AN ANALYSIS OF AN INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMME ON

ARGUMENTATION: USING THE SCALE IMMERSION MODEL FOR

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING (SIMPL TM)

Presenter:Melanie SadeckMartin Braund, Peter Hewson, Zena Scholtz, Robert Koopman

CPUT Faculty of EducationCape Town, South Africa

Critical Thinking Group(CTG) Western Cape

Education Department

Introduction• National curriculum change - focus on critical

thinking• A university based component of a teacher

education programme designed to help student teachers meet the needs of the curriculum through the teaching of argumentation

• Evaluation - focus on course/programme design, student teacher outcomes and the roles of teacher educators

University-based programme

Science and Technology Subject Didactics (SD) sessions aimed at developing STs to teach argumentation. 2 phases:1.STs learned to argue by engaging in arguments- introduced to Toulmin’s Argumentation Pattern (TAP) ; participated in/ reflected on argumentation lessons by TEs. 2.STs taught argumentation – planning lessons in small groups and teaching these to their peers.

Literature review• Argumentation -recognized as a key

component in school students coming to understand and reason about science topics (Driver et al, 1994).

• Learners could engage in argument but few teachers had the skills or dispositions to encourage argumentation in their classrooms (Driver, Newton and Osborne (2000).

Research Questions1. What are elements of an argumentation curriculum

for prospective science and technology teachers? - What was the enacted curriculum with respect to student teachers’ argumentation and teaching of argumentation?

- What insights on the enacted curriculum are provided by student teacher outcomes in argumentation and teaching of argumentation to peers?

2. How does the SIMPL model facilitate reflection on an argumentation curriculum for prospective science and technology teachers?

Data collection• Observations of 11 sessions by sabbatical visitor

– field notes, teaching resources, post session discussions with TEs →reports → coded

• Reports formed basis for facilitated reflective discussion between authors - Used SCALE Immersion Model of Professional Learning (SIMPL) (Lauffer and Lauffer, 2009)

• Discussions recorded and transcribed

The SIMPL Approach for Teachers as Learners

The SIMPL Approach for PD Facilitators (or teacher educators) as Learners

Findings and Discussion

Introducing SIMPL into the reflective conversations broadened the focus of the teacher educators - led to the inclusion of reflections about the effective learning structure of the programme, roles of participants, and the reciprocal relationship between the model and practice.

Findings and Discussion (cntd)SIMPL provides a way of operationalising Loughran’s

aim that teacher education be ‘a place where challenging simplistic notions and practices should be normal for it is where the seeds of change for the profession surely lie’ (Loughran, 2006, p. 14).

Teaching teachers involves: ...Unpacking teaching (of teachers) in ways that gives

student teachers access to the pedagogical reasoning, uncertainties and dilemmas of practice that are inherent in understanding teaching as being problematic

(Loughran, 2006, p. 6).

Conclusion and implications

SIMPL, with its explicit separation of emphasis on student learners’ learning and teachers’ learning provides moments in university teaching where these two domains can be better separated in the minds of the teacher educator. Demonstrates the value of a model of professional practice such as SIMPL for teacher educators to clarify roles and dynamic aspects of learning that are often complex and hard to analyse.

Conclusion and implications

The facilitated reflection, enabled using SIMPL, highlighted a number of ways in which first attempts to educate future teachers to teach using argumentation can be improved:- more modelling of lessons by TEs to make explicit links between TE’s teaching and ST’s learning- identifying opportunities on STs and TEs reflection on suitability and efficacy of contexts for argumentation in the course