Re-defining Lab Norms via Professional Learning Communities: Instructors' Expectations

Abstract

We present a study of a large-scale intervention designed to shift lab instruction away from "cookbook" lab norms. The intervention was implemented in a network of Professional Learning Communities of Israeli high-school physics teachers (N=250; ~20% of the national workforce), operating in a high-stakes exam setting, with limited resources, catering to diverse groups of students. An introductory questionnaire examined teachers' framing of the instructional lab norms as compared to an experimental research lab (via a modified E-CLASS), as well as the lab goals that the teachers valued. The questionnaire was an integral part of the teachers' learning process. The teachers acknowledged the disparity between their optimal lab goals and prevailing ones, in particular as concerns experimental design. We discuss the implications for the design of an intervention addressing both teachers' interest in change as well as the constraints imposed by the setting in which they work.