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Asia-Pacific Forum
on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 13, Issue 1, Article 3 (Jun., 2012) |
This section looks at the results from the post intervention questionnaire, focus group discussions (FGDs) and notes from post teaching discussions and professional workshops used in this study to elicit the teachers’ understandings the influence of PLC on their experience with the new teaching strategy (POE).
Teaching With an Observer Colleague
It has already been mentioned that 14 volunteer participant science teachers were involved and formed seven peer pairs, from seven nearby schools. Each pair of teachers was located at the same school. None of them had any experience of observing a full period of their colleagues’ teaching or conducted any teaching with an observer colleague before. According to Teacher 3 before the first teaching session cycle:
I am teaching for the last 23 years. This is the first time I am going to a class in where my science colleague is also ready to observe my full class. It really helped me concentrating on my lesson today using a new teaching approach POE. I am sure the presence of my colleague would helpful to find whether I am going to make any mistake during my teaching.
It seemed to me that most of the teachers felt nervous during the first teaching session. They were hesitant and were concerned about their colleague’s presence rather than concentrating on the lesson. However, that was not the case for the observers in the teaching sessions. According to the Teacher 4, after observing the teaching practice of his colleague:
It is the first time I observed the teaching practice of my colleagues. I was really excited yesterday. The observation has helped me to see my colleague’s teaching method, style of presentation and how he engaged students in the lesson. It also helped me to reflect on and clarify of my own teaching.
It seemed to me that in most cases they were excited about finding scope to observe their colleague’s teaching using POE. It is notable that, before and after the first teaching session, all the participant teachers expressed the view that they liked the idea of observation. Most of them responded that this idea would help them to improve their own teaching practice using POE strategy. Moreover, teachers found this process as a good way of integrating two teachers’ experiences. According to Teacher 10 during the FGD:
The classroom observation process seems very essential for us. It is not possible to find out my own problem by myself, if any of my science colleagues help me through observing my class, it is really great ... it also helps to learn POE strategy properly ... find scope to integrate the two teachers’ experiences for enhancement of both the content knowledge and pedagogical understanding.
Attending the Discussion Session
The participant science teachers found scope for discussion after completing the reflection on the observation schedule. During the discussion time, teachers found themselves both in agreement and disagreement with their colleagues, challenging each other’s reflections or observations and sometimes feeling confused while engaged in debates about some aspects of their peers’ teaching issues. For example, Teacher 6 disagreed with the observation for not accomplishing the ‘observation part of POE’ properly. He noted that he allowed students to observe the human model instead of any real brain to reconcile any differences between the prediction and the observation.
Teachers also discussed about their different concerns and observations about using a POE. Teacher 12, during the first teaching cycle, discussed with teacher 11 about the mismatch of the prediction part of the POE. According to him, teacher 11 explained what would happen before allowing students to predict about the experiment. He also mentioned that teacher 11 did not ask students to write the reasons for their prediction. Teacher 14, during the third teaching cycle, claimed that teacher 13 went very fast when students were making predictions. Moreover, teacher 11, during the fourth teaching cycle, claimed that teacher 12 could ask students to draw pictures of the brain from their perception to elicit their preconception about the brain.
In seven cases, mostly during the first and second teaching cycles, the observers claimed that during the discussion that students did not have enough opportunities to reconcile the difference between their observation and prediction. Teachers themselves tended to do the explanation rather facilitate students’ attempts at reconciliation. However, as noted, the discussion helped teachers to make that adjustment during the third and fourth teaching cycles.
These above examples reflect how discussion helped these teachers to develop their teaching using the POE approach. These discussions helped them refine their ideas about POE and how it might be used in their teaching more effectively.
Attending Professional Workshop
In all professional workshops teachers discussed the use of the POE teaching procedure. In the discussions, some of the teachers conflated ‘prediction’ and ‘observation’ of the POE during the first teaching cycle. Teacher 9, then, demonstrated the importance of the distinction between the two parts using the same teaching topics of teaching cycle one. Teachers also discussed the use of POE across different experiments to clear up issues about the concept of refraction during the third professional workshop. They also discussed and were happy to know that teacher 11 used a live fish in a bowl of water as a demonstration experiment. According to teacher 11:
I got the ideas in sharing with science colleagues of my school. One of my students helped me to find a live fish as his father is a fisher man. This made the class very different from usual classroom learning; students were so motivated with a high [level of] attention in the classroom.
Other teachers were very impressed with such thinking and also discussed how to provide more scope to students to reconcile differences between their predictions and observations. These examples reflect how collaboration through attending the professional workshops addressed teachers’ everyday issues through discussions with their colleagues as a result of changing the culture of their professional practice.
Influences on New Teaching Approach (POE)
Participant teachers used the POE teaching strategy for their science teaching at the intervention implementation stage. Teachers expressed their opinion on several aspects such as their feelings about POE, their understanding about the use of POE, aspects after using it, its influence on their teaching practice, problems regarding using the POE strategy, its effectiveness in the Bangladesh context and suggestions for its effective use. They demonstrated consensus as all 14 participating teachers found the POE to be a very effective strategy in their science teaching. Their major responses are listed in the Table 2.
Table 2. Teachers’ Feelings about the POE Strategy
Responses
Frequency (Number of Teachers)
Provided scope to these teachers to consider their students’ prior knowledge.
4
Related the science content to real life.
3
Involved students in thinking for learning.
5
Clarified the concept with a logical conclusion.
3
Discouraged students from memorising science concepts.
2
Made students attentive in their learning.
4
More specifically, according to Teacher 5:
The teaching with POE is very good to me. It seems to me that it is a fruitful and effective strategy for science teaching. POE is more effective than any other method I had ever used. It helped to develop students’ thinking power. It made a connection of learning with real life that made learning more sustainable. It also helped me to concentrate more on the teaching topics and to make students more attentive. Students were discouraged to memorise the science through direct observation in the classroom.
Teachers were asked what using a POE did in terms of encouraging them to pursue different purposes in their practice. They listed diverse characteristics. Among them seven teachers mentioned that they used it because it created a sense of reality and that it led to students making connections with science and the environment around them. Six of them used it because they thought it helped them to make students attentive in their learning in a way that was very effective for large class size. In Table 3 lists the major responses of participant science teachers.
Table 3. Objectives of POE According to the Participant Teachers
Responses
Frequency (Number of Teachers)
POE strategy links to reality and makes connecting science with the environment much easier for students.
7
POE strategy helps teachers make students attentive in their learning which is very effective for a large class size.
6
Making students think about their learning.
4
Takes into account students’ prior knowledge.
3
Helps students to acquire accurate knowledge about science concepts.
3
Guides the lesson in a logical sequence.
4
Makes students develop a creative attitude.
3
Encourages the exploration of alternative conceptions – brings out prior knowledge.
2
Develops self-confidence for teachers.
3
Teachers made a list for the good aspects of a POE from their experience after using the strategy. Among them, 10 teachers pointed out that a POE is a very good strategy as it allows students to think independently and to express their own opinion. This ultimately helps students to be self-confident and develop a self-directed learning attitude. Eight teachers expressed the view that POE was able to make students attentive in their learning and helped them to teach a large class size effectively; which is very important from a Bangladeshi perspective. Six teachers gave priority to considering students’ prior knowledge through prediction. This also helped students to make a decision about science knowledge through analysing their prior knowledge with the help of direct observation in the classroom. Six teachers also mentioned its power in making a connection with real life through using teaching aids, demonstrations and observation. Moreover, four of them mentioned its power in helping students understand about their alternative conceptions in their prior knowledge and acquire more accurate science knowledge. More specifically, according to Teacher 2:
Teachers also experienced influences from using the POE strategy in their usual science teaching practice. Eight teachers mentioned that the strategy helped them to make the lesson interesting, which leads students to be more attentive in their science learning. Six of them were of the view that using this strategy helped them to make sure that they came into class well prepared. This greater preparation included being more confident in their content knowledge, their use of teaching aids and making more links between the science concepts and real life. The major responses are listed in the Table 4.POE is a very good strategy to elicit students’ alternative conceptions about science concepts. At first students predict for a science concept based on their prior knowledge. However, when they saw something different during the observation stage, they can easily realise that they have some problem in their own prediction. I found some of them during my two teaching session with POE.
Table 4. Influences of POE Strategy on Teachers’ Practice
Responses
Frequency (Number of Teachers)
Led students to be attentive in their science learning.
8
Made the lesson interesting.
8
Helped them in class preparation.
6
Ensured use of teaching aids.
3
Developed thinking ability.
3
Integrated real life with the text book.
5
Teachers also outlined their problems in using POE within their practice. Eight teachers mentioned straight away that they did not find any difficulty in using POE. Five teachers mentioned that they believed that POE would not work for all topics, especially for topics which required a deep theoretical understanding. For example, one of them doubted that using a POE strategy would be useful for the basic understanding of electricity. Four teachers wondered how they would manage to use a POE with their existing teaching load. During the FGD, they also discussed the issue of class size. However, according to Teacher 13, “I did not find any problem with class size in using POE in my classes. I think it is the strategy that makes students active together.” The other teachers then agreed with him.
Teachers also expressed their opinion on the workability of this strategy in the Bangladesh context. Twelve teachers recommended its use for the Bangladesh secondary school context because they felt it was an effective teaching approach. According to them, the POE strategy would help science teachers find a link between the text book materials and the local environment around the school. This could happen through searching for appropriate teaching aids for their practice because of the use of a POE. Moreover, they discussed at the FGDs that as there is an ongoing problem with large class size and POE is an effective strategy to make attentive a larger number of students, which this method could work well as an effective approach for science teaching in Bangladesh.
However, two teachers were sceptical about the effectiveness of POE in the Bangladeshi context. They were concerned about the need for good preparation for a POE when teachers were usually loaded with classes. They were also concerned about adequate support for using the POE in their practice especially in regard to the lack of school resources. In spite of this, during both FGDs, other teachers disagreed with that view. According to Teacher 10, “Bangladesh is a developing country; we have to look forward rather than waiting to depend on others. We have to work hard to find our resources. I think for the secondary level, we can find all of our resources from our local environment with a minimum effort.” The others agreed with him.
Teachers also offered suggestions for the effective use of POE in the Bangladesh context. Most of them asked for support from schools as much as possible besides teachers’ own initiatives. This mainly included the use of adequate resources for teaching. Teachers also stressed the importance of good preparation before taking any class. According to Teacher 6:
Teachers need to be well prepared both in content clarification and using the teaching aids. The most important issue here is the chance of rising up alternative conceptions. When students find themselves in [a feeling of] difference between the prediction and observation, they could be lost. They might look for proper facilitation form their teachers that demand a strong command of subject knowledge.
Six other teachers attached importance to changes in the culture of their professional practice and the need to develop an attitude for accepting any new teaching strategies. According to them, teachers needed to change in ways that could benefit their students’ learning. Three of them pointed out about the need not to keep teaching in the same way as they had for year after year. They also suggested reducing their pressure regarding teaching load.
The above results reflect that how establishing a Professional Learning Community influences the ways in which these teachers learn about a constructivist teaching approach (POE).
