Science teachers' professional development in contexts of educational innovation. Analysis of three initiatives
- Autores: Digna Couso
- Directores de la Tesis: Roser Pintó (dir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ( España ) en 2009
- Idioma: inglés
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Vicente Mellado Jiménez (presid.), Mercé Izquierdo i Aymerich (secret.), Manfred Lang (voc.)
- Materias:
- Enlaces
- Tesis en acceso abierto en: DDD
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Dialnet Métricas: 1 Cita
- Resumen
This research examines the relationship between educational innovation and professional development in Science Education, arguing that when teachers play an active role in innovation, these scenarios become professional development scenarios themselves.
From a literature analysis of the field, characteristics of effective professional development are found according to a situated and socio-constructivist view of teacher learning. From this analysis, a model of ongoing and systemic professional development within a new school and professional culture is developed. This model stresses the importance of a focus on the subject, participation in authentic cooperation, and an inquiry/reflective stance from teachers sharing the common goal of fostering students, but also their own, learning.
The empirical part of this thesis includes the published reports of three different pieces of research undertaken in a variety of scenarios of implementation of innovations in science education in Catalonia. These contexts cover a rich spectrum: from top-down, short-term and research-based teacher training proposals to bottom-up, on-going, curriculum development initiatives. Both the shortcomings and positive outcomes of these scenarios are analysed concerning what professional development process teachers experience within them, reinforcing the aforementioned theoretical model with empirical evidence. Methodologically, the research uses different techniques for the analysis of language data, which are both Qualitative and Quantitative Content Analysis and Discourse Analysis. Data come from a variety of sources: video-tapes of lessons, video and audio tapes of teachers meetings, teachers semi-structured interviews, open questionnaires and teachers curriculum documents. Some instruments for Quantitative Content Analysis are developed.
The implications of the research work are twofold. A new model of professional development in which this process is intertwined with school-based reform and innovation in which teachers play an active role is proposed. In addition, the research offers some methodological tools regarding the analysis of teachers cooperative discourse.
