The impact of innovative pedagogy on teacher thinking and action: A case study of an inservice course for teachers in integrated teaching

Abstract

Education is intentional activity which implies that it is guided by the actors', that is teachers' consciousness: beliefs, conceptions, and values. Hence research into teachers' perceptions and thinking is justified if we are to understand or change their action. This paper deals with a teachers' inservice course which aimed at serving as an intervention in teachers' professional life to change their professional thinking and action and to provide them with tools for continuous professional growth and self-renewal. The course evolved from 6 years of collaboration between a university representative, the author of this article and the school administrator responsible for school experiments in the province of Oulu, and the Kajaani Unit for Continuing Education which is part of the University of Oulu. The parties mentioned had carried out short courses in integrated teaching together with the experimenting teachers. These courses, as well as teachers' visits to the experimental classes, had forced the teachers of these classes to formulate their innovations which created prerequisite conditions for a broader and even more systematically organized dissemination of the innovations (Fullan, 1981).