Articles 3 and 4: The teaching and assessment of a specific learning

Articles 3 and 4 (Juhler, In press; Juhler & Håland, 2016) (see Appendix H and I) illuminate the main research question (see 3.1.2) through detailed descriptions, based on findings from Articles 1 and 2. Article 3 specifically

Table 3: Overview of research findings from Articles 1 and 2

C: Instructional strategies 69.3% 44.8% 92.0% 70.0%

C1. Pupil behaviour 0.8% 5.5% 7.4% 5.8%

CSP: Current state of practice. INT: Intervention. Article 1: Planning. Article 2: Reflection.

Percentages are calculated from each category’s coverage of the full transcripts.

89 focuses on the teaching of a learning aim. Article 4 specifically focuses on the assessment of the specific learning aim, studied through Article 3. As such, the Articles aimed at answering the following research questions.

Article 3: “How do student teachers of science plan, conduct and reflect on the teaching of a chosen learning aim when using the Lesson Study method in combination with the Content Representation tool?”. Article 4:

“How do student teachers of science understand and implement assessment of and for learning, while using the Lesson Study method in combination with the Content Representation tool?”.

In both cases the descriptions cover all six steps: ‘comprehension’,

‘transformation’, ‘instruction’, ‘evaluation’, ‘reflection’, and ‘new comprehension’, as depicted in Figure 2, p. 28, ‘Model of pedagogical reasoning and action’. To answer the research question, a stepwise approach to content analysis (Boeije, 2009) was used. This approach uses a qualitative coding of data into the categories that the two articles specifically focus on.

Subsequently, coded pieces that fitted together were used to create the descriptions provided in the articles. One limitation of this approach is that it only covers parts of the PCK construct.

The descriptions from the third Article show that the PSTs, during the planning of the research lesson, clearly stated subject-matter aims for the lesson. These were: ‘Transfer of energy’, ‘Energy chains” and ‘Energy is not created or disappearing’. In this respect, they had chosen three activities that might bring about this learning: ‘Catapult firing’, ‘Newton’s cradle’ and

‘Rubbing of hands’. However, no evidence was found providing insight into why these three activities were considered to be the best for teaching the subject-matter aim. Nor were there discussions about comparisons with possible alternative activities that the PSTs had considered using. However, they had considered, and were able to explain, how they thought the three activities would contribute to the pupils’ learning of the subject-matter aim.

In connection with learning the concept ‘Energy transfers’, the PSTs expressed that the pupils had to understand the technical concepts used to describe the energy situation before and after an energy transfer had occurred.

Furthermore, the pupils had to understand that energy was somehow transferred from one kind of energy to another. Through the combination of the chosen

90 activities, and through emphasizing the technical concepts, the PSTs believed that learning would occur naturally.

During the teaching of the lesson, it was found that the PST who was teaching the lesson mentioned the technical concepts that the PSTs had planned to emphasize. However, when talking about the concept of energy, a discovery was that this happened without talking about the specific type of energy most of the time. Furthermore, the different types of concepts, e.g. what does

‘thermal energy’ really mean?, were not explained. Neither were there any explanations about how one type of energy is converted into another – simply that it was converted.

After the taught lesson and during the reflections, the generally expressed view among the PSTs seemed to be that the lesson was quite successful in terms of fulfilling the learning aim. However, the PSTs did express concerns about whether some of the pupils had understood the technical concepts. In this respect, they thought that talking in more detail, knowing what a good/right answer from a pupil might look like, and knowing what a correct definition might be, would have helped.

The results from the fourth article illustrate that the PSTs, during the planning of the research lesson, expressed that they could use the pupils’

utterances and writing to assess their learning. To do so, they had developed two assessment tools: A hypothesis form covering the three activities, and an observational manual. The expressed main aim of the hypothesis form was to get the pupils to write their understanding down before the experiment – formulating a hypothesis about what was happening and, after the experiment, explaining what they saw in addition to writing the correct explanation together with teacher. The observational manual expressed which aspects of the research lesson the PSTs who were not teaching the lesson should focus on in the classroom. Specifically, these were whether the pupils seemed to have understood the covered content – why/why not, or whether the focus was on the activity itself.

During the conversations, the mentor teacher tried several times to get the PSTs to be explicit about which written/spoken evidence the pupils could hypothetically express, confirming or disconfirming the pupils’ understanding.

However, the PSTs either avoided these questions or expressed themselves vaguely. In the end, the mentor teacher asked them to make an explicit list, so

91 specific that the PSTs should be able to use it to tick off items during the research lesson.

During the teaching of the research lesson, an observation was that the PSTs walked around in the classroom collecting evidence and using the tools described above. While details about these observations were not collected, it could be observed that they took notes and followed the pupils closely. The one PST who was teaching asked many questions aimed at getting the pupils to verbalize some of their theories. The PST who was teaching the lesson responded to the pupils’ answers, primarily through giving a recap, giving the right answer, answering ‘yes/no’, or by not responding but instead moving on with the lesson. Only in a few instances did the PST who was teaching ask the pupils to be more specific, or challenge the pupils to explain the reasoning behind their thoughts.

During the reflections after the taught lesson, three out of the four PSTs expressed that the lesson was quite successful in terms of fulfilling the learning aim. This was based on observations showing that the chosen activities had engaged the pupils, resulting in them becoming focused and interested, which led the PSTs to believe that the pupils had understood the learning aim. The three PSTs did not mention or use the hypothesis form or other collected observations as evidence for their claim. However, one of the PSTs was sceptical. This PST commented that the pupils seemed to have had a hard time understanding the connection between the activities and the learning aim. This was based on observations showing that the pupils did not use the related terms and concepts that they were supposed to learn about. This view was supported by the mentor teacher. The one PST concluded, contrary to the others, that the pupils had properly acquired knowledge as a set of separate pieces of information.

Overall, the above research findings show that the PSTs to some degree focus on and discuss the researched areas in depth when planning, conducting and reflecting on teaching. A discussion of these findings, and how they fit together with the research findings presented in Articles 1 and 2, is the aim of the following chapter.

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