Classroom Enactment Research Articles

Understanding physics teachers’ professional identity: an activity theory perspective

ABSTRACT Educational researchers have been interested in studying teachers’ professional identity to understand this dynamic and multifaceted construct within personal and professional processes through different experiences. In this study, we designed a qualitative case study with Cultural–Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) to examine physics teachers’ professional identity in Turkey. The study aimed to explore the elements of activity systems: teachers’ experiences, community relations, tools, resources, rules, division of labour, and teaching practices. Data sources were interviews, classroom observations and documents, which were analysed by constant comparative method. The results showed that teachers recognised the significance of student-centered instruction, but they often had limitations in terms of resources and exam-based education that led them to adopt traditional instruction. The findings emphasised the need for systemic reforms to balance instructional objectives with teaching realities, supply resources, and make the connection between teacher preparation and classroom enactment. The research results support constructivist epistemology and suggest that the physics education community needs to improve the quality of physics education in Turkey and globally.

“That Cross-Curricular Business”: The Engineering Design Process in Mathematics and Science Classrooms

The engineering design process (EDP) is one tool teachers can use to facilitate STEM integration. As part of a larger three-year longitudinal research project regarding engineering identity development among middle school youth in a summer robotics outreach program, this study aims to understand teachers’ willingness to incorporate engineering design in their classrooms through an exploration of their perceptions of the EDP, its applications to their subject matter and classroom context, methods of enacting the EDP, and perceived challenges to and supports for doing so. We conducted a qualitative case study and drew our results from focus groups and semi-structured interviews with eight teacher participants. Participants were successful in describing the EDP and its cyclical nature. However, classroom enactment of the EDP was predominantly indirect and often used to solve non-subject-specific classroom problems. Direct enactment was limited to projects already part of the existing curriculum. Issues with instructional resources, lesson planning, time, and student background were the EDP enactment barriers most frequently noted, while supports described were all responses to the identified barriers. The EDP offers a promising way to integrate engineering with math and science. However, additional support is needed for more meaningful classroom enactment of the EDP.

Learning metaphors and classroom enactments: Understanding webs of association and their entailments for school mathematics

Oriented by the observation that cross-cultural comparisons of mathematics teaching have had little impact on the evolution of classroom practice, we develop the thesis that approaches to school mathematics are rooted in metaphors and sustained by associations that are language specific. We examined distinct webs of meaning for the words “learn” and “teach” in three languages: English, Czech, and Japanese. By applying a tool designed for analyzing bodily classroom (inter)activity, we aim to demonstrate that the meanings of these words are evident in practices that are readily observed in video recordings of mathematics lessons conducted in these languages. We suggest that efforts toward “transcreation” rather than “translation” are better fitted to hopes of interpreting and informing classroom practices across languages.

From recipe to enquiry – a curriculum tool for science teachers to align policy with practice in practical lessons

ABSTRACT Internationally, second level curriculum policy for STEM education is concentrating its efforts on promoting curriculum-making pedagogies, with enquiry-based teaching and learning at the forefront of this change. Policy aspirations have not translated well into practice, evidenced by science practical lessons consistently being delivered as recipes to be followed. In recognition of this, national STEM policies are calling for quality pedagogical resources that can support teachers to engage in teaching practical work through scientific enquiry. This article describes how Design Based Research was used as a methodology to create and evaluate a resource, the Structured Enquiry Observation Schedule (SEOS), as a tool to identify student achievement of procedural (enquiry and laboratory) skills in practical biology lessons. Data collected using the SEOS, was triangulated with interview, video and audio data over three iterative research cycles. Findings indicated that the SEOS provides a lens to compare and align policy intentions with classroom enactment of practical work by identifying the basic procedural skills that should underpin any enquiry-based practical lesson, and by highlighting the importance of student attainment of those skills. If used by practising teachers, it has potential to answer calls for quality resources to support the transition to enquiry-based science pedagogy.

University Students Behaviour Modelling Using the K‐Prototype Clustering Algorithm

Counselling students remains a pre‐eminence for most tertiary institutions in Ghana to the extent that institutions now have counselling units that extend to the departmental level. This study used the K‐prototype machine learning algorithm to cluster students’ behaviour based on 28 relevant attributes and further proposed a classification model. The analysis of the experimental outcomes using the elbow method reveals the formation of three distinct clusters with decreasing intra‐cluster similarities and increasing inter‐cluster distances. The first cluster uniquely consists of active learners with three or more roommates, primarily in the first year. The second cluster with the highest membership consists mainly of second‐year students who exhibit passive classroom conduct and reside in a two‐occupancy hostel. The third cluster contains a mixture of third and final‐year students who are highly passive in class and live in a tenancy occupancy of two. After clustering, the K‐nearest neighbours, logistic regression, naïve Bayes (NB), and AdaBoost ensemble algorithms were implemented to create a model for future learner cluster prediction. Simulation results using the tenfold cross‐validation technique show that AdaBoost (NB) has the highest accuracy of 99.88% with an F‐measure score of 0.999 and receiver operating characteristic–area under the curve value of 1.00.

Supporting Student System Modelling Practice Through Curriculum and Technology Design

Developing and using models to make sense of phenomena or to design solutions to problems is a key science and engineering practice. Classroom use of technology-based tools can promote the development of students’ modelling practice, systems thinking, and causal reasoning by providing opportunities to develop and use models to explore phenomena. In previous work, we presented four aspects of system modelling that emerged during our development and initial testing of an online system modelling tool. In this study, we provide an in-depth examination and detailed evidence of 10th grade students engaging in those four aspects during a classroom enactment of a system modelling unit. We look at the choices students made when constructing their models, whether they described evidence and reasoning for those choices, and whether they described the behavior of their models in connection with model usefulness in explaining and making predictions about the phenomena of interest. We conclude with a set of recommendations for designing curricular materials that leverage digital tools to facilitate the iterative constructing, using, evaluating, and revising of models.

Supporting Teacher Visioning of Justice-Oriented Engineering in the Middle Grades

ABSTRACT There are well-documented justice-related issues in engineering education. How do teachers begin to develop a way of seeing forward in their teaching, both in how they understand their role and their hoped-for outcomes for students, in ways that bridge the goals of justice with required engineering disciplinary expectations? In this manuscript, we focus on how teachers envision teaching engineering in ways that attend to the sociopoliticaldimensions of STEM teaching and learning. Through participatory social design research, we ask: (1) How do two middle school science teachers’ vision of what justice-oriented engineering for sustainable communities (EfSC) is and entails, develop across sustained professional development (PD) and classroom enactment of an EfSC curriculum? (2) What is the relationship between teachers’ processes of visioning and student opportunities for consequential learning? Findings suggest that teachers’ visioning of justice-oriented engineering teaching take shape as they started to see themselves as being in relationship to engineering and community, making others’ experiences and their own important aspects of learning. Further, this work of visioning is filled with tension and contradiction. In learning alongside their students about how powered relationalities shape opportunities to learn, teachers had to see themselves inside the process. Implications are discussed.

On the periphery of university physics: trainee physics teachers’ experiences of learning undergraduate physics

High school physics teachers have a difficult job to do. On the one hand, they are charged with contributing to the creation of a scientifically literate society, while on the other they play a pivotal role in the recruitment of future physicists. Given the importance of this dual role, one might expect that the training of future physics teachers would be a priority for any physics department. However, research suggests that this is often not the case. While concerns have been raised about future physics teachers’ understanding of physics content, less work has focussed on the sociocultural experiences of the learning environments trainees meet when learning undergraduate physics. This case study examines how a sample of trainee physics teachers perceive learning undergraduate physics content together with engineering and physics bachelor students in a large, high-status, research-oriented physics department. The findings aim to be of interest to physics lecturers when examining their own practice. We interviewed 17 trainee physics teachers about their experiences of learning undergraduate physics, how they perceived the relevance of their physics courses for their future role as teachers, and how this affected their physics learning. Here, we identified four central themes of the students’ experiences: (1) teacher programme invisibility, (2) passive classroom culture, (3) perceived relevance of physics courses, and (4) no incentive to do well in physics. We discuss how this study illustrates the potential struggles trainee physics teachers may encounter when learning undergraduate physics. We also suggest how our findings may be used to inform the practice of university physics lecturers who come in contact with trainee physics teachers, and comment on the structure and organization of physics teacher education as a whole.

Constructionist co‐design: A dual approach to curriculum and professional development

AbstractThis paper reports on the first iteration of the Computational Thinking Summer Institute, a month‐long programme in which high school teachers co‐designed computationally enhanced mathematics and science curricula with researchers. The co‐design process itself was a constructionist learning experience for teachers resulting in constructionist curricula to be used in their own classrooms. We present three case studies to illustrate different ways teachers and researchers divided the labour of co‐design and the implications of these different co‐design styles for teacher learning and classroom enactment. Specifically, some teachers programmed their own computational tools, while others helped to conceptualise them but left the construction to their co‐design partners. Results indicate that constructionist co‐design is a promising dual approach to curriculum and professional development but that sometimes these two goals are in tension. Most teachers gained considerable confidence and skills in computational thinking, but sometimes the pressure to finish curriculum development during the institute led teachers to leave construction of computational tools to their co‐design partners, limiting their own opportunities for computational learning. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic? Computational tools can support constructionist science and math learning by making powerful ideas tangible. Supporting teachers to learn computational thinking and to use constructionist pedagogies is challenging. What this paper adds? Constructionist co‐design is a promising approach to simultaneously support curriculum development and professional development, but there are tensions to navigate in trying to accomplish both goals simultaneously. Implications for practice and/or policy Designers of professional development should consider constructionist co‐design as an approach but should be aware of potential tensions and prepare for them.

Academic Credit System in Contributing to Online Self-Regulated Learning in China

The Internet has changed people's life and made the learning methods of college students diversified. Because of the obvious disadvantages brought by the traditional passive classroom learning in China, online self-regulated learning, as a new learning method, has been paid more and more attention from Chinese universities. Online self-regulated learning adapts to the development of society. However, in China, the traditional academic year system limits the freedom of learning of university students. Most students lack learning motivation and affect learning efficiency, so the academic credit system has become an important factor that affects the development of online self-regulated learning. This paper will discuss online self-regulated learning and the academic credit system that affects online self-regulated learning in detail.

Efektivitas Penerapan Metode Hypnoteaching Dalam Meningkatkan Aktivitas Belajar Siswa

Teachers are required to have methodological abilities in the design and implementation of learning. The application of Hypnoteaching method in increasing learning activities greatly helps the learning process in the classroom and increases learning motivation which has an impact on increasing learning activities. This research uses a combination of sequential exploratory research methods. Combined research methods that combine qualitative and quantitative research sequentially where in the first phase of research using qualitative methods and in the second stage quantitative methods. Qualitative methods function to support hypotheses in certain cases or limited samples and quantitative methods function to support hypotheses in a wider population. The application of the Hypnoteaching method given by the teacher in class X is very effective in making the passive classroom atmosphere become calm and active when given a Hypnoteaching method stimulus. The fun atmosphere of learning in the classroom will cause students to feel at home while learning in class. From the results of the calculation of the average value and absorption of the above students obtained results for the average of the overall learning outcomes of students in class X Mipa 6 is 88 and the absorbency obtained from the average score of students is 88%. These results indicate that the average score or value of students is in the range of 61-100 with the category of Effective and Very Effective.

The Implementation of Authentic Assessment in English Language Teaching

<p>This research aims to describe (1) teachers’ perceptions toward authentic assessment; (2) the implementation of authentic assessment; and (3) the effects of authentic assessment to the quality of English Language Teaching (ELT). The research method used in this study is qualitative research method, case study. The data were collected through in-depth interview with the teachers and the students, passive classroom observation, and document analysis toward syllabus, lesson plan, scoring rubric. The data were analyzed by using case study data analysis proposed by Yin (2002) consisting of examining, categorizing, tabulating, testing. The next step used in analysing the data was pattern matching. The findings of the research are: (1)teachers’ perception toward authentic assessment is assessment which can assess the students’ knowledge, skill, and attitude during the teaching and learning process; (2) the implementation of authentic assessment in English language teaching conducted in one of state senior high school in Surakarta includes types of authentic assessment, the steps of developing authentic assessment, documents used in implementing authentic assessment, teachers and students’ roles, teachers obstacles in implementing authentic assessment; (3) the implementation of authentic assessment affects to the quality of English language teaching. It can improve students’ motivation, interest, self-confidence, activeness, enthusiasm in learning English. The implementation of authentic assessment can also improve the students’ English ability and learning result.</p>

Exploring Teacher Adaptive Expertise in the Context of Elementary School Science Reforms

ABSTRACTAcross the country, states are adopting and implementing either Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) or new state standards inspired by NGSS. Educators and researchers play a key role in the reform process as we design professional development (PD) and curriculum to support teachers in transitioning to NGSS. In this time of transition, close analysis of NGSS classroom enactments in elementary school can help us design better supports. Our study uses the framework of teacher adaptive expertise (TAE) to conduct a qualitative content analysis of five different fourth-grade teachers enacting the same NGSS lesson, Producing Electricity. To accomplish our analysis, we first synthesized existing literature and refine a working model of TAE in the field of elementary science education. In applying the lens of TAE to our data, we also develop a model of teacher routine expertise (TRE). We empirically illustrate three characteristics of TAE in our study: allowing student agency, adapting to student emergent understanding, and facilitating student-centered science discourse. Our study shows how different teachers use TAE and TRE moves in varying degrees when enacting the same lesson. Our results indicate that TAE moves align with NGSS shifts in the elementary science classroom while TRE moves reflect a more traditional science classroom. Our results have implications for the design of in-service teacher supports during this time of reform.

Representations of nature of science in U.S. science standards: A historical account with contemporary implications

AbstractThis study evaluated the representations of nature of science (NOS) in U.S. state science standards, and examined the changes in these representations from documents advanced in the 1980s through 2016. Drawing from the consensus perspective on NOS and prior studies focusing on the analysis of textual content, documents were inspected for 10 target NOS aspects: the empirical, tentative, inferential, creative, theory‐driven, and social NOS, in addition to the myth of “The Scientific Method,” the nature of scientific theories and laws, and the social and cultural embeddedness of science. Ninety‐eight state documents from 48 states were analyzed and multiple editions were collected from 34 states. Additionally, relevant materials from the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were assessed for their coverage of the same NOS aspects. Collected materials were scored as whole documents, including over 11,000 pages of text in total, on each target aspect, which reflected the treatment (naïve vs. informed) of NOS in text and the manner of presentation (explicit vs. implicit). Overall, surprisingly, state standards documents have improved very little with respect to their NOS coverage over the last 30 years. NOS standards documents remain silent on a majority of key aspects of NOS, and the number of aspects showing explicit, informed representations has held constant. The NGSS performed well compared to many contemporary documents, but they failed to address all target NOS aspects in a desirable manner. Further analysis raised concerns with the degree that states fully adopt and disseminate standards in manner consistent with the NGSS despite stated intentions, which may negatively impact NOS coverage in instructional resources and classroom enactments. To improve NOS representations in standards, recognizing the role these documents play in shaping instructional materials and teaching in the science classroom, exemplars from analyzed materials were highlighted with informed and explicit representations of multiple aspects.

Seeing double: design and enactments of a lesson on perspective‐taking

ABSTRACTThis narrative inquiry of a lesson intended to develop perspective‐taking links our understanding of teachers as curriculum makers with a sociomaterial attunement to the ways that materials, forms, and time are also actors in producing curriculum. We offer a close reading of three classroom enactments of the same lesson and discuss ways that these instances of curriculum‐making expanded or diminished opportunities for elementary pupils to communicate shifts in perspective through personal narrative writing. We find temporal, spatial, and material resources, including schedules, technologies, and forms of assessment, to play key roles in shaping relations in curriculum making.

Gender Wise Comparison of Flipped Classroom Strategy on the Performance of Prospective Teachers

Flipped classroom make its liberty in the modern technological era to change the passive classroom learning environment in active ones. Flipped classroom is reverse type of classroom learning situation where students do more actively participation. It is a natural phenomenon that every individual of this world has different form one another. Individual differences take place in real classroom situations, and it is also a fact that males and females has different in nature, likes and dislikes, responsibilities and so on. Therefore, present study was aimed to compare the performance of male and female prospective teachers in two different classroom situations. Sample of 48 prospective teachers selected from one of the affiliated college of education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Pakistan) was divided in two equal groups. Where experimental group consist 16 males and 08 female prospective teachers and the control group was consisted 14 females and 10 males. True experimental research design was used and data was collected through pre-test and post-test. The t-test and ANOVA were used for the purpose of data analysis. Data reveled that there was found no gender difference within the groups while the performance of experimental group male and female were outstanding than the performance of control group males and females. The males of experimental group were achieved higher mean scores than the male of control group likewise, female of experimental group were achieved higher scores than the scores of females of control group. Findings of the study are in the favor of flipped classroom strategy therefore, it is recommended that the flipped classroom strategy should be focused by the university teachers as well as policy makers in Pakistan.

Understanding the role of learning and teaching support materials in enabling learning for all

There are many assumptions about the ways in which textbooks and other learning and teaching support materials (LTSM) can contribute to improved learning outcomes in many international contexts. These can focus on ways that they can implement the school curriculum, often in lieu of good pedagogical practice. Drawing on case studies from Rwanda and South Africa, the complexity of the role of LTSM as part of classroom enactment is shown. The discussion suggests that there are enabling factors to this including support for teachers’ use of LTSM and the availability of materials to all learners. A framework is presented in which LTSM, teachers and learners can become equal partners in teaching and learning, but only when adequate language and other pedagogical support structures are provided. Conclusions consider the potential impact for LTSM use when it is elevated to a medium that is accessible and useful to both teachers and learners.

Discourse of Learning and the Learning of Discourse

ABSTRACTCitizens in the 21st century must be able to engage in reading to learn from multiple sources in academic, professional, and personal life. Doing so requires specialized reading, critical thinking, and communicating practices. Project READI took up the challenge of designing and researching learning environments that would support adolescent students in building the requisite knowledge, strategies, and dispositions that comprise these 21st century competencies. The conceptual framework is reviewed and two illustrations of classroom enactments of the READI approach are presented, one in historical inquiry and the other in literary interpretation. The enactments exemplify the central role of discourse for learning in disciplinary content areas.

Role Transformation of Online Learners in Network Times

Online learning in the context of the network has fundamentally changed the learning way of the educatee. Compared with traditional classroom of face-to-face learning styles, the learning method, learning environment and other factors of learners in online learning have changed, and the changes will inevitably lead to the conversion of learner roles. Online learners must move from a relatively passive classroom role to an active participant to improve their self-learning level and self-management ability. Meanwhile, online learners should also increase the network technology of knowledge acquisition, selection and test, and establish a large number of new network models of the information communication with teachers, managers and other learners, thus completing the role identity and construction.

A framework for planning and facilitating video-based professional development

BackgroundRecent transformative changes in science education require new learning opportunities for teachers—opportunities that include rich images of classroom enactment of the reform vision. One fruitful way for doing that is to use video clips of instruction.Teachers do not, however, learn how to improve their instructional practice from simply watching and reflecting on classroom videos. The videos need to be carefully selected and embedded in professional development in ways that—through facilitator-led, participant-centered discussion—can help teachers to notice and reason about important aspects of instruction and learning that occur in the video. Consistent with the recent efforts to identify planning and facilitation approaches that guide effective professional development (PD) programs, in this paper, we adapted the Five Practices Framework for orchestrating productive classroom discussions to describe how PD facilitators plan for and enact professional learning tasks to help science teachers learn within a video-based PD program. These practices include anticipating, sequencing, monitoring, selecting, connecting and two additional practices that set the stage for the five practices (i.e., setting goals and selecting tasks).ResultsOur analyses of the video-based discussions in the PD provide insights into how the facilitators engaged teachers in video-based conversations by using the practices of monitoring, selecting, and connecting. The monitoring moves, such as clarifying, countering, and redirecting, were used by the facilitator in nearly all the PD sessions. Similarly, selecting moves were used and were consistent with the goals of the PD. Finally, analysis of facilitators’ and participants’ connecting comments indicated their increased capacity to make connections to the bigger ideas of teaching science by maintaining the cognitive demand on students’ thinking.ConclusionsThis paper provides elaborated descriptions of the five practices for planning and facilitating video-based PD and the ways in which they were enacted in a video-based PD program in science. In so doing, it proposes five practices as a guiding framework to support teachers’ learning from videos. Overall, the study’s results endorse the promise of a goal-driven, theory-informed design that foregrounds careful attention to teachers’ thinking in ways that support their understanding of complex classroom interactions.