Changes in teachers’ roles

For developing effective learning and teaching environments, the role of teachers may need to be changed (e.g. Bransford et al., 2000; Grimus, 2000; Murphy 2006; Romeo, 2006). Romeo (2006) says that the ability of teachers to use their understanding of teaching, their knowledge of pedagogy and their understanding of effective learning is what distinguishes the novice from the expert.

Pedagogical content knowledge is believed important to guide teachers in learning and teaching (Bransford et al., 2000). The term of pedagogical content knowledge was introduced by Shulman (1986), who suggested that successful teaching needs both pedagogy knowledge and content knowledge, meaning effective teachers need to make an integration between content and pedagogy, concurrently for

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understanding how particular aspects of subject matter are organised, adapted, and represented for teaching. Similarly, for Bransford et al. (2000) effective teachers need pedagogical knowledge about how to teach in particular disciplines, rather than only knowledge of a particular subject matter. For example, teachers need to know what teaching approaches are useful including the choice of activities that are used to illustrate ideas, support learning and also ensure that such models effectively convey the content ideas (Chick and Harris, 2007). Shulman‟s (1986) „pedagogical content knowledge‟ includes an understanding of what makes the learning of specific tasks easy or complex.

As explained in the previous section, several researchers argue that when developing effective learning environments, the pedagogy should be shifted: from teacher-centred to student-centred learning activities; from the teacher as information giver and knowledge transmitter, to the teacher as facilitator and knowledge constructor; from the teacher in control, to the learner in control (Ashleigh, 2005; Bransford et al., 2000; Grimus, 2000; Romeo, 2006; Way & Webb, 2006). In line with this assumption, Lee (2002) suggests that for effective learning environments, teacher roles should shift from teacher-centred schooling to student-centred schooling; from the teacher as expert, to the teacher as facilitator; from the teacher in control, to the learner in control. In a similar way, Grimus (2000) writes that constructivism leads changes in the role of teachers from whole group-centred to student-centred teaching; from the teaching of facts, to the self-organised acquisition of knowledge and from giving and advising, to coaching and mentoring.

To summarise the changes in teacher roles, Murphy (2003) describes the role of science teachers in primary schools as follows:

 helping pupils to raise questions and suggest hypotheses;

 encouraging children to predict and say what they think will happen;  encouraging closer and more careful observation;

 helping children to see ways in which their tests are not fair and ways to make tests fairer;

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 helping pupils to find the most useful ways of recording evidence so that they can see patterns in their observations;

 encouraging children to think about their experiences, to talk together and to describe and explain them to others; and

 helping children to see the uses they can make of their findings. (p.12)

Putting these points into practice, Bransford et al. (2000) assert that effective science teachers should focus on developing understanding, rather than memorization and routine procedures to follow. Similarly, Sawyer (2008) claims that to achieve effective learning, students do not need to just memorise facts and procedures; instead, they need help for a deep conceptual understanding of complex concepts, creatively to generate new ideas, new theories, new products, and new knowledge. For teachers to help them, he asserts that to design effective learning environments, teachers need a good understanding of what children know, when they come to the classroom. For developing effective learning and teaching environments, the literature suggests that teachers should attempt to help students to develop and organise their understanding of new concepts and they should make students‟ thinking clear to themselves and others, so that ideas can be discussed and clarified, for example by having students present their arguments in debates, discuss their solutions to problems, and make predictions about various phenomena (Bransford et al., 2000; Romeo, 2006).

Generally speaking, effective teachers should be facilitators and knowledge constructors. They should change learning environments to be student-centred and learner-in-control and help students to be explorers and self-organisers. From the above discussion, it seems that teachers are encouraged to put these into practice in the classroom. Effective teachers need to be ready to rethink their teaching methods, perhaps by using new technologies to establish effective teaching for assisting their students to understand concepts deeply and think critically.

In summary, this section aimed to describe the characteristics of the effective learning and teaching environments. There is a considerable body of literature, which has contributed to the design of a model, of them. There are four perspectives that can describe effective learning and teaching environments. Bransford et al. (2000)

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called them: learner-centred, knowledge-centred, assessment-centred and community-centred. Under the umbrella of these four perspectives, I organised my discussion in this section. From reviewing the literature, effective learning and teaching includes helping students integrate their new knowledge with existing knowledge; helping students organise their knowledge, ideas and concepts; providing students with authentic assessment and meaningful feedback; and helping students learn within their communities.

Effective learning and teaching environments may (or may not) be supported by the use of ICT. Researchers indicate that the contribution of ICT to effective science education is still open for investigation. In the next section, I review the literature in relation to the use of ICT in education, particularly in science leaning and teaching.