Supporting teachers who introduce curricular innovations into their classrooms: A problem-solving perspective

Abstract

When classroom teachers introduce curricular innovations that conflict with their former deeply rooted practices, the teachers themselves experience a process of change. One professional development framework intended to support this change is the customization workshop, in which teachers cooperatively customize innovations to their own classroom contexts, reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of classroom implementation, and refine their innovations. Two goals sometimes conflict in such workshops: developing teachers' skills as reflective practitioners (process) and maintaining crucial characteristics of the original innovations (product). This paper explores how to meet both challenges using the insights from a perspective that provides a striking parallel: developing expertlike problem-solving skills (process) as well as conceptual understanding (product) in the physics classroom. We apply this perspective by (a) characterizing an expertlike approach to pedagogical problem solving in the context of customization workshops, (b) determining the nature of pedagogical problems best suited for developing such an expertlike approach, (c) suggesting how to design customization workshops that support teachers to develop an expertlike approach to pedagogical problem solving. In particular, we hypothesize that applying cognitive apprenticeship in customization workshops in a manner similar to its application in the teaching of expertlike problem solving in the physics classroom should effectively help teachers approach the pedagogical problem of customization in an expertlike manner. We support our hypothesis with an empirical study of three year-long cooperative customization workshops for physics teachers that differed in terms of mentoring approach. We examined the questions (a) under which mentoring approaches did teachers perform an expertlike pedagogical problem-solving process and (b) which practices and perceptions emerged through execution of this process?

Integrating Teachers to Teach an Interdisciplinary STEM-Focused Program about Sound, Waves and Communication Systems

“…Recently, the term PCK was extended to TPCK to reflect technological pedagogical content knowledge (Kohen and Kramarski, 2012). The second referred to the literature about mentoring teachers (Borko et al, 2010;Pegg et al, 2010;van Driel et al, 2012;Yerushalmi and Eylon, 2013), focusing on the notion of developmental supervision. This term expresses the idea of customizing the guidance approach to teachers' needs and professional development (Barak et al, 1997;Glickman and Carranza, 1990;Greene, 1992;Yerushalmi and Eylon, 2013).…”

“…"Let us think together" (collaborative supervision), and then 3. "Listen to me" (nondirective supervision) Similarly, Yerushalmi and Eylon (2013) used the customization workshop as a professional development framework to bring curricular innovations into classrooms and foster expert pedagogical problem solving. The researchers referred to three mentoring approaches: minimal guidance, maximal guidance ("spoon-fed") and cognitive apprenticeship.…”

Interdisciplinary dialogic argumentation among out‐of‐field and in‐field physics teachers

“…Later, teachers try out the modules with their students, share their classroom experiences, and discuss dilemmas that arise with their peers. The PD sequences are then designed according to the guidelines for effective PD as they are grounded in teachers' practice (Penuel et al, 2007; Putnam & Borko, 2000) and involve collaborative reflection on classroom practice (Yerushalmi & Eylon, 2013). Beyond this structure, the PD activities are specifically designed for the implementation of interdisciplinary dialogic argumentation .…”

Physics postgraduate teaching assistants’ grading approaches: conflicting goals and practices

“…The initial version of the GAIQ was iterated between the researchers and physics instructors and modified to a version which was administered in the context of professional development for Israeli pre-service and in-service teachers multiple times [64]. After each initial implementation and feedback from the teachers, the GAIQ was refined further until a version was developed that the researchers were satisfied with.…”