CHAPTER 34
Science Teacher as Learner
Monash University, Australia
Research into learning to teach was initially based on ideas associated with a developmental model of teacher learning (Fuller, 1969; Fuller & Bown, 1975), a model that could be construed as portraying student teachers progressing along a predetermined path in the development of their competence as teachers. Over time, however, this interpretation has been challenged. For example, teacher thinking (Clark & Peterson, 1986) brought new ways of researching practice to the fore as it focused on the complexity of teachers’ knowledge and expertise. Likewise, the resurgence of Dewey's (1933) articulation of reflection through the work of Schön (1983, 1987) led to views of good teaching being aligned with the notion of reflective practice (Clarke, 1995; Clift, Houston & Pugach, 1990; Grimmett & Erickson, 1988; Loughran, 1996; Russell & Munby, 1991). And, reflective practice became an entrée into studies of teachers learning about teaching through researching their own practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993).
Hand in hand with these developments was the growth in understanding of constructivism (e.g., Cobb, 1994; Gunstone, 2000), which, as Clarke and Erickson (2004) have noted, reflected a shift in views of the nature of learning from a predominantly behaviorist model to more cognitive and phenomenological models. Thus, through developments in approaches to examining teachers’ practice and a sharper focus on the need for greater congruence between the purposes and practices of teaching and learning, the limitations of transmissive teaching approaches (Barnes, 1975) were called into question. Not surprisingly, then, the notion of teacher as learner has emerged as an important construct in extending perceptions of quality in (science) teaching and learning.
Science teacher as learner is a seductive descriptor, as it captures the essence of the necessary challenge to the long tradition of science teaching as telling that has been so pervasive in schools, characterized by the stereotypical view of the transmission of science as propositional knowledge. Science teacher as learner suggests that practice carries an ongoing commitment to teaching science for understanding. Hence, science teacher as learner offers one way of exploring the uneasy tensions of practice that emerge as science teachers attempt to better align their teaching with their expectations for their students’ science learning, partly derived from understandings of constructivism. So, just as views about the nature of learning have changed over time, so too have views of, and the subsequent expectations for, teaching. In reviewing research literature within these two fields, this chapter attempts to build a case for the centrality of the notion of science teacher as learner in the quest to better align science teaching with science learning.
STRUCTURE AND PURPOSE OF THE CHAPTER
In this chapter, four general areas (preservice science teacher as learner, elementary science teacher as learner, secondary science teacher as learner, and science teacher educator as learner) have been designated in order to highlight some of the distinguishing features of science teachers as learners. Interestingly, much of the teacher as learner literature tends to focus on the development of understanding and knowledge of teaching generally, rather than being content specific. Hence, a literature search with the science designation offers diminished returns. Yet, this result can be viewed as a challenge for science teaching and learning researchers, as it highlights the need for a more concentrated effort in this area. Another positive aspect to this outcome is that the studies that inform the field are generally richly descriptive and offer interesting insights into the work of science teachers as learners. Furthermore, the personal perspective germane to much of this work also highlights a clear bifurcation between studies on science teachers as learners as opposed to studies of science teachers as learners.
In this chapter, studies of science teachers as learners, or studies that at least carry the voice of science teachers as learners, were selected for review so that a concentration on what had been learned and why was considered in concert with how it was learned from the participants’ perspective. Inevitably, then, the particular exemplars cited in this chapter are examined in more detail than is common in a Handbook. This strong attention to exemplars is also important in drawing attention to that which research efforts have perhaps overlooked in the past and to therefore help set an agenda for the future so that science teaching and learning research might push the boundaries of that which is understood to be meaningful, applicable, and useful in the world of practice.
PRESERVICE SCIENCE TEACHER AS LEARNER
Student-teachers’ experiences of school science influence their understanding of science teaching (per Lortie's (1975) apprenticeship of observation), and, as successful graduates of the “system,” they often teach in ways similar to how they were taught (Sarason, 1990). Not surprisingly, many student teachers expect to learn the “script” for science teaching and can be quite resistant to alternative perspectives (Britzman, 1991; Hayward, 1997; Richardson, 1996). This issue is important in shaping what it means to challenge student teachers’ prior experiences in order to influence their own practice of science teaching.
Research into teachers’ beliefs (Pajares, 1992) and the relationship between beliefs and practice has drawn much attention (Bandura, 1986; Brickhouse, 1990; Bryan & Abell, 1999; Hashweh, 1996), largely because challenging an individual's beliefs may be a powerful way of encouraging a restructuring of understanding of both learning and teaching. Hence, by challenging beliefs, one's prior experiences may be questioned rather than remain as taken-for-granted assumptions for practice (Brookfield, 1995).
Challenging beliefs has been a common beginning point for reshaping student teachers’ views of, and approaches to, practice (Gunstone, Slattery, Baird, & Northfield, 1993). However, strong examples of preservice science teachers as learners are not easy to find, because many studies focus on the big picture of the intent of such a challenge, rather than highlighting specific instances of participants’ personal shifts in understanding. With this in mind, the studies selected in this section of the chapter illustrate that, in science teacher preparation programs, clear examples of student teacher as learner exist, but the field itself is one that begs more involvement of the participants themselves—as co-authors and authors of their own experiences of teaching and learning science. This then is a major challenge for the science teacher education research community, so that new ways of accessing understandings of what student teachers are confronted by might be more readily identified—so that responses to learning outcomes might be appropriately implemented.
Challenging Conceptions and Beliefs
The children's science and conceptual change literature (e.g., Driver, Guesne, & Tiberghien, 1985; Gunstone, 1990; Hewson, Beeth, & Thorley, 1998; Osborne & Freyburg, 1985; West & Pines, 1985) has illustrated how important it can be for students to experience cognitive dissonance, so that their existing conceptions might not only be personally recognized, but also restructured as a result of the experience. Dana, McLoughlin, and Freeman (1998) reported on a long-term project that studied changes in conceptions and beliefs of prospective teachers while learning to teach science in a preservice teacher education program based around the use of dissonance. Their study paid particular attention to the ways in which prospective science teachers made sense of teaching science for understanding and the program features that helped them to do so.
By focusing on the student teachers themselves, the authors built on Borko and Putnam's (1996) view that what and how student teachers learn in their teacher preparation program is strongly influenced by their existing knowledge and beliefs; therefore, challenging these through creating dissonance as one way of generating opportunities for new learning. They outlined how the program was purposely designed to “support the prospective teachers’ conceptual development around ideas connected to teaching science for understanding” and how “certain aspects of the course appeared to be especially helpful in creating dissonance, challenging beliefs, and fostering the reconstruction of science pedagogies, stimulating professional growth” (p. 7).
Dana et al. (1998) also illustrated how they created a need to know for student teachers that encouraged a reconsideration of the teacher as teller role so strong in many student teachers. They also highlighted how the recognition of an unanticipated classroom problem was the catalyst for change. A strength of the data they offered was in student teachers’ voices and how participants personally detailed situations with which they were confronted, and how their ensuing sense of dissonance caused them to learn about aspects of teaching and learning science that they had not explicitly questioned previously.
These authors described the principles that guided their program and offered ways of conceptualizing how to create opportunities for student teachers to be learners by confronting their taken-for-granted assumptions of teaching as telling and learning as memorization. They also noted that the “learning to teach process is generative” (p. 14). Lederman, Gess-Newsome, and Latz (1994) also illustrated evidence of student teachers as learners in their study of secondary preservice science teachers’ content and pedagogical knowledge structures, whereby pedagogical knowledge stood out as a primary influence on instructional decisions.
These studies are illustrative of student-teachers as learners, because an overt focus on their experiences was adopted as a guiding principle in teacher preparation. Furthermore, van Driel and de Jong's (1999) investigation of preservice chemistry teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) (Shulman, 1986, 1987) highlighted the importance of listening to students as an impetus for recognizing and responding to differences between beliefs and practices. While van Driel and de Jong focused on the question, “Is a development in the preservice teachers’ PCK observable, and if so, what is the influence of specific factors on this development?” their study illustrated how these student teachers recognized that “their usual way of reasoning cause[d] problems for [their] students, who … became confused … [as] the different activities and events during [their] classroom teaching affected their knowledge of specific learning difficulties of students” (p. 5). Thus the primacy of experience emerged as in important factor in the promotion of a preservice science teacher as learner stance.
Veal (1999), another researcher interested in the PCK of preservice science teachers, also paid careful attention to student teachers’ voices. Veal's participants questioned the use of language as an important shaping force in the implicit messages of teaching about science in ways that they had not previously recognized in their own learning of science. They also responded to their own sense of dissonance when confronted by difficulties in (re)learning chemistry and physics and began to make meaningful links to the ways in which they might then teach those concepts themselves. For example, one student teacher (Randi), in responding to a consideration of the abstract nature of chemistry, focused attention on the importance of concrete representations—a learning breakthrough that affected Randi's view of teaching. However, Veal made clear that just because student teachers recognized the need for particular approaches to practice, it did not necessarily follow that changes were automatically implemented. This point is a reminder of the interplay between beliefs and practice and the role of dissonance as a catalyst for meaningful learning from experience for student teachers.
Like many others (e.g., Cochran & Jones, 1998; Gunstone & Northfield, 1994; Hoban, 2003; Northfield, 1998; Vander Borght, 2003), Veal (1999) also noted how the influence of classroom teaching experience and participants’ interactions with students tended to raise new issues for teaching and learning that could only really be apprehended through the experiences of student teachers. Therefore, Veal further supported the view that, to encourage student teachers as learners, their existing belief structures need to be sufficiently (and consistently) challenged in ways that will cause them to reconsider their taken-for-granted assumptions of science teaching and learning.
Learning from Experience
Munby and Russell (1994) offered an analysis of detailed feedback from physics methods students enrolled in a preservice education program at Queen's University, Canada, and used these messages to develop the notion of the “authority of experience” to explain the unease many student teachers felt about their transition from being “under authority” to being “in authority” as they moved through student teaching. The development of “authority of experience” was a salutary reminder of the ongoing conflict between teaching as telling and teaching for understanding as it highlighted how some student teachers wanted to be told how to teach while others wanted to learn how to teach. Through a desire to explicitly develop student teachers’ authority of experience, Russell (1997) sought new ways of empowering his student teachers as learners through a sustained concentration on, and analysis of, their teaching experiences (see Featherstone, Munby, & Russell, 1997; Russell & Bullock, 1999). Russell therefore worked with his student teachers (Featherstone and Bullock) to help them reflect upon, and research, their own experiences of learning to teach.
Featherstone documented how his views of teaching and learning changed as he gathered feedback from his students about their learning, and how he listened to his students to really hear what they were saying. In so doing, he better aligned both his teaching and learning intents in explicit and meaningful ways. Following a series of lessons on “natural succession” and his purposeful attention to his students’ views, he noted that, “I have been reminded just how important it is that one does not underestimate the value of creating a forum for listening to students’ voices … there is something special about being able to say that my decision [about how to further develop his teaching] is based on what I have learned from my students” (Featherstone et al., p. 136).
In a similar way, Bullock highlighted his learning through experience by documenting his practice. Having spent some time thinking about the differences between his views of science learning and his actual science teaching, Bullock was encouraged to take risks in his practice. Eventually, even though his instincts told him to act differently, he came to see value in allowing his students to explore science for themselves, not unlike the way he was learning to explore teaching himself, by discovery and risk, not through “being told.” His big-picture breakthrough highlighted how his learning about teaching was based on valuing experience:
I would argue that the nature of science is to construct your own reality of how the world works… . We as educators should remember that although it is apparent to us that, say, all objects undergo the same acceleration due to gravity near the Earth's surface, it remains a mystery to most high school students. “Experience first” allows people to discover science rather than be information sponges. (Bullock in Russell & Bullock, 1999, p. 137)
Featherstone and Bullock's reports lend further weight to the call (see Lederman et al., 1994) for more importance to be placed on better integration of subject-specific pedagogy courses in preservice teacher preparation programs. If subject-specific pedagogy is to be recognized and developed by preservice science teachers as learners, then they need opportunities to pursue their learning about practice in more meaningful ways (per Geddis's [1993] study of student teachers’ learning about isotopes), rather than simply as task-driven activities. In so doing, the possibilities for preservice science teachers as learners would be enhanced through the creation of possibilities for effective reflective practice (Loughran, 2002), whereby their own experiences are the basis for personally identifying the value in framing practice in intelligible, plausible, and fruitful ways (Posner, Strike, Hewson, & Gertzog, 1982) for their own conceptual development. If this were the case, then de Jong, Korthagen, and Wubbels’ (1998) concern for better linking of student teachers’ conceptions and actions in classroom practice might be realized.
ELEMENTARY SCIENCE TEACHER AS LEARNER
Elementary science teachers’ need for a strong science knowledge base has been raised many times in the literature (Appleton, 1992; Appleton & Symington, 1996; Carr & Symington, 1991; DEET, 1989; Harlen, Holroyd, & Byrne, 1995; Skamp, 1991; Welch, 1981) and is often interpreted as simply meaning that more science content knowledge equates with better science teaching. This interpretation, though, has been challenged (Bennett, Summers, & Askew, 1994). In fact, Schibeci and Hickey (2000) noted that “there is no place, in our view, for a ‘cognitive deficit’ model in providing assistance to elementary teachers to improve their content backgrounds” (p. 1168). They stated this as a result of their experience in organizing and conducting a professional development program1 designed to help elementary science teachers become meaningful learners of science. However, what they came to learn was that such development was dependent on three salient dimensions: a scientific dimension—to promote change in teachers’ concepts and support development of more sophisticated ideas, theories, and principles; a professional dimension—based on content to be taught in elementary classes thus having high relevance and purpose to teachers; and a personal dimension—related to everyday life and providing a motivation for teachers to learn and understand (p. 1168).
Schibeci and Hickey (2000) conceptualized these three dimensions because their involvement with elementary teachers highlighted for them that content alone did not necessarily lead to more effective teaching. What this suggests is that the general predominance of the scientific dimension as a focus for the development of elementary science teachers’ practice has perhaps masked the importance of the other two dimensions in learning about science teaching and learning. However, finding real examples in the literature of the professional and personal dimensions of science teachers as learners (in the teachers’ voice) is difficult; perhaps it could also be argued that a strong science knowledge base itself is important in encouraging the necessary risk-taking to publicly explore the professional and personal dimensions of science teacher as learner in research reports.
Confidence in Science Teaching
Appleton and Kindt (1999) offered another way of viewing the development of these three dimensions through a consideration of “science activities that work.” They noted how science content was sometimes perceived as being well taught if the “activities” for the students were fun, hands-on, and/or thematically developed. They also highlighted how some elementary teachers’ lack of confidence in science led them to avoid teaching science.
The need to place more emphasis on elementary science teachers as learners has been apparent for some time but is perhaps a part of the science education research agenda that has not garnered sufficient attention in the mainstream research literature. Yet, the seeds for such development have long been planted. For example, Smith and Neale (1989) offered strong indicators of the value of concentrating on personally and professionally meaningful shifts in perspectives and practices in science teaching as an invitation for science education researchers to work with rather than on teachers.
Geddis (1996), working with teachers, and exploring two experienced elementary teachers’ efforts to make science a more significant part of their teaching, drew attention to the fact that a concentration on teaching science disrupted elementary teachers’ views of themselves as teachers. In Geddis’ case studies, the participating teachers appeared to have developed new perspectives on science teaching and learning. For these elementary science teachers as learners, their actions created a sense of unease in “intervening in [their] students’ learning” (p. 263). Yet, in many instances, intervention was necessary if science teaching was to begin to address students’ alternative conceptions. What Geddis's work highlighted was how elementary teachers’ “professional identities have often been associated with a variety of slogans whose central message is essentially, I teach children, not subjects” (p. 264). Adopting a science teaching and learning frame for practice may well cause a sense of unease among teachers because it challenges their traditional view of themselves as teachers. Addressing this unease is congruent with Schibeci and Hickey's (2000) suggestions about the need for personal and professional change as opposed to that of science knowledge alone. But how might this be done in ways that are responsive to the real needs and expectations of elementary teachers?
Science Learning Through a Community of Practice
Summers and Kruger (1994), through a two-year longitudinal study of the development of elementary teachers’ subject matter knowledge in science, illustrated that through well-designed in-service education, participants’ understanding of science concepts could be substantially enhanced. Yet despite the best intentions, education systems and providers often fail to develop and implement ongoing, well-organized, and conceptually coherent science education programs.
Fleer and Grace (2003) responded to this situation in their study of the professional commitment to teacher as learner through the development of a community of practice (Wenger, 1998). In their account, the voice of the teachers and students was particularly strong and illustrated how the professional and personal dimensions of learning about practice, and the subsequent changes in actions, blossomed through collegial leadership. They paid attention to their community of practice through full participation and the collective (rather than individual) accumulation of experiences. Their study illustrated how children's science experiences were deliberately broadened as more teachers joined their quest for learning. It also made clear how, by centering on children and their learning, classroom teachers could be drawn into an evolving community of science practice. This work challenges some of the barriers to teaching and learning science raised in many previous studies by addressing the situation holistically—in the typical elementary approach of an integrated curriculum—rather than focusing solely on the science itself.
Grace offered a series of case studies that illustrated the development of the community of practice in which the involvement of others in the students’ study of the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect positively influenced approaches to science teaching and learning. The teachers themselves were genuinely involved in the children's learning journey and were activated to join the growing community of learners.
The development of a community of science practice created a context in which the boundaries for learning were not defined by a single classroom, but were deliberately broad. The evolving community of practice included the staff in the school, the families of the children, community members, and local, regional, and international contexts (Fleer & Grace, 2003, p. 132).
The majority of research into elementary teachers’ practice of science adopts an individualistic approach whereby the unit of study is the teacher. In such situations, the community in which the teacher exists is perhaps less likely to be accorded sufficient importance as a research focus. The framing of the research may simply overlook aspects of science teaching and learning that are embedded in the community rather than the individual. Fleer and Grace's overt focus on the community illustrated how teaching and learning in science can respond to many of the concerns and issues raised in much of the literature. However, such responses require researchers to be active participants within the elementary school environment itself, and such practice no doubt challenges more “traditional” research practices. Perhaps the unease felt by elementary teachers (as noted by Geddis, 1996) is equally apparent in the “practice” of researchers (in that traditional research is seen as distinct from the work of practice) and helps to account for the small number of strong alternative perspectives on elementary science teacher as learner available in the mainstream science education literature. Fleer and Grace clearly offer one way of challenging such a situation.
SECONDARY SCIENCE TEACHER AS LEARNER
The literature shows a clear distinction between beginning and experienced secondary science teachers as learners. Obviously, beginning and experienced science teachers are two ends of a continuum. However, the distinction between them can be somewhat blurry. For example, White, Russell, and Gunstone (2002) and Lockard (1993) illustrated how, when experienced science teachers changed schools or taught unfamiliar content, they became beginning science teachers again. In this case, for ease of distinction and analysis, I define a beginning science teacher as someone in the first five years of teaching.
Beginning Science Teachers as Learners
Adams and Krockover (1997) studied science teachers moving from preservice into the early years of teaching. They found that the initial shifts from didactic teaching practices toward conceptual/constructivist teaching and learning practices were encouraged through reflection, and that seeds for the development of PCK were incorporated into the schema of beginning teachers. Loughran (1994), following a cohort in a similar fashion, outlined a model to account for beginning science teachers’ search for a better alignment of their teaching and learning intents. Carlsen (1991), in his year-long study of four new high school biology teachers, attempted to quantify subject matter knowledge and how that knowledge affected novices’ teaching. However, what he recognized was what McNeil (1986) described as a “contradiction of control” whereby the “social and institutional concerns act at cross-purposes with goals like promoting inquiry through discourse” (Carlsen, 1991, p. 646), affecting these beginning science teachers’ approach to teaching. This contradiction of control was also noted by Munby, Cunningham, and Locke (2000) in their detailed case study of a year 9 science teacher, highlighting how the nature of the school in which she worked set up barriers to the development of her professional knowledge.
Through this period of transition from student teacher to beginning teacher, much learning occurs as the search for time to reflect on practice as well as the need to develop professionally satisfying approaches to practice are continually buffeted by the day-to-day concerns and expectations of the role. Trumbull's (1999) longitudinal study of six beginning biology teachers in her book, The New Science Teacher, is one study that strongly illustrated this transition through the participants’ own voices.
Trumbull (1999) followed six of her student teachers through their teacher preparation program and out into their first three years of teaching science. Through insightful interview data, she allowed each participant to tell the story of his or her development and learning over time. The first participant, Fred, learned about the contradiction between teaching for understanding and teaching to pass examinations; his learning was about his realization of the ongoing dilemma associated with choosing to teach for understanding by trying to help his students get “excited” about the topics they were investigating.
Pat Green learned about the importance of a personal connection to content by responding to the serendipitous nature of learning and, in so doing, came to see how central that was to her growth in understanding of science teaching and learning. Sylvie Andrews learned about how taking risks in her teaching required a confidence to pursue teaching approaches that were initially discomforting for both the teacher and the learners. Yet, Elaine Spring grew in confidence sufficiently to be more responsive to the need to modify her existing teaching materials and to develop a more coherent view of the courses she was teaching. In so doing, she learned how to “react more immediately when her students brought up important topics spontaneously” (p. 76).
Being involved in the research with Trumbull was helpful in Maggie Deering's development, as she came to see aspects of her practice that she needed to adjust in order to capitalize on her teaching and learning intents in practical ways. She noted the need for explicit instruction in higher level thinking and explanatory writing for her students to become more independent and responsible learners. This was also mirrored in her recognition of the same thing occurring in her learning through the research project. “As I read your [Trumbull's] case study about me, I wondered if my involvement in the project helped me be more reflective in my practice” (p. 91).
The final participant, George Frage, was interested in “biology for its own sake and for the complex reasoning involved in research and experimentation” (p. 103). However, his learning was centered on the frustration he felt about the perceived need to cover the content as opposed to learning some concepts in depth. This frustration was something with which he struggled. His level of concern was more closely linked to his developing notions of PCK; his strength of content knowledge appeared to influence his concern for teaching in ways that enhanced his understanding of practice. It could well be argued that George was beginning to learn that content knowledge alone was not sufficient for good teaching, and that the development of his students’ learning in ways that would satisfy him professionally would be the teaching and learning challenge he might come to name for his future development.
Anderson and Mitchener (1994) described the transition from pre-service to in-service education as an induction phase whereby the beginning teacher is confronted by: “(1) the isolated nature of teaching, (2) the abrupt nature of the transition into teaching, (3) the documented attrition rate of beginning teachers, and (4) the personal and professional well-being of the beginning teachers” (pp. 31–32). What the beginning science teacher as learner literature illustrates is that, in this induction phase, there is a need for genuine support and guidance so that these science teachers can learn to frame and name the nature of their concerns in order to actively decide what they personally need to pursue to enhance their own learning about teaching and learning in science. It seems that when personal and professional well-being is well managed, the beginning science teacher as learner begins to emerge as a result of a growth in confidence through the associated risk-taking and experimenting with practice necessary in addressing the differences between teaching intents and learning outcomes (see Trumbull's cases).
The challenge, though, is to manage this induction phase in such a way as to encourage the sharing of learning so that the sometimes contradictory messages of socialization do not reinforce the very teaching behaviors that have so shaped many beginning teachers’ views of science teaching. Professionalization rather than socialization for the beginning science teacher is encouraged most through the modeling of a science teacher as learner approach by the experienced science teachers who comprise the community in which the beginning teachers work.
Experienced Science Teachers as Learners
Klopfer's (1991) summary of science education to 1989 highlights not only the approach to research in science education to that point in time (largely instrumental and generally work on teachers rather than with teachers), but also that “some researchers found that teachers had difficulty translating their knowledge into practice or that teachers believed that they had implemented more good practice into their classroom than observations supported” (p. 352). This point about translating knowledge into practice highlights an issue indicative of science teacher as learner—making the tacit explicit.
Articulation
One common external mechanism that encourages science teachers to see a need to make the tacit explicit is involvement with science education researchers (often through enrolment in postgraduate programs) and the subsequent development of a language for sharing understandings of the complex nature of science teaching and learning. Geelan (1996) illustrated this point when his “newfound” need to read about educational theories and practices offered him tools to reflect on his own teaching and to grow and develop as a science teacher. Geelan's study showed how, when a teacher is placed in the position of learner, the need to articulate understandings of teaching and learning is catalyzed.
Maor (1999) described such a situation through a professional development program designed to place teachers in the role of learners in an attempt to challenge their use of multimedia and to influence their use of constructivist teaching approaches in their classrooms. The need for a vocabulary to share their knowledge of practice was an important issue and has been central to much of the debate about teaching as a profession—it is seen as crucial to teachers valuing the knowledge that underpins their practice.
As a high school chemistry teacher, Ian Mitchell became well aware of the value of a language for discussing teaching and learning. The cofounder of PEEL (Project for the Enhancement of Effective Learning; see Baird & Mitchell, 1986; Baird & Northfield, 1992; Loughran, 1999), Mitchell was responsible for an ongoing, largely unfunded professional development project that hinged on teachers’ using a language for learning and the extensive development of teaching procedures to enhance students’ metacognition. Yet, when he found himself facing an impending absence from his science class, the crucial information that he needed to pass on to the teacher who was going to cover for him did not carry the understanding necessary for that teacher to perform her function in the way Mitchell had intended. Mitchell soon discovered that,
I had no idea that I had omitted in my advice [to the other teacher] such a huge part of what I did. I was astounded to discover this. Identifying the frame of “maintain a sense of progress” was very important for lesson sequences that have a focus on restructuring or constructing understanding of key ideas rather than completing tasks … however, part of the crucial wisdom that I had also developed about how to maximize the prospect by overtly maintaining a sense of progress of success was only revealed [to me] by the sequence of events just reported. (Mitchell, 1999, pp. 60–61)
What Mitchell came to recognize was that, despite his exemplary teaching practice and overt focus on developing students’ metacognitive skills through teaching for understanding, he did not explicitly recognize the key features of the information he needed to pass on to another teacher to continue with his class commensurate with the ideas and approaches he was using. Only by being confronted by the situation in which he found himself did he learn how “seriously [he] underestimated the highly tacit nature of so many crucial aspects of teacher knowledge” (p. 63).
Drawing further on PEEL, Zwolanski (1997) and McMaster (1997) highlighted how their focus on students’ learning gave them a powerful language for discussing issues of teaching and learning that directly related to changes in their science teaching practice. Zwolanski noted, “I am more aware of my teaching style and am constantly evaluating the lessons and content taught … the students have a say in the direction of the lesson” (p. 133). For Zwolanski, this was quite a shift in her approach to teaching, something that she had to learn about in order to do, not something she could just simply employ. Similarly, McMaster described how he began to learn how to bring his practices more into line with his beliefs about teaching and learning: “It is of no use to admit that children have prior views of topics if you don't let them approach the ‘scientist's view’ by their own learning skills. The method of acknowledging their views only to systematically knock them down would not shift them as much as by letting them review their own ideas or check their own understanding” (McMaster, 1997, p. 143).
The PEEL project is replete with examples of science teachers as learners whereby the need to articulate features of practice drives a learning about practice in very real and tangible ways. However, change itself is invariably problematic.
Science Teaching and Learning: A Problematic Adventure
Viewing teaching and learning as problematic is important, for were it not problematic, it would surely be a simple task to apply the correct approach to resolving any prescribed learning difficulty. If one accepts that teaching is problematic, then one way of understanding this perspective is through the notion of dilemmas. A dilemma by definition is something that is managed, not resolved; hence, a teacher who is learning to manage a dilemma is learning about practice rather than solving a problem with practice. This is not to suggest that there is a lack of progress or development in the knowledge and skills of teaching. Rather, that which is being better understood is itself an indication of development and progress and is a sign of a professional approach to understanding the ongoing tensions, frustrations, and concerns associated with better linking of teaching and learning.
In the edited book Dilemmas of Science Teaching: Perspectives on Problems in Practice (Wallace & Louden, 2002) this very point of practice being problematic is the basis for insights into science teachers as learners. The understandings that emerged through the careful examination of teachers’ dilemmas led to a questioning of the taken-for-granted assumptions of practice that guided these teachers’ development in new understandings of teaching and learning in science. For example, when McGuiness, Roth, and Gilmer (2002) reconsidered laboratory work and questioned what it did, how it was performed, and the value of the associated tasks, assessing practical work emerged as an issue that had not seriously been considered in the past. In a similar way, the Krueger, Barton, and Rennie (2002) examination of group work led to a confrontation with the exclusionary approaches of some students that limited the learning possibilities for others. Furthermore, Gribble, Briggs, Black, and Abell (2002) reconsidered the use of questioning and began to see things in classroom discourse that had not been so apparent (if at all) in the past. Overall, the examination of dilemmas highlights how attempting to teach, not tell, continually emerges as a challenge for those who perceive practice as being problematic.
Northfield, in Opening the Classroom Door: Teacher, Researcher, Learner (Loughran & Northfield, 1996), his year-long examination of his teaching of a year 7 class of high school students, left no doubt about his learning as a science teacher. Through extensive accounts of classroom situations and his reflections on practice through conversations with others and his journal entries, he came to a point whereby he was able to synthesize and categorize his learning.
Northfield's categories highlighted principles that shaped his approach to practice; however, the differences he articulated between his expectations for teaching and learning and his students were disconcerting. Northfield explored these differences by contrasting his teacher view, “Learning requires learner consent,” and his students’ view, that “Learning is done to students and teachers have a major responsibility for achieving learning” (p. 137). Northfield's account offered interesting insights into the world of the teacher as learner and raised issues about the theory-practice gap. And it is through appropriate explorations of the theory-practice gap that the science education community's knowledge and understanding of practice might be enhanced. However, in some cases, neither world pays sufficient attention to the other, despite the efforts of those who try to bridge this gap in thoughtful ways.
Theory-Practice Gap: Practice-Theory Bridge
Pekarek, Krockover, and Shepardson (1996) drew attention to the oft-cited theory-practice gap as an issue in terms of addressing concerns about changes in the pedagogy of science. McGoey and Ross (1999), in response to the lament about “the lack of teachers’ application of research in informing their day-to-day practice” (p. 117), discussed their use of conceptual change pedagogy and offered a “report to the research community [about] where advances in research ha[d] taken [them], and where [they] would appreciate future research to be directed” (p. 117).
In an interesting slant on the theory-practice gap (so often reported from the research perspective), McGoey and Ross (1999) outlined what they saw as the important difference between technical information (the “how to” of teacher journals) and theoretical frameworks (the “how come” and “what if” of research journals) that influences what is sought and what is useful in the worlds of theory and practice. In so doing, they approached the theory-practice gap from a teaching perspective. Although they stated that they represented a minority of teachers, they offered a bridge into theory from practice by making clear what had been helpful to them and, therefore, what they looked for in their learning about science teaching and learning. Their approach illustrated the difference between what many researchers might pursue and make available to practitioners and what they, as teachers, do pursue. They rightly expected that the explication of their perspective might encourage a shift in research focus as they “look[ed] forward to a day when collaboration between the academy and the classroom teacher [would be] a commonplace of [the] profession [of] science teaching” (p. 120). The hope was that the two would work together so that research and practice might inform one another in meaningful ways.
There has been a great deal of research into aspects of the nature of teachers’ beliefs, knowledge, and practice (see chapters by Lederman, Abell, Jones, & Carter) designed to elucidate factors that might genuinely help to improve the quality of science teaching (in ways commensurate with the hopes of Goodrum & Hackling, 1997). Many of these efforts have been professional development projects (Johanna, Lavonen, Koponen, & Kurki-Suonio, 2002; Radford, 1998; Shymansky et al., 1993; van Driel, Verloop, & de Vos, 1998) aimed at addressing many of the research findings (noted above). However, the difficulty has often been that although these projects are sympathetic to the work of science teachers, and the researchers are concerned for the development of quality in science teaching and learning,2 the teachers themselves have not necessarily been the initiators or sustainers of the research effort. When teachers are the initiators and sustainers of the work (as reported by Hoban, 2003), the focus and results are considerably different.
Briscoe (1991), for example, followed an experienced secondary science teacher considered exemplary by his peers, for a year. The teacher wanted to make changes to his teaching practice, but the paper illustrated how such a purpose was continually under attack because of the conflict between his goals for learning and his actions as a teacher. The study illustrated how difficult it can be for a teacher to actually make the changes being sought, even though the expectation is clear. Nelson (2001) also followed an experienced teacher with an extensive understanding of oceanography as she transformed her teaching from a more traditional form into an inquiry-based approach. She found that changes in the teacher's practice occurred, and were encouraged, as a result of her strong content knowledge in conjunction with reflection on her students’ learning.
Both of these studies are examples of research into science teaching and learning from the practice perspective and illustrate the shift in research focus, data, and results that accompany such a shift. Both researchers appeared sympathetic to the teachers’ world; what they uncovered was no doubt helpful to other teachers in similar situations. However, the work of Fitzpatrick (1996), a science teacher and head of his school's science department, took this process one step further. He described what happened when he and his colleagues decided to “throw away” the existing year 8 curriculum and replace it with a new course structure and new teaching and learning approaches because, “after years of stagnation … [he was] very quickly convinced of the benefits of adopting a constructivist philosophy” (p. 1). Fitzpatrick (1996) gave reasons for deciding to change and described how their work led to the development of new pedagogical skills.
However, few studies responded to the McGoey and Ross (1999) agenda to the extent of that described by Berry and Milroy (2002). Having decided to pay careful attention to their students’ learning about atomic theory, Berry and Milroy were confronted by a realization:
We asked students to expose their thinking and did not know how to help them … when we turned to the research literature to find a context for teaching about atomic structure, or practical classroom assistance for dealing with the particular conceptions we had uncovered and wanted to challenge, we found little … We needed a user-friendly guide (where the users were teachers like us) for dealing with the variety of individual conceptions—how to challenge; what to do with those students who already had a coherent view of the phenomenon. (Berry & Milroy, 2002, pp. 200–201)
Because they were unable to find the research knowledge and help they required for the task they had set themselves, they became active science teacher learners, collaborating in a learning about science teaching experience that was certainly much more demanding and challenging than they had anticipated. The nature of their work, the daily demands of teaching, and the need to make real progress (for their students and themselves) created a research agenda (and a report) very different from that generally found in the literature, especially when such work is portrayed from a traditional research perspective. Their account was constructed around 10 powerful “snapshots” of their learning about science teaching and presented issues and concerns that were developed and analyzed in ways that other teachers would readily identify with and likely find helpful and informative in their own practice. Their study was one that has helped to set a new agenda for what research into science teaching and learning might pursue in seriously challenging the theory-practice gap. These science teachers as learners illustrated that there are real ways of responding to McGoey and Ross's (1999) call as they began to build a bridge from practice into theory that invited travelers to traverse from both sides.
SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATOR AS LEARNER
Over the past decade, self-study of teacher education practices (Hamilton, 1998) has become increasingly influential in shaping approaches to teaching and research in teacher education, partly as a result of a shift in focus toward teacher educators’ desire to learn more about their own practice (Adler, 1993; Korthagen & Russell, 1995; Mueller, 2003; Munby, 1996; Nicol, 1997; Pereira, 2000) and partly in response to teacher educators’ growing interest in the knowledge base of teaching and learning about teaching (e.g., Berry & Loughran, 2002; Loughran & Russell, 1997; Mayer-Smith & Mitchell, 1997; Trumbull, 1996; Trumbull & Cobb, 2000).
Science methods teaching in teacher preparation programs is the context in which much of the science teacher educator as learner studies are located. For example, Russell (1997), through his physics methods teaching, considered his learning about science teaching specifically in terms of how his knowledge of practice could be made more accessible to his student teachers, so that their learning of science teaching would encourage them to challenge the status quo of science teaching as the delivery of facts. Chin (1997) similarly pursued an understanding of his teaching about chemistry teaching as he “articulate[d] some significant experiences that informed [his] beliefs about teaching and learning within the teacher education context” (p. 117). In so doing he made clear how, as a science teacher educator, he was also a learner. Both of these teacher educators illustrated how their learning about their own science teaching substantially informed their practice in teaching about science teaching and that their learning was continually being challenged as they sought honest and constructive feedback about the impact of their practice on their student teachers’ learning.
Segal (1999) pursued her learning about teaching science by taking the risk of placing herself in the learner's position as she struggled with how to teach in a three-part learning and teaching model (cooperative groups, learners’ questions, and a techno-science context). Her paper examined the differences between being a learner of science teaching and a learner of science learning and showed how she came to better understand the dilemmas of practice that were important in shaping the situations through which the teaching approach (the three-part model above) affected the learning of her students:
I did not realize until I was a full participant in their [student-teachers’] explorations that my own understanding was tenuous… . In genuinely seeking to understand how they were learning, I was involved in the appropriation process myself… . After a positive boost to my confidence, I was probably keen that students should experience this type of inner satisfaction through the learners’ questions part of the learning model. (Segal, 1999, pp. 17–18)
Segal's efforts were extended by collaboration with a colleague, following their student teachers through teacher preparation and into their first year of teaching (see Schuck & Segal, 2002). They learned a great deal about their teacher education practices and how their own assumptions about student teachers’ learning of science were challenged when they sought evidence of meaningful change. Having specifically taught science in ways designed to create student-centered, activity-based, small-group learning, Segal came to see that she needed to “employ multiple strategies in class to challenge the assumption … that as long as the children are having fun, they are developing conceptual science understanding” (p. 95). She found using first-hand experiences with student teachers did not lead to student teachers using the same practices when they were full-time teachers.
Schuck and Segal (2002) found that, although they could create powerful learning experiences for their student teachers at the university, in many cases these experiences created an impression for their student teachers that such approaches were “seamless and unproblematic” (p. 96). Hence, when their student teachers were challenged by the reality of teaching in those ways themselves, many retreated to the very teaching approaches they had experienced and been dissatisfied with as school students.
Hoban's (1997) investigation of his teaching about elementary science focused on helping his student teachers understand their own learning of science in order to counter the transmissive model of teaching about teaching so predominant in teacher preparation programs. His study showed that, although many elementary student teachers lacked “a solid knowledge base about science and many ha[d] negative attitudes about the subject, … providing them with large amounts of science content in courses [was] not the way to address this difficulty” (p. 146). His study illustrated how enhancing student teachers’ self-awareness of their own beliefs and practices led them to make meaningful shifts in their own practice. In his teaching about teaching, modeling was important to him: “This is risky business; you are exposing yourself to criticism from your own students. But [how can] trainee teachers take seriously your recommendations about being a reflective teacher [if] you do not do it yourself?” (p. 147).
Modeling what one expects of one's students is a crucial feature of science teacher educator as learner. Tobin (2003) accepted this challenge when he found his previous science education knowledge and experiences less than helpful in a new and demanding situation. In his study, not only did he reconceptualize what it meant to be a science teacher educator, but he also placed the same expectations on himself as a teacher as he had for his student teachers by student-teaching in a local urban high school:
I regarded myself as a strong teacher and never considered that the knowledge gleaned from a long career of teaching, research, and teacher education would fail to carry me through even the stiffest of challenges… . I moved to the University of Pennsylvania where I taught a science education course for prospective science teachers … all of the new teachers were assigned to urban high schools for a year-long field experience. The problems they were experiencing were profound and my suggestions, though grounded in research and theory, were of little use to them. Most of what I knew seemed inapplicable to their problems and the contexts in which they taught … [I took a teaching position in an urban high school similar to that which my student-teachers were experiencing] … I was to realize all too quickly that I needed to re-learn to teach in urban schools … I failed to understand teaching as praxis. For too long I had regarded teaching as knowledge that could be spoken, written, and thought. But words could not be turned into teaching to mediate the learning of students. (Tobin, 2003, p. 34)
Tobin's learning experiences could not help but dramatically affect his teaching about science teaching. The sense of dissonance, the inability to convey meaning to his student teachers, and then being confronted by the same problems as his student teachers were experiencing helped him understand and know about practice in new and different ways, ways that he did not understand before genuinely adopting a science teacher and science teacher educator as learner stance.
CONCLUSION
Clarke and Erickson (2004) noted how the literature on student as learner and that on teacher as learner have converged through common links to constructivism and how the search for “universal type laws” of learning that apply equally well to all contexts have been abandoned because of the inherent situated and contextually bound nature of learning. Following from this, the notion of science teacher as learner is then clearly bound up in understandings of contemporary theoretical perspectives on learning and concerns for the improvement of teaching practices— especially so from a teacher's perspective. Wallace (2003) extended this view through his articulation of three conceptual themes: (a) that learning about teaching is situated, and as a consequence, the development of teachers’ understanding and knowledge requires a focus on authentic activities; (b) that learning about teaching is social and that “creating rich opportunities for diverse groups of teachers to participate in, and to shape, discourse communities” is critical (p. 10); and (c) that learning about teaching is distributed, and, hence, collaboration is central to change.
I suggest that a major unaddressed challenge facing the science education community is to purposefully pursue research that is meaningful, applicable, and appropriate for teachers in the development of their pedagogy of science, so that ultimately students’ learning of science is enhanced. As I trust this review illustrates, addressing such a challenge demands a concentration on the science teacher as learner in conjunction with that of science teacher educator as learner—the two cannot be divorced. A science teacher as learner stance must be taken seriously at all levels of teaching about science, and doing so requires an understanding of teaching as being problematic.
Fundamental to responding appropriately to this challenge is the need for science teachers to consistently: (a) challenge the taken-for-granted in their practice; (b) examine, articulate, and disseminate their learning through experience; and (c) seek to continually ensure that practice and theory inform one another. To do this requires a conceptualization of professional practice that explicitly values a science teacher as learner stance. The science education community can no longer excuse (science) teachers or teacher educators who espouse constructivist views of learning while continuing to practice transmissive approaches to teaching. For the expectations of the science education community in general to shift, individuals must respond. This chapter has offered insights into some of the approaches to, and experiences of, science teachers as learners who have approached their research and practice in ways that have helped to genuinely rejuvenate and shape the world of science teaching and learning. More than ever, your personal response matters.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Gary Hoban and John Wallace, who reviewed this chapter.
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1. Similar learning through organizing professional development for elementary teachers is also reported by Pearson and Wallace (1997).
2. Particularly evident in the work of Clark (2003) in his study of a South African teacher attempting to teach for understanding while struggling with a major lack of resources and support. Clark's account is one that reflects, in a very powerful way, the concerns, issues and difficulties of teaching science for understanding when the lack of expectations and conditions for such practice are overwhelming.