Teacher Learning

1
Teacher Learning Content Knowledge, Practical
Knowledge and Professional Development

• Kendra M. Bober
• December, 2003

2
What is Science Teaching?

• Teacher Training/Professional Development
• Inquiry-based Teaching/Nature of Science
• Pedagogy
• Content Knowledge
• Standardized Assessment
• Science Education Reform
• Constructivism

3
Constructivism

• Personal Constructivism - Knowledge is actively
  constructed by the learner, not passively
  received from the environment.

• Radical Constructivism - Coming to know is a
  process of dynamic adaptation towards viable
  interpretations of experience. The knower does
  not necessarily construct knowledge of a real
  world. italics added
• - Ernst von Glasersfeld, 1990

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Relevance for Teachers and Teacher Education

• Dogma

Teachers are less likely to be guided by
instructional theories than by familiar images of
what is proper and possible in classroom
settings. (Windschitl, 2001)
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Teacher Knowledge

• Experience as a student
• Before beginning teacher education (Lortie, 1975,
  and others)
• As student teachers (Bryan, 2003)
• Lack of inquiry static science background
  (Davis, 2003, and others)

6
Teacher Thinking

• Experience requires that teachers be learners
  (Osborne, 1998 van Driel, 2001)
• Professional curriculum doesnt emphasize
  reflection and analysis (Lanier, 1984)
• Research questions/concerns of teachers different
  than those of researchers (Gabel et al., 1986)

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Teacher Learning

• Constructivist Principles for Design of
  Professional Development
• What learners already know influences their
  learning.
• Learners acquire new knowledge by constructing it
  for themselves.
• The construction of knowledge is a process of
  change that includes addition, creation,
  modification, refinement, restructuring and
  rejection.
• Learning happens through diverse experience.
• Loucks-Horsley et al., 2003

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Teacher Learning

• Degree of subject knowledge a good indicator of
  number of teaching strategies employed by the
  teacher (Hashweh, 1986 van Driel 2001)
• Effective professional development correlates to
  increased inquiry in the classroom culture
  (Supovitz Turner)

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Position and Future Work

• It is important that teachers see themselves as
  learners, and that they view their own teaching
  and learning as a process. By doing so, teachers
  will be enabled to address the questions most
  relevant to their teaching.
• Teachers involved in this process will be
  utilizing for their own benefit the very inquiry
  methods that those in educational research and
  reform believe they should be teaching.

10
Thank you