Rebecca Cooper

Pedagogical Reasoning in Teacher Education

The foundations on which teaching is constructed hint at ways of thinking and knowing that shape pedagogy and illustrate why simplistic notions of teaching as telling and learning as listening do not suffice (Loughran, Curric Inq 43(1):118–141, 2013). As a consequence, teaching is perhaps best understood as being problematic because it exists in what Schon (The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action.Basic Books, New York, 1983) described as the swampy lowlands where important but messy problems exist that cannot be simply resolved or technically managed. Teachers work with uncertainty in an ‘indeterminate zone of practice’ (Schon DA, Educating the reflective practitioner. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1987) in which professional knowledge develops in response to, and is informed by, the context. In exploring the uncertainty inherent in navigating the swampy lowlands of practice, pedagogical reasoning – the scaffolding that supports the sophisticated business of professional practice –comes into sharp focus. Understanding pedagogical reasoning, how it develops and the manner in which it influences practice is important. Making that clear for others, especially students of teaching, is a challenge that should not be eschewed in teacher education programmes.

Articulating Our Values to Develop Our Pedagogy of Science Teacher Education

As our understanding of science teacher education has developed, we have identified a need to delineate between pedagogy of science teachers and pedagogy of science teacher education. For the past 4 years, we have team taught the general science education course at Monash University while also investigating our practice with a focus on articulating that practice and our notions of science teacher education pedagogy. This chapter builds on our previous work and investigates how our efforts to better understand our practice and articulate our developing ideas of pedagogy have influenced what goes into our science course and how we present it. Our primary research questions are “How do I live my values more fully in my practice?” and “How do we improve our practice?” Data sources include our professional journals and the journal maintained by a research assistant who attended our classes. As the course has evolved from the research into our practice, so has our ability to articulate our purposes and values. Making our purposes explicit has helped our students to better understand what we value in teaching science. We are beginning to understand the values we promote and how they are perceived by our students.

The Potential of Digital Technology for Science Learning and Teaching—The Learners’ Perspective

Digital technologies play a significant role in education, with students and teachers having access to a wide range of technologies to support learning and teaching. However, there are many issues related to the use of digital technologies in learning and teaching that are too frequently not addressed. This chapter considers current concerns with science learning and teaching along with the potential of digital technologies to provide possible solutions to some of these concerns. Examples of digitally-based science learning and teaching are offered, and the need for caution and recognition of possible limitations of digital technologies are discussed. To this end, three questions are considered throughout the chapter: Just how is it that digital technologies are seen to offer a possible means of addressing the problems and issues associated with contemporary science education? How does this potential correspond with the realities of learners’ uses of digital technology to learn science? Most importantly, what needs to be done to better fulfil the undoubted potential of digital technology for the learning and teaching of science?

The articulation of the development of teacher knowledge during the implementation of new teaching procedures to enhance student understanding of molecular biological concepts

Abstract This paper is based on the first author’s extensive examination of her teaching and her students’ learning in a senior high school Biology classroom at a coeducational K-12 independent college in Victoria, Australia, over a five-year period. Research was guided by the following questions: (1) How can students become more aware of the specific biological terminology that they will need to use to communicate their understanding of biological concepts? (2) How can student familiarity with new biological terminology be enhanced? (3) Which teaching strategies might be most effective across the diverse range of abilities and learning styles within a senior Biology classroom? Three key data-sets ([1] Development of specific teaching procedures; [2] Student responses to using the teaching procedures; [3] Teacher journal entries and reflections) were analysed supported by Korthagen’s ALACT model. Findings support the notion that genuine educational change is linked to teacher change, driven by teachers themselves, drawing new insights into students’ learning.

The role of values in chemistry education

From this definition, Halstead highlights the more enduring and basic nature of values in comparison to beliefs, a form of knowledge that is personally viable for meeting personal goals (Tobin, Tippins, & Gallard, 1994), such as ‘I trust what you say’, or attitudes, an evaluative response to an object (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993), such as ‘I do not like airplanes’.

The Influence of Assessment on Moderating Science Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices

This chapter explores the moderating influence of assessment on secondary school science teachers’ notions of what is important in science education and their practices. Six senior secondary science teachers from different states of Australia (Queensland and Victoria), all identified by peers as “expert” teachers, were involved in this research. In Australia, school education is a state responsibility. These two states represent very different policy approaches to assessment at senior years of schooling; in particular, Victoria has externally set system-wide (high stakes) examinations at the end of the final year, while Queensland has for several decades used solely school-based assessment (with some external moderation) in the final year. This chapter highlights the influence such policies can have on moderating teachers’ practices and the differences between what they think is important in science education and the reality of their classrooms.

Developing the Knowledge Base of Preservice Science Teachers: Starting the Path Towards Expertise Using Slowmation

“Slowmation” (abbreviated from “Slow Animation”) is a simplified way for students at all levels of schooling and university to make a stop-motion animation to explain a concept or tell a story. We have used Slowmation to prompt preservice high school science teachers to articulate their knowledge of teaching. Initially, the preservice teachers work with high school science students to help these students make Slowmation movies that demonstrate school students’ understanding of particular abstract scientific concepts. When the preservice teachers present their school students’ movies to their preservice teacher colleagues it generates sophisticated discussion among preservice teachers of both school students’ alternative conceptions in science and issues surrounding the pedagogical development of the preservice teachers. Slowmation has offered us a window through which we can look into how preservice teachers think about their developing ideas of pedagogy and how they respond to, react to and grapple with the critical decisions they make in the classroom. By grappling with these ideas and publicly sharing their thinking, the preservice teachers are collaboratively building on and developing their pedagogical understanding.