A research approach to designing chemistry education using authentic practices

We discuss how to reduce the incongruence between the outcomes (both cognitive and affective) of the conventional secondary chemistry curriculum and what is to be attained: the meaningful connection of students’ learning to daily life and societal issues. This problem is addressed by a design study with one curriculum unit about “Water Quality”. With several research cycles using developmental research, we developed an emergent understanding about an instructional framework for curriculum units that embodies a coherent “need‐to‐know” principle and is based on authentic practices. Using this framework we show with some other examples how a context‐based chemistry curriculum can be constructed based on the developed “need‐to‐know” principl

Leren onderzoeken in de eerstegraads lerarenopleiding

In het voorjaar 2015 organiseerde de Universitaire Leraren Opleiding van de VU Universiteit Amsterdam een landelijke bijeenkomst over ‘leren onderzoeken’. Zowel ULO docenten (13) als VO docenten (4) namen deel. Aanleiding hiervoor was de 'spagaat' die sommige ULO's en scholen ervaren tussen het goed willen aansluiten op de ontwikkelingsfase van hun docenten-in-opleiding en de eisen die aan de opleidingen gesteld worden ten aanzien van de ontwikkeling van onderzoeksvaardigheden. Doel van de bijeenkomst was deze spagaat te verhelderen door visies te expliciteren ten aanzien van onderzoek in de opleiding en te komen tot voorstellen voor invulling van leren onderzoeken binnen de ULO. Hiertoe: (1) is een overzicht gemaakt van de manieren waarop ULO's het praktijkonderzoek vormgeven en welke problemen zij daarbij ervaren; (2) zijn visie(s) van de ULO's op de rol van onderzoek (leren) doen in de beroepspraktijk geëxpliciteerd; en (3) zijn de huidige praktijk, onze visies en wensen die naar voren komen in beleidsstukken met elkaar vergeleken

Reforming teacher reform: teaching as bounded rational design

Educational innovations had and still have little impact on teaching practice. A common view held by teacher researchers is that teachers do not implement innovative change proposals because they lack the necessary knowledge, skills and beliefs to do so (Grossman et al, 2009; Borko et al, 2010). In contrast, teachers often argue that innovative change proposals themselves are often not practical to implement in their existing complex classroom ecologies (Authors, 1977; Authors 2013). They argue that many change proposals lack workable procedures to convert ideas into concrete classroom activities (instrumentality), do not fit existing classroom demands and their related goals (congruence) and take too much time and resources to design and implement (cost) In this session we will present a new theoretical framework and methodology for understanding and changing teaching practice that is grounded in a conception of ecological practicality. These practicality issues are further explicated drawing on recent theories of bounded rationality. We will show how this framework, in which teaching practice is viewed as bounded rational design enriches, dominant perspectives on teacher reform, and how it can help us to not only better understand but also effectively change teaching practice. Three highly distinguished teacher researchers, Hilda Borko, Pam Grossman and Judith Warren Little will relate this new framework to current thinking in their respective domains of expertise. In contributing to the overall objectives of the session, the first presentation will explicate the framework in which teaching practice is viewed as bounded rational design. The paper begins with an overview of theories on classroom ecology, practicality, and bounded rationality on which the design framework is based. It is argued that teaching practice is fundamentally a design process, i.e., the construction of a tool or artifact to achieve goals in a specific context with available resources. Furthermore, teachers are not able to optimize their designs exclusively for promoting student learning, because their rationality is bounded—i.e., classroom contexts in which teachers work are complex demanding places that require teachers to attain multiple goals simultaneously, while information and resources are always limited. The second presentation advances the argument that an understanding of a classroom context and the content and organization of a teacher’s multiple goals, which are partly derived from complex classroom demands, is a foundation for any teacher reform initiative. The third paper explores how knowledge about goal systems and knowledge about heuristics (cost-effective procedures) can readily be used by a teacher to effectively change his/her practice. In addition to the evidence for the effectiveness of this approach, the presenters illustrate the process with a case of a biology teacher who is supported to adopt open inquiry labs into her practice. After these short introductory contributions, three very distinguished teacher researchers will critically comment on the framework and encourage audience discussion

Practicality studies: How to move from what works in principle to what works in practice

In his article “Principled Practical Knowledge: Not a Bridge but a Ladder,” Carl Bereiter (2014) argues that theoretical knowledge is too shallow to support the generation of innovative learning activities. He makes a case for principled practical knowledge (PPK)—“principled know-how and know-why”—to fulfill this practical generative role. We argue and illustrate in this commentary that PPK as portrayed by Bereiter does not offer much practical guidance for 2 potential users: professional designers and teachers. For professional designers PPK should be further specified in order to fulfill its generative role. But even this enriched form of PPK still does not suffice to address the challenging issues of practicality teachers face. We explain the magnitude and dimensions that underlie practicality in the everyday work of teachers and suggest how recent work on fast and frugal heuristics can contribute to helping teachers to make instructional innovations practical

The Practical Turn in Teacher Education: Designing a Preparation Sequence for Core Practice Frames

Amid calls for more practice-based teacher education, this article presents a concrete illustration of a practice-based bridging strategy for preparing high school biology teachers to enact open-inquiry labs. Open-inquiry labs were considered a core practice frame that served as a context for identifying core practices and for giving coherence to separate components of the approach to labs. A bridging model was developed in which the teaching practices, understandings, and intentions of 31 biology student teachers were elicited with respect to their current lab segments, and these were compared with the concrete segments of the core practice frame. From this analysis, a progression was developed to support prospective teachers in moving from existing conceptions of appropriate practice to a realization of the new practice frame as a better way to achieve valued goals. © 2014 American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education

Perfectly reasonable in a practicle world: CHemistry teacher responses to a change proposal

Teaching and Teacher Learning (ICLON