The moderating effect of instructional conceptions on the effect of powerful learning environments

This study aimed at experimentally investigating the moderating role of instructional conceptions on the effectiveness of powerful learning environments (PLE) designed in line with the four-component instructional design model (4C/ID-model). The study also investigated the influence of learning in a 4C/ID PLE on students’ instructional conceptions. To achieve its goal, a study with a one by one by two pre-test post-test quasi-experimental design was done. Three functionally equivalent classes of students from three similar (secondary technical) schools were randomly exposed to three different treatments. The participants consisted of 129 (47, 41, 41) students. The treatments were one control group with a regular method of teaching, and two experimental groups: a 4C/ID PLE with ICT, and a 4C/ID PLE without ICT. The instructional conceptions questionnaire was administered both in the pre-and the post-test to assess students’ instructional conceptions. Pre- and post-tests contain retention and transfer items. Technical teachers were trained to implement the interventions. In contrast to expectation, findings show no moderating effects of students’ instructional conceptions on the learning environments. Finally, the results indicate that students’ instructional conceptions positively change after implementation of the three interventions. The theoretical, research, and practical implications of the results for the instructional design and technology community as well as educational practice are discussed.     

Student restraints to reform: Conceptual change issues in enhancing students' learning processes

Considerable research has been published on students' alternative conceptions of science concepts and the means of addressing those alternative conceptions. However, few studies have been reported on students' conceptions of learning and consequent learning processes and attempts to change such conceptions and processes. Recent research has shown that students' beliefs can act as barriers to the implementation of educational reforms that aim to alter students' learning processes. In this study an interpretive methodology was employed by a teacher participant-observer to investigate barriers to students' adoption of an alternative referent for learning and its consequent learning strategies in a Grade 11 chemistry class. Student narratives suggest that both “cold” and “hot” contextual factors influenced students' willingness to adopt an alternative referent. The consideration of “hot” factors, including students' beliefs, trust of the teacher, and ownership of the change process, is necessary if such change is to be understood more fully. The value and difficulties of a teacher adopting this researcher's perspective are also explored.     

University students’ and teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning in the biosciences

In this study we compare university teachers’ and first-year students’ conceptions of teaching and learning at the Faculty of Environmental and Biological Sciences. The conceptions were analysed using data from open-ended questionnaires. The results showed that at the beginning of studies the gap between teachers’ and students’ conceptions of teaching and learning is substantial. This finding has important implications for the educational process. In order to enhance successful studying from the beginning of students’ university careers, it is important for teachers to become aware of the differences between students’ and teachers’ conceptions of learning.     

Constraints on Conceptual Change: How Elementary Teachers’ Attitudes and Understanding of Conceptual Change Relate to Changes in Students’ Conceptions

Like their students, teachers may hold a variety of naïve conceptions that have been hypothesized to limit their ability to support students’ learning. This study examines whether changes in elementary students’ conceptions are related to their teachers’ content knowledge, attitudes, and understanding of conceptual change. The study takes place in the context of the adoption of a new unit on seasonal change in which students build and use sundials to observe seasonal differences in the apparent motion of the Sun across the sky. A mixed-method approach is used. Data sources include pre- and post-tests for students and teacher interviews and questionnaires. Results indicate that changes in students’ conceptions may be related to their teachers’ knowledge of the content, attitudes toward science, and understanding of conceptual change. One teacher had low attitude toward science and limited knowledge of conceptual change. After instruction, her students’ responses became less accurate but more homogeneous than before instruction. The other teacher had high attitude and moderate knowledge of conceptual change. Her students showed gains from pre- to post-test, including responses that were more scientifically accurate than the teachers’ initial answers.     

Assessing college students’ perceptions of a case teacher’s pedagogical content knowledge using a newly developed instrument

Ongoing professional development for college teachers has been much emphasized. However, previous research on learning environments has seldom addressed college students’ perceptions of teachers’ PCK. This study aimed to evaluate college students’ perceptions of a physics teacher’s PCK development using a newly developed instrument and workshop intervention. A mixed method design was employed incorporating both quantitative and qualitative techniques. The survey “Assessing Students’ Perceptions of College Teachers’ PCK” was adopted as the instrument of research. This survey was conducted twice in this study; with the pre-test carried out during the mid-term exam and the post-test given in the last week of the semester. The results indicate that only SMK and IRS showed significant difference in the four categories of the survey, while IOC and KSU did not. Furthermore, the organized workshops helped the case teacher to better understand students’ prior conceptions of the subject matter and learning difficulties, and further facilitated her adjustment of instructional strategies. The limitations of this study are discussed and suggestions for improvement are also provided.     

An Experiment in Teaching Ratio and Proportion

This paper summarizes our analysis of the complexity of ratio problems at Grades 6 and 7, and reports a two-year experiment related to the teaching and learning of rational numbers and proportionality in these grades. Two classes were followed and observed. Part of the teaching material was common to both classes, mainly the objectives and the corpus of ratio problems in a physical context. But in one class, here called “Partial-experiment”, the learning environment was exclusively a paper-pencil one and the teacher followed his usual method in designing and conducting teaching sequences. In the other class, here called “Full-experiment”, the teaching was based on a framework, emerging from our analysis of complexity of ratio problems, involving precise guidelines and a specific computer environment. Using a pre-test and a post-test, we observed clear progress in both classes compared to a sample of “standard” pupils. Our comparative pupil-oriented study indicates more complete improvement in the “full-experiment” class, i.e., a better acquisition of fractions and their use for solving usual proportionality problems. The average pupil’s progress is greater in the “full experiment”, with the pupils who were initially high- or low-level attainers benefiting the most from the “full-experiment”.     

What starts to happen to assessment when teachers learn about their children’s informal learning?

Classroom assessment practices are greatly influenced by national and local policies on assessment. Typically, these include accountability requirements for schools to evidence and report their students’ learning in the form of specific learning outcomes, calibrated against national benchmark standards of achievement and progression. An implication for teachers is that their understanding of children’s learning is influenced by an official curriculum that is more likely to be weighted towards particular policy priorities, and desired learning outcomes. This means the knowledge, skills and understanding that children develop outside school are less likely to be included in classroom assessment measures or judgments about desirable progress and achievement. This article explores what happens to teachers’ thinking when they learn about their children’s informal learning outside school and begin to relate to learners in a different way. The findings reported here from a New Zealand three-year longitudinal study identified possibilities for teachers to assess expanded conceptions of children’s learning within the classroom, even though the pressures of assessment against National Standards were ever present. We argue that teachers engaging with knowledge of their students’ informal learning act as a catalyst to rethink and re-conceptualise learning more broadly. Incorporating a strong student voice component in assessment, together with a focus on ipsative assessment, enables teachers to mitigate some of the unintended educational consequences of assessment accountability policies and practices.     

On Understanding the Notion of Limits and Infinitesimal Quantities

In this paper we explore the influence of students’ personalized notion of ‘small’ numbers based on real life experiences on their understanding of limits. Tests were conducted on two samples of students. The first sample, consisting of students in the XII grade, had been taught limits using an informal approach (i.e., without recourse to the definition) and the second sample, consisting of first year undergraduates, had been taught the formal definition of limits. Our research points out that most students in both samples round off to zero such ‘small numbers’ while evaluating limits wherever such numbers might occur because they perceive limit as a process of approximation.     

Problem-Based Learning in 9th Grade Chemistry Class: ‘Intermolecular Forces’

This research study aims to examine the effectiveness of a problem-based learning (PBL) on 9th grade students’ understanding of intermolecular forces (dipole–dipole forces, London dispersion forces and hydrogen bonding). The student’s alternate conceptions about intermolecular bonding and their beliefs about PBL were also measured. Seventy-eight 9th grade students were stratified by cognitive levels and then randomly assigned to experimental (PBL, 40 students) and control (lecture-style teaching, 38 students) groups. Following a preparatory lesson where activation and remediation of existing knowledge occur, a pre-test was given, and no significant difference was found between the two groups of students (p > .05). After the instruction was completed, a post-test and also a questionnaire related to the quality of the problem, the teacher’s role and group functioning were administered. Results from the post-test of both groups (p < .05) and questionnaire showed that PBL is affective on students’ achievement, remedying formation of alternate conceptions and also social skills.     

Formative assessment strategies for students' conceptions—The potential of learning analytics

Formative assessment is considered to be helpful in students' learning support and teaching design. Following Aufschnaiter's and Alonzo's framework, formative assessment practices of teachers can be subdivided into three practices: eliciting evidence, interpreting evidence and responding. Since students' conceptions are judged to be important for meaningful learning across disciplines, teachers are required to assess their students' conceptions. The focus of this article lies on the discussion of learning analytics for supporting the assessment of students' conceptions in class. The existing and potential contributions of learning analytics are discussed related to the named formative assessment framework in order to enhance the teachers' options to consider individual students' conceptions. We refer to findings from biology and computer science education on existing assessment tools and identify limitations and potentials with respect to the assessment of students' conceptions.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Students' conceptions are considered to be important for learning processes, but interpreting evidence for learning with respect to students' conceptions is challenging for teachers.
• Assessment tools have been developed in different educational domains for teaching practice.
• Techniques from artificial intelligence and machine learning have been applied for automated assessment of specific aspects of learning.

What does the paper add

• Findings on existing assessment tools from two educational domains are summarised and limitations with respect to assessment of students' conceptions are identified.
• Relevent data that needs to be analysed for insights into students' conceptions is identified from an educational perspective.
• Potential contributions of learning analytics to support the challenging task to elicit students' conceptions are discussed.

Implications for practice and/or policy

• Learning analytics can enhance the eliciting of students' conceptions.
• Based on the analysis of existing works, further exploration and developments of analysis techniques for unstructured text and multimodal data are desirable to support the eliciting of students' conceptions.

     

Student teachers' conceptions of how to recognise a “Good” primary science teacher: Does two years in a teacher education program make a difference?

Several studies have suggested that preservice teacher education has little impact on student teacher conceptions about various facets of teaching and learning. Most of these studies refer to generic teaching and learning, and very few have related to primary science in particular. To explore this area eight primary student teachers were interviewed on six occasions during the first two years of their Bachelor of Teaching degree. This paper reports the findings from part of these interviews. It describes the (sometimes changing) conceptions which these eight students held about how they would recognise a “good” teacher of science and the people and experiences they believed influenced the formation of these views. The differential impact of past and present teachers and the teacher education program revealed possible implications for practica and science curriculum units in particular, if teacher education is going to have an influence on preservice teachers' conceptions about teaching and learning.     

高师《现代教育技术》公修课学习成效影响因素研究

为了推进教育信息化,我国颁布了很多与教师教育技术能力相关的文件,作为教师摇篮的高等师范院校也开设现代教育技术公修课,然而教学成效却不理想,远没有达到中小学教师教育技术能力标准。笔者通过分析该课程学习成效低的影响因素,提出改进意见,以期对培养合格教育技术能力的高师生提供帮助。     

Learning environment,learning styles and conceptual understanding

In recent years there have been many studies on learners developing conceptions of natural phenomena. However, so far there have been few attempts to investigate how the characteristics of the learners and their environment influence such conceptions. This study began with an attempt to use an instrument developed by McCarthy (1981) to describe learners in Malaysian primary schools. This proved inappropriate as Asian primary classrooms do not provide the same kind of environment as US classrooms. It was decided to develop a learning style checklist to suit the local context and which could be used to describe differences between learners which teachers could appreciate and use. The checklist included four dimensions — perceptual, process, self-confidence and motivation. The validated instrument was used to determine the learning style preferences of primary four pupils in Penang, Malaysia. Later, an analysis was made regarding the influence of learning environment and learning styles on conceptual understanding in the topics of food, respiration and excretion. This study was replicated in the Philippines with the purpose of investigating the relationship between learning styles and achievement in science, where the topics of food, respiration and excretion have been taken up. A number of significant relationships were observed in these two studies. Specializations: science education, primary science, educational research and measurement, educational management.     

The role of constructivist educational software on students’ learning regarding mechanical interaction

This paper mainly describes the role of the multimedia software package ‘Interactions between Objects’ on students’ learning of mechanical interaction forces and Newton’s laws. We designed and developed this software within social constructivism on the basis of 226 students’ initial conceptions (categorized in six categories), in order to help students construct appropriate knowledge about the subject. Teaching with the software was conducted in 13 primary, lower secondary and upper secondary school classes. In the software’s evaluation research 226 students (aged 11–16) and 13 teachers of the classes participated. Data analysis showed students’ substantial learning gains with respect to their initial alternative conceptions of the six conceptual categories. Particularly, the students’ incorrect answers to the post-test questionnaire have perceptibly decreased (a mean of 65%). In contrast, their correct answers to the questions reached high percentages, from 60% to 90% depending on the question and the students’ age. Also the teachers’ opinions and comments enhanced software’s evaluation. The contribution of the software’s specific characteristics on students’ learning is discussed along with implications for designing constructivist science learning tools.     

Innovative Training of In-service Teachers for Active Learning: A Short Teacher Development Course Based on Physics Education Research

In this contribution we describe a short development course for in-service physics teachers. The course structure and materials are based on the results of educational research, and its main objective is to provide in-service teachers with a first contact with the active learning strategy “Tutorials in Introductory Physics,” developed by the Physics Education Research Group at the University of Washington. The course was organized in a constructivist, active learning environment, so that teachers have first to experience, as regular students, the whole Tutorial sequence of activities: Tutorial pre-test, Tutorial, and Tutorial Homework. After each Tutorial, teachers reflect on, and recognize their own students’ learning difficulties, discussing their teaching experiences with their colleagues in small collaborative groups first and the whole class later. Finally they read and discuss specific Physics Education Research literature, where these learning difficulties have been extensively studied by researchers. At the beginning and at the end of the course the participants were given the conceptual multiple-choice test Force Concept Inventory (FCI). The pre-/post-instruction FCI data were presented as a practical example of the use of a research-based test widely used in educational research and in formative assessment processes designed to improve instruction.     

The learn NC model

The vastness of the World Wide Web is both its attraction and its challenge. For people with a high-speed connection, plenty of time, and experience with technology, the Web can be a wonderful resource. Unfortunately, most teachers needing instructional resources for their classrooms do not have these assets. LEARN NC was created with this mainstream of teachers in mind, and to a great extent we have made the Web more accessible to them. Although we cannot give them more or faster Internet connections, we can help them make more efficient use of the time they have by making resources easy to use and providing training. We have been most successful when we have been able to “boil down” the content of the World Wide Web into a more manageable form. This requires a difficult balancing act: in order to provide as much good educational content as possible, we are constantly expanding our resources, but this growing content must be kept manageable and easy to access, or teachers will not be willing or able to use it. As a result, we must continually refine our existing resources. With these refinements, we believe—and our participating teachers concur—that our “one-stop-shopping” approach to educational technology is a helpful one for teachers and can provide a useful model for educators elsewhere     

IT Entry knowledge and skills of university teachers vis-à-vis their interest levels: the case of the oldest university in Asia

Technology, considered as the new language of teaching and learning, is an irrevocable reality. Any institution of higher learning is expected to look into the future without losing sight of its core capabilities-the malleability of its faculty members. Today, more than ever, teachers are expected to operate in an environment where “hiteach”, “hi-touch” and “hi-tech” govern their instructional behaviors. It is in this light that this study was conducted to situate teachers coming from a time-tested institution, such as the University of Santo Tomas, the oldest university in Asia, in terms of their IT knowledge, skills, and interests with a view to identifying implications on how faculty development programs may be made more responsive to the present-day educational structure.     

Combating Stereotypes of the Scientist Among Pre-service Science Teachers in Nigeria

This paper looks at the effect of instruction on pre-service science teachers' conceptions of the scientist. Twenty-six pre-service science teachers involved in a 14-week course were the subjects. The constructivist teaching approach was adopted. The students' preconceptions were the starting point for the teaching. Seven students were selected for in-depth interview to determine the reasons for their positions (change or no change in view at the end of the period). It was found that instruction enhanced better conceptions of the scientist. The pre-test to post-test change scores differed from zero and the difference was significant at the 0·05 level of significance. However, the interview revealed that the changes in conceptions were mediated by the students' life worldviews. We therefore conclude that whereas remediating strategies enhance understanding (comprehension), worldview of the students has a greater effect on meaningful learning (apprehension).     

Science teachers’ interpretations of Islamic culture related to science education versus the Islamic epistemology and ontology of science

The debate about Islam and science extends to a debate about the relationship between Islam and science education. In this paper, I explore Egyptian teachers’ views of the relationship between science and religion within the Islamic context. Teachers’ key vision of the relationship between science and religion was that “religion comes first and science comes next. I will argue that teachers’ personal religious beliefs are among the major constructs that drive teachers’ ways of thinking and interpretation of scientific issues related with religion. Then, I discuss how teachers’ personal religious beliefs have been formed and influenced their pedagogical beliefs related to science and religion issues. Finally, I will argue, how we use the personal religious beliefs model as a framework of teaching/learning scientific issues related with religion within sociocultural (Islamic) context.