Session Information
10 SES 03 B, Research on Values, Beliefs and Understandings in Teacher Education
Paper Session
Contribution
One of the key aspects of any educational reform is planning, developing, and assessing teaching and learning processes, with a focus on student learning. Educational reforms have sustained transformations in the way that teaching-learning processes are conceived, where the importance has been centered the learning process, rather than on teaching, where knowledge is contextualized, and where learning refers to how to learn.
National and international results from different assessments in Chile, have revealed the critically low quality of Chilean education (Eyzaguirre & Le Foulon, 2001). One of the main difficulties that Chilean educational reform has faced, in terms of implementing a socio-cognitive type of model (Gómez Santa Cruz & Thomesen, 2006), is the distance between teachers’ beliefs about learning, knowledge, and teaching and the model in which the educational reform is based (Lortie, 1975, in Leal, 2005).
Since teaching, determines learning, it is important to understand teachers’ intentions, the strategies they use in the classroom, and how these factors determine how teachers perceive the learning needs of their students. From a phenomenographic perspective, understanding what teachers believe about teaching and learning in this context and developing a deeper awareness of the different ways in which teachers focus on teaching, is of great importance for developing possible new reforms and adjusting curriculums.
From a phenomenological standpoint we “live” and we “act” according to our intersubjectivities (Hofer & Pintrich, 2001). Entwistle and Tait (1990) and Trigwell and Prosser (1991), have investigated the relationship between teachers’ and students’ beliefs about teaching and learning and the type of work done in the classroom. Different studies have supported the notion that students tend to learn in accordance with the teacher’s conception of learning. Teachers face the classroom with their own conceptions and beliefs about learning and teaching, which, undoubtedly affects what they do and how they do it (Burns, 1992). Several studies have concluded that some teachers approach teaching with a focus on the content area and teach with the intention of transmitting information (ITTF); others approach teaching, focused on the learner, with the intention of developing conceptual changes in the understanding of their students (CCSF) (Prosser et al., 2005).
Our study aims to identify Chilean teachers’ conceptions about learning and teaching and to determine how these conceptions relate to the perceived learning needs of their students.
The research questions are the following:
How do Chilean teachers conceptualize teaching and learning in the school context?
How do teachers perceive the learning needs of the students?
What is the relationship between the teachers’ conceptions about the teaching- learning process and the perceived learning needs of the students?
The research objectives are:
1. Analyze the psychometric characteristics of the Approaches to Teaching Inventory (Trigwell, 1999) in the context of Chilean education.
- Analyze the teaching approaches of Chilean school teachers.
3. Analyze the coherence between the teachers’ teaching approaches and how teachers perceive the learning needs of their students.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Biggs, J. (1999). Teaching for quality learning at university. Buckingham: Society for Research in Higher Education and Open University Press. Burns, A. (1992). Teacher beliefs and their influence on classroom practice. Prospect 7(3): 56-65. Entwistle, N. and H. Tait (1990). Approaches to learning, evaluations of teaching and preferences for contrasting academic environments. Higher Education 19: 169-194 Eyzaguirre, B., & Le Foulon, C. (2001). La calidad de la educación chilena en cifras. Estudios Públicos, 84, 85-204. Gómez, V., Santa Cruz, J. & Thomsen, P. (2006). Diseño, aplicación y análisis de una propuesta de intervención para elevar la calidad del aprendizaje en el aula a partir del cambio conceptual del profesor sobre sus prácticas pedagógicas constructivistas (Proyecto Fondecyt Nº 1070798). Santiago: Facultad de Educación. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Hofer, B. & Pintrich, P. (2002). Personal Epistemology The psychology Beliefs theories:beliefs about knowledge and knowing. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc. Leal, F. (2005). Efecto de la formación inicial docente en las creencias epistemológicas. Revista Iberoamericana de Educación, 35. Recuperado el 20 de julio de 2007 desde http://www.campusoei.org/revista/profesion35.htm. Marton, F., G. Dall.Alba, et al. (1993). Conceptions of learning. International Journal of Educational Research 19: 277-300. Prosser, M., E. Martin, et al. (2005). Academics. experiences of understanding of their subject matter and the relationship of this to their experiences of teaching and learning. Instructional Science 33: 137-157. Trigwell, K. and M. Prosser (1991). Improving the quality of student learning: The influence of learning context and student approaches to learning on learning outcomes. Higher Education 22(3): 251-66.
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