SM Hafizur Rahman :
Learning to change : The meaning of ‘Learning’, in this analysis, is basically the understanding of teachers when they realised a need to improve or emphasise any specific items of the schedule for their teaching. Summarises the learning for teachers of all seven peer groups.
Action accomplished to change : Teachers found scope to use their learning in their subsequent teaching cycles. Table 5 summarises the actions of all teachers from all seven pairs. The results of action have been presented in terms of the number of times teachers accomplished action regarding individual items rather than who accomplished them.
Teaching with an observer colleague : It has already been mentioned that 14 volunteer participant science teachers were involved and formed seven peer pairs, from seven nearby schools. According to Teacher 3 before the first teaching session cycle:
I am teaching for the last 23 years. This is the first time I am going to a class in where my science colleague is also ready to observe my full class. It really distracts me a little bit and I feel nervous rather than concentrating on my lesson today. I feel tension whether I am going to make any mistake during my teaching.
It seemed to me that most of the teachers felt nervous during the first teaching session. They were hesitant and were concerned about their colleague’s presence rather than concentrating on the lesson. However, that was not the case for the observers in the teaching sessions. According to the Teacher 4, after observing the teaching practice of his colleague, it is the first time I observed the teaching practice of my colleagues. I was really excited yesterday. The observation helped me to see my colleague’s teaching method, style of presentation and how he engaged students in the lesson. It also helped me to reflect on and clarify of my own teaching.
It seemed to me that in most cases they were excited about finding scope to observe their colleague’s teaching. It is notable that, before and after the first teaching session, all the participant teachers expressed the view that they liked the idea of observation. Most of them responded that this idea would help them to improve their own teaching practice.
Attending the post-teaching discussion session : The participant science teachers found scope for discussion after completing the reflection on the observation schedule. The purpose of the discussion was mainly for improving different aspects of their teaching. Individually conducted teaching sessions were used to engage them in discussing different aspects of teaching with a particular focus on individual teaching topics. During the discussion, teachers found themselves both in agreement and disagreement with their colleagues, challenging each other’s reflections or observations and sometimes feeling confused while engaged in debates about some aspects of their peers’ teaching issues. The following sections present these issues.
Agreement and Disagreement with Colleagues : During the discussion, teachers found that they agreed with some of the claims of their colleagues. The agreement between teachers varied in content, pedagogy, resources and learning environment for different discussion sessions. For example, Teacher 6 claimed that the information in the text book for ‘class seven’ was not sufficient to explain the concept of ‘partial pressure’ and teachers needed to search further references (for example, to look at the text book of ‘Grade Nine’) to make the concept clearer. Teacher 5 agreed with teacher 6 that he needed to search for more references to make the concept of partial pressure clearer for his students.
Not all discussions were in agreement. Participants disagreed with certain claims or observations of their colleagues during the discussion. For example, Teacher 2 pointed out that Teacher 1 fully followed the student textbook sequence during his session at the first teaching cycle. However, Teacher I did not agree with the observation. He said that as he tried to use the POE, the sequence of the student’s textbook was automatically broken. As he, felt he taught using the POE well, he did not think that he only followed the textbook sequence.
Resolving confusion : Teachers also found that the discussion sessions offered a way of resolving their confusion from observations during the class. Teacher 3 was confused during the observation about how the temperature for a solution worked as a variable in making saturated solution from an unsaturated solution (during the second teaching cycle). Teacher 4 then explained that, “when we increase the temperature of a saturated solution, its solubility for the solution increases and actually decreases slightly above 600C as it becomes an unsaturated solution and temperature works here as a variable to make this change.” The above examples reflect how the discussion after the class helped teachers to work through their own questions and confusions from the observation.
Challenging others’ practice : The discussion after the class sometimes offered teachers opportunities to challenge their colleagues’ practice. It was observed several times during all four teaching cycles. For example, Teacher 2 during the first teaching cycle claimed that he did not observe whether Teacher 1 asked students to find any real life examples regarding the variation of pressure with depth. Teacher 1 then said that he used examples. Teacher 2 then requested him to repeat the example. Teacher 1 was unable to recall any examples he used in the class. After the session Teacher 2 mentioned, “We have a very good relation, I think he would not mind, we need to reflect on our own practice to understand it properly, so that it works for our students.” The above example illustrates that as these teachers challenged one another’s practice, it also helped them to clarify more about their own practice.
Experiences from the workshops : The 14 participating science teachers found the professional workshops to be a new experience. The first professional workshop was very important and exciting for all teachers as they had no clear idea about the discussion agenda. According to Teacher 6, before starting the workshop:
We had no experience of this before, usually we find the scope to meet some of us during the public examination time, but there we do not any find time to discuss anything regarding our teaching practice. Today I’m feeling better as I will able to learn something from others.
The participating teachers discussed the inadequacy, quality and importance of teaching aids in almost all of the workshops. During the first professional workshop, teachers discussed whether or not they needed any sophisticated teaching aids to make the concepts clearer during their post-teaching discussion in the first teaching cycle. After getting an opportunity to say his opinion, Teacher 6 said, “We need the sophisticated instrument; otherwise students will not learn properly or develop different conceptions.” Teacher 4 disagreed with him and stated:
Our schools do not have enough funds to buy all kinds of teaching aids. We need to find resources from our local school environments to use in our classes. For example, I think students will able to understand the basic concept of a ‘simple pendulum’ if we hang a ‘stone’ or a ‘piece of brick’. It will then work as a bob with a thread rather buying sophisticated or expensive steel or metal instruments from the scientific shop.”
Most of the teachers agreed with his statement.
Teachers in different peer pairs experienced difficulty in reaching conclusions regarding content knowledge during their post-teaching discussion. For example, the teacher did an experiment with the refraction of light in third teaching cycle. The teacher used some water in a glass and dipped a thin stick obliquely into it. The word ‘break’ then confused most teachers while they were more familiar with the word ‘bend’. In their post-teaching discussion session, they remained undecided about this confusion. During the third professional workshop, participating teachers were interested in discussing further the essence of this confusion. Teacher 12 explained it in detail, “For an object under water, we need to use ‘appear to be bent’ instead of ‘bend’ only, and actually it changes its direction in a different medium.” Most teachers then agreed with him.
Teachers also liked to discuss different aspects of pedagogical understanding during the professional workshops. In all professional workshops teachers discussed the use of the POE teaching procedure. In the discussions, some of the teachers conflated ‘prediction’ and ‘observation’ of the POE during the first teaching cycle.
Teacher 9, then, demonstrated the importance of the distinction between the two parts using the same teaching topics of teaching cycle one. Teachers also discussed the use of POE across different experiments to clear up issues about the concept of refraction during the third professional workshop.
Teachers also shared ideas with their science colleagues from other schools about how to encourage students’ reflection in learning, stimulation in thinking and students’ interest and enthusiasm for learning in the classroom. According to teacher 2, “During my teaching in the second teaching cycle, the crowd in the classroom at the time of ‘prediction and observation’ was really exciting, I never found [it] like this [before]. The POE has really changed my classroom learning environment.” Teachers also discussed the importance for providing more opportunities for students to ensure their participation in learning,
The following sections present discussions of the findings of this chapter. It mainly covers discussion on changing teaching perceptions and culture of professional practice,
Changing teaching perceptions : The participant teachers implemented a constructivist teaching approach (POE) in their practice, which served as the intervention in this study. It is evident from the reflection from both teachers and observers using the classroom observation schedule that the teaching activities using the POE approach encouraged these teachers to use teaching aids as a purposeful tool in their teaching. This was also evident when these teachers transformed their ‘Learning’ into ‘Action’ in their subsequent sessions regarding the use of teaching aids (see Table 5). These results are positively aligned with Goodrum’s (2004) claim that a constructivist teaching approach may provide opportunities for teachers to seek understanding from multiple sources. The use of different teaching aids through this constructivist teaching approach (POE) then may have helped students to develop a sense of purpose and motivation for learning the topic.
The POE teaching approach also influenced participant teachers in terms of developing understanding of science content for their students rather than recall and recognition of facts. This is also evident from the observation schedule when the observer teachers reported that most of the teaching sessions demonstrated well that these teachers concentrated more on understanding rather than recall. The peer observer teachers were also found in some cases to transform their learning into action in their subsequent teaching session as the use of the POE approach impacted their practice (i.e., they also focused more on understanding).
The POE teaching approach also challenged these teachers not to follow the same sequence as the student textbook. This was most evident when participant teachers received recommendations in most of their teaching sessions regarding following the sequence of the textbook. They considered these recommendations of not following the same sequence of textbook in presenting the lesson as their learning and in most cases they also transformed that learning into action in their subsequent teaching sessions.
This also helped these teachers overcome a reliance on rote learning and theoretical exercises to transmit science as information – which is a very common practice in Bangladesh.
In a similar way, the POE teaching approach helped teachers to maintain a logical sequence within their teaching. Continuing in this way may help these teachers to develop confidence to make links and connections with different science concepts in their lessons. This confidence may also guide these teachers to integrate and even extend different science aspects of the content in order to maintain good science learning for their students (Gunstone, 1995).
(To be continued)
Learning to change : The meaning of ‘Learning’, in this analysis, is basically the understanding of teachers when they realised a need to improve or emphasise any specific items of the schedule for their teaching. Summarises the learning for teachers of all seven peer groups.
Action accomplished to change : Teachers found scope to use their learning in their subsequent teaching cycles. Table 5 summarises the actions of all teachers from all seven pairs. The results of action have been presented in terms of the number of times teachers accomplished action regarding individual items rather than who accomplished them.
Teaching with an observer colleague : It has already been mentioned that 14 volunteer participant science teachers were involved and formed seven peer pairs, from seven nearby schools. According to Teacher 3 before the first teaching session cycle:
I am teaching for the last 23 years. This is the first time I am going to a class in where my science colleague is also ready to observe my full class. It really distracts me a little bit and I feel nervous rather than concentrating on my lesson today. I feel tension whether I am going to make any mistake during my teaching.
It seemed to me that most of the teachers felt nervous during the first teaching session. They were hesitant and were concerned about their colleague’s presence rather than concentrating on the lesson. However, that was not the case for the observers in the teaching sessions. According to the Teacher 4, after observing the teaching practice of his colleague, it is the first time I observed the teaching practice of my colleagues. I was really excited yesterday. The observation helped me to see my colleague’s teaching method, style of presentation and how he engaged students in the lesson. It also helped me to reflect on and clarify of my own teaching.
It seemed to me that in most cases they were excited about finding scope to observe their colleague’s teaching. It is notable that, before and after the first teaching session, all the participant teachers expressed the view that they liked the idea of observation. Most of them responded that this idea would help them to improve their own teaching practice.
Attending the post-teaching discussion session : The participant science teachers found scope for discussion after completing the reflection on the observation schedule. The purpose of the discussion was mainly for improving different aspects of their teaching. Individually conducted teaching sessions were used to engage them in discussing different aspects of teaching with a particular focus on individual teaching topics. During the discussion, teachers found themselves both in agreement and disagreement with their colleagues, challenging each other’s reflections or observations and sometimes feeling confused while engaged in debates about some aspects of their peers’ teaching issues. The following sections present these issues.
Agreement and Disagreement with Colleagues : During the discussion, teachers found that they agreed with some of the claims of their colleagues. The agreement between teachers varied in content, pedagogy, resources and learning environment for different discussion sessions. For example, Teacher 6 claimed that the information in the text book for ‘class seven’ was not sufficient to explain the concept of ‘partial pressure’ and teachers needed to search further references (for example, to look at the text book of ‘Grade Nine’) to make the concept clearer. Teacher 5 agreed with teacher 6 that he needed to search for more references to make the concept of partial pressure clearer for his students.
Not all discussions were in agreement. Participants disagreed with certain claims or observations of their colleagues during the discussion. For example, Teacher 2 pointed out that Teacher 1 fully followed the student textbook sequence during his session at the first teaching cycle. However, Teacher I did not agree with the observation. He said that as he tried to use the POE, the sequence of the student’s textbook was automatically broken. As he, felt he taught using the POE well, he did not think that he only followed the textbook sequence.
Resolving confusion : Teachers also found that the discussion sessions offered a way of resolving their confusion from observations during the class. Teacher 3 was confused during the observation about how the temperature for a solution worked as a variable in making saturated solution from an unsaturated solution (during the second teaching cycle). Teacher 4 then explained that, “when we increase the temperature of a saturated solution, its solubility for the solution increases and actually decreases slightly above 600C as it becomes an unsaturated solution and temperature works here as a variable to make this change.” The above examples reflect how the discussion after the class helped teachers to work through their own questions and confusions from the observation.
Challenging others’ practice : The discussion after the class sometimes offered teachers opportunities to challenge their colleagues’ practice. It was observed several times during all four teaching cycles. For example, Teacher 2 during the first teaching cycle claimed that he did not observe whether Teacher 1 asked students to find any real life examples regarding the variation of pressure with depth. Teacher 1 then said that he used examples. Teacher 2 then requested him to repeat the example. Teacher 1 was unable to recall any examples he used in the class. After the session Teacher 2 mentioned, “We have a very good relation, I think he would not mind, we need to reflect on our own practice to understand it properly, so that it works for our students.” The above example illustrates that as these teachers challenged one another’s practice, it also helped them to clarify more about their own practice.
Experiences from the workshops : The 14 participating science teachers found the professional workshops to be a new experience. The first professional workshop was very important and exciting for all teachers as they had no clear idea about the discussion agenda. According to Teacher 6, before starting the workshop:
We had no experience of this before, usually we find the scope to meet some of us during the public examination time, but there we do not any find time to discuss anything regarding our teaching practice. Today I’m feeling better as I will able to learn something from others.
The participating teachers discussed the inadequacy, quality and importance of teaching aids in almost all of the workshops. During the first professional workshop, teachers discussed whether or not they needed any sophisticated teaching aids to make the concepts clearer during their post-teaching discussion in the first teaching cycle. After getting an opportunity to say his opinion, Teacher 6 said, “We need the sophisticated instrument; otherwise students will not learn properly or develop different conceptions.” Teacher 4 disagreed with him and stated:
Our schools do not have enough funds to buy all kinds of teaching aids. We need to find resources from our local school environments to use in our classes. For example, I think students will able to understand the basic concept of a ‘simple pendulum’ if we hang a ‘stone’ or a ‘piece of brick’. It will then work as a bob with a thread rather buying sophisticated or expensive steel or metal instruments from the scientific shop.”
Most of the teachers agreed with his statement.
Teachers in different peer pairs experienced difficulty in reaching conclusions regarding content knowledge during their post-teaching discussion. For example, the teacher did an experiment with the refraction of light in third teaching cycle. The teacher used some water in a glass and dipped a thin stick obliquely into it. The word ‘break’ then confused most teachers while they were more familiar with the word ‘bend’. In their post-teaching discussion session, they remained undecided about this confusion. During the third professional workshop, participating teachers were interested in discussing further the essence of this confusion. Teacher 12 explained it in detail, “For an object under water, we need to use ‘appear to be bent’ instead of ‘bend’ only, and actually it changes its direction in a different medium.” Most teachers then agreed with him.
Teachers also liked to discuss different aspects of pedagogical understanding during the professional workshops. In all professional workshops teachers discussed the use of the POE teaching procedure. In the discussions, some of the teachers conflated ‘prediction’ and ‘observation’ of the POE during the first teaching cycle.
Teacher 9, then, demonstrated the importance of the distinction between the two parts using the same teaching topics of teaching cycle one. Teachers also discussed the use of POE across different experiments to clear up issues about the concept of refraction during the third professional workshop.
Teachers also shared ideas with their science colleagues from other schools about how to encourage students’ reflection in learning, stimulation in thinking and students’ interest and enthusiasm for learning in the classroom. According to teacher 2, “During my teaching in the second teaching cycle, the crowd in the classroom at the time of ‘prediction and observation’ was really exciting, I never found [it] like this [before]. The POE has really changed my classroom learning environment.” Teachers also discussed the importance for providing more opportunities for students to ensure their participation in learning,
The following sections present discussions of the findings of this chapter. It mainly covers discussion on changing teaching perceptions and culture of professional practice,
Changing teaching perceptions : The participant teachers implemented a constructivist teaching approach (POE) in their practice, which served as the intervention in this study. It is evident from the reflection from both teachers and observers using the classroom observation schedule that the teaching activities using the POE approach encouraged these teachers to use teaching aids as a purposeful tool in their teaching. This was also evident when these teachers transformed their ‘Learning’ into ‘Action’ in their subsequent sessions regarding the use of teaching aids (see Table 5). These results are positively aligned with Goodrum’s (2004) claim that a constructivist teaching approach may provide opportunities for teachers to seek understanding from multiple sources. The use of different teaching aids through this constructivist teaching approach (POE) then may have helped students to develop a sense of purpose and motivation for learning the topic.
The POE teaching approach also influenced participant teachers in terms of developing understanding of science content for their students rather than recall and recognition of facts. This is also evident from the observation schedule when the observer teachers reported that most of the teaching sessions demonstrated well that these teachers concentrated more on understanding rather than recall. The peer observer teachers were also found in some cases to transform their learning into action in their subsequent teaching session as the use of the POE approach impacted their practice (i.e., they also focused more on understanding).
The POE teaching approach also challenged these teachers not to follow the same sequence as the student textbook. This was most evident when participant teachers received recommendations in most of their teaching sessions regarding following the sequence of the textbook. They considered these recommendations of not following the same sequence of textbook in presenting the lesson as their learning and in most cases they also transformed that learning into action in their subsequent teaching sessions.
This also helped these teachers overcome a reliance on rote learning and theoretical exercises to transmit science as information – which is a very common practice in Bangladesh.
In a similar way, the POE teaching approach helped teachers to maintain a logical sequence within their teaching. Continuing in this way may help these teachers to develop confidence to make links and connections with different science concepts in their lessons. This confidence may also guide these teachers to integrate and even extend different science aspects of the content in order to maintain good science learning for their students (Gunstone, 1995).
(To be continued)
