David Heywood

Exploring the relationship between subject knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge in primary teachers' learning about forces

This study explores the tension between subject knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge in primary teacher education. It documents students and in-service teachers learning about forces within the context of floating and sinking. In doing so it describes not only significant features of the learning process itself but also examines subject specific aspects of learning, identifying some of the inherent difficulties for learners within this domain and demonstrating how learners construct links between tacit knowledge and abstract scientific notions. Implications for teacher education and the teaching of science in the classroom are explored.

The Place of Analogies in Science Education

The role of analogy in learning has been extensively researched in science education. The core purpose of the use of analogy as a strategy deployed in teaching is that of developing understanding of abstract phenomena from concrete reference. Whilst such an objective is desirable, it is predicated on the assumption that there is an agreed interpretation of the particular phenomena under scrutiny to which all subscribe. This paper argues that such a position is untenable and that the research enterprise should shift focus from determining the effectiveness of analogy in cognitive transfer from base to target domains towards the recognition of the role of analogy in generating engagement in the learning process. In such a paradigm, meaning in science for both learner and teacher is derived from discourse rather than being independent of it. The discussion draws on hermeneutic philosophy to provide a theoretical framework to illustrate the implications for teacher subject and pedagogical knowledge.

Primary Trainee Teachers’ Learning and Teaching About Light: Some pedagogic implications for initial teacher training

This paper is focused on primary trainee teachers’ conceptualization of the vision process and image formation in a plane mirror. The study involved 55 non‐specialist, undergraduate trainee primary teachers on a 4‐year programme of initial teacher training. The process incorporated tracking trainees’ ideas during university‐taught sessions through collating and analysing responses to set tasks that included both the interpretation of annotated diagrams of the vision process and diagrammatic representation of image formation in a plane mirror. A selected sample of trainees was also interviewed. The data indicate that trainees experience significant difficulties in articulating coherent explanations regarding basic ideas about light. This presents particular professional constraint within the current demands of the primary initial teacher training science curriculum. It is argued that a more productive approach would be to focus on the professional issue of pedagogy through raising trainees’ awareness of the conceptual difficulties in learning rather than the current curriculum focus that seems to privilege knowing over understanding.

Confronting the analogy: primary teachers exploring the usefulness of analogies in the teaching and learning of electricity

Abstract Analogies are commonly employed in teaching and learning about abstract scientific phenomena such as electricity. There has been extensive research on the effectiveness of a range of analogies in promoting conceptual understanding with respect to the behaviour of simple circuits. Such studies focus on the development of learners’ thinking with respect to the transfer of understanding from the analogy to the target concept. This study attempts to explore what happens to individuals’ learning when analogies break down in the light of practical investigation. It proposes that the honest appraisal of such breakdown can constitute an effective learning tool. The implications for teacher education and classroom practice are discussed.

The pedagogy of physical science

The central theme of the book concerns how to develop effective teaching for meaningful learning in science. In attending to this question we seek to identify how teachers interpret difficult ideas in science and, in particular, what supports their own learning in coming to a professional understanding of how to teach science concepts to young children. We investigate how such professional insight emerges in the process of teachers identifying those elements that support their understanding during their own learning. In this paradigm, professional awareness derives from the practitioner interrogating their own learning and identifying implications for their teaching of science. The book draws on a significant body of critically analysed empirical evidence collated and documented over a five year period involving large numbers of trainee and practising teachers.

The Role of Analogies in Learning

In this chapter, we first present an empirical account that documents teachers’ learning about simple electric circuits through the use of analogies. In reviewing the analysis of data generated, we go on to propose that the research enterprise should shift focus from determining the effectiveness of analogy in cognitive transfer towards recognising the role of analogy in generating engagement in the learning process. Finally, we present an account of how the language used in analogical reasoning offers us both possibility and constraint in shaping the way we conceptualise the world.

Conceptual Change and Learning About Forces

This chapter outlines some aspects of the historical evolution of research into science learning and examines some of the complexities of the conceptual change process in learning about forces. Section 2.1 discusses the influence of cognitive psychology, in particular Piaget’s work on the individual construction of meaning, and how this relates to classical models of conceptual change. The discussion includes a review of conceptual change models concerned with developing knowledge and understanding of learners’ conceptions in science and explores some of the more recent criticisms of such approaches. This section concludes with a brief examination of socio-cultural and social constructivist perspectives. Section 2.2 provides an empirically based account of conceptual change in action detailing primary teachers’ learning about forces. This part of the discussion explores the generation of an emergent pedagogy as teachers analyse the dynamics of their own learning.

Metacognition and Developing Understanding of Simple Astronomical Events

This chapter focuses on the value of developing metacognitive awareness of learning as an integral part of science teacher education. Previous chapters have shown how adopting a metacognitive approach to teaching and learning affords the opportunity to support students in synthesising subject and pedagogical knowledge. In developing knowledge of their own cognition, students make pedagogical observations of significance for future classroom practice. In Chapter 4 we illustrated that as a result of experiencing cognitive conflict in their own learning, students identified emergent pedagogical implications ranging from knowledge of learners and learning in general, to detailed subject-specific observation relating to building understanding of light in the curriculum such as the need to enable learners to access what is an instantaneous process of light production, propagation and reception. In this chapter we explore the potential of this approach in generating subject-related pedagogical knowledge (pedagogic content knowledge) as students generate causal explanations of simple astronomical events. Pedagogic content knowledge (PCK) concerns knowledge related to the translation of subject knowledge in the act of instruction; it requires knowledge of the cognitive demand of the subject as well as knowledge of instructional practices appropriate to structuring learning including the use of metaphors, analogies and explanation. The chapter concludes by discussing the potential for the development of unique insight into the learning of subject in this area with important implications for instructional practice. First we consider the nature of metacognition and its potential to contribute towards effective teaching and learning in science.

The Subject Matter Learning Audit and the Generation of Pedagogical Content Knowledge

The previous chapters of this book have illustrated how developing metacognitive awareness of learning in the physical sciences holds potential for generating insight into not only the nature of science subject matter, but also the learning of subject with distinct advantages for self-regulation of personal learning and emergent implications for teaching. This chapter explores the generation of pedagogical insight through the application of a Subject Matter Learning Audit (SMLA) approach and presents empirical case study data showing how pre-service teachers, at an early stage in their professional training, employ knowledge of their own learning of subject in the formulation of teaching. We argue that personal learning experience is an undervalued avenue for the development of science pedagogical knowledge and conclude by discussing some important implications for the education of primary school teachers.

Cognitive Conflict and the Formation of Shadows

Chapter 2 outlined some of the complexities of the conceptual change process and illustrated difficulties experienced by primary teachers in developing qualitative understanding in the domain of force and motion. We demonstrated that by adopting a metacognitive approach to learning, learners become aware of how their thinking is shaped and moulded as they interact within the social learning context. In this process, important pedagogical insight is generated to inform future practice. It affords the opportunity not only to explore the embryonic emergence of pedagogical knowledge in teacher education but also to engage with individuals’ epistemological beliefs about the teaching and learning of science that have been shown to be powerful influences in shaping classroom approaches (Lunn 2002).