Uncertainty as (Re-)Source of Instructional Change in Subject Education (Arts, English, Mathematics)
Author(s):
Angelika Bikner-Ahsbahs (presenting / submitting) Maria Peters Sabine Doff
Conference:
ECER 2017
Network:
27. Didactics - Learning and Teaching
Format:
Paper

Session Information

27 SES 10 B, Literacy, Cross-disciplinary and Subject Focus in Resources and Classroom Practices

Paper Session

Time:
2017-08-24
15:30-17:00
Room:
K3.05
Chair:
Florence Ligozat

Contribution

In order to render reforms in teaching and learning successfully, we need to know how teachers react to the necessary instructional changes. This paper reports about a study conducted within the Creative Unit FaBiT ("Fachbezogene Bildungsprozesse in Transformation" [changes in subject education], Bremen University), an interdisciplinary research group funded by the excellence initiative of the German Government (www.uni-bremen.de/cu-fabit). This study aims at investigating instructional change in subject teaching and learning, specifically, how teachers initiate and respond to such changes within and across the subjects.

Reform processes cause additional uncertainty on top of the "regular" uncertainty which is a well-known feature of teaching: for example, teachers do not exactly know how students will react to their lesson plan and whether their planned or unplanned actions will improve learning. Floden and Clark (1988) have identified three main sources of teachers' uncertainty: uncertainty with regard to (1) teaching and learning, (2) subject matter and (3) improving one's own teaching. Uncertainty may increase in reform situations, if, for example, the lesson plan is to address new goals, contents, means or methods. Hence, teachers have to deal with a higher degree of uncertainty whenever they begin to plan and implement instructional changes. Whether or not such changes become successful deeply depends on the respective teachers' experience with and attitudes to uncertainty. Melville et al. (2013) investigated how elementary maths teachers dealt with a reform situation by addressing the three sources of uncertainty listed above. In their study, knowledge and actions played a fundamental role on how teachers shaped the planning and implementation of instructional changes. For example, knowledge about the subject matter may assist teachers in their conversations about new ways of teaching. If such knowledge is missing, a teacher may become isolated because she is not able to participate in the discursive practices. Negative reactions to uncertainty may force teachers to reduce their experience of uncertainty, for example, by teaching actions promoting routines or directed teaching. At the same time, they cut possibilities of transforming their own teaching off, hence, withstand reform demands. Soltau and Mienert (2010) distinguish between reasons, resources, coping and consequences/effects of uncertainty in teaching. They show that teachers tend to reduce uncertainty by restrictive teaching as well as by individual dissociation. Helsing's (2007) discussion of uncertainty implies that reflective practice (Schön 1983) may be a way to react to uncertainty in a fruitful way. If reflection is a way to focus more on potentials than on negative effects of instructional change, the following questions arise: What kinds of coping strategies for uncertainty are shown in these (productive) reflections? How can these strategies be taken as starting points for professional development and in what directions may this happen?

Although there is some international research about teacher uncertainty, little is yet known about how teachers respond to current reform processes, instructional changes they require and the accompanying increase of uncertainty (Soltau, Mienert 2010, 774). Addressing change in subject teaching (and learning), in particular the questions whether and how increased uncertainty is taken as starting point of change in instruction and professional development, this paper reports on a qualitative empirical study on comparing instructional change in three subjects (Maths, English, Arts). It contributes to theoretically understand how educational change may succeed, focusing on the following research questions:

  • How do teachers respond to instructional change in subject education?
  • What kind of uncertainty is shown within and across the three subjects?
  • How far can uncertainty be regarded as a resource for professional development within and across different subjects?
  • How do new ways of teaching affect the teachers' attitudes and actions with regard to instructional change(s)?

Method

In order to investigate conditions of change in subject education, design research (Peters, Roviró 2017) was used to implement instructional changes in the classrooms of comprehensive schools in the three subjects. The overall goal of the instructional changes aimed at making students' increasing diversity a resource of successful subject education (Doff et al. 2015). In English as a second language, the design project developed a teaching unit to initiate transcultural activities at grade 9/10 based on street art as a starting point for reflecting on cultural diversity (Schäfer 2017). In arts, students were supposed to re-order collections of everyday things using artistic methods to visualize and reflect their experience to develop problem sensitivity (Inthoff 2017). In mathematics, the concept of function is a cluster concept whose understanding is to be transformed in the transition to upper secondary level; this was done by raising flexibility in the use of functions through functional understandings of formulas (Best 2017). These three design projects addressed instructional changes with regard to aims, contents and methods of subject education. Methodologically, they are regarded as qualitative field experiments (Heckel et al. 2012, Ch. 3.1) for instructional change implemented by six teachers (two per subject). After the experiments, these teachers were interviewed about their experience with implementing the design conceptions as an example of reform. These focus interviews were audiotyped and transcribed. In the analyses we are following the interpretative paradigm: Initiated by the interviewer teachers interpret their teaching experience (in the framework of the respective design project) according to the meanings teaching and learning has gained for them before (Przyborski, Wohlrab-Sahr 2010, 30f). Our analyses of the transcripts are reconstructions leading to theoretical insight, that is re-interpretations of the teachers' interpretations of the field experiments with a focus on the planning and implementation of the respective instructional changes. Thereby, uncertainty with regard to teaching and learning, the subject matter and the development of the teachers' own teaching as well as related aspects of uncertainty are identified. The overall aim of the analyses is to reconstruct the mechanism of uncertainty as an initiation or hindrance for instructional change across and within the subjects. Methodically, the analyses are sequentially processed (ibid., 249) within the subjects following the principle of constant comparison (Glaser 1965), the results are then compared and contrasted leading to the coordination of the three analyses to gain results about teachers' responses across the subjects.

Expected Outcomes

As expected, the teachers responded to the instructional changes through increasing uncertainty with regard to teaching and learning as well as to subject matter. In contrast to Floden and Clarke (1988) we did not identify uncertainty about teachers' own development of teaching. A majority of the teachers interviewed in this study rather took their experience of uncertainty as starting points for professional development. Specifically, new ways of teaching in the design projects increased uncertainty expressed on three levels across the subjects: uncertainty on one's own teaching, on the subject-specific relationship between teacher and students, and on the content to be taught. However, the various ways to express this uncertainty were subject-specific and directly related to the respective teacher's experience of and role within the design project. In mathematics, for example, the teacher spoke about a "mist" he "cannot look through". This epistemological mist describes uncertainty on (pedagogical) content knowledge being an effect of the discrepancy between students' reaction to the new content and their successful ways of solving test items. Across the subjects, teachers dealt with uncertainty as a resource for professional development but only if they felt a genuine need for change. In these cases uncertainty (1) initiated in-depth reflections of critical incidents in teaching and learning, (2) contributed to identify where to improve teaching, and (3) helped identify the needs for professional development, for example, the need for teacher collaboration or – as a result of working in research teams – the need for coaching. Hence, need for change on behalf of the teachers can be regarded as key construct for instructional change. In our study, teachers who articulated this need actively transferred and adapted the new design ideas from the study to other instructional settings, i.e. to other classrooms (arts), interdisciplinary units (English) and other topics (mathematics).

References

Best, M. (2017). Der Funktionsbegriff im Übergang zur Sekundarstufe II. In S. Doff & R. Komoss (Eds.), Making Change Happen. Wandel im Fachunterricht analysieren und gestalten (pp. 33-39). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Doff, S.; Bikner-Ahsbahs, A.; Grünewald, A.; Komoss, R.; Peters, M.; Lehmann-Wermser, A.; Roviró, B. (2014)."Change and continuity in subject-specific educational contexts": Research report of an interdisciplinary project group at the University of Bremen. Zeitschrift für Fremdsprachenforschung 25(1), 73-88. Floden, R. E; Clark, Ch. M. (1988). Preparing teachers for uncertainty. Teachers College Record, 89 (4), 505-524 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.567.3012&rep=rep1&type=pdf (accessed 12.12.2016) Glaser, B. G. (1965). The Constant Comparative Method of Qualitative Analysis. Social Problems, 12, (4), 436-445. Heckel, M.; Rester, D.; Seeberger, B. (2012). "Und den Geschmack habe ich heute auch noch auf der Zunge." Geruch und Geschmack im Lebensverlauf – Ein qualitatives Experiment. Forum Qualitative Social Research 13(3), Article 3. http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1736/3401 (accessed 12.12.2016) Helsing, D. (2007). Regarding uncertainty in teachers and teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23 (8), 1317–1333 Inthoff, C. (2017). Reflexive Aufzeichnungspraxen im künstlerisch-experimentellen Prozessportfolio – KEPP Kunstpädagogische Perspektiven auf eine Lernkultur der Diversität. In S. Doff & R. Komoss (Eds.), Making Change Happen. Wandel im Fachunterricht analysieren und gestalten (pp. 57-62). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Melville, W.; Kajander, A.; Kerr, D.; Holm, J. (2013). Uncertainty and the Reform of Elementary Math Education. ISRN Education 2013 (3), Article ID 845164, 8 pages. Hindawi Publishing Corporation. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/845164 (accessed 12.12.2016). Peters, M.; Roviró, B. (2017). Fachdidaktischer Forschungsverbund FaBiT: Erforschung von Wandel im Fachunterricht mit dem Bremer Modell des Design-Based Research. In S. Doff & R. Komoss (Hrsg.), Making Change Happen. Wandel im Fachunterricht analysieren und gestalten (pp. 19–32). Wiesbaden: Springer VS Przyborski, A.; Wohlrab-Sahr, M. (2010). Qualitative Sozialforschung. Ein Arbeitsbuch. München: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag. Schäfer, L. (2017). Förderung kultureller-visueller Kompetenzen mit Street Art im Englischunterricht. In S. Doff & R. Komoss (Eds.), Making Change Happen. Wandel im Fachunterricht analysieren und gestalten (pp. 69-74). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Schoen, D. A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner. How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books Inc. Soltau, A.; Mienert, M. (2010). Unsicherheit im Lehrerberuf als Ursache mangelnder Lehrerkooperation? Eine Systematisierung des aktuellen Forschungsstandes auf Basis des transaktionalen Stressmodells. Zeitschrift für Pädagogik 56 (5), 761-778.

Author Information

Angelika Bikner-Ahsbahs (presenting / submitting)
Bremen University
Faculty of Mathematics and Information Technology
Bremen
Maria Peters
University of Bremen
Institute for Art - Film Studies - Art Education
Bremen
Sabine Doff
Universität Bremen
Englischdidaktik
Worpswede

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