collaborative planning by teacher educators to promote belief change in their students

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Collaborative Planning by TeacherEducators to Promote BeliefChange in their StudentsHarm H. Tillema a & Wout E. Knol aa Center for the Study of Education and Instruction ,University of Leiden , The NetherlandsPublished online: 28 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Harm H. Tillema & Wout E. Knol (1997) Collaborative Planning byTeacher Educators to Promote Belief Change in their Students, Teachers and Teaching: theoryand practice, 3:1, 29-45

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Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1997 29

Collaborative Planning by TeacherEducators to Promote Belief Change intheir StudentsHARM H. TILLEMA & WOUT E. KNOLCenter for the Study of Education and Instruction, University of Leiden, TheNetherlands

ABSTRACT This article presents the results of a co-operative inquiry aimed at identifyingeffective instructional arrangements for teacher education. In particular, a group of teachereducators took it upon themselves to develop and try out instructional methods whichwould stimulate prospective teachers to apply educational theory in their student teachingpractice. Using the conceptual change literature as their point of departure, the group ofeducators set out to find strategies that would validate and incorporate teacher educationstudents' existing conceptions and beliefs, and involve them in productive learningactivities. The group identified certain instructional arrangements as conducive to teacherstudents' learning, based on the teacher educators' experiences with these arrangements intheir own classrooms. This article provides an overview of the process by which the groupof educators succeeded in identifying promising ways of promoting both belief change andconceptual change through instructional interactions.

Introduction

Pre-service teacher education programs exist to help teacher education studentsprepare themselves for teaching, i.e. to train those who intend to enter theteaching profession. It is within such programs that most prospective teachers firstencounter educational theory and foundational principles on teaching practice.Initially enthusiastic, and with a genuine interest in this type of subject matter,teacher education students usually grow scornful, and show significantly reducedinterest in and appreciation of the information that is presented to them (FeimanNemser, 1983). This change usually occurs following initial encounters withpractice teaching (Zuzovsky, 1993). One of the teacher educators with whom weco-operated expressed it like this:

I do this (giving courses in foundations of education) now for severalyears, and I love doing it. It is important for students to have reflectiveknowledge, but somehow I lose them along the way; they become very

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30 H. H. Tillema & W. E. Knol

annoyed about what I have to offer. For them, what I have to say has norelation with a preparation for the profession at all.

From a teacher education perspective, this is in the end a self-destructive situation,i.e. in the course of teacher education, students become increasingly reluctant toact upon the information that is presented to them. The main purposes of teachereducation are to present an educational conceptualization of teaching that caninform teacher education students, and to provide a knowledge base which caneffectively guide their actual performance. The problem is that teacher educationstudents find that what they have learned in their teacher education courses doesnot prepare them for actual lesson preparation and teaching.

In 1993 a group of teacher educators coming from different institutes, united in thebelief that new instructional approaches had to be developed, decided to work together todevelop and try out new ways of interacting with teacher education students which wouldhelp these students to prepare themselves for teaching practice. Lasting contact wasestablished between six teacher educators who formed a cooperative team.

There is now a substantial body of research on the orientation and perspectivesof teacher education students and their subjective 'theories' or beliefs aboutteaching (Kagan, 1992; Pajares, 1992). What seem to be missing are validated waysof dealing with teacher education students' pre-existing beliefs. Accommodationor change of a teacher education student's knowledge, i.e. conceptual change, isintimately related to belief change (Chinn & Brewer, 1993; Pintrich et al., 1993),and although we have come to learn much about belief formation (Weinstein,1988; Hollingworth, 1989), belief change is less well understood. Belief changearises from a necessity to change one's conceptions and knowledge, and involvesconfrontation and conflict resolution.

The team of teacher educators was convinced that belief change was central to their goalof finding new ways of interacting with their students. There was consensus within theteam that students of teacher education will not be receptive to new concepts and theoriesif their pre-existing beliefs are not taken into account. This conviction, which formedcommon ground for the team, was based on study and analysis of the recent literature: theeducators' uneasiness with the implication of the literature motivated them to search forconstructive alternatives, i.e. to design new ways of presenting subject matter to theirstudents.

Focusing on belief change, and therefore on conceptual change, means taking asone's starting-point the pre-existing conceptions and knowledge of teacher edu-cation students instead of the information to be presented. Such recognition ofpre-existing ideas is of paramount importance, since teacher education studentsenter their courses with specific ideas and beliefs about what constitutes appropri-ate professional knowledge. These ideas and beliefs may conflict with the infor-mation and theory presented by teacher educators. Dealing successfully with thisconflict is not simply a matter of taking prior beliefs seriously, but of recognizingand utilizing pre-existing beliefs and ideas as starting-points and organizers fornew learning by teacher education students. Restructuring of pre-existing beliefs

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Belief change in teacher education students 31

and ideas, therefore, could be a more important goal in programs of teachereducation than the presentation of new information itself. But then again, givenwhat is already known about belief formation (Kagan, 1992), it is by no meansclear how existing conceptions and knowledge can effectively be challenged.

The team of teacher educators was eager to learn more about research on conceptualchange and belief change. They had already experienced in practice that if they did notsomehow 'bridge' or establish a connection with students' prior conceptions, studentswould tend to use the information presented to them only to confirm their established wayof thinking, leading to a strengthening of their prior beliefs rather than to alteration orredirection of these beliefs. The teacher educators therefore formed a study group, togetherwith the researcher who in the meantime had become part of the team. The goal of thestudy group was review the relevant research and identify promising ways of 'bridging'the gap between students' pre-existing and the subject matter.

Belief Change as a Necessary Process in Teacher Education

From studies of belief formation we know that most teacher education studentsalready possess a set of beliefs about what constitutes appropriate teaching, aboutwhat works with pupils, about successful modes of conduct in the classroom andabout their own future roles. Beliefs often take the form of images (Connelly &Clandinin, 1987) such as: 'supporter of the weak', 'manager of learning', 'friend tochildren'. They serve as a point of reference and source of validation for allincoming information (Bennett & Carré> 1993). Programs of teacher educationshould see it as their task to identify these beliefs and make them explicit andopen for discussion.

As one part of the study group's tasks, the teacher educators collected statements fromtheir students; these were collected mainly from student journals or reflective portfolios:

My own experiences are important to me, no matter what I learn here.They are the ones that have left a deep mark. I remember a very nicefemale teacher who treated us to sweets when we learned a lesson welland a male teacher who could tell exciting stories in history class. Iwould like to be that way; it gives you a comfortable feeling to try to bethat way because you know it worked out so well when you were there.(Carin, third year)

The things I learn are so lifeless. I remember, for instance, that our classgot quiet only when a teacher stood in the middle of the classroom andyelled. Besides that particular teacher, no pupil even thought of disrupt-ing the classroom at that moment. That made an immense impression onme. If only I could avoid being like him! (Jeroen, first year)

Beliefs about teaching are perspectives on the profession, deeply-rooted 'certain-ties' and personal assessments or points of view about good teaching which are

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utilized in the evaluation of newly-presented information in preparation forfuture action (Pintrich et al., 1993).

Beliefs offer:

(a) A perspective of future performance structure. At the beginning of a teachereducation program, students have generic ideas and beliefs about the knowl-edge, competencies and ideas they will need to fulfill the role of a teacher.These beliefs guide teacher education students in their search for relevantinformation, giving it a proper and coherent place.

(b) Explanation and reconfirmation of what is to be regarded as valid knowledge.Existing beliefs offer a broad conceptual framework for interpreting new infor-mation with respect to its importance and worth; this framework helps thestudent to clarify, position and interpret what is being learned. Teacher educationstudents have a tendency to stick to their pre-existing beliefs (Chinn & Brewer,1993), and belief change is dependent on a range of factors (Strike & Posner, 1992).

The following can be hypothesized as active factors in the belief change process:

(1) A coherence check (Buchman, 1992):If coherence can be said to exist between prior ideas and new information, thisstrengthens the pre-existing belief; in this case, no belief change is deemednecessary.If incoherence is experienced, belief change may occur, usually beginning withrecognition for explicit awareness of a discrepancy.

(2) Recognition of the discrepancy, most often experienced as a conflict:If no conflict is experienced; belief change is possible through encapsulation ofthe new information, leading to new beliefs, and often resulting in a poorly-integrated belief structure.If conflict is experienced, this initiates a subsequent stage, in which an attemptis made to reconstruct existing beliefs.

(3) Need for reconstruction:If reconstruction of existing beliefs is not acceptable to the learner, the newideas are ignored or rejected.If reconstruction is accepted as a permissible, feasible and promising strategy(viz. the conditions for conceptual change—see Strike & Posner, 1992), itbecomes possible to enter the next stage.

(4) Search for a solution path:If the search for a solution is positive or successful, i.e. if a way out is found,adaptation and integration of beliefs become feasible and reconstruction ofbeliefs takes place.If the search for a solution is unsuccessful, the new information is denied(emotionally).

Rokeach (1968) and Nuttin (1974) suggest that beliefs are difficult to changebecause of their intensity, their power to subsume new information and theirconnectedness. Beliefs touch upon a person's identity. Therefore, new information

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must offer a solution that is both conceptually convincing and emotionallyacceptable. Belief change occurs if these two requirements are met.

The point is that most of what is offered to students in teacher educationprograms does not relate to the above-described processes in any meaningful way.This can lead to undesirable consequences: the new information may be selec-tively processed, superficially accepted without true integration, or ignored. Oneof the teacher educators put it like this:

I am a relative newcomer here, in the field of teacher education, I havea background in engineering. This study group has given me the oppor-tunity to relate with other colleagues and talk about our discipline, andwhat motivates me most is having relevant discourse which can changemy ideas about the topics I teach.

Designing Interventions

Restructuring and changing existing ideas is both a conceptual-rational and anemotional or perspective-bound matter (Chinn & Brewer, 1993; Pintrich et al.,1993). One approach to restructuring that seems promising, and explicitly focuseson belief-change, is the conceptual change approach in teacher education (Gun-stone & Northfield, 1992; Stofflett & Stoddart, 1991; Tobin, 1992). Restructuringand belief change in this context implies that preconceptions are dealt with in aspecific manner and that, through the use of specific teaching strategies, aconnection is forged between the student's pre-existing ideas and the new infor-mation presented in a course.

Conceptual change in teacher education has its background in conceptualchange theories of instruction (Smith & Neale, 1989; Strike & Posner, 1992; Chinn& Brewer, 1993). In these theories, the transformation of existing knowledge in thelight of new information is the focus of interest. Such transformation is dependentupon personal, motivational and social-historical factors or beliefs. Where teachereducation students' beliefs are relatively few and weak, integration (or adap-tation) of new information through processes of assimilation—acquisition ofknowledge through addition and accretion—will be feasible and probably un-problematic. But these situations are rare because teacher education students have'inside' knowledge (whether valid or not) by the time they enter programs ofteacher education. New information could easily elicit conflicts, discrepancies, andinconsistencies with what is already there. Stimulating the integration of newknowledge is the prime, but difficult business of teacher education (Chinn &Brewer, 1993); therefore a more radical transformation is needed, involving activereconstruction of existing ideas and beliefs, and by implication, a substantialinvestment in learning. Conceptual change offers a strategy for promoting accom-modation of knowledge and belief structures.

The group of teacher educators wanted to know how 'bad' the situation was with respectto the assimilation of knowledge by their students. Therefore, they allowed the researcherto investigate their students' ideas about teaching. A questionnaire was developed with

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Likert-type items describing 10 teaching behaviors: students were asked to indicate theirdegree of acceptance of a behavioral solution chosen in each particular situation. The itemsdiffered in the degree to which they depicted direct, teacher-guided instruction versusself-regulated learning by pupils combined with coaching by the teacher. The teachereducators were convinced that their own lectures emphasized teaching strategies whichpromote self-regulated learning. The questionnaire was given to first- through third-yearstudents. The average rating for the first-year group (on a four-point scale) was 2.8,indicating a preference for self-regulated learning, and the average ratings for the second-and third-year groups were 2.5 and 1.8, respectively. In spite of what the teacher educatorsthought they were teaching, their students appeared to be developing beliefs in the oppositedirection.

When one considers favored modes of instruction in teacher education courses,this result does not come as a surprise. Assimilation (or accretion of knowledge)is the prevailing approach, which means that scarcely any connection is madewith teacher education students' actual knowledge and beliefs about teaching.Precisely because such approaches yield no insight into the preconceptions ofteacher education students, the danger is real that knowledge integration will beleft to the teacher education student. In order to prevent existing beliefs fromremaining unchallenged and, in effect, unchanged, it is necessary that a connec-tion be forged with prior beliefs; but this is only a prerequisite for the restructur-ing process.

Gunstone & Northfield (1992) offer a model of learning in which the teachereducation student is empowered to recognize, evaluate and decide whether or not toreconstruct knowledge and performance. This model is related to the belief changeprocess outlined above with the decision points: coherence check, discrepancyrecognition, need for reconstruction and solution-search. The major difference liesin the interventional sequence: 'evaluate' (or investigate) is followed by 'decide' inthe approach of Gunstone, whereas the belief change process model outlinedearlier depicts a more descriptive sequence in which recognition is followed byassessment of the need to reconstruct.

The group of teacher educators was very much in favor of the idea of a model ofconceptual change which would proactively indicate how to design meaningful instruc-tional arrangements and when to employ particular methods. Such an approach wasconsistent with what they believed in. Therefore, the Gunstone & Northfield (1992) modelwas adopted as a working strategy in the group's search for better approaches toinstructional design in the area of educational foundations and methods. The modelprovided so to speak both a basis for orientation and a stimulus for action (see Pajares,1992, for definitions of beliefs).

An interventional approach to conceptual change entails four stages.

Stage 1: recognition and attention

If conceptual restructuring is to be achieved, beliefs have to made explicit, and theteacher education students' emotional attachment to these beliefs needs to be

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revealed (i.e. the belief structure must be clarified). Originally, conceptual changeapproaches attached great value to discrepancy and confrontation, as a way ofarriving at a point where the teacher education student experiences a 'cognitiveconflict'; this in turn was thought to provide a starting-point for the introductionof new ideas (Posner et al., 1982). However, this is not obligatory. An incrementalapproach (Tillema, 1993) can also be envisaged, in which new ideas are recog-nized as such; that is, the teacher education student is intellectually challenged tochange his or her ideas.

Stage 2: evaluation and investigation

The best way to decide whether new ideas are plausible, fruitful and intelligent isto experiment and investigate. Creating opportunities for teacher education stu-dents to get acquainted with new information, to try out new ideas (in anon-manipulative, non-threatening way), is an important task for instruction, butonly is so far as students are encouraged to handle new information in their ownway and test the tenability of their existing ideas. This can best be done outsideof student teaching practice, in a context where it is easier to explore the new.Establishing cognitive attachment to new information in conceptual changemodels is sometimes characterized in terms of a 'researcher attitude', i.e. one thatfavors discovery and inquiry. Conceptual change models like the one advanced byGunstone or Smith seem to support rational or 'cold' conceptual restructuring(Pintrich et al., 1993); there seem to be few models that encompass the emotionalside of belief incompatibility (see, for example, Cobb et al., 1991).

Stage 3: decision to change

This stage is in fact comprised of the actual moment at which new information isperceived to be acceptable, i.e. coherent or reconcilable with the pre-existing beliefstructure, and as such it is prepared for in the previous stages. Instruction canbring a person to this point: it is, however, up to the teacher education student tomake the decision to change and allow a reconstruction of his or her knowledgebase.

Stage 4: Reconstruction and building up of a revised knowledge structure

The decision to change does not resolve the discrepancy between prior beliefs orknowledge and the new information. The latter may have stirred up the existingknowledge structure, making it obsolete. Once this state of affairs has beenaccepted, the new information can be used to loosen the anomalies and search fora fit between new and old information. Embedding the new information is the lastobjective in the process of conceptual restructuring.

In order to overcome their own 'traditional' lecture-like method of teaching to theirstudents, the teacher educators agreed to devise and try out new models of conceptualchange instruction in their courses. Although the teacher educators initially would have

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preferred a situation in which the researcher presented them with ready-made methods toimplement, they recognized the advantage of discovering and investigating their ownmethods—at least, in the beginning, on a belief level. The problem they experienced, andwhich had motivated them to launch their co-operative inquiry, was the fact that theyseemed to have lost their grip on the conceptual development of their students.

Looking for Interventions

Interventions can best be locally developed, since there are probably no generalstrategies or ideal modes of instruction that foster conceptual change best in everysituation. Of course, there are certain elements which must be addressed in thedesign of conceptual change interventions such as (a) creating an anomaly, aproblem and (b) changing prevailing beliefs; but these things can be realized usinga number of different strategies. Whether one adopts a confrontational (or Piage-tian accommodation) viewpoint on change or an incremental one (in whichinteraction with the to-be-learned environment is of key importance; this could becalled a more Vygotskian approach) has implications for the choice or design ofinstructional arrangements. In a confrontational approach, inquiry and discovery-oriented arrangements are favored; in an incremental approach, more conversa-tional and reflective arrangements are advocated:

Conceptual change to me is students learning to discuss and argue witheach other so that their reasoning becomes clear to them. Discoveringthat there are discontinuities in one's thinking can be so enlightening;you see before you what is missing or obsolete and it becomes directlyclear what extra information is needed.

Without giving much attention to theory the teacher educators started to work outpotential methods of instruction for development within the study group. The task they setfor themselves was to develop inspiring and workable teaching methods that could be usedas prototypes for future instruction. Each teacher educator offered his or her own ideas fordiscussion, writing them out in lesson format. All of the ideas presented by the teachereducators had been tried out beforehand in their courses, providing a rich background withrespect to experiences (both managerial and instructional). This process went on for morethan 2 years: new instructional designs were worked out and discussed in the group; thenworkable ideas were again tried out.

As can be imagined, many different locally-developed instructional designsolutions emerged from this process. Through discussion and encounter a smallersubset of 'models' evolved. As became clear, many different instructional strate-gies may be used to stimulate conceptual change, originating from the creativityof the lecturer and depending on situational constraints.

No-one had imagined that it would take such an enormous amount of time toenvision new instructional solutions and adapt them to the small time-period ofa lecture or course hour. All of the teacher educators agreed that in the end such

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TABLE I. Instructional design arrangements for conceptual change teaching

STAGE

problem

STRATEGIES

discussion dialogue

recognition

inquiry (informationfinding)

inquiry (informationevaluation)

decidingreconstructionsummarizing andrebuilding

problem, dilemma

information, materialfor study andexplanations

research, analysis andexperience of solutions

exchanging conclusionsand results

case, situation, sketch

practice relevant casesand authentic materials

anecdote, experience

exchange of opinionsand experiences

asking questionsposing a problem

dialogue aboutcritical incidents

reflection

reflectionon own experiences

analyse/theorizeactions

searching for viewpoints explanations, commentary, asking for detail, confrontationand positions exchange of sources searching for answers with other viewpoints

giving a statement, asolution, discussion

comparing, finding,sharing of solutions

exchange ofviews, concludingthe discussion

coming to a statementcourse of action

to2.

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a process cannot be sustained on a continual basis. It was, however, viewed as aperfect immersion in conceptual change teaching, and no one would have missedthe opportunity:

I see this as a perfect approach to professional development, i.e. workingon your own instructional improvement for the good of your ownstudents. It gives me greater confidence in what I am doing.

Observations

Although it remains difficult to infer general principles from locally-designedinstructional strategies, some observations are worth making. In the process ofdesigning and discussing instructional solutions, marked changes in the nature ofthe solutions became apparent: these changes can best be discussed by looking atthe respective stages.

Stage 1: recognition

The stage of recognition is focused on drawing the student's attention to aproblem and getting the student to recollect relevant knowledge. This can beachieved using a number of strategies, as the first row in Table I shows. At first,the teacher educator's choice of a certain strategy was often linked to the contentor topic at hand. The content provided the starting point for the choice of astrategy, for example: if it can be framed as an educational problem, then adopta problem-oriented strategy. If it is a theoretical issue to be discussed, then use aconversational strategy with the group of students. Later on it became clear thatit is the intended impact on teacher education students that is most important,which raises the more general issue of how to involve and elicit reactions fromthem. The aim is to get teacher education students to recognize the importance ofa topic and its relevance to their future performance as teachers. It also becameapparent that the group of teacher educators favored the more incrementalstrategies, i.e. establishing discomfort or even conflict in students was seldomproposed; the reason for this lay in the short duration of class meetings, which didnot allow for proper resolution of such conflict, again highlighting the relevanceof the time-frame in which one is operating.

Teacher educator S. intended to treat the topic of discipline from a pedagogicalperspective. He had asked his teacher education students to explicate their views andbeliefs with the aid of a model called 'The Rose of Leary'. This is a conceptual model of thecombined influence of power relations and co-operative relations in teacher-pupil interac-tions (see Wubbels & Levy, 1991). Teacher education students liked the assignment verymuch because it yielded clear-cut views of their own perspectives about discipline, andthey wanted to talk about their position in the 'Rose of Leary'; as a consequence it took anenormous amount of time to attend to all the views in the discussion that followed. Thelecturer decided to respect each contribution and discussions went on well after the end ofthe course hour.

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This stage often occupied a whole seminar session and led to intense inter-actions. Depending on the craftmanship of the lecturer, this stage sometimesbecame a time-consuming and not always very efficient process of asking foropinions without inspiring the teacher education students to engage in investiga-tion or further inquiry. It also proved difficult to establish a cognitive conflict, inthe sense of an emotionally-felt discrepancy; sometimes, the lecturers believed, itcan be sufficient to listen to and appreciate one another's initial ideas andcontributions, without exploiting them for instructional purposes.

This can come so close to therapy! I will not allow that to happen in mylectures. You should treat a person with respect. (Teacher educator M.)

It is good for a person to develop a meta-view on his or her ownperspective, but this is where it should stop. (Teacher educator B.)

Stage 2: evaluation—finding information

According to the group of teacher educators, the stage of inquiry and evaluationreally consists of two separate stages, each with a function of its own. The first isto identify and collect relevant information, by perusing relevant materials withan open mind. This function was highly valued by the teacher educators. Thesecond function is active processing of information, leading to a conclusion oroutcome that resolves the original issues. Table I recognizes this distinction bydifferentiating between 'finding' and 'evaluating'.

Fulfilling the first function, however, is often difficult, because one has to selectthe right kinds of materials and have access to sufficient information. The relevantinformation is not always at hand in books or existing curricula, which means thatthe teacher educators have to locate and collect materials that will offer opportu-nities to search for information, to compare, to look for alternative viewpoints.Somehow this problem inspired the ingenuity of the teacher educators; theygathered a great deal of material for their lectures, deriving pleasure from theirrole as designer of instructional materials:

I want them to have a broad orientation as a basis for their discoveries;sometimes I find that they lack the sufficient study skills. I want them tohave the opportunity to become more detached from their first impres-sions and ideas. That is why I offer the ideas to think about. (Teachereducator B).

Discussion as another strategy was found to have too many negative side-effects:study and active exploration of new viewpoints was found to be a better approachto conceptual change. This conclusion, however, was reached only later in thedesign process. A number of factors could have been responsible for this; notablythere was the teacher educators' growing respect for the initiative shown by theirstudents. The teacher educators recognized their students' ability to select infor-mation themselves (study skills) and to define for themselves what was relevant(analytical skills).

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A treatment of the topic 'rewards and punishment during classroom interaction' wasprepared by collecting statements from the texts of famous pedagogical writers. Teachereducation students were instructed to position the texts on one or two dimensions (e.g.open—authoritarian). They had to write their own text on the topic and defend theirposition on the issue by placing themselves in the dimensions. A common reaction fromstudents was to look for extra materials that would corroborate their position. Theintensity of student involvement improved markedly in the course of the design period,according to the teacher educators. Strategies such as lecturing, presentation andexplanation of information were selected less and less by the teacher educators asdesign solutions for this stage.

Stage 3: evaluation—active processing

Again the teacher educators found it difficult, in designing instructional arrange-ments, to diminish their role, to give their students opportunities for activeexploration. In the ideal case, the new information collected and analysed in theprevious stage is tested with respect to its plausibility and usefulness in this stage,leading to the discovery of boundaries and limits of the information. Typicalactivities that came to be used were: contrasting one's own ideas with otherviewpoints or insights; comparing and schematizing of information; arriving atnew conclusions. The lecturer's role is to suggest relevant issues, give counter-examples, offer explanations, and challenge hastily-adopted viewpoints or prelim-inary conclusions reached by the teacher education students. Active processingand self-regulated learning, however, still fell behind.

One of the objectives in one of the courses was to learn about and use a problem-solvingmodel of pupil learning: however, application of the model was found to be very difficultfor the teacher education students. The teacher educator helped these students by showingthem examples of lesson plans he had prepared, in which he applied the model bydemonstrating treatment of a specific content area. He presented the students with severaldifferent formats for model application. Through criticism and comparison of theseexamples, a new format was arrived at by the teacher education students themselves.

The belief that teacher education students can work independently has to besupported by instructional arrangements that are feasible in a teacher educationprogram, in which the teacher educator accepts the role of providing opportuni-ties for reasoned analysis, and guiding the students' argumentation. Teachereducation students valued the opportunities they were given to learn throughinteractions with one another. It was clear from the lesson protocols that thisopportunity for interaction is often neglected; little time was devoted to arrivingat evaluative conclusions.

Stage 4: decision to change

In the process of belief change, there is a moment at which the teacher educationstudent becomes ready to change (Stage 4) or accept the ideas which he or she

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finds most promising. At this moment the student decides whether or not torestructure old knowledge. Instructional arrangements can ensure that teachereducation students are well-informed when they reach this point. There is acertain reluctance to go further than that:

I like to see my student acquire a certain meta-knowledge, learn toevaluate what knowledge is of most value to them and decide forthemselves what is the best way to utilize the new information. It is theywho have to decide how to give form to their competence as a prospec-tive teacher. (Teacher educator G.)

Stage 5: reconstruction

In the last stage, the construction of new opinions and beliefs takes place: newsolutions to a problem that was at the outset confusing or ill-structured areadopted.

Almost without fail, the design solutions offered by the teacher educators in thisstage involved letting teacher education students write, state, take a position, andreflect upon practical implications in a constructive way. In the view of the groupof teacher educators, it is important to produce concrete and tangible learningresults. A concrete result, a product, is inspiring evidence that restructuring beliefsand knowledge can lead to visible results; it strengthens the change process.Group processes can help to achieve this. The following example was given: in agroup, teacher education students can make an inventory of what has beenachieved and indicate how confident they are when they look back on theachievement. One way of dealing with doubts is to provide opportunities toexpress questions and reactions while ascertaining what has been accomplished.

One of the teacher educators stressed the importance of transfer at this point inconceptual change. A course topic must be completed by providing concrete materials oractions for practice. On one occasion, the teacher educator came up with the idea of writinga letter to the author of an article, in which teacher education students explained theirproblems with the view expressed in the article and suggested alternative solutions.

Effects

This study was set up to identify instructional arrangements that could promotebelief change in teacher education students. It was thought that this could best beaccomplished by locally-developed design solutions. As was expected, teachereducation students were very positive about the changes in course arrangementsthey experienced. According to the teacher educators who were interviewed aboutthe effects on their courses, 'it activated the students', 'their involvement is muchgreater', 'they love the opportunity to discuss and think about matters more','they feel better prepared for student teaching'. All agreed that students devel-oped meta-skills (better awareness of one's position, better argumentation in

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support of one's position). But these results can be attributed to the relativenovelty of the instructional interaction. It was not expected that a substantial beliefchange would be witnessed: nevertheless, the instrument used to gauge teachereducation students' pre-intervention beliefs was readministered to the samestudents following the intervention period. Average belief change was +0.3,— 0.5 and + 0.4 for the first-, second-, and third-year groups, respectively. Thusthe teacher education students' beliefs did not change appreciably as a result ofinstructional arrangements that differed in the degree to which they realizedconceptual change teaching.

The main contribution of the study was the development and implementationof instructional prototypes for conceptual change teaching that are suitable forteacher education programs. The researcher codified most of the design solutionsinto formats that could be distributed to other teacher educators: an example isgiven in Table II.

Another contribution of the study is its demonstration that collaborative cur-riculum planning by teacher educators can promote professional development.The collaborative effort described here had the following elements: (1) a strongshared belief; (2) awareness of an existing problem in the immediate environment;(3) access to the research literature on the problem and its background; (4)collegial discussion and study; and (5) experimentation with promising teachingstrategies in the collaborators' own classrooms (see also Guskey & Huberman,1995).

Conclusion

Conceptual change teaching could have far-reaching implications for the design ofteacher education courses. It provides a structural approach to presenting teachereducation students with relevant educational theory and helps them to integratethis theory as they endeavor to learn to teach. The prototypical strategies andinstructional arrangements for implementing conceptual restructuring which weregenerated in this study could provide a basis for orienting thinking aboutprogram design and feasibility. In this way these conceptual change strategiescould be used by others. But caution is necessary, because these prototypes are theproducts of a contextually-embedded process; they were the outgrowth of beliefchanges experienced by the teacher educators who took part in this study. Otherindividuals might have come up with different solutions, perhaps better ones. Assuch, continued communication among educators about feasible and interestingmethods of instruction will be needed to strengthen the search for worthwhileways of preparing teacher education students for teaching: this is something thathas only just begun. Regardless of how teacher education programs are regardedin the next decade, one function remains to be fulfilled: the transfer of relevantknowledge about teaching. Whether or not this knowledge comes fromexperienced others (mentors, teachers), and whether or not it is validated byresearch (Fenstermacher, 1994), it is the duty of teacher education programs tolocate and extract knowledge that could be useful for teacher education students,

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TABLE II Prototype of a design solution

Steps correspondingto the stagesin belief change

The 'problem' method

(I) A problem ispresented

(II) An informativetext is offered

(III) The informationis analysed

(V) Students areasked to react

Intent Specification

Students are presented with a problem togauge their preconceptions. A centralproblem is selected, often a problematicbehavior or situation. Students are made awareof the problematic nature and different facetsof the problem, the implications and soforth in order to give a clear setting.

The content of the text is (preferably)contrary to what students think, and thisdiscrepancy is the subject of discussion. Theintention is that a confrontation will takeplace between the students' own preconceptionsand their implications, and those ofthe problem-giver.

Different strategies are employed to comparethe information read with own viewpoints,and to categorize ideas, in order toattain an overview of viewpoints, andfacilitate analysis.

Reaction to the problem, for instance bymeans of a letter, is intended as a means ofclarifying one's position. The student isactively looking for reconciliation andreconstruction. During debriefing thepositions taken are brought forward anddiscussed.

A selection of research literature is givenon assessment of entry knowledge ofpupils. Students are asked how to proceedin determining entry levels and diagnosingpupils. Are these feasible ways of doingthis in your classroom? Some of theexamples in the literature are problematized.

Students receive a text in which an expertin the field of mathematics educationwrites about misconception of pupils.Ways of estimating pupils' problems arediscussed.

Through schematization and categorizationoverviews are made with respect to advantagesand disadvantages of certain approachesto diagnosis; these are then discussed.

Writing a reaction to a text brings thestudent in a situation in which he or shehas to explain and defend his or her ownstrategy. Proposed strategies are weightedaccording to their usefulness andmodified. The use of a letter can make itmore personal.

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and—incrementally or confrontationally—to help teacher education students in-corporate this knowledge into their thinking and repertoire of professional tools.Fulfilling this function is a task that requires more attention to the teachereducation student than is usually provided in the lecture-like modes of instructionwhich are so common in teacher education programs. Diagnosis of knowledgeand beliefs, stimulation of conceptual conflict or anomaly, active search foranswers, and reconstruction of old schemata all call for innovative educationaltools. Such innovation, of course, calls for a common effort, which will only bepossible if there is widespread recognition of the need for such (conceptual)change in programs of teacher education.

Correspondence: H. H. Tillema, Center for the Study of Education and Instruction,University of Leiden, PO Box 9555, NL 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands. Tel.+ 31 (0)71 273388; Fax + 31 (0)71 273619.

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collaborative planning by teacher educators to promote belief change in their students

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