Primary school teachers’ concerns and needs in biology and mathematics teaching

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide insights into nine primary school teachers' concerns and instructional needs in biology and mathematics, grades 1 to 6. By using Content Representation, combined with Learning Study in an action research project, teachers were encouraged to reflect on their conceptions, processes of instructing and pupil learning. From concerns articulated by teachers three instructional needs emerged: (i) to make subject progression, especially in biology, and pupil learning more visible, (ii) to develop mathematics teaching in order to change pupils' views of the subject, and (iii) to develop teachers' subject matter knowledge and teaching in an ongoing collaborative process. The paper argues that in order to stimulate teacher professional development it is important to make teacher concerns and thereby needs explicit. They help teachers to identify and reflect on relations between teacher subject matter knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and pupil learning.

The school–university intersection as a professional learning arena: evaluation of a two-year action research project

“…The third aspect of the PLC construct has to do with causalities (Hairon et al 2015). Our overall project results suggest positive causalities of the PLC on teacher professional learning, instructional practices and pupil learning outcomes (Figure 2; Kellner and Attorps 2015;Attorps and Kellner 2017).…”

“…In this project the teachers chose the subject areas that were difficult to teach and difficult for pupils to learn. These areas were linked to the teachers' general concerns and needs in their teaching practices (Kellner and Attorps 2015). The teachers expressed in the interview that by using Content Representation their perceptions about teaching and learning the specific topics were made visible; for example, their ideas about the important concepts became clearer.…”

“…In earlier research, it is pointed out that student physical presence is the missing link in teacher professional development (Margolis, Durbin, and Doring 2017). In this project, improvements in pupil learning were not regarded as a by-product but rather its central aim (Figure 3; Kellner and Attorps 2015;Attorps and Kellner 2017). Moreover, the Community construct in PLC was conceptualized within a group-level domain in which nine teachers and two researchers were collaborating.…”

“…The first article (Kellner and Attorps 2015) provides insights into the teachers' general concerns and instructional needs in biology and mathematics teaching. From concerns articulated by the teachers, three instructional needs emerged: (1) to make subject progression, especially in biology, and pupil learning more visible, (2) to develop mathematics teaching in order to change pupils' views of the subject, and (3) to develop teachers' Subject Matter Knowledge and teaching in an ongoing collaborative process (Kellner and Attorps 2015). In the second article (Attorps and Kellner 2017) the impacts of the project on teaching practices and pupil learning are described.…”

“…To be able to understand the timetable and the content of the project (Figure 1), the pedagogical tools used by the teachers during the project are described below, and can be studied in more detail in Kellner and Attorps (2015) and Attorps and Kellner (2017).…”