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The benefits of collaborative Content Representation (CoRe) design with experts for early career secondary teachers in science and technology

Anne Hume, Chris Eames, John Williams, and John Lockley 
Abstract: 

 

This article reports on a study, funded by the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI), which addressed the key area of early career teacher education. The study researched the construction and use of a CoRe (Content Representation) as a planning tool to develop the professional knowledge bases of early career secondary teachers in science and technology. The study was designed to examine whether a CoRe, co-designed by a team of early career teachers and content and teaching specialists, can support and accelerate the professional learning of early career science and technology secondary teachers, and enhance student learning outcomes in schools.

Journal issue: 

The benefits of collaborative Content Representation (CoRe) design

with experts for early career secondary teachers in science and technology

ANNE HUME, CHRIS EAMES, JOHN WILLIAMS, and JOHN LOCKLEY

Key points

Early career science and technology secondary teachers have high pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) learning needs

Collaborative Content Representation (CoRe) design has been shown to be a useful tool for promoting PCK development in pre-service science teacher education

CoRe design with content experts and experienced teachers shows potential for enhancing the PCK of early career science and technology teachers

Engagement in CoRe design exposed differences in how the content for technology and science education is conceptualised

Early career teachers reported improved levels of confidence about teaching their subjects using expert-informed CoRes as planning tools

This article reports on a study, funded by the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI), which addressed the key area of early career teacher education. The study researched the construction and use of a CoRe (Content Representation) as a planning tool to develop the professional knowledge bases of early career secondary teachers in science and technology. The study was designed to examine whether a CoRe, co-designed by a team of early career teachers and content and teaching specialists, can support and accelerate the professional learning of early career science and technology secondary teachers, and enhance student learning outcomes in schools.

Introduction

Effective teachers are very successful at scaffolding students’ learning of content in ways that engage and interest them. Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is a term used to describe the specialised form of professional knowledge that such teachers use to create rich learning opportunities for students. This ability is gained through a lengthy transformation process where other forms of knowledge, such as subject-matter knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and contextual knowledge, are morphed into a new kind of knowledge for teaching. PCK is a highly personalised, often unspoken form of knowledge that distinguishes skilled teachers from non-teaching content experts, and it develops through time and experience in the classroom. For particular topics and groups of students each experienced teacher’s PCK is unique and encompasses his/her:

orientations towards teaching (knowledge of and about the subject, and beliefs about the subject and how to teach it)

knowledge of curriculum (what aspects of the topic to teach, and when)

knowledge of assessment (what aspects of the topic to assess, why, and how)

knowledge of students’ understanding of the topic (their prior knowledge, including misconceptions)

knowledge of instructional strategies that work best for this topic. (Magnusson, Krajcik, & Borko, 1999)

It is a teacher educators’ role to introduce student teachers to the world of teaching and help them to begin the process of acquiring the professional knowledge required to do the job well. It is well known that many graduates entering teacher-education courses do not fully appreciate the demands that teaching will make of them (Kind, 2009), but perhaps what is less well known is that they can actually lack a deep conceptual understanding of their subject matter (Loughran, Mulhall, & Berry, 2008). Obviously, such gaps in their perceptions of the demands of teaching and their content knowledge can be significant hurdles for these teachers to overcome early in their careers as they struggle to establish their PCK in the classroom. How can these early career teachers be helped, or help themselves, to “kickstart” their PCK development when they commence teaching, and what are their immediate needs? Kind (2009) provides some direction by identifying the following necessities for PCK growth: the possession of good subject matter knowledge (SMK); classroom experience, especially in the early months and years of working as a teacher; certain emotional attributes such as good levels of personal self-confidence; and provision of supportive working atmospheres in which collaboration is encouraged. What could also promote new teachers’ PCK development is some concrete examples of this highly specialised and personal form of professional knowledge for them to begin modelling their own teaching upon.

In an attempt to “capture” and portray some exemplars of PCK from experienced science teachers, John Loughran and his research team (2004) at Monash University developed a tool known as Content Representation (CoRes). The original CoRes this team developed were used in teacher education as exemplars, or summaries if you like, of the collective PCK of a group of successful experienced teachers for teaching a particular topic in science to a certain group of students (e.g., Particles for Year 7/8 students). Each CoRe was organised around a set of key ideas and accompanying pedagogical prompts as illustrated in Figure 1.

To help student teachers develop their own representations of teaching in particular topic areas, science teacher educators have successfully extended CoRe use by encouraging student teachers to design their own CoRes during workshop activities (Hume & Berry, 2010; Loughran et al., 2008). In a small New Zealand study, student teachers went one step further by collaborating with their associate teachers in CoRe design while on practicum, including planning and teaching a sequence of lessons based on that CoRe. This classroom testing of the tentative PCK portrayed in their CoRes proved to be a valuable experience for the student teachers with evidence of significant PCK gains in the findings (Hume, 2011).

In contrast, the understanding of the PCK’s role in technology education, and certainly within pre-service teacher education, is in its early days (De Miranda, 2008; Jones & Moreland, 2004; Rohaan, Taconis, & Jochems, 2009, 2010). Researchers such as McCormack (1997, 2004) have identified the inter-related nature of procedural and technical knowledge in technology education, but the lack of consensus on what constitutes content (what can and ought to be learned) in the technology domain makes progress in understanding PCK in technology education more challenging.

Background to the study

In 2011, using funding from the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI), researchers in science and technology education from the University of Waikato decided to expand this PCK and CoRe design work into new contexts. They set out to investigate what contribution experts (such as experienced teachers, scientists, and technologists) could make to the collaborative formulation of CoRes, but this time with teachers who were in the early stages of their teaching careers and needing opportunities to build and enhance their PCK. The researchers were interested to know if such a combination of professionals, working together with the early career teachers, would work for CoRe design and what impact this expert input might have on the PCK of the early career teachers as they implemented the CoRes into their programme planning and teaching. Two research groups were formed, comprising early career teachers, experienced subject teachers, and content experts, with one group in science and the other in technology. The groups used CoRe design as a focus for pulling together expertise that might help the early career teachers in their classroom teaching. This article reports on the findings from the two groups.

The research design

To carry out the investigation, two four-member partnerships were formed, one in science and one in technology. These partnerships comprised an experienced classroom teacher in the respective subject (Science or Technology), a subject-matter expert (e.g. scientist or technologist), and two early career teachers in that subject. Two experienced researchers worked alongside each group to facilitate and record the process. There were three research questions.

How can experts in content and pedagogy work together with early career teachers to develop one science topic CoRe and one technology topic CoRe to support the development of PCK for early career secondary teachers?

How does the use of a collaboratively designed CoRe affect the planning of an early career secondary teacher in science or technology?

How does engagement in the development and use of an expert-informed CoRe develop an early career teacher’s PCK?

FIGURE 1. CORE TEMPLATE

The three phases of the study are described. At each phase the researchers examined any artefacts produced by the participants, such as CoRes, workplans, assessment information, and personal reflective notes.

In phase one, each team collaboratively developed a CoRe based on a topic identified by the early career teachers. The researchers asked the experienced teachers and the content experts to join in the following CoRe design task by contributing their respective forms of expertise. The group familiarised themselves first with CoRes, then identified the key ideas. Lastly, they considered the pedagogical prompts for each key idea and which completed CoRes are shown in Tables 1 and 2.

In phase two, the early career teachers partnered with a researcher to use CoRes as a basis for planning their scheduled chemistry/technology units. The teachers led the planning while the researchers helped teachers reflect on the process.

In phase three, the teachers delivered their units to their students in classrooms. The teachers and researchers worked together gathering data and reflecting on the impact of the CoRes on the teacher’s teaching of the unit, and on student learning. The researchers observed the classroom teaching, and then participated in reflective interviews with the teachers and student focus groups. The researchers also ran focus-group interviews with the content experts and experienced teachers. In a final workshop, teachers, experts, and researchers discussed and interpreted the findings.

Findings

The CoRe design process led to a positive and productive team environment. For example, the chemist Brian1 spoke very favourably of the process:

To actually see how the two beginning teachers were picking up on ideas from [the experienced teacher] and I was picking up ideas as well, that was quite useful [too], that sort of interaction between the four of us actually worked very well. We’d contribute pretty equally, it was very good (Brian, expert focus group).

Collaborating on CoRe design

The science group settled on their key ideas relatively quickly, largely helped by the experienced chemistry teacher’s familiarity with the curriculum:

We got the big ideas pretty quick actually, yeah, we worked through those. They seemed to fall into place and I guess it’s because for Chemistry there is a really, very well-established curriculum and the ideas are reasonably straightforward in terms of what you need to be covering. (Barry, expert focus group )

The technology group, on the other hand, initially worked at cross purposes, struggling with the focus, and the experienced teacher noted that “I was a bit worried we weren’t going to get anywhere; the identification of what we were trying to solve” (Kerry, expert focus group). However, as the workshop progressed, agreement on how to work together developed. The key ideas emerged, which led to greater involvement of the early career teachers, and the CoRe was completed:

When we started the process of producing our CoRe we tended to get stuck debating Technology as a subject rather than producing our own CoRe. As we progressed through the day a light came on and I started to gain an understanding of what we were doing and why we were doing it. I/we started to break down the big picture and together as a group we started to break things down into small bits. It was like going back to the basics, the stuff I often take for granted. (William, technology early career teacher, interview).

Both sets of early career teachers valued the input of the experts in the CoRe design and felt the process had enabled them to access the experts’ knowledge about, and better identify for themselves, the key concepts of the topic, as well as learn new teaching techniques for delivering particular content (knowledge of curriculum and instructional strategies):

I feel that developing the CoRe for Organic Chemistry with the expert teachers was very helpful in organising my thoughts, planning, etc and helped me think of strategies, etc. that I could use to add to my teaching … After development of the CoRe with the experts I revisited my unit plan and re-thought how I would teach Organic Chemistry in the future. (Elaine, personal reflective notes)

Overall, the early career teachers believed that being involved in discussions with the experts in the construction of the CoRe helped them to build their PCK and develop a deeper understanding of the big picture of the topic. They also felt that the CoRe discussions allowed deeper exploration of the topic and what it was about (knowledge of curriculum).

Putting CoRes into practice: Planning and teaching

For the technology teachers, the CoRe encouraged them to identify and weave more conceptual thinking into their lessons and to think of ways to help their students understand more of the fundamental ideas behind materials technology (knowledge of curriculum, students understanding of the subject and instructional strategies):

By using the CoRe it made me consider why I use the materials that I do use. As a result it made me think how I can show/explain the properties and share my knowledge with the students (William, early career technology teacher, interview).

TABLE 1. THE YEAR 12 ORGANIC CHEMISTRY TOPIC CORE

TABLE 2. THE YEAR 11 TECHNOLOGY MATERIALS TOPIC CORE

In terms of how the collaboratively designed CoRe affected the early career teachers’ planning for teaching their topic, the teachers responded that this happened in a number of ways. Elaine, one of the early career chemistry teachers, explained how the CoRe encouraged her to change the teaching sequence within the topic (knowledge of curriculum) to focus on students learning some fundamental knowledge (knowledge of students’ understanding of the subject), which she felt paid off when she considered the students’ overall learning outcomes:

And now that I’ve done that [placing organic nomenclature near the beginning of the unit] I absolutely saw the value of it because the kids … they just know exactly what I’m talking about … I’ll always do it this way … the naming just works … the alcohols yesterday, it took me half a period to teach alcohols whereas usually it takes me two periods because [usually] we first have to do the naming and now that’s done. (Elaine, early career chemistry teacher, interview)

Discussions in the CoRe design workshop between the chemistry subject matter expert and the experienced teacher, which had highlighted the critical nature of nomenclature to understanding organic chemistry, convinced Elaine to put more emphasis on this aspect in the early part of her unit teaching. Developing the CoRe with experts had really helped her planning:

I feel that developing the CoRe for Organic Chemistry with the expert teachers was very helpful in organising my thoughts, planning, etc and helped me think of strategies, etc. that I could use to add to my teaching. I will therefore in future endeavour to develop CoRes for my other [units] as well. (Elaine, early career chemistry teacher, interview)

After her experience in CoRe design, Georgia, the other early career chemistry teacher, adopted a new planning strategy which involved more thorough planning. She used a whole unit template or overview indicating each lesson and the content she was going to teach in that lesson. This plan was used in a structured but flexible way to take into account class disruptions while still ensuring the curriculum was covered (knowledge of curriculum). Using the CoRe in her planning also encouraged her to focus more on relevant examples to illustrate how the topic was important in students’ daily lives (orientations towards teaching). Georgia found this teaching strategy stimulating, and the students enjoyed learning about these examples, but she noted how readily accessible resources that provided more real-world applications of the chemistry topic would be really helpful:

I think something that would make the CoRe more useful is perhaps if it was linked to examples … those examples should be included, so it’s more sort of user friendly … I think that’s what new teachers need help with. (Georgia, early career chemistry teacher, interview)

In their planning of a programme based on student projects the technology teachers credited the CoRe with helping them to decide what formative feedback to give to individual students, making them more responsive to student needs (knowledge of curriculum, assessment and students’ understanding of the subject):

The CoRe helped me to consider how the lessons were going to be relevant to what the class was doing, how it fitted into their research, and how they could use this material in their project and what its limitations were. I needed to consider what the students needed to know about the fibreglass, how they could use fibreglass in their project and what properties of fibreglass were relevant to their application (Denis, final interview).

All the early career teachers felt that being involved in the CoRe design process and using the CoRe to guide their teaching had increased their confidence and belief in what they were teaching (orientations towards teaching):

I think in my mind it probably helped me to see …especially the ‘how does it meet society’s needs’ and sort of see the relevance of teaching them the unit. And I think you gain confidence from teaching something that is actually useful. (Georgia, final interview)

Differences between science and technology

The immediate usefulness of the CoRe was perceived differently by the technology and science early career teachers. Science teachers appeared to get the most benefit from recognising the value of examples of organic chemistry from the real world in supporting students’ understanding of the chemistry concepts they were teaching. They were able to develop these approaches with confidence (orientations to teaching):

… that was probably the biggest thing that came out of having the expert teachers and the scientists there as well. It was sort of having their view of what is important for organic chemistry … that organic chemistry allows us to meet society’s needs … and it’s got all those things like anaesthetics, polymers, PVC … it’s those little bits of extra information that make it interesting. (Georgia, early career teacher, interview)

In Technology the early career teachers saw the immediate benefits in quite the opposite way. They perceived the main benefits as being opportunities to see the big picture of Materials Technology, to discuss and identify the underlying concepts and principles, and consequently develop a philosophy that would help them make decisions about appropriate content to teach (orientations to teaching and knowledge of curriculum):

The CoRe was useful in that it makes you go back to the basic properties of materials. It makes you rethink how and why you use materials (in this case fibreglass). Having used many materials such as steel, fibreglass, wood, ply, MDF etcetera on all sorts of projects over the years, you take your selection of materials for granted. You just know what will work or not work and make your selection based on past knowledge. This is something that students don’t have. (William, early career teacher, interview).

The technology early career teachers’ involvement in the CoRe development process led them to a more thoughtful approach to developing lesson content by introducing a range of different pedagogies and teaching resources into their classroom programmes. Before this experience, the technology teachers reported that they would just teach those aspects of materials technology that the students needed to complete their current project (knowledge of curriculum).

It seems the application of the CoRe to a teaching unit was also different in Science and Technology. In Science, the organic chemistry CoRe was truly a representation of content, dealing with a distinct set of concepts and skills, which was reflected as such in textbooks and the curriculum for that year level. In Technology, the Materials CoRe had to be contextualised and framed within a project rather that around a body of content. It was not a self-contained Content Representation, but rather a topic that could be applied within a project context (orientations to teaching and knowledge of curriculum).

There was also a contrast between practical and conceptual aspects of the science and technology programmes as a result of the CoRe influence. For example, the science teachers noted that, after dealing with the pedagogical questions and prompts related to the subject-matter ideas, they had a deeper understanding of the importance of engaging in practical activities to assist students’ understanding of the relevance of the topic (orientations to teaching and knowledge of instructional strategies). The reverse outcome was the case for the technology teachers. They realised the need for a conceptual framework before determining the key ideas for the topic, and so believed that students also needed a broader framework of understanding beyond their specific needs related to their project. Consequently, in implementing the CoRe the technology teachers planned for more initial classroom activity than they normally would to provide this framework for the students, and to spend time generalising from the specifics of their current project to broader principles that could be applied elsewhere (orientations to teaching and knowledge of instructional strategies). However, a number of students indicated that they did not appreciate this provision, reflecting their belief that the main reason for their being in class was to “get on with building something”.

Implications

CoRes developed through a collaborative process with experts in content and teaching have potential for helping early career teachers gain access to expert knowledge and experience. The experts in this study were very willing to be involved in the CoRe design process, and through this involvement they better understood some of the challenges that beginning teachers face in teaching their subject. All parties reported enjoying the opportunity to discuss the key ideas relating to the topic of the CoRe, and the ways to teach them. The early career teachers emphasised that the experts’ engagement in the process of design of the CoRe was particularly beneficial in helping them to focus on the big picture of the topic, place different emphases on areas of content, and consider alternative ways of planning for their teaching. However, it was also clear that to create space for such a design process outside a dedicated and funded research project would require time commitment and innovative ways to collaborate between early career teachers and experts.

These findings lead to the research team considering how all early career teachers could benefit from being involved in CoRe design with experts across a variety of learning areas and topics. While the participants in this study clearly appreciated the opportunity to work face-to-face with experts, it would seem unlikely that such an opportunity could be provided for all early career teachers in all learning areas. A potential solution to this dilemma might be the use of electronic media. Applications such as Wikis or e-portfolios are already being used as collaborative work spaces in many areas of education. Bringing together a group of early career teachers and experts in a virtual space may allow for collaborative but asynchronous (and therefore time-flexible) development of CoRes. Such a facility would have the potential to involve a greater number of early career teachers in a cluster; it would also allow for the ongoing evolution of a CoRe as early career teachers develop their PCK. This latter idea is important, as development of PCK should not be seen as reaching an end point. Indeed, in the future, it would be interesting to return to the teachers in our study to examine how their PCK had further developed, and what their revised CoRe of the same topic might then look like.

Note

1In quotes from group members, pseudonyms have been used and the emerging PCK components are indicated in italics.

References

De Miranda, M. (2008). Pedagogical content knowledge and engineering and technology teacher education: Issues for thought. Journal of the Japanese Society of Technology Education, 50(1), 17–26.

Hume, A. (2011). Using collaborative CoRe design in chemistry education to promote effective partnerships between associate and student teachers. ChemEd NZ, 125, 13–19

Hume, A., & Berry, A. (2010). Constructing CoRes—a strategy for building PCK in pre-service science teacher education. Research in Science Education, 41(3), 341–355. DOI 10.1007/s11165-010-9168-3

Jones, A., & Moreland, J. (2004). Enhancing practicing primary teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge in technology. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 14(1), 121–140.

Kind, V. (2009). Pedagogical content knowledge in science education: Potential and perspectives for progress. Studies in Science Education, 45(2), 169–204.

Loughran, J., Mulhall, P., & Berry, A. (2008). Exploring pedagogical content knowledge in science teacher education. International Journal of Science Education, 30(10), 1301–1320.

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Magnusson, S., Krajcik, J., & Borko, H. (1999). Nature, sources, and development of pedagogical content knowledge for science teaching. In J. Gess-Newsome & N. G. Lederman (Eds), Examining pedagogical content knowledge: The construct and its implications for science education (pp. 95–132). Boston, MA: Kluwer.

McCormack, R. (1997). Conceptual and procedural knowledge. International Journal of Design and Technology Education, 7, 141–159.

McCormack, R. (2004). Issues of learning and knowledge in technology education. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 14, 21–44.

Rohaan, E., Taconis, R., & Jochems, W. (2009). Measuring teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge in primary technology education. Research in Science and Technology Education, 27(3), 327–338.

Rohaan, E., Taconis, R., & Jochems, W. (2010). Reviewing the relations between teachers’ knowledge and pupils’ attitude in the field of primary technology education. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 20(1), 15–26.

ANNE HUME, CHRIS EAMES, JOHN WILLIAMS, and JOHN LOCKLEY are researchers in science and technology education at the Centre for Science and Technology Education Research, University of Waikato.

Email: annehume@waikato.ac.nz