Using a rubric as a mediational tool to assess pre-service immersion teacher development

Abstract

Abstract Dual language and immersion (DLI) teaching requires knowledge and pedagogical skills focused on language and content integration (e.g., Cammarata & Tedick, 2012; Lyster, 2007; Tedick & Cammarata, 2023). Recent scholarship has begun to articulate how best to prepare DLI teachers with such knowledge and skills (e.g., Cammarata & Haley, 2017; Tedick et al., 2024; Tedick & Zilmer, 2018). This study adds to this work by exploring how a DLI-specific teacher assessment rubric mediates the learning process. Researchers created a DLI-specific rubric to aid pre-service teacher candidates (TCs) in developing skills related to content and language integration. The case study explores one TC and one supervisor’s experiences with the rubric. Data sources include audio “diaries” and video-recordings of post-observation conferences between the two participants. Qualitative inductive analysis led to sociocultural concepts (Vygotsky, 1978) as explanatory tools for understanding the role of the rubric in the TC’s learning and supervisor’s mentoring.