Research on instructional quality has long focused on teachers as the central unit of analysis. But what happens when we shift the perspective to students? Drawing on the concept of “studenting” (Fenstermacher, 1986) and video data from the INTERFACH Video Study — a multi-camera classroom study in 20 third-grade classrooms in Germany — this talk examines how primary school students engage with instructional tasks in mathematics and German language arts.

Using documentary video analysis, distinct modes of task engagement are reconstructed, spanning both social and subject-matter dimensions. The findings show how students — even when working on the same task — navigate its demands very differently across multiple interactional levels, often in ways that diverge from teacher intentions. The talk concludes with reflections on how a student-practice perspective can both complement and challenge existing frameworks in teaching quality research.

Join in person or online to attend at https://go.wisc.edu/715ord.