Notes from the Mind the Gap workshop in Lyon, May 21, kindly supplied by Majken Korsager
Mind the Gap Workshop on Professional Development (PD) Day 1
Participants:
Germany: Christoph Hammer, Götz Bieber, Tina Seidel, Katrin Lipowski, Manfred Prenzel, Matthias Stadler, Silke Rönnebeck.
Denmark: Jens Dolin, Ole Goldbeck, Brian Krogh Christensen, Robert Evans, Jesper Bruun
United Kingdom: Kathryn Thomson, Sibel Erduran, Bryan Berry.
Spain: Mari-Pilar Jimenez- Aleixandre, José Francisco Serallé Marzoa
Norway: Anders Isnes, Marit Dahl, Doris Jorde, Majken Korsager
Hungary: Monika Reti, Luca Szalay
France: Sylvain Laubé, Jerôme Godin, Jaques Vince, Rita Khanfour, Layal Malkoun, Andrée Tiberghien, Dominique Rojat, Nicolas Rosset
Subtitle: Introduction
Presenter [Matthias Stadler, Doris Jorde]
Mattias informed about the program for the workshops. Doris started with introductory remarks and a presentation round of all participants.
Doris Jorde presentws Mind the Gap and the ideas behind the project. Speaking about ESERA and how it started and the purpose of the network. Subject matter almost the same in all European countries, the methods differ a lot between countries due to culture. We want to take advantage of the differences and share knowledge and experiences from this. The aim is to increase recruitment of students to science education all over Europe.
Subtitle: SINUS
Presenter [Manfred Prenzel
Presentation of SINUS and the story of the motivation of why they started the project in Germany. The TIMSS results from 1995 were lower than expected by the German government and educational stakeholders. After revision they found out that most teaching approaches were boring and traditional. After evaluating the methods in Japan (where they are doing better in international tests) they learned about methods building on task and focus on the students.
Background for development of the project
1 Shocked by the TIMSS report in 1995. In addition the TIMSS video study gave an impression that instruction was very boring. Japan showed other ways to teaching that also brought forth advanced teaching models that were also interactive.
2 Stake holders wanted change in the system.
3 Using existing knowledge, a model for tpd was made. Findings from research about instructional approaches, quality development, teacher collaboration, situation cognition, etc.
4 Looked for a short term idea and a long term idea. Changing curriculum takes at least 10 years. Changing teacher education may take 20 years. Also needed to look for an idea that convinved teachers that change was a good thing.
5 Sustainable effects were sought after for the framework that was written from colleagues coming from science and math education, teachers, psychology, administrators, etc
6 Motivation and interest, level of competencies and finally learning strategies are all equally important in the model. Social dimensions also important within a domain.
7 Levels of influence
a Individual - competencies (outcomes)
b Classroom - instruction
c Context - home, school (organization), teacher education, curriculum, peer
d System - socio-economic and cultural background
e Other ideas of cultural beliefs (relevance of education), funding
Focus on the SINUS project was on a. and b. as well as school and teacher education within c.
Multi-dimensional objectives
The framework of the program
"To increase the efficiency of math and science instruction"
Located areas to create modules to start development of the task culture.
The outcome was creating 11 modules. The central idea is that the teachers themselves are the driving force in the process and the network. The purpose of the network is to give the teachers support in this developmental work and give them advices from a expert (Set coordinator) in professional teacher development.
Make sure that the teachers know they have the responsibility to carry out the development and they are the experts. They will have to understand and believe in that in order to make thing change in the school.
The students develop a common language; they can communicate within a subject with others.
The institutes' role is to educate and support the coordinators so they can carry out the network with teachers.
Module 1: Further development of the task culture
• working on new material
• motivate them to develop a solution themselv
• working through recently worked-on material
• understand the thoughts and processes presented within the material and to come to a solution.
• solution and to transfer their knowledge to unknown situations.
• Repeat tasks serve to recall subject matter test tasks should show what a student is capable of and where gaps still need to be filled.
Module 2: Scientific inquiry and experiments
• The planning and conception.
• The implementation
• The analysis and interpretation phase
• application phase observe the social relevance of the
• research findings.
• In the presentation reflection on and an understanding of the context.
Module 3: Learning from mistakes
• mistakes are common and are part of everyday learning.
• Learning from mistakes is especially targeted in careers in which mistakes can have very serious consequences.
• What is the situation in school; the institution in which learning is the central activity?
• Working on typical mistakes which emerged, for example, in situations of performance appraisal.
• Making mistakes in lessons visible by writing them down, preparing a drawing or recording them on video.
Module 4: Securing basic knowledge - intelligent learning
at different levels
• intelligent learning at different levels"
• students with different levels of previous knowledge can acquire a common level of basic knowledge in individual domains.
• emphasizes that basic knowledge must be available and applicable at all times
• securing of basic knowledge, it means practicing in a varied and intelligent
• The knowledge can be applied flexibly in different requirement situations.
• the practise tasks must be designed in such a way that they can be worked on at different levels of difficulty.
Module 5: Cumulative learning - making students aware of their
increasing competency
• making students aware of their increasing competency"
• new material draws on material which has already been dealt with.
• see the effort they put into learning as being worthwhile as they recognise that the previously learnt content is useful and they see which further effort is necessary.
• Experiences such as these support motivation more than external incentives such as rewards and grades or the reference to later use in professional life which is still far in the future for students.
• Which possibilities do teachers have to construct students' knowledge step by step and with which approaches have SINUS teachers had positive experiences?
Module 6: Making subject boundaries visible:
working in an interdisciplinary way and a way that connects subjects
• working in an interdisciplinary way and a way that connects subjects; learning in a subject with learning that goes beyond subject boundaries.
• The students should look at phenomena from the perspectives of different disciplines, should see how useful these different perspectives can be but also which boundaries the individual disciplines come up against.
• If questions can not be answered by one subject, students should consult the perspective of another in order to achieve a deeper understanding.
• By this access to multi perspectives, they should also be able to describe complex problems in an appropriate way and learn how to develop solution suggestions.
• tasks whose solutions must implement knowledge taken from different disciplines.
Module 7: Promoting girls and boys
• changes in instruction to remove the disadvantages which girls have in mathematics and science
• to contribute to a general increase in interest and, as a consequence, in the performance of girls and boys in these subjects.
• In the promotion of boys, the module aims to improve their arguing and cooperating ability and to support scientific work which is shared and equal between
• girls and boys.
Module 8: Developing tasks for student cooperation
• Teachers developed suitable tasks to which all of the students scould make a contribution and from which they could all also learn something.
• chose those which were best suited to the common learning aims (for example, expanding groups
• In the implementation, the teachers supported the working processes, ensured that all of the students were working towards a shared goal and intervened in group conflicts. They thus helped the students to develop the social skills necessary for successful
• cooperation.
Module 9: Strengthening students' responsibility for their learning
Module 10: Assessment - surveying and providing feedback
on competency increases
Module 11: Quality assurance within and across schools
1 Introduction of quality development at the participating schools. Teachers in Germany were autonomous. Focus for teachers was on learning how to cooperate with other teachers with a focus also on the classroom and instruction. Teachers were asked to develop materials, units and instructional approaches in a problem-and process oriented manner. Important that colleagues gave feedback to each other on successes and failures. Trying to spread the approach in the schools to other colleagues.
2 Organization - professional development means multiple schools in a network. Networks of 10 schools with one person as a moderator (teacher trainer for example in a 50% position). Universities were brought into the network - especially for the development of a new way to provide teacher education. Links to the other levels of quality assurance in the system.
3 Professional cooperation within and between schools - teachers given the opportunity to meet and decide that they were reponsible for their own change in the classroom. Teachers are the experts who must want to make change in their own teaching. Support from the principal is an important point for including leadership. Integration of SINUS in the school strategic planning document and activities. Work on only 2 modules suggested - what is the biggest problem in your school? Setting an agenda with a structure for change. Collaboration of ideas, development, evaluation of instruction. Exchange of ideas, materials and experiences at school level and between schools.
Support provided for the teachers
1 Detailed written outlines of program-related topics (good examples) and material
2 Coordination and support of the network in schools and between schools.
3 Inclusion of math and science educators and educational psychologists in conferences
4 Internet server
Evaluation of the pilot program
Comparison to PISA results, questionnaires to teachers and students.
Many types of materials being developed by teachers and used on the net.
Teachers getting better at interpreting materials producted by other teachers.
Development of new terminology for teachers (important for teacher professional development).
Video studies showed a very similar script in most classes. Changing the script takes time but is the goal of the project
Two groups of teachers - one wanted more autonomy and the other wanting less (2000)
Group A - explorative (48%)
Group B - guidance-oriented (30%)
Group C - input-oriented (22%)
What did the students learn?
Differences appeared between SINUS school and others. Evidence showed that not only teachers changed but also student performance,
Larger school sets (10), no reduction of teaching load, portfolios
Moving from Pilot phase to scaling up
Second wave (2005 - 2007) now includes 1800 schools. Official program ended in 2007. Some of the states continue the approach. A new program started with primary level in math and science. EU high level group recognized the project.
1 Questions
What are the most successful modules and how is that measured from the students' view of point?
Module 1 was the most attractive for the teachers especially for math teachers. The impact on students varies. The aim is to a least improve on some students.
How is the organization of the network and professional teacher development, and what is the cost?
It will be expensive and cost a lot to start up the project and it demand the country to be willing change their teacher development program.
How was the groups combined and what persons was involved? What was the challenges according to inter disciplinary communication and misunderstanding?
Teacher from different subjects, and have a strong feeling for these questions in the school.
The teachers have to deliver what's demanded of the students to do on their exams. So how can the teachers do the changes without changing the context or are there examples of the teachers work changing the curriculum and the system?
We have to be aware of this and maybe be able to impact the system and make some changes. The core is to present teachers a model that allow them to be professional and how they can work with structures.
Who are choosing to the participant to the networks?
Some schools are sending teachers they see as needed in this project, other teachers ask for participating. Important that the teachers participating are there on their own free will.
Have you have any feedback from teachers on how the modules work out and are realistic to carry out?
If the school system is aiming at improving the students' knowledge and measure their assessment it's obvious that only professional development that functions for this purpose is successful and going to be used. It is important that the national assessment system has to correlate with these ideas.
Science educators need to have an impact on national assessment tools so that they are not just tests of factual knowledge but also able to solve problems. Important to ask questions about country national assessment systems - what are they preparing students to do?
Germany does not have a national assessment system.
Subtitle: Teacher training in Denmark
Presenter [Ole Goldbeck & Brian Krogh Christensen]
Teacher training in Denmark Compulsory school (1-9 grade)
The system is decentralized and the local authorities are staring the economy for the schools professional development. The country is concerned and is in a process of how to improve.
7 university colleges spread over the country. Content for 4 years training. Each student has to select 1st and 2nd specialization. In science:
• Biology 36 ECTS
• Geography 36 ECTS
• Physics/chemistry 72 ECTS combined with nature/technology 36 ECTS
• Nature technology 72 ECTS combined with Physics/chemistry 36 ECTS
In service training
The ministry has supported the in-service training. Little or no training in IBST methods. Variety of have the schools carry out their development of a science culture. Most of the students (90%) are taught by teachers with no science education at all.
Non-compulsory; secondary school
Subtitle: Teacher training in Hungary
Presenter [Monika Reti ]
The people in charge of the PD; there is little quality checking and no guarantee of who has responsibility for the development. A lot of different stakeholders. The schools are many and the university has lost its role as stakeholder.
Demand 120 hours every 7 th year unless they have a PhD or are over 50 years old.
Problems are that the development is expensive and needs a lot of administration. Teachers do not get any money to carry out their professional development. It is highly influenced by different interests. There is no policy of IBST. The average age of teachers is high; a lot above 50. A lot of main problems; the situation is quite chaotic.
Subtitle: Teacher training in France
Presenter [Dominique Rojat& Jerôme Godin, Jaques Vince]
The policy is quite traditional (conservative). The main problem in France is the reflection of the gap between teaching and learning. The gap is biggest between in-service teacher and new ideas one wants to be implemented into the schools. There is a conservative spirit in the teacher community. They have tried out a collaboration with teachers and researcher/adviser.
The universities are in charge of teacher professional development. The local communities are in charge of the economics. No structural approaches to professional development. IBTS is a subject in the training period, but in in-service they learn to carry it out. The main question/focus has to work with the core curriculum and the problem is the distinct lines between science subjects. The age of teacher might be a problem. The younger teachers might be more connected than the older more experienced teachers. The recruitment is stable, and covers the number of teachers actually needed.
Subtitle: Teacher training in Spain
Presenter [Mari-Pilar Jimenez- Aleixandre]
The responsibility of professional development ia shared between the central government and 17 different autonomous regions. Different languages are co-official in Spain.
Responsibility is within the department of education in each region through courses and teacher centers.
Stakeholders: the director of innovation in each D.E., teacher education offices; teacher association, assessment agencies. Professional Development is voluntary but required for promotion. No systematic approaches but a high proportion of courses about scientific updating. PD only randomly supports IBST.
Biggest problem in Europe is that the professionality of the teacher profession is not supported with a framework for teacher professional development and teacher networking.
Impression of the PD in the EUROPEAN countries
Professionality of the teachers' profession is not supported with a structured framework for the teacher PD and teacher network.
How to motivate PD in the EUROPEAN countries
We need to have strong motivation within each country to implement and carry out PD. Suggestions are results from TIMSS and PISA, increased recruitment to science educations including science teachers, other?
Subtitle: Teacher training in United Kingdom
Presenter [Kathryn Thomson, Bryan Berry]
There is a great culture for PD in the UK. As a teacher you get checked for your standard against other standards which you have to get through in order to get to the next level.
The system for PD is very complicated and difficult for teachers to choose which way to go.
Science learning centre network. There are 10 Science learning centers spread over the country. The national center is located at the University of York. The school has their own economic responsibility so it is impossible to force the teachers into professional development. In Scotland teachers receive 30 hours per year to get PD. The system is moving away from the course form and more into the network long lasting structure. The science centers main aim is to give the teacher an opportunity to update their skill according to process and subjects. The center works on evaluation of the PD in terms of a pre survey and post survey where the teachers report on their own reflecting about how this impacted the students.
www.sciencelearningcentres.org.uk
MA in teaching and learning - a type of MBA for teachers
Lots for teachers to choose from making it a bit confusing
Network of science learning centers - funded by the department of education. 9 regional centers and one national center (York). Cutting edge TPD courses.
Even with support, hard to get teachers out to these courses because of local difficulties.
Scotland has a right to have 30 hours/year for TPD.
Pedagogical issues are a large part of the courses. Trying to make courses right for teachers.
ASE - looking also at long term ideas for TPD.
Quality of courses important with assessment done - impact assessment. Teachers asked to be engaged in their needs before the course. During the course, and after also asked to comment.
Subtitle: Teacher training in Norway
Presenter [Anders Isnes, Marit Dahl]
New curriculum in all subjects. The responsibility is at the municipal level. Teachers receive continuous PD through small happenings. A bottom up strategy is implemented in PD system (kompetanse mål). The school should locate their own needs for PD. The 7 universities and 25 colleges are in charge of offering subject course from which they choose among. The extra expenses are giving from the national budget. The PD educators often lack competence to carry out courses demanded from the schools. Few teachers classify themselves as science teachers even though they are teaching science. A new model with subject specialization should improve this situation.
The science center should ,through PD, help the school to be more practical. They build up competence through "ambassadors" that are teachers given PD. They should build networks in the some way as SINUS. More money needed to in-service training.
New national curriculum 2008. Centralized ideas but distributed responsibility for TPD. In-service training goes on often - most often as happenings.
Competence for quality (2009-12) - strategy for further education of teachers. Negotiated by stake holders. Responsibilities outlined for each actor in the system. Bottom up strategy means that individual schools have responsibility for mapping needs - they ask universities and colleges for needed courses. Math at elementary, Physics and Chemistry for senior secondary are the priorized areas for this period. Money comes from the national budget. Schools complain that they do not have the money to send teachers to these courses.
No identity as science teachers.
New framework for teacher training will increase subject competency.
Naturfagsenteret - mandate says will help with TPD and connections to the practice field. Ambassadors have been identified to go around to schools and talk to teachers about their development.
Problem in Norway is that the curriculum defines IBST but we are not seeing change in the classrooms.
Subtitle: Teacher training in Germany
Presenter [Manfred Prenzel]
16 länder have the responsibility for teacher education. Different phases of education; one in university where the teacher has subject studies in at least two subjects. The education is academic in character and has little practical links. The didactical practical socialization is located at the seminar level. In service training differs between each länd and is not coordinated and coherent. The future challenges are to improve the coordination and development of in-service PD.
16 federal states each with responsibility for education
Academic phase of teacher development; universities are autonomous and some are not especially interested in teacher education.
Practical phase of teacher education not a part of the universities. Not coordinated efforts happening in Germany.
Group work - ideas to expand our network into strategies coming from other actors and stake holders. Looking at the challenges in our countries of TPD and what the priorities may be.
Comparisons between countries. Commonalities between lands, how to make initial moves to work on models of TPD.
Back at 1715.
We learned lots about the sinus project - that not all teachers are involved in a school. Perhaps only 20 % are engaged enough to want to participate.
Anders and I discussed ideas of NNN and their introduction into IBST, etc.
Working with our practice schools is also a good idea.
Subtitle: [Group discussion of PD]
Presenter [All]
Question to discuss on a national and an international level.
Partners, directions etc to improve our science education.
• What has failed?
• How should we improve?
• What are the similarities?
• Challenges?
• Curriculum.
• Assessment system?
• Quality assurance?
• Coordination between countries.
• Networking on common actions.
Group 2
Germany: Katrin Lipowski, Matthias Stadler,
Denmark: Brian Krogh Christensen, Jesper Bruun
United Kingdom: Kathryn Thomson,
Spain: José Francisco Serallé Marzoa
Norway: Majken Korsager
Hungary: Monika Reti
France: Jerôme Godin,
How to define and locate IBST in the countries. What is IBST?
In Spain the PD is not implemented in the schools even though teachers have PD and seem interested in this education. The subject needs to be translated into the students language and related to their everyday experiences and prior knowledge.
Teachers often report that they loose control if they have to change into more IBST approachs.
Problems in Hungary ia that the teachers are often most concerned with the high skilled students and therefore have a hard time handling and dealing with students less skilled. The country has to centralize their PD system.
One main issue is to make teachers realize that it is OK to loose some control of the classroom teaching, in order to let the students explore their own ideas and subjects.
Isn't the main core of IBST to do survey and exploring using different tools to get new knowledge?
Sometimes a struggle to get the students to accept the new way of learning because they need to become active and take responsibility for their own learning. This phase could be frightening to many teachers. We need to give them this strength in order to argue for these ideas even to parents. Teachers must be willingly to take this battle, to improve and learn for life.
PBL demands that teachers accept being flexible and use new methods in their teaching.
The network should be used as a platform to exchange ideas and learn from each other. The teachers should have opportunities to evaluate and report back on what they got from PD. This evaluating can be done in several ways like physical meetings or an ICT platform.
Local policy needs to be explored and the teaching methods fitted into the rules on how to teach.
We have to give teachers motivation to carry it out but also how they can get support from important people, from research literature, policy documents, curriculums etc.
We have to incorporate continuous assessment testing in the everyday school life in order to evaluate the learning process. The final examination and testing in the end of the school education is not enough if we don't have an integrated process throughout all activities.
A formative assessment self test for the students could be a way to make the students taking responsibility of their own learning and motivation to learn In some countries (Germany) the TIMSS and PISA results used as motivator for PD and school improvement, in other not (Denmark).
ICT equipment and the mentality to use it needs to be updated in order to function. Important to share knowledge and materials on the internet, this is the networking needed and even on an international level.
The central core is to build up the network to support changes at the group level since not teachers are capable of change at the individual level.
The science teacher associations can work in advance for an implementation of new methods and teaching approach like IBST.
Have can we managed to improve the process of implementation the ISBT and practical work (with minds on)?
In order to make practical work into inquiry we need to be aware of the minds on process. How do we get quality into practical work and use reflection and evaluation as everyday tools in teaching. UK had demands from the industry to deliver certain skills which is a way of driving through changes.
How to get the curriculum into the classroom. Implementation of the skills related to marks or concrete methods and lesson of how to achieve these skills.
Group 3
Minding the gap between us and the SINUS project. What can we use and how can we overcome barriers. Sharing of experiences, how to motivate the implementation of the network model. Some European common platform for networking.
Group 1
International issue; programs and structures that we can present to stakeholders and policy makers. Make visible all the approaches of how to overcome the problems and possible solutions.
Common philosophy among researchers with a common framework. Presenting a common concept to present our ideas. The recruitment of high quality science teachers is important.
Create balance between , diversity of teaching approaches. Diversity in the education for teachers but also bring the world into the classroom. Give the students input from the real world and get an idea of possibilities within science careers.
Subtitle: Collecting knowledge of IBST and PD
Presenter [Tina Seidel, Katrin Lipowski]
Participating in an telephone interview of the local or personal experience of PD and IBST. The questions will be send in advanced in order to be prepared.
Also a questionnaire to map all the teacher educators (in-service) experiences of how they carry out their courses etc.
The questionnaire is online and should be forwarded to around 30 teacher educators (in-service) in each country.