internship or during the semester and later
transcribed. In addition to the self-regulated interviews, narrative interviews were conducted (cf. Schulze
1977). The aim was to link the biographical data to the teaching activity. Furthermore, lesson plans,
teaching concepts, worksheets, and portfolios were also considered to be data. All of these data were
added for analysis to an ATLAS.ti project.
As analysis method, a Grounded Theory approach was chosen because it is well suited to discover new
insights.4 The software ATLAS.ti turned out to be an essential tool for data analysis in the context of this
study. I especially appreciate it for allowing me to develop the study in a successive manner through a
process of linking data with memos, categories, and codes.
Data Analysis
The Grounded Theory approach suggests an early analysis of the data. This permits to identify prelimi.
nary links, which potentially lead to further theory-generating questions in the process of developing a
subject-related theory (Straus, 1998, p. 44). One of these preliminary links that I found was the category
"dealing with mistakes." It emerged during the process of axial coding (cf. Strauss, p. 63) and led to a
number of further questions like:
What importance does "dealing with mistakes" have for the participants of the study?
Does tolerance towards mistakes play a different role in the period of the official internship as
compared to the internship semester?
What type of experiences appear to be basic for dealing with mistakes?
Which reported thinking and behavioral patterns support or hinder the tolerance towards
mistakes?
How do the teachers deal with their students' mistakes?
3 The SPÜ ("schulpraktische Übungen") are part of the teacher training bachelor program at a German University.
SPÜ are practical trainings where students get their first teaching experiences. Their practical task consists of
designing, implementing and reflecting on two classroom lessons. The internship semester – which is part of the
teacher training master program at a German University – is a practical training for future teachers, lasting a period
of three months. There, students are responsible for up to 96 school lessons in total.
4 For practical reasons this paper will refrain from giving a more detailed introduction to Grounded Theory.
Recommendable sources of information are Strauss (1998) or Breuer (2010).
3
TEACHERS DO NOT MAKE MISTAKES? TWO EXPLORATIVE CASE STUDIES
In order to find answers to these questions, I purposely selected a female teacher training student
(Ulrike) in the internship semester and a female university lecturer for a closer examination. The
following open coding is from the transcription of Ulrike's self-reports. Her self-report is about her
teaching experiences in a linguistics seminar. She decided to record her thoughts directly after the course.
In Figure 4 the original German transcript was translated into English. Ulrike speaks about her negative
feelings as a result of the lesson. In her eyes the students did not learn enough. This not only makes her
unhappy, she is also taking personal responsibility for it.
Open coding for me meant to go through the text and to name every part I deemed important. Figure 3
shows some codes that describe different feelings, like being unhappy or angry, and codes about the
activity and reaction of the students. These codes are merely descriptive. Figure 5 shows the same data
after developing the code system further. You can see that most of the code labels have changed and I
began to sort and order using prefixes like "D_" (=emotional dimensions), "LE_" (=lessons), "SD_"
(=self-description), "STUDENTS," and "SBT_" (=subjective theories).
Preliminary Findings
Case 1: Nadine is in her mid-twenties and grew up as the second child between her two brothers. Re.
garding her time at primary school, she only has positive memories. Her English teacher for instance en.
abled her to approach learning English as a second language without any pressure. She always had good
marks in primary school, which however changed when she moved on to secondary school (in Germany:
Gymnasium). "The fear that I might not understand something, or what would you do if you don't un.
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TEACHERS DO NOT MAKE MISTAKES? TWO EXPLORATIVE CASE STUDIES
derstand it? I was already blocked from the beginning…" (P3, 61:61). Learning, which was effortless be.
fore, became problematic when she went on to secondary school.
Nadine was a very quiet pupil, only raising a hand when being absolutely sure her answer was correct.
For her it was very important to avoid mistakes in order not to make a fool of herself. Due to the lack of
participation, her marks even got worse in certain subjects. To this day she primarily blames her teachers
for her weak performance.
Nadine's father, a doctor, expected his children to do their A-levels in order to go to university. He was
very upset because of Nadine's poor grades. Her father's expectations seemed to have served as an in.
centive as well as being a source of pressure for her to achieve good marks. As a child, Nadine never felt
totally accepted by her parents. While her brothers received a lot of attention, Nadine felt left alone. In
her diary she gave examples of activities her parents undertook with her brothers. Later she compared
this with how much (or little) attention she got from them. While reflecting on this, she came to realize
that her parents did not attend the parent-teacher conferences of her class, or supported her in choosing
a career. Even today, dealing with mistakes and being criticized cause huge difficulties for her. "During
my SPÜ I'm still allowed to make mistakes, but I think I won't in my internship semester" (P3, 50:51).
Nadine will soon finish her teacher training study program and has just completed the internship semes.
ter.
Case 2: Ulrike is a graduated ancient philologist in her early forties. She is married, has two children and
is working on her postdoctoral qualification. During her school time in the former GDR she never had
any problems. She always received very good marks and also achieved outstanding results in her A-
levels. Ulrike's father worked for the railroad and received his degree in engineering through second-
chance education. Her mother worked as a draftswoman. Ulrike herself says that her parents followed
her career with amazement and admiration. She completed her doctorate with the help of a scholarship
from the German National Academic Foundation. For her postdoctoral qualification she received a schol.
arship from the German Research Foundation (DFG).
Ulrike describes herself as a shy person who is not comfortable in large groups. She only finished the first
state examination of her teacher training because one of her professors recommended it. Her early
teaching experiences, however, showed that she actually did not want to become a teacher. "They (the
students) did as they pleased, it was terrible" (P 5, 12:12).
After her doctorate, Ulrike began teaching at the university as part of her job. In her first class, which she
had prepared meticulously, Ulrike passed out after a few minutes. Since that time she gave numerous
courses and at some point felt that she did not advance in her work as a lecturer. "I was sitting in front of
them asking questions, which they did or did not answer and I did not know what else I could do" (P 5,
23:24). In order to improve, Ulrike attended several advanced training programs in academic didactics.
Her school life and her professional career have so far been free from any disruptions, but often Ulrike
5
TEACHERS DO NOT MAKE MISTAKES? TWO EXPLORATIVE CASE STUDIES
feels insecure. This was reinforced by German reunification as this meant more uncertainties for the fu.
ture. She also experienced her own puberty as a very difficult time.
Both, Ulrike and Nadine are afraid of making mistakes and to make a fool of themselves. While that
means for Nadine to withdraw from challenging situation or to refuse learning, Ulrike worked very hard
to become an expert in her subject. Nadine is standing right at the beginning of her career as a teacher.
The internship semester serves as a test for her to see if she has chosen the right profession. Ulrike al.
ready teaches for many years as teaching is a part of her job as scientific researcher.
The aim of the following section is to examine how the category dealing with mistakes influences the
preparation and the actual teaching of a lesson.
Nadine – Everything Is Under Control
At the beginning of the semester, Nadine illustrated her own teaching concept: As a teacher she wants to
"take everyone along" (P320, 14:15) and she wants to treat all pupils equally. She wishes for harmonic
lessons in which her work is appreciated and acknowledged through the pupils' active participation.
Hoping that the pupils want to have a "nice" teacher, she wants to be their caring and an always ap.
proachable friend. During her first lessons in economy-work-technology (German: Wirtschaft-Arbeit-
Technik) she teaches healthy nutrition. This is a topic that is very dear to her, and she plans out these
lessons in great detail. However, her lessons in the seventh and tenth grade do not go as expected. The
seventh grade pupils often disturb the lesson, make a lot of noise, and sometimes it is hardly possible to
work constructively. From her supervisor she receives the feedback that she is being too nice:
"…that clear rules have to be set first and you need to reprove every small interruption. Only then
you're allowed to loosen the reins. It's a shame that the pupils themselves demand it that way"
(P357, 30:32).
To combat the noise in class, Nadine tries to tighten the reins. You can tell that it is difficult for her to
operate against the pupils' disinterest. After three weeks of work she states in frustration on her
recording, "I've done what's required of me" (P356, 1:1).
Nadine's lessons are strongly teacher-centered, which means that she is mostly standing in front of the
class presenting the topic or moderating a teacher-pupil-discussion. These methods mostly demand veri.
fiable knowledge. She interprets the pupil's disinterest as a lack of appreciation of her own preparatory
work. It is difficult for her to accept poor motivation as a permanent factor when teaching children or
teenagers. Therefore, she struggles to develop strategies to enhance motivation. Linking this to the bio.
graphical information she has provided in the narrative interview, she risks to fall into the same trap as in
her own school days—to withdraw from the situation and to blame the pupils for the problems in class.
Her manner of dealing with mistakes is a pattern she acquired during childhood and reinforces her
teacher-centered way of teaching. In doing so, she increasingly has to show severity. At the end of the
internship semester, Nadine's teaching concept included new objectives like "being more consistent,"
6
TEACHERS DO NOT MAKE MISTAKES? TWO EXPLORATIVE CASE STUDIES
and "saying no" once in a while. The caring and friend-like aspects has vanished from her teaching con.
cept. From the supervisor's point of view, it would be helpful for Nadine to learn that teachers have to
try out what works and what does not. The fact that Nadine likes her profession and wants to give good
lessons can help her in doing so. But her current way of dealing with mistakes is problematic as she does
not accept mistakes as part of her professional development.
Ulrike - Only The Best
A central occupation of ancient philologists is working with texts. For years, Ulrike has been analyzing
Latin and Greek texts. Already in her school days she was afraid of being insufficiently prepared. "I al.
ways thought to be badly prepared and was always very well prepared" (P5, 12:12). Ulrike's concern of
being under-prepared, and her intrinsic motivation for her subject, resulted in meticulous preparation for
all her courses. After several years of teaching, she reached a point where she as a teacher was not
developing anymore. Therefore, she decided to undergo advanced training in academic didactics with
the aim of learning how to give less teacher-centered courses. Based on this training, she adopted the
technique of group work. Her concept for the group work in her lessons is to have students read and
discuss a text and to express their opinions critically. At the same time, Ulrike does not abandon the idea
that a course has to have certain results. "What troubles me is that the teacher-centered classes work
better and appeal more than the group work that I prepared with so much dedication" (P62, 29:30). The
tasks Ulrike chooses for the work in groups are often aimed at a certain output and do not enable an
open and critical exchange. Ulrike is stuck in her dilemma of perfectionism while wishing for more
student participation. Although she is aware of the reasons for her teacher-centered way of teaching and
wants to change the situation, she falls back into her old patterns of teaching. Also, here we see a link
between her biography and her teaching style.
It is possible that Ulrike's fear of being insufficiently prepared holds her back from posing questions that
are more open. Allowing for more openness could result in a situation in which she does not know the
answer to a question. Besides that, the group work may be of lesser quality than expected from her.
Speaking from a supervisor's position again, Ulrike possesses all qualifications to prepare competence-
oriented courses. In order to allow learning in a more open way, she needs to accept that students, too,
have to develop, and teachers do not need to know the right answer to every question.
The following explorative network shows the relation between different thinking and behavioral pat.
terns, the experiences of teaching and the teaching styles of the two teachers.
7
TEACHERS DO NOT MAKE MISTAKES? TWO EXPLORATIVE CASE STUDIES
Conclusion
How students and teachers deal with mistakes is influenced by a variety of factors. Both Ulrike and Na.
dine feel a high responsibility for the learning success of their students. At the same time, they have a
low fault tolerance—especially for their own faults. This could also be found in their biographical narra.
tives. Moreover, their biographies also revealed different patterns of dealing with their low fault toler.
ance. In both cases, the experiences made during the internship semester collided full force with their
wishes, perceptions and ideas about teaching. This was no different for the more experienced teacher Ul.
rike where modern teaching methods did not fit her perception of self-responsibility for the learning suc.
cess. Putting on the supervisor hat, my recommendation based on this study is that emphasizing a new
and positive way of dealing with mistakes in combination with reflecting on personal patterns of dealing
with certain situations could motivate students to work on themselves as individuals to overcome these
patterns and to improve their teaching style.
From a methodological perspective, the case study has shown how important it is to link biographical
data to the teaching experience of teacher students. The self-guided interview had the advantage that
the students could report on everything that came to their mind. In addition, it motivated self-reflection
which provided valuable insights.
ATLAS.ti allowed to bring in all of this material into a one project, including lesson plans, portfolios,
teaching concepts and worksheets. During the analysis process, I could link the biographical narrative to
the reports on the teaching experience, review the associated teaching concepts and the materials pre.
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TEACHERS DO NOT MAKE MISTAKES? TWO EXPLORATIVE CASE STUDIES
pared for each lesson. This enabled me to develop a comprehensive picture of each case and eventually
will support me in developing a more general applicable subject-related theory.
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About The Author
Benjamin Apelojg
Scientific employee for economic education at the University of Potsdam (Lehreinheit für Wirtschaft-Arbeit-
Technik). Research topics: Development of teachers personality; role of emotions for learning and new ideas in
didactics; concept of process-orientated didactics (see: http://www.uni-
potsdam.de/meprooek/index/prozessorientiertedidaktik.html). Email: [email protected]
Article Information
This article is published at the institutional Repository of Technische Universität Berlin, DOI
10.14279/depositonce-5159, http://dx.doi.org/10.14279/depositonce-5159. It is part of ATLAS.ti User Conference
2015 – Qualitative data analysis and beyond, edited by Susanne Friese and Thomas Ringmayr. Berlin:
Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin, 2016, ISBN 978-3-7983-2822-8 (composite publication), DOI:
10.14279/depositonce-5079, http://dx.doi.org/10.14279/depositonce-5079
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