Evidence-based Continuous Professional

Development (CPD) of chemistry teachers

in an inquiry laboratory

Dorit Taitelbaum

Ph. D. Advisors: Prof. Avi Hofstein

and Dr. Rachel Mamlok-Naaman

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Weizmann Institute of Science

Department of Science Teaching

In collaboration with Miriam Carmeli

The Inquiry Chemistry Laboratory in Israel (ICL)

Uniqueness

100 inquiry-type experiments

Main characteristics:Working in small groupsPhrasing different inquiry questionPreparing “Hot Report”Having students presentation

Integral part of students’ final assessment (20%)

Conducting pre-inquiry experiment

Making observations

Raising questions

Choosing one research question

Constructing a relevant hypothesis

Designing an appropriate inquiry experiment

Making and organizing observations

Analyzing and summarizing the inquiry experiment

Presenting the results to the whole class

Raising more advanced questions

Students’ inquiry skills

What do we mean by accomplished teaching in the Inquiry Chemistry

Laboratory (ICL)?

Chemistry teachers’ skills

Help students to:

- Solve problems

- Ask high-level questions

- Hypothesize regarding certain unsolved

experimental problems

Encourage students to share their knowledge with peers

A flavor from the inquiry chemistry laboratory (ICL)

Summer induction course

Development of learning materials (teacher's guide)

WorkshopClassroom-laboratory

observations

Evidence-based portfolio Forum on the web

The evidence-based CPD model for chemistry teachers

The study

Research questions:

1. What kinds of strategies did the teachers use while conducting the inquiry-type experiments?

2. How did the teachers cope with collecting artifacts, turn them into evidence, and use them

to construct their portfolios?

Research population

All participating teachers were novice to the inquiry approach

7 high-school chemistry teachers participated in the study each year, during 3 years. (In the first year, a pilot study was conducted)

Each teacher had a different professional background

Research tools

Classroom-laboratory observations

Three teachers were observed and videotaped during 2-3 inquiry-type activities each year

Several qualitative research tools

Interviews

Semi-structured in-depth interviews with each teacher immediately

after each observation

Teacher portfolio

Each teacher was asked to build a portfolio concerning the whole year

Documentation of the workshops

All the workshops’ meetings were documented using

videotape/audiotape

Data analysis

A diversity of qualitative research tools

Steps in the process of analysis

Transcription of the videotapes, interviews, workshop’s meetings

Definition of categories and criteria

Interpretation to the data

The multiple sources enable us to validate the results and make triangulations

Variables that were assessed

First category: Dilemmas concerning group work

Ways of grouping the students

The same groups or different groups? Homogeneous or heterogeneous groups?

The time that the teacher spent with each group and the number of times that the teacher approached each group

Hesitating or approaching?

Teachers' challenges

Discussing but not revealing

The criteria

What happened during these 5 months of the school year?

Workshop

A teacher has to organize and plan the lessons well, in order to cope with a lot of uncertainty that is rooted in teaching using the ICL approach

The teachers claimed that:

Exchanging ideas with peers and the providers, getting relevant feedback and support were very essential

Variables that were assessed

Evidence-based portfolio

What happened during these 5 months of the school year?

The teachers claimed that:

They became more reflective, and their anxiety concerning the implementation of the program decreased.

The fact that they were encouraged to document their work, together with the process of investigating it during the inquiry-type experiments, contributed significantly to their work.

Variables that were assessed

Second category: Teachers’ challenges concerning summary discussions

Planning the discussion

Involving as many students as possible

Variables that were assessed

In-Depth Interviews

“At the beginning I thought that if I would summarize everything by lecturing to the class - that will be the right thing to do. But that’s not enough … Later I said to myself, let’s change, let the students talk. Then I thought, that I will let them present, and indeed it became more varied and colorful, with PowerPoint presentations. I started with a “dry routine” discussion, but then I moved on and “passed them the ball”. I made them more and more activate”.

Teacher centered toward Student centered

In-Depth Interviews

“For the student, part of the learning process is studying for the test, organizing the learning materials. In the inquiry unit there is no such thing. So how can you give the student an overall perspective on the activity? This should be done during the summary discussion”

Summary

Teachers had to develop two main teaching strategies that were essential to the inquiry approach:

the management of the group work the management of the summary discussion

The most powerful components of the CPD model were: the workshop, the pieces of evidence and the videotaped observations

Bringing artifacts from the laboratory and turning them into evidence was not a trivial task. It was also time consuming