Researching teaching for understanding: the students’ perspective

Abstract

This paper explores high school students’ perspectives of their learning in ascience unit which was taught using a Children's Science approach. Through the use of a questionnaire and interviews, this research examines how the students understood and responded to the changed demands on their learning as a result of the change in teaching style. Although the students appeared to be actively involved, interested and self‐directed in their learning, they were not convinced that this was an appropriate way forthem to approach their learning in future. It appears as though the time and effort associated with accepting more responsibility for learning is not matched by the value received from doing so in schools.     

The articulation of the development of teacher knowledge during the implementation of new teaching procedures to enhance student understanding of molecular biological concepts

This paper is based on the first author’s extensive examination of her teaching and her students’ learning in a senior high school Biology classroom at a coeducational K-12 independent college in Victoria, Australia, over a five-year period. Research was guided by the following questions: (1) How can students become more aware of the specific biological terminology that they will need to use to communicate their understanding of biological concepts? (2) How can student familiarity with new biological terminology be enhanced? (3) Which teaching strategies might be most effective across the diverse range of abilities and learning styles within a senior Biology classroom? Three key data-sets ([1] Development of specific teaching procedures; [2] Student responses to using the teaching procedures; [3] Teacher journal entries and reflections) were analysed supported by Korthagen’s ALACT model. Findings support the notion that genuine educational change is linked to teacher change, driven by teachers themselves, drawing new insights into students’ learning.     

Capturing and Enhancing Science Teachers’ Professional Knowledge

This paper reports research from a three-year Australian science teacher professional learning project, the Science Teaching and Learning (STaL) Project, in which groups of science teacher participants (across years K – 12) worked with academics over a one-year period as teacher researchers. Through reflecting on their experiences within the STaL Project and collecting data from their classrooms related to specific science teaching concerns, teacher participants constructed cases around particular aspects of their professional learning. The cases that these participants developed elicited rich insights into their teaching and their students’ learning of science. This paper discusses how the cases were developed by the teacher researcher participants and uses exemplars as a way of illustrating the nature of the professional knowledge developed.     

Developing Understanding: the use of teaching portfolios in preservice education

The premise that underlies the preservice‐teacher‐education programme at Monash University is the need to focus on the nature of learning (for example, Gunstone et al., 1993). One approach currently being used to enhance this process is the use of portfolios. The portfolio is an open‐ended task designed to explore teaching from many different vantage points. It is organised as a dynamic assessment task through which the student teachers work on developing their understanding of what it means to be a science teacher, and the teaching portfolio itself is a mixture of artefacts designed to help student teachers demonstrate this to others. This paper reports on the effectiveness and value of portfolios in helping preservice teachers learn about learning and teaching.     

Educational patterns in lifelong learning settings

Education involves interactive processes in which symbolization plays a major role. Poetry promotes a unique approach to symbolization that is characterized by (a) fostering creativity within the realm of meaning, and (b) generating the development of sensibility. Despite these important educative functions, poetry has never been recognized as part of the core curriculum in schools. However, poetry has continuously managed to promulgate its educative functions from the periphery of schools. The focus of this paper is on the aspects of critical thinking the poetry of two Persian poets has fostered not only in the Iranian audience but also in a larger community since the 11th century.     

Slowmation: Preservice elementary teachers representing science knowledge through creating multimodal digital animations

Research has identified the value of learners using technology to construct their own representations of science concepts. In this study, we investigate how learners, such as preservice elementary teachers, design and make a narrated animation to represent their science knowledge. The type of animation exemplified is called a “Slowmation” (abbreviated from “Slow Animation”), which is a simplified way for preservice teachers to make an animation that integrates features from claymation, object animation, and digital storytelling. Drawing on semiotic theory, a case study of three preservice elementary teachers, who were audio and video recorded as they created a slowmation, illustrates how the construction process enabled them to engage with a science concept in multiple ways. Findings suggest that when preservice teachers create a slowmation, they design and make a sequence of five representations, each being a semiotic system with particular affordances that link as a semiotic progression: (i) research notes; (ii) storyboard; (iii) models; and (iv) digital photographs, which culminate in (v) a narrated animation. In this study, the authors present their theoretical framework, explain how the preservice teachers created a slowmation using a sequence of representations to show their science knowledge and discuss the implications of these findings for learners in universities and schools. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 48: 985–1009, 2011     

Teaching portfolios: A strategy for developing learning and teaching in preservice education

Teaching portfolios have been used in the preservice teacher education program at Monash University to help student teachers to reflect on their learning about learning and teaching and to help them to convey this to others. The portfolio is an open-ended and un-graded task designed to explore teaching from many different vantage points. It is organised as a dynamic assessment task, not simply a static end product. This is done by considering teaching portfolios as comprising two important aspects, one is the process the other is the product. The process involves learning from the variety of experiences offered in the preservice education program and encouraging student teachers to reflect on these. The product is the development of the individual portfolio items that are used to demonstrate this learning to others. The portfolio comprises a number of individual items which act as a prompt to “tap” the creator's understanding of what it means to be a (science) teacher. This paper reports on the effectiveness and value of portfolios from the student-teachers' perspective by exploring how their understanding of the task evolved as they completed their preservice teacher education program.     

Teaching portfolios: Developing quality learning in pre-service science teachers

The premise that underlies the pre-service science teacher education program at Monash University is the need to focus on the nature of learning in ways that encourage student-teachers to reconsider their conceptions of learning and how this relates to their view of teaching. The purpose of teaching portfolios is to act as a prompt for student-teachers to reconsider these conceptions and as a way of helping them to better articulate their professional knowledge. The Science (Stream 3) student teachers construct a portfolio of teaching strategies, episodes, ideas, etc. that demonstrate how they see their role as science teachers. The portfolio is ungraded, openended and organised as a dynamic assessment task, not just a static end product. This paper reports on student-teachers' understanding of, and approach to portfolios as they come to understand its purpose and value. Specializations: chemistry and science education, technology and industry links with science curriculum Specializations: science education, reflection, curriculum and evaluation     

Documenting Science Teachers' Pedagogical Content Knowledge Through PaP-eRs

This paper examines science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and ways in which that knowledge might be captured, articulated and portrayed to others. The research from which this paper is drawn has involved interviews with experienced science teachers in an attempt to make the tacit nature of their practice explicit. Initially, case methodology was envisaged as being a way of documenting these teachers' pedagogical content knowledge. However, over time, the form of knowledge and information that we were gathering and attempting to portray extended beyond that which could reasonably be described as being case-based. Hence we have developed an approach to articulation and portrayal based on what we call the CoRe (Content Representation) – which represents the particular content/topic of the science teaching – and PaP-eRs (Pedagogical and Professional experience Repertoire) – which help to illuminate specific aspects of the CoRe and therefore offer insights into pedagogical content knowledge itself. The results of this study offer new ways of conceptualising what pedagogical content knowledge is and how it might be captured, documented and disseminated.