{"id":46176,"date":"2018-12-03T12:24:09","date_gmt":"2018-12-03T20:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=46176"},"modified":"2018-12-03T12:24:09","modified_gmt":"2018-12-03T20:24:09","slug":"helping-teachers-get-better-at-how-to-teach-as-well-as-what-to-teach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/helping-teachers-get-better-at-how-to-teach-as-well-as-what-to-teach\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping teachers get better at \u2018how\u2019 to teach as well as \u2018what\u2019 to teach"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nIt\u2019s always difficult to step out of your comfort zone. This is true for teachers too; research has shown that many educators are\u00a0resistant to change<\/a>. This manifests in many ways. Some don\u2019t want to try out new assessment methods. Others are reluctant to use technology for teaching. And some resist any sort of professional development because they\u2019re used to doing things in a particular way.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s hugely important that teachers try new things and develop new understanding of subject knowledge. Research shows that pupils learn better when their teachers are not only well versed in the subject, but are also willing to be flexible about how they teach.<\/p>\n

We believe it\u2019s valuable to target teachers who are still studying and haven\u2019t yet started working in schools to think differently about what they know and how they teach. That\u2019s why we created\u00a0a novel approach<\/a>\u00a0to professional development for trainee physics teachers at Mauritius\u2019 sole teacher training institute.<\/p>\n

Over a period of 18 months,\u00a0we followed<\/a>\u00a0the student teachers\u2019 progress. At the beginning, we found that student teachers struggled\u00a0to explain the physics concepts<\/a>\u00a0they would be expected to teach to high school pupils.<\/p>\n

The concepts were taught (in mock classroom settings)\u00a0in a way<\/a>\u00a0that would almost certainly lead to learners developing misconceptions about important concepts in physics.<\/p>\n

We tackled this in our professional development course by getting the trainee teachers to write tests and integrate constant feedback into their work. This helped them become more aware of their existing physics knowledge \u2013 and where it was lacking. They became eager to keep learning and also to try a gamut of different approaches in the learning process.<\/p>\n

By improving their content knowledge, we\u00a0improved<\/a>\u00a0their teaching skills. This set them up to enter the classroom better prepared, both in terms of\u00a0how<\/em>\u00a0to teach and\u00a0what<\/em>\u00a0to teach.<\/p>\n

Understanding the subject< <\/strong>\/h4>
\nTeaching and learning physics is no easy task. In Mauritius, you can become a physics teacher if you hold an undergraduate degree in the subject and then complete a teacher training course at a later time.<\/p>\n

The problem is that having a degree in the subject is no guarantee you\u2019ll be a good physics teacher. For one thing, a lot of research\u00a0has shown<\/a>\u00a0that people with undergraduate physics degrees don\u2019t always have proper conceptual understandings of the various phenomena encompassing physics.<\/p>\n

And that is not something which you can learn at a teacher training college. These institutions focus on the \u201chow\u201d of teaching: how to manage a class, how to devise a curriculum, or how to get pupils interested in a topic.<\/p>\n

Our course featured some pedagogical knowledge \u2013 that is, equipping future teachers to go out and teach. But the focus was on content knowledge, particularly for those teaching 11 to 18-year-olds.<\/p>\n

The idea was to keep testing pre-service teachers on what they knew about physics, so they could learn about their own misconceptions and knowledge gaps with the support of the facilitators.<\/p>\n

Correcting misconceptions<\/h2>\n

Though we followed the work of several pre-service teachers in this process, we ultimately chose a case study approach. This involved following a single student teacher\u2019s progress over 18 months, and seeing how she developed much stronger subject knowledge as a result of continuous and regular formative assessment tasks and ample written and verbal feedback.<\/p>\n

In the beginning, the student battled to explain simple physics concepts \u2013 things like gravity and velocity. But she didn\u2019t realise she was getting anything wrong; she could not identify her own misconceptions. The fact that she was enrolled in the course we\u2019d set up meant that she had ample opportunities to learn where she\u2019d erred.<\/p>\n

This is extremely important: physics teachers\u2019 misconceptions about their own subject knowledge should be identified and corrected before they become firmly ingrained notions. Working with pre-service teachers in a professional development context, rather than waiting until teachers are already active in classrooms and passing their misconceptions on to pupils, is crucial.<\/p>\n

A valuable tool<\/strong><\/h4>\n

By the end of the 18-month course we could\u00a0identify<\/a>\u00a0to some extent some improvements in deductive reasoning and problem solving skills of the student teachers.<\/p>\n

As we already stipulated, misconceptions are firmly ingrained in the mind of teachers, and these are very often intertwined with other concepts in physics and mathematics.<\/p>\n

The 18-month course essentially drew the student teachers\u2019 attention to the presence of their own misconceptions. It also gave them the necessary tools to address and repair these.<\/p>\n

Our work shows that introducing conceptual tests during professional development courses (both for teachers who are already working and those who are yet to qualify) can be extremely valuable.<\/p>\n

Testing content knowledge in these courses and offering constant feedback to teachers can help them to correct their misconceptions and eventually encourage them to reflect critically on what they do \u2013 and don\u2019t \u2013 know.<\/p>\n

Author Bios: <\/strong>Yashwant Ramma is a Professor & Chair, Research, and Ajeevsing Bholoa is a Senior Lecturer, Mathematics Education Department both at the Mauritius Institute of Education<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s always difficult to step out of your comfort zone. This is true for teachers too; research has shown that many educators are\u00a0resistant to change. This manifests in many ways. Some don\u2019t want to try out new assessment methods. Others are reluctant to use technology for teaching. And some resist any sort of professional development […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":46177,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15645],"tags":[9518],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-46176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-teaching-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHelping teachers get better at \u2018how\u2019 to teach as well as \u2018what\u2019 to teach - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/helping-teachers-get-better-at-how-to-teach-as-well-as-what-to-teach\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Helping teachers get better at \u2018how\u2019 to teach as well as \u2018what\u2019 to teach - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s always difficult to step out of your comfort zone. This is true for teachers too; research has shown that many educators are\u00a0resistant to change. This manifests in many ways. Some don\u2019t want to try out new assessment methods. Others are reluctant to use technology for teaching. 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