Improving in-service teacher educators’ competences through design-based research

Jari Lavonen,Kati Sormunen,Kalle Juuti,Tiina Korhonen,Minna Kukkonen

doi:10.31129/lumat.v3i2.1044

Abstract

Experiences shows that the knowledge of species among teacher students has decreased the last twenty years, and recent research from different parts of the world shows the same: The knowledge of species is decreasing. As an introduction to their science teacher education 39 students followed a course over seven weeks, where they learned more about plant and animal species in three different biotopes: forest, mountain and freshwater. The students replied to a questionnaire five weeks after the course. Both the three days field course and making their own collection of different plants and animals had great positive impact on the students learning of species. The students expressed that the practical work with plants and animals has increased their interest in science, will have positive impact on their work as science teachers and has increased their pleasure to be out in nature. The author ask for a discussion about species knowledge, biodiversity and field work in teacher education.

Highlights

Science education research has been criticised because the outcomes of the research do not transfer to educational practices or to in-service training or professional development programs (PDPs) organised by trainers or in-service teacher educators (Radford, 1998; Russel & Martin, 2010)
This paper introduces an approach that aims to increase the collaboration of in-service teacher educators and science education researchers through common design-based research (DBR) projects
In the second DBR project, a new model for school-community collaboration (SCC) emphasising the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in science learning was developed and researched through an iterative approach where two researchers, an in-service teacher educator, teachers, pupils and out-of-school collaborators were collaborating in real science learning and collaboration situations (Kukkonen & Lavonen, 2014)

Summary

Introduction

Science education research has been criticised because the outcomes of the research do not transfer to educational practices or to in-service training or professional development programs (PDPs) organised by trainers or in-service teacher educators (Radford, 1998; Russel & Martin, 2010). This is because science education researchers and in-service teacher educators who organise PDPs or in-service training do not usually collaborate. In 2011, collaboration between the researchers at the Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki (DTEUH), and the in-service teacher educators at the local in-service Teacher Education Centre Innokas (TECI) led to common DBR projects and PDPs that. The research question we will answer through analysing the in-service teacher educators’ reflections is: How do teachers/in-service teacher educators experience collaboration and common actions with researchers within two DBR projects?

The design and adoption of educational innovations in the context of DBR

The process of the reflection and context of the study

Personalising learning through the use of smartphones

Outcome of the reflection of the DBR projects

Discussion