Designing Dissonances, Fallacies and Contrasting Situations to Recraft Students’ Pedagogical Reasoning in Professional Studies Courses (2019-2020)

The Project:

Designing Dissonances, Fallacies and Contrasting Situations to Recraft Students’ Pedagogical Reasoning in Professional Studies Courses (2019-2020)

Project Team:

LAM Bick-har (Project Leader), CHENG Chi Keung, CHENG Rebecca Wing Yi, LU Jiafang

Objectives

This project aims to enhance students’ pedagogical reasoning based on the knowledge students learn in the targeted courses, linking theory to practice (Theme 4) in the learning context of students.

• To design dissonances, fallacies and contrasting situations in a variety of learning and teaching activities for the targeted courses to enable students to learn in an inquiry learning approach;
• To enhance students’ pedagogical reasoning (PR), students’ overall learning effectiveness, and motivation of learning in the targeted courses;
• To share the instructional materials from the project and promote scholarship of teaching.

Pedagogical reasoning (PR) can be regarded as teachers’ ‘tools of the trade’ (Shulman, 1987) which depicts the thinking process regarding the transformation of subject knowledge for the purpose of teaching. It addresses the appropriate methods selected in teaching a specific topic, the system thinking in designing a lesson, and the design of teaching to fit a specific context. The contents of PR are organised in different Professional Studies (PS) courses offered by FEHD, as key professional knowledge for teachers (Loughran, et al., 2016). To enhance teachers’ professional competence, the teaching of theories in PS courses has to be linked to PR (e.g. the abilities of applying the strategies meaningfully). This project advocates the design of ‘dissonances’, ‘fallacies’ and ‘contrasting’ situations to recraft students’ pre-existing beliefs and knowledge. It can help students gradually build a complicated knowledge system of PR.

The project based on the literature of conceptual change and epistemological belief (Posner, et al., 1982), as a framework to design innovative pedagogy. Dissonances (conflicts of beliefs), fallacies (unsound logical structures) and contrasting situations (different choices and practices) were designed. The activities require them to defend their personal beliefs; students may feel dissatisfied about their existing beliefs, recraft existing knowledge and construct new knowledge. A few sample case situations are described in Appendix 1.

Participants

The project involves two groups from a B.Ed programme and two groups from two courses of the MTeach programme. The innovation will be designed in three PS courses that contribute to PR, offered by C&I.

Evaluation

The project will be evaluated by the following methods

(i) For measuring PR, content analysis of students’ lesson plan assignment based on an evaluation tool developed based on Wilson, Shulman, & Richert (1987) and Garritz (2010) to identify high to low level PR.

(ii) The SET results inform if this pedagogy can help students learn effectively, students’ reflection after each lesson informs if they can improve their misconceptions, and other aspects of learning.

(iii) A 12-item pre- and post- questionnaires will be used to identify the increases of student motivation (Lam & Cheng, 2017), and

Significance

The project identifies PR as the focus of teaching PS courses, it changes the involvement of students in the classroom to the role similar to practitioners in the field. The project thus involves students in resolving dissonances, fallacies and contrasting situations in real life teaching scenarios, and encouraging them to realise fragmentation and invalid knowledge, so to make their PR grow.  This project supports the Department of C&I in playing her leading role of promoting the quality of teacher training.

Reference

Garritz, A. (2010). Personal Reflection: Pedagogical Content Knowledge and the Affective Domain of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. International Journal for the scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 4(2), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2010.040226

Loughran, J., Keast, S., & Cooper, R. (2016). Pedagogical reasoning in teacher education. In J. Loughran & M. L. Hamilton (Eds.), International handbook of teacher education (pp. 387-421). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0366-0_10

Lam, B. H. & Cheng, W. Y. R. (2017). Instrument prepared for TDG project – motivational scale for evaluating formative feedback strategy. The Education University of Hong Kong.

Posner, G. J., Strike, K. A., Hewson, P. W., & Gertzog, W. A. (1982). Accommodation of a scientific conception: Toward a theory of conceptual change. Science Education, 66(2), 211-227. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.3730660207

Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.57.1.j463w79r56455411

Wilson, S. M., Shuiman, L. S., & Richert, A. (1987). 150 different ways of knowing: Representations of knowledge in teaching. In J. Calderhead (Ed.), Exploring teachers’ thinking (pp.104-123). Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Appendix 1.  Sample case studies used in the targeted courses related to teaching strategies

Outputs

• Lam, B. H. (2020, January). Preparing teachers for teaching innovations - what matters?. Plenary speech presented at the Annual Teachers Sharing Forum from The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust British Council Core Skills for Life Programme, Hong Kong. 

  

• Selected project materials and student outputs were disseminated in two events:
  Dr. Lam Bick Har, Cheung Cheuk Wun, Cherie 11280112, Chow Lam, Venus 11171062, Ho Choi Ling, Katy 11280033, Lai Pui Shan, Alice 11283700 Man Kok Kwan, 11195549, Yeung Chi Kuen, 11208671,  Lee Jeffrey Kee Fung, 11199179, Chick Wai Kin, 11159363, Ho Chiu Lam 11290985 (2020, January). Project interactive exhibition jointly organised by the Department of C&I, FEHD and the British Council as a special event in a special education programme hosted by the British Council.