Stephen Keast

Exploring the Nature of Teachers’ Professional Learning

In recent times, the distinction between traditional Professional Development (PD) and Professional Learning (PL) is becoming increasingly apparent. The shift associated with the intent and the language between PD and PL is evident in the report by Wei et al. (2009). The distinction between PD and PL is also captured by Mockler (2005) who characterized PD as something delivered in a ‘spray-on’ manner in which teachers attend a ‘PD day’ then return to their schools with the expectation that they will implement the workshop ideas in their own practice. What is clear is that the professional learning of teachers has become increasingly recognised as important in enhancing not only the quality of teaching in schools but also for developing the teaching profession more generally (Berry, Clemans, & Kostogriz, 2007). PL approaches tend to emphasize practices that are: sustained over time; responsive to the specifics of school and classroom contexts; underpinned by research and practice-based evidence; and, supported by professional learning communities and collaboration (Hayes, Mills, Christie, & Lingard, 2006; Hoban, 2002). In short, PD could be viewed as doing things to teachers so that they apply them in their practice while PL is about working with teachers to help them develop their skills, knowledge and abilities in ways that are responsive to their (pedagogical) needs, issues and concerns.

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.

Using ‘big ideas’ to enhance teaching and student learning

Abstract Organising teaching of a topic around a small number of ‘big ideas’ has been argued by many to be important in teaching for deep understanding, with big ideas being able to link different activities and to be framed in ways that provide perceived relevance and routes into engagement. However it is our view that, at present, the significance of big ideas in classroom practice is underappreciated while their implementation in teaching is perceived as ‘unproblematic’. In this paper we address these issues; while we draw on the experiences of two major research projects focusing on teachers’ pedagogical reasoning, we attempt to investigate big ideas from a conceptual stance. While the domain is important, we argue that the source of big ideas should include reflection on issues of student learning and engagement as well as the domain. Moreover, big ideas should be framed in ways that are richer, more generative of teaching ideas and more pedagogically powerful than topic headings. This means framing them as a sentence, with a verb, that provides direction and ideas for teachers. We posit three different kinds of big ideas: big ideas about content, big ideas about learning and big ideas about the domain; the last two result in teachers having parallel agendas to their content agendas. In addition to discussing how pedagogically powerful big ideas can be constructed, we draw on data from highly skilled teachers to extend thinking about how teachers can use big ideas.

Becoming Professionally Agentic: Researching Pedagogical Reasoning in Initial Teacher Education

This research is concerned with the issue of providing effective initial teacher education (ITE) in contemporary times of rapidly changing technologies, increasing student diversity and pressing global problems. Being an effective teacher in a contemporary sense requires more ingenuity, agency and critical awareness than ever before. The chapter provides a discussion of developing preservice teachers’ pedagogical reasoning in ITE at two different sites, drawing on recent research and current initiatives to develop preservice teachers’ professional agency and in relation to policy requirements for the demonstration of graduate competence against professional standards. The authors introduce narratives of practice in ITE constructed from data related to initiatives positioning preservice teachers as responsible for pedagogical decision-making at two specific, separate sites. The chapter highlights the importance of a focus on preservice teachers’ professional agency in evaluations of success in ITE.

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’.

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.