"No One Forgets a Good Teacher!" - What do 'Good'Technology Teachers Know?

AbstractIn England and Wales secondary teachers arerequired to have at least two years of theirfirst degree in the subject they wished toteach. Yet technology is well known for thebreadth of subject knowledge it encompassesand the limited way in which degree coursesprovide for the scope needed for schooltechnology. Is subject knowledge, often thedriver of both pre-service and in-servicecourse design for technology teachers, reallyso crucial?

This paper reports on a pilot empirical studyconducted with technology initial teachereducation students from the Open Universityand Brunei University in the United Kingdom.A framework for the teacher knowledgepossessed by these students in terms ofsubject knowledge, pedagogical knowledgeand 'school' knowledge is considered and therelative impact of such 'self awareness' oftheir teaching is discussed.

"It's quite a challenge makingfractional distillation more

interesting than sex"Introduction"It's quite a challenge making fractionaldistillation more interesting than sex" and"No one forgets a good teacher" are twoexamples of advertising slogans which haveappeared in the press since 1993 trying topersuade people to enter the teachingprofession, especially those withqualifications and experience in technology.In early December 1998 the UK Minister ofEducation, David Blunkett, announced that hewas introducing a new deal for teachers:

'Tm going to teach them my three R's [...]To recruit, to retain and to reward highperformance" [...] At the heart of theproposals is the introduction of a CivilService style fast track for top graduates,guaranteeing them a rapid route topromotion and higher rates of classroompay.(Bright and Wintour, 1998)

The link between a 'good degree' and being a'good teacher' is taken by the minister asaxiomatic. Degrees from universities in theUK are usually classified into six levels thetop two being' good'. The Teacher TrainingAgency (TTA) in England has established thecriterion of the number of students on a post-graduate initial teacher training course whohold such a 'good' class of degree as worthyof being published in tables of success. Buthow significant is content or subjectknowledge for creative and effective teaching?What links can be made between a teacher's

knowledge and the associated pedagogicstrategies and practices to ensure successfullearning? There are, after all, very few degreesubjects that match neatly the subjectknowledge and skills base needed for schooltechnology. How can we help new teachers toconceptualise these relationships and reflecton how different sorts of 'teacher knowledge'impact on their teaching?

"The 1991 national survey of all 317initial teacher education courses inEngland and Wales [... ] revealed that over70 per cent of those courses that claimedto be underpinned by a particularphilosophy described that as being basedon the principles of the reflectivepractitioner [... ] Five years on, the termhas achieved even wider currency, and thenotion of reflectivity has becomeincorporated into many teachers' ownviews of what it means to be aprofessional."(Furlong and Maynard, 1995 p37)

Despite the widespread use of the term'reflective practitioner', there is littleagreement about what is meant by 'reflectivepractice'. Calderhead (1989) has described thenotion as a slogan rather than a principle. Wewould agree with McIntyre (1993) that often asystematic approach to reflection is of limitedvalue in the earliest stages of professionaldevelopment where students have neither thetime nor the breadth of experience to do morethan experiment with the approach. However,we would strongly argue that suchexperimentation with reflection on practicewould be more successful if the student isprovided with a usable framework that willhelp them consider aspects of theirprofessional knowledge in the widest senseand grounded in their subject.

It was with a view to discover the impact ofan enhanced awareness of teacher professionalknowledge on school technology teaching andlearning that a joint project was establishedbetween the Open University and BruneiUniversity. Both universities offer initialteacher education courses enabling the studentteachers to teach school pupi Is aged I I to 18years. These student teachers were providedwith a framework for analysis of their teacherprofessional knowledge. We report here howthese technology student teachers used theframework and came to think through theimplications of their understanding of theteacher role.

A framework for conceptualising teacherprofessional knowledgeIn this study of the sel f-awareness of teacherknowledge in pre-service technology student-teachers, we drew on the work of our

School of Education,The Open University

Faculty of Education,Brunei University

colleagues in the Centre for Research andDevelopment in Teacher Education (CReTE)at the Open University (see Leach and Banks,1996; Moon and Banks, 1996; Banks, 1997a;Banks, Leach and Moon, 1999). By linkingtogether four clusters of ideas they haveproduced a graphical framework which ishelpful in visualising the different aspects ofteacher knowledge. The ideas were: thecurriculum orientated work of Shulman(1986); the cognitive approach of Gardner(1983, 1991) and the interrelated tradition ofdidactics and pedagogy in continental Europe(Verret, 1975, Chevellard, 1991). They alsoconsidered how the community of practice ofschools influences a teacher's professionaldevelopment and draw on ideas of situatedlearning developed by Lave (1988, 1991). Theoutcome of this work was a pictorial model ofteacher professional knowledge (Figure 1).

One might initially see 'school knowledge' asbeing intermediary between subjectknowledge (knowledge of technology aspractised by different types of technologistsfor example) and pedagogical knowledge asused by teachers ('the most powerfulanalogies, illustrations, examples,explanations and demonstrations'). Thiswould be to underplay the dynamicrelationship between the categories ofknowledge implied by the diagram. Forexample, a teacher's subject knowledge is

enhanced by his or her own pedagogy inpractice and by the contextual expectationswhich form part of their school knowledge.Which teacher has not confessed to onlyreally understanding a topic when they wererequired to teach it to others! It is the activeintersection of subject knowledge, schoolknowledge and pedagogical knowledge thatbrings teacher professional knowledge intobeing.

Lying at the heart of this dynamic process arethe 'personal constructs' of teacher andpupils, a complex amalgam of pastknowledge, experiences of learning, apersonal view of what constitutes 'good'teaching and belief in the purposes of thesubject. This all underpins a teacher'sprofessional knowledge. This is as true forany teacher. A student teacher has to questionhis or her personal beliefs about their subjectas they work out a rationale for theirclassroom behaviours.

The diagram has some similarities with thedevelopmental model of 'pedagogical contentknowing' proposed by Cochran, DeRutter andKing (1993), but is simpler in form. Since themid 1980s there has been a growing body ofresearch into the complex relationshipbetween subject knowledge and pedagogy(Shulman and Sykes 1986; Shulman 1986,1987; MacNamara 1991, Turner-Bisset,

School Knowledge(related to the waysubject knowledge isspecific to schools)

Personal SubjectConstruct

1999). Shulman's original work in this fieldhas been an obvious starting point:

"how does the successful college studenttransform his or her expertise into thesubject matter form that high schoolstudents can comprehend?"(Shulman 1986)

Like Cochran, DeRutter and King (1993), butfrom our perspective of technology teaching,we are critical of Shulman's apparentemphasis on professional knowledge as astatic body of content, lodged in the mind ofthe teacher. Pedagogical content knowledgethus defines the subject specialists' task asthat of discovering:

"the most useful forms of analogies,illustrations, examples, explanations, anddemonstrations - in a word, the ways ofrepresenting and formulating the subject inorder to make it comprehensible to others."(Shulman, 1986, p.6)

As such Shulman's work tends to devalueskills and processes, leaning towards a viewof cognition that sees knowledge as anexternal body of information, assuming anessentially teacher centred pedagogy contraryto our expectations in technology education:

"The key to distinguishing the knowledgebase of teaching lies at the intersection ofcontent and pedagogy, in the capacity of ateacher to transform the contentknowledge he/she possesses into formsthat are pedagogically powerful and yetadaptive to the variations in ability andbackground presented by the students"(Shulman, 1987, p.15)

Paramount amongst school subjects,technology is characterised by a pedagogywhere there is no 'right answer' but ratherdifferent responses to the same problem arevalued - some judged better than others.Compared with other subjects such as scienceand mathematics, perhaps a teacher oftechnology is less in a position of being a'fount of all wisdom' but rather a guide tohelp a pupil to (as Barlex would put it)'Design what they Make and Make what theyhave Designed'. This is not to deny theimportant role for subject knowledge intechnology, nor to suggest that the teacher isnot an important source of information, butthe teacher's knowledge and expertise neednot be a brake on the speed or direction of thepupils' development or creativity. Forexample, in electronics a pupil can treat anamplifier as a 'system element' withoutknowing or needing to know the details of thephysics of its operation. Similarly a pupil canmake artefacts using a polymer withoutneeding to know much more than the

underlying concept of giant molecules and theinteraction between the chains. However, thatpupil may indeed need to know moresophisticated ideas about amplification orplastics as their interest in their designproblems develop. A teacher who is able toengage them in a conversation at anappropriate level will be better able to matchthe curriculum to the pupil.

In contrast to Shulman, Gardner's (1983) workis rooted in a fundamental reconceptualisationof knowledge and intelligence. His theory ofmultiple intelligences allows us to viewpedagogy from a perspective on studentunderstanding. In common with the ethos ofschool technology, the focus shifts fromteacher to learner, from technique to purpose.The five 'entry points' which Gardnerproposes for approaching any key concept -narrational, logical-quantitative, foundational,experiential and aesthetic - do not simplyrepresent a rich and varied way of mediating asubject. Rather they emphasise the process ofpedagogy and a practice which seeks topromote the 'highest level of understandingpossible'. (Gardner 1991)

School technology is different to technologyas conducted in universities or in industry.The concept of 'didactic transposition', aprocess by which 'subject knowledge' istransformed into 'school knowledge', enablesus to consider the way that schools asinstitutions construct their own sort ofknowledge. The CReTE ideas here have beeninformed by the work of Verret (1975) andChevellard (1991).

Finally, Lave's (1988; 1991) research withadult learners engaged in new learningsituations focuses on the social situation or"participation" framework in which suchlearning takes place, a process of involvementin the communities of practice'. To become afull member of the 'community of practice' oftechnology teachers requires access to a widerange of teaching expertise, 'old-timers', andother members of the teaching community;and to information, resources andopportunities for participation in communitiesof practice (see Lave and Wenger 1991p.I01).

Lave's work is of particular significance forschool technology because the community oftechnology teachers is having to cope withmajor changes in the subject that it isteaching. The difficulties experienced byteachers can to some extent be gauged bylooking at the range of publications producedbetween 1989 and 1995 aimed at clarifyingthe situation for the teacher. These included acomplete revision of the National CurriculumOrders for Design and Technology (D&T)

(see Barlex 1998). One of the aims of thedesign and technology curriculum in Englandand Wales is to provide a broad and balancedexperience of designing and making using arange of materials and technical components.

Pupils should be given opportunities todevelop their design and technology capabilitythrough:

a) Assignments in which they design andmake products, focussing on differentcontexts and materials and making use of:

compliant materials and/or food.

Taken together, these assignments shouldinclude work with control systems, e.g.electrical, electronic, mechanical, pneumatic,and structures:

focused practical tasks in which theydevelop and practise particular skills andknowledge

activities in which they investigate,disassemble and evaluate familiarproducts and applications.(DFE/WO,1995, p6)

However, there is more to this breadth andbalance than merely the materials andcomponents used (see Barlex 1995). Withinthe designing and making process there arefeatures which will appeal to different degreesto a teacher according to the specialism andprofessional history of that teacher. Teacherswill have greater familiarity with andpreference for particular areas. The list belowidentifies such features and the often-articulated rationale for its significance. Thedifficulty in achieving breadth and balancearises when that significance becomes insteaddominance (see Figure 2).

Ideally a balanced designing and makingassignment will call significantly on each ofthese features, though perhaps not in equalmeasure. But, if a teacher is strong in just oneor two aspects, or believes that one is moresignificant than any of the others, the breadth

and balance within the designing and makingexperience is lost. Many technology teacherswere trained initially as craft teachers andtheir work has been generally criticised by theOffice for Standards in Education (OFSTED).

" .. .in general pupils' attainment indesigning lags behind that in making. Thisis because pupils are either not introducedto a sufficiently wide range of designingstrategies [...] or are not taught to use themeffectively. Pupils are generally confidentwhere work is closely directed by theteacher, but less so when workingindependently to their own plans, withlittle awareness of how their work willdevelop in the later stages of theirprojects."(OFSTED, 1998)

The student teacher may be caught in adilemma. Clearly there is the possibility, if notprobability, that student teachers in schoolbased training will be introduced to practicethat is skewed because of the previous historyof the supporting teachers in that school. Sothe school knowledge (see Figure I)developed by participation in the communityof practice of the school may be at variancewith what is considered to be best practice bythe college. Important here is not merely theobvious point that school experience is vitalfor student-teachers but that their learning ishampered if the meaning of the activities ofteachers (in this case) is not made'transparent' .

This study was conducted as an attempt toevaluate how transparent different aspects ofteacher professional knowledge was to studenttechnology teachers and to see how useful theframework was as a tool to help them reflect.

MethodologyThirteen technology student teachers in thefinal year of their course from the BruneiUniversity and the Open University wereinterviewed and shown a blank outline of theCReTE framework (Figure I). The differentelements of the framework were explained to

Design procedures Without the procedural competence of design nothing can beachieved.

Technical understanding If it's not technically sound it just won't work.

Values Without an appreciation of the values implicit in the endeavour thewhole exercise lacks worth.

them and, in relation to the work on teachingplacement, they were asked the following:

What subject knowledge (about designand technology) do I have/need to get forthe teaching?

What pedagogic knowledge (aboutteaching methods) do I have/need to getfor the teaching?

What school knowledge (about ethos,procedures, significance of someactivities) do I have/need to get for theteaching?

The students were also asked to consider their'personal subject construct' as outlined above.

The Open University student teachers gavetheir views verbally and their points werenoted onto the blank diagrams. The studentsfrom Brunei University were asked to producea short piece of writing 'in which you reflecton some teaching that you did in your lastpractice in which you can comment on eachof the three features'.

ResultsAs might be expected, the students used theframework with a range of levels ofsophistication. For all students it provided auseful focus for debate, and in particular thenature and extent of school knowledge wasdiscussed by the BruneI students using Figure2. The views of seven students who eithercontributed a piece of writing or madesignificant comments are included here.

School knowledgeFirst, some ideas about 'school knowledge':

James: It is important that I discover theexpectations within the department [..} Thismay be as pedantic as the layout of work,something I perhaps may not entirely agreewith, but [ ..} something they gain marks forafter 1have left, then they will be required tobe familiar with it. My own teaching can thenwork around this.

Frank: After a few weeks within thedepartment I noticed that the departmentethos, or approach to teaching was the sameacross the board [ ..} The projects from Year 7upward were very closed in nature and pupilswere led by the hand through eachassignment. This resulted in the pupilsproducing an end product identical toeveryone else. I must admit it was to a highstandard and I learned a lot about subjectknowledge, especially in the area ofwoodwork practices and processes. It seemedto me that the department was setting Designand Make assignments that were in factFocused Practical Tasks.

Karen: After working in [name of school] it isvery easy to figure out what the subjectteachers are like and the commitment to theschool and pupils. The following points arethings to look out for in the next school.

Karen goes on to list 23 bullet points. All buttwo we would classify as 'school knowledge'.She 'looks out' for wall displays, examresults, attitudes of the pupils and teachers,schemes of work and a range of schoolpolices such as SEN, homework anddetention.

Christopher: In school you have to work in aparticular way. For example the controlsoftware package configures the way 1have towork and the pupils have to think because thatis recommended by the exam board.

Vincent: In this school the department isdriven by the exam. That is all that isimportant. So I think technology here is tooindividualistic where industry is social.

SUbject knowledgeAll the students could identify subjectknowledge gaps that they had. Indeed therectification of technology subject gaps is apre-occupation on many teacher preparationcourses at all levels (see Banks 1997a and b).The Open University students in the samplewere working as school technicians and feltrelatively confident:

Colin: There is no 'big hole' in my knowledgedye to being a technician but sometimes Iforget the 'easy stuff'!

Competence in 'Graphics' was a declaredproblem for three of the students. Two of themsaid that they lacked sufficient knowledge ofelectronics for more than basic work.

Frank: I knew 1was lacking in some of thegraphics subject knowledge, so I spent a greatdeal of time and effort getting up to scratch onthem.

Pedagogical knowledgeVincent and Christopher had a clear view ofhow the pupils' enthusiasm for technologyand the quality of their work was intimatelybound up with the teaching strategiesdeployed.

Vincent: Pupils take their cue(rom theteacher. There is a lot of 'street cred' for thesubject in this school - more so than Art - butit is jllst as creative. However, there is ve,ylittle group discussion used.

Frank: During my last school practice Iworked with a Year 10 Graphics group. Ifound this group to be very passive andgenerally switched off to the subject [ ..}There was a lack of imagination being

demonstrated in their work, which I felt, wascomingfrom the way the subject was beingpresented to them [ ..] I introduced group-work, which they had not experienced indesign and technology and let them give theiropinions. We explored ways we could usethese skills in presenting what we wanted tosay in graphics [..] The pupils respondedvelY well and produced many varied andimaginative results. In addition [ ..] I set acompetition to produce a graphic image. Thiswas very open, with the only criteria beingthat it was interesting to the eye or not as thecase may be. This really was difficult for thepupils to take on board initially, as theywanted to k7l0W what I wanted as a result. Inthe end they produced a velY good series ofimages, some 3D, some computerised, somewith alternative backgrounds. The approachto teaching in a different way Fom chalk andtalk seemed to awaken this group of pupils.

Khan: I felt that the pupils required a changeof task setting and a more 3D approach tographics [ ..] I allocated time for the pupils tocreate prototypes or models from cardboard ofthe designs they had generated and presenttheir museum designs [the context set up byKhan], through their graphics based work andmodels to a board of directors (the rest of theclass) therefore relating the project to real lifecontexts o/designing in society. I left thepresentation styles up to the individual pupilsbut did incorporate some input [ ..] onpresentation techniques using computergraphics and boards. It was expected that thepupils would give a 2-3 minute presentation.The end result was a positive change of all theattitudes of the pupils. They exhibited ageneral willingness to learn and an interestnot only in their own work but that of others,especially the presentation where the pupilsgenerated constructive criticism and reactedwell to others discussing their work.

Personal subject constructThe nature and quality of the answers showedthe range of personal subject constructs heldby the student teachers and they oftenmentioned how it conflicted with the subjectconstruct held by their school mentor or otherpeople in the school technology department.Vincent, like Kahn in the quote above, sawtechnology as being closely linked to 'real-life' and vocational preparation. Christopher,in contrast, saw technology as personallyempowering for the pupils. They shouldunderstand 'how to wire a plug and not bescared to do things'. He wanted pupils to'have a go' to gain personal confidence.

ConclusionAlthough the extent of this pilot study islimited in the number of students who tookpart, it is significant in that the studentsacross two quite separate institutions, withstudents from very different parts of the UK,could identify with the concepts outlined inthe CReTE framework. It is clear from theabove extracts and examples that they coulduse the categories as a means to reflect ontheir practice. The investigators could, in turn,use the diagram as a way to group aspects ofteacher knowledge when the studentsdescribed both their own practice and that oftheir colleagues in school. The framework hasbeen used at a number of in-service eventsthroughout the UK and in other countries andmany teachers have also been sympathetic tothe model and how it closely relates to aspectsof their real-life practice.

Moreover, the sophistication of responseshown by some seems to match well to thosewho are developing into effective teachers.Frank, for example, showed a deep insightinto a number of aspects of teacher knowledgeand was able to bring such awareness intodeveloping his teaching. Karen, interestingly,was also thought to be an effective teacherand was given employment by her placementschool. Her awareness was almost exclusivelyin the area of 'school knowledge'. This raisesthe question is a 'good' teacher merely onewho is seen to be good at what schools asinstitutions value and find important? BothKaren and James, however, were able to beself-aware of the community of practice oftechnology teachers that created the local'school knowledge' that surrounded them and,to some extent, subvert it. As James put it,'My own teaching can then work around this'.

The positive impact on pupil learning intechnology due to student teachers that arebetter able to reflect on their practice seemsclear from the extracts presented here. AsMcIntyre (1993) suggests, reflection bynovice teachers is very difficult. However, webelieve that this study has shown theframework is a simple yet effective 'way in' tobegin the discussion of the different aspects ofteacher knowledge. Indeed, the discussion ofthe model will itself promote an insight intothe various aspects that contribute to theprofessional role of an effective technologyteacher.

An international collaborative project is beingdeveloped to explore the usefulness of thisframework. Although the teaching conditionsand context may be different all teachers sharethe challenge of how best to develop theirprofessional knowledge and skill. This studymay throw light on ways to develop thereflection essential to this endeavour.

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