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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 13, Issue 1, Foreword (Jun., 2012) John LOUGHRAN, Amanda BERRY, Rebecca COOPER, Stephen KEAST & Garry HOBAN Preservice teachers learning about teaching for conceptual change through slowmation
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The focus of this study is on the use of Slowmation (as an explicit method for development, manipulation and reconstruction of representations) to determine the impact of the process on the ways in which student teacher participants recognize and respond to students’ alternative conceptions. Slowmation offers a new and exciting pedagogical approach to sensitising participants to their learners’ alternative conceptions.
This study was situated within the context of a University preservice science teacher education program, qualifying students to teach General Science (that includes topics from Chemistry, Physics, and Biology) at the secondary level (Years 7-10; students aged 12 - 16). Student teachers entering the program had either an undergraduate qualification and so were completing the 4th year of a Bachelor of Education double degree (e.g., B.Sc./B.Ed.) or were post graduate students completing the one-year end-on Postgraduate Diploma in Education (Grad. Dip. Ed.).
The design of the science methods course in which this study was conducted is underpinned by a constructivist orientation. As constructivist studies have demonstrated for some time, learners bring their own prior views of science to the classroom based on the ways in which they conceive of particular concepts and ideas (Driver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer, & Scott, 1994). Teaching informed by a constructivist perspective relies on the teacher acknowledging and identifying learners’ prior conceptions and creating experiences and opportunities for them to experience conceptual change. The expectation being that students might then develop deeper understandings of concepts as they move from their informal prior views toward the “accepted school view” of science (Fensham, Gunstone, & White, 1994).
Within the program, considerable emphasis is placed on preservice teachers coming to understand these perspectives through experiencing them – rather than simply being told about them by their lecturers. Hence, the lecturers aim to make explicit the practices they advocate their students use in their classrooms through modelling. They also actively provide opportunities for their student teachers to use the teaching approaches used in their program in their practicum and to reflect on their experiences post practicum, both individually and collaboratively, with their lecturers and peers.
De Jong, Van Driel and Verlop (2005) distinguished between preservice teachers “learning from teaching … in an active way involving real situations, to make learning more meaningful to themselves, and learning of teaching … learn[ing] in a mainly passive way how to teach” (p. 952). The principles underpinning the science methods course at this institution are consistent with this view of learning from teaching.Data collection for this study was based on three crucial aspects of participants’ learning experiences:
- Program based sessions associated with learning about Slowmation in which two classes of participants (N=38/N=34) worked in small groups (3 – 4 student teachers) together to develop their own representations of particular science concepts (data set 1).
- Student-teachers’ presentation and review of their school students’ Slowmations (produced during their practicum) to their student teacher peers in sessions post practicum (data set 2).
- Interviews with volunteer student teachers (N = 5) at the end of the academic year using a semi-structured interview protocol of approximately 45 minutes duration (data set 3).
All data sets were captured through audio-recordings which were later transcribed. Signifiers for each of the data sets were labelled as follows:
- Data source 1 (DS1), with participants’ in transcripts listed by number (S1, S2, etc.) and group number (Grp1, Grp2, etc.)
- Data source 2 (DS2), with participants listed by number (e.g., S1, S3, etc.)
- Data source 3 (DS3) with each individual interviewee allocated a pseudonym (e.g., Sharon)
Transcripts were coded and analysed using the QSR NVivo 8 software. Nodes were progressively determined as a consequence of reading through each transcript and coding text in relation to the particular topic/issue/idea being discussed in the transcript. After coding all transcripts, 9 free nodes (i.e., stand alone separately coded instances of themes/issues without sub-coding) had been developed and 2 tree nodes (i.e., nodes with sub-categories that involved differentiation of ideas associated with the particular node; see nodes 4 & 8) had been developed (see Table 1 below). Alternative conceptions is the particular focus of analysis for this paper, hence, those nodes that do not directly relate to alternative conceptions have not been included in this paper. All quotations used in this paper are drawn from alternative conception node data sets (as per Table 1) and are offered as indicative quotes of given situations.
Table 1. All nodes coded across all transcripts
- Alternative conceptions
- Assessing slowmation
- Difficulties with doing slowmation
- Topics for slowmation
- DNA replication
- Day and night
- Photosynthesis
- Solar system
- Tsunami
- Introducing looking for alt conceptions
- Introducing slowmation to teacher education class
- Learning about student learning
- Learning how to do slowmation in teacher education
- Looking at cell division
- Looking at DNA
- Looking at survival
- Possible changes to how to do slowmation
- Students’ views on slowmation
- Why slowmation works (students’ views)
All quotations used in this paper are drawn from the data sets for each theme and indicative quotes are used to illustrate prevailing views.
Copyright (C) 2012 HKIEd APFSLT. Volume 13, Issue 1, Foreword (Jun., 2012). All Rights Reserved.
