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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science
Learning and Teaching, Volume 4, Issue 2, Article 11 (Dec., 2003) Benny Hin Wai YUNG, Siu Ling WONG and Man Wai CHENG A curriculum innovation: Focusing on student teachers' developing conceptions of good science teaching
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Theoretical considerations underpinning our project design
The importance of examining prospective teachers' preconceptions about teaching has been brought up by Clark (1988) for more than a decade already as he put it:
Students begin teacher education programs with their own ideas and beliefs about what it takes to be a successful teacher. These preconceptions are formed from thousands of hours of observation of teachers, good and bad, over the previous fifteen or so years. Undoubtedly, students' conceptions of teaching are incomplete...With this in mind, a thoughtful teacher educator might ask: What are the preconceptions about teaching and learning held by our students? (p.7)
Central to Clark's argument is that each prospective teacher brings with him or her into teacher training a set of preconceptions about teaching and learning which needs to be carefully analyzed and understood from a developmental perspective. Not only is this an important topic in its own right, we concur with Clark that it is also a professional obligation on the part of a thoughtful teacher educator.
As influenced by Schon's (1983) work, while being thoughtful on the part of ourselves, we would also like our student teachers to take up a similar stance in their course of professional learning. Thus we have incorporated into this curriculum innovation the element of reflection. Indeed, recent research efforts have shown the usefulness of reflection as a tool for understanding science teacher thinking and development (e.g. Abell, Bryan & Anderson, 1998).
In order to facilitate our student teachers' reflection, they will be provided with videos of exemplary cases of science teaching as one of the reflection prompts. They will be asked to base their reflections on personal perceptions, observations, experiences, readings and discussions of the major topics throughout the teacher training program. Our use of exemplary cases in this curriculum innovation is informed by findings from Black and Atkin (1996) who arrived at the following suggestions after examining 23 educational reforms in science, mathematics and technology education in 13 countries:
Indeed, exemplary cases of teaching have been found particularly appropriate in preparing teachers for reform-based teaching like the recent call for teaching science using the investigative approach (Putnam & Borko, 1997). This is because the opportunity for teachers to experience workable alternatives to conventional practice in actual classroom settings otherwise is likely to be quite limited. This notion of 'existence proof' is particularly helpful to pre-service and beginning teachers who often have the difficulties of breaking free from the modalities of teaching they have been exposed to in their own schooling.
Nonetheless, we are cautious of the possible caveat of providing student teachers with concrete and practical examples of how to realize some of the goals of the recent curriculum reform by introducing them to these exemplary cases. We agree with Wilson and Berne (1999) that "teacher learning ought not be bound and delivered but rather activated" (p.194). In other words, the goal of teacher professional development should be to increase teachers' awareness of the potential for learning rather than to present them with a prepackaged set of new pedagogical strategies. Thus, we hope that the student teachers can make use of the exemplary cases:
It is acknowledged that definitions of 'exemplary' teaching can depend upon one's world-view, for example, one's epistemological position. However, this would not limit the value of the proposed study as our objective is not to draw up a consensual list of criteria for identifying exemplary teaching, but make use of the videos of classroom teaching to elicit teachers' conceptions of 'good' teaching. In fact, there is no need for total agreement on whether the lessons in the videos demonstrate good teaching or not. The viewers can identify with the good practices shown in the videos or otherwise. In offering their explanations on why they think certain teaching practices are good or not, they are implying in their answers the corresponding conceptions of 'good' teaching. In short, the 'exemplary' lessons in the video serve as a stimulus to elicit teachers' conceptions of 'good' teaching. Such a methodology is considered to be useful in helping teachers to articulate abstract concepts such as 'conceptions of teaching' (Gao & Watkins 2002).
We also concur with the view that video is a more superior medium than print materials as a reflection tool for teacher professional development (see, for example, van den Berg, 2001; Louden, Wallace & Groves, 2001). First, videos offer a lasting record of the lessons which can be analyzed from many different perspectives. We believe that the classroom is an extremely intricate social environment, and thus attempts to study classroom processes from a single viewpoint are bound to misrepresent important processes. Regardless of how good an example of teaching, ambiguities and contradictions are present. We believe that there is no perfect way, and each way has its strengths and weaknesses depending on the particular context and purpose. We hope that our student teachers can generate and evaluate many different alternatives during their reflection. By examining the potential consequences of those alternatives, beliefs and assumptions, their own beliefs and assumptions are more likely to be challenged. Second, unlike live observations, videos allow for multiple and repeated opportunities to re-play, analyze and re-analyze the same instance. It also provides the opportunity to study the fast-paced, complicated world of classroom teaching and reflect on it. This reflection can take place in the form of repeated viewing of a certain video segment and through fine-grained analysis of it. All these are made possible only through the video technology.
As evident from the above discussion, the nature of the reflection require of the participants in this project can be characterized as (1) in depth, (2) iterative and repeated, and (3) peer/socially constructed. That is, it is repeated and dialectical in nature - occurring frequently, and in more depth with each iteration of reflective thinking on the issues of good science teaching. Also, this reflection is shared and discussed with peers, and hence deeper understandings of good science teaching are socially constructed.
Copyright (C) 2003 HKIEd APFSLT. Volume 4, Issue 2, Article 11 (Dec., 2003). All Rights Reserved.
