Teacher Learning – Content Knowledge, Practical Knowledge and Professional Development

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

4. 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)

5. 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 doesn’t emphasize “reflection and analysis” (Lanier, 1984) • Research questions/concerns of teachers different than those of researchers (Gabel et al., 1986)

7. 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

8. 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)

9. 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