Teachers' Aesthetic Judgments of Classroom Events

Abstract

This paper introduces and articulates the contours of a novel component of teacher noticing and thinking—teachers’ aesthetic judgments of classroom events. By aesthetic judgments, we refer to teachers’ rapid recognition of particular classroom events as having a certain character or quality, such as students being highly engaged or having a “good” conversation. Drawing on a definition from diSessa (1993) of an aesthetic as a loose knowledge system that operates in a data-driven manner, we highlight how such judgments appeared and functioned in the context of teachers selecting video clips from their own classrooms to share in an online professional development course. We describe a range of aesthetic judgments evident in this context to illustrate what aesthetics may involve and sound like in practice and to highlight domains in which teachers may draw on influential aesthetics. We conclude with consideration of related empirical and theoretical issues.