Science Teachers’ Feedback Expressed After Participating in Two Continuous Professional Development Programs

Abstract

The paper presents an analysis on the science teachers’ feedback related to the efficiency of two training programs: PROFILES and ForEdu . The research methodology is based on dedicated feedback questionnaires filled in by 156 science teachers, enrolled in both programs. The questionnaire included items with predetermined answers offering multiple choice. To some items, the teachers wrote a descriptive phrase that corresponds to the situation in which they are, following the graduation moment of the related training program. There are several aspects taken into account: the usefulness of the training program, the novelty of the training materials, their applicability in the didactic process, the reason for participating in such programs etc. Other items are direct related to the skills that have been acquired after participating in the training programs. The whole analysis led to the idea that teachers are aware of the necessity of being permanent involved in continuous training programs, which targeted to both direction: scientific preparation, but also psycho-pedagogical / methodical training. Even there are a lot of similarities in terms of teachers’ answers, collected from the mentioned training programs, it can be noticed that in the “ Profiles - Education through Science ” program, where the activities were clearly focused on developing teaching strategies ( IBSE - inquiry based science education ), positive effects at the level of formative and informative acquisitions were more evident.

Keywords: Science teachers’ feedbacktraining programsPROFILESForEduprofessional development

Introduction

The fundamental goal of the current Romanian educational system is to provide a qualitative

education. A crucial variable on reaching this goal is represented by the teachers. Having in view the

societal changes, the transformations that took place at all the societal levels, with great impact on the

educational systems, the teachers have to be able to be fast connected and easily adapted to all those

changes. In this context, in many cases, their initial training is not sufficient to perform a qualitative

educational process, this one being needed to be supplemented with lifelong training, which must be

centered around the real needs and expectations of the teachers.

“Teacher professionalism is a crucial element on seeing the ‘education through science’

philosophy being meaningfully implemented by teachers, having as results the acquisition of the key

competences by students. An important approach to promote teacher professionalism is through the

development and enactment of professional development programs.” (Holbrook, Rannikmäe, &

Valdmann, 2014, p. 139).

Science education became a very important goal in school, so we can talk about “a strong

expectation for science to be an essential, or core subject in the school curriculum, for the benefit of all

students” (Holbrook, 2010, p. 82).

Coming to the particular aspects of science education, at the European level, in recent decades,

there has been recorded a significant decline in students’ interest and motivation for learning in general

and sciences (Physics, Biology and Chemistry) in particular (Rocard, 2007). Taking into account this fact,

Valahia University Targoviste, through its specialized unit - Teacher Training Department - designed and

conducted two dedicated training programs for science teachers: “Profiles - Education through Sciences”

and “ForEdu - Professionalization of the Teaching Career”, the last one comprising on four training

modules: “ICT - E-education”, “Designing and Implementing the Curriculum Oriented on Competences”,

“Classroom Management” and “Interactive Pedagogy”.

We briefly describe below, each of the two training programs.

1. The “Profiles - Education through Sciences” Continuous Professional Training Program was

developed in the frame of the European FP7 project entitled: “PROFILES - Professional Reflection

Oriented Focus on Inquiry-based Learning and Education through Science” - funded by the European

Commission -, which aims to promote education based on scientific investigation (IBSE - Inquiry Based

Science Education). The main objective of the training program is the professional development of

Sciences teachers (Chemistry, Physics and Biology), enriching their teaching competences, through

achieving teaching demarches oriented on scientific investigation and integrated related approaches

(based on the IBSE strategy) in their classrooms.

The originality of the PROFILES approach consists on paying special attention to the increasing

of science teachers self-efficacy. The self-efficacy consists - in this case - on raising the competences and

confidence in teaching, in a meaningful way - from the educational point of view -, and which can

motivate students. In the “PROFILES -Education through Sciences” training program, there have been

developed and implemented, during Sciences lessons, training modules centered on teaching through

scientific investigation, by promoting a student-centered learning model (Gorghiu, & Drăghicescu, 2014).

PROFILES aims to make science learning and specific science subjects more interesting, more relevant

and significant for secondary education students. This is not an easy objective to be reached – in this

respect, being known that teaching Science (and consequently teaching specific topics of Sciences) is not

so interesting for most of the students. Science classes are often described as too boring and irrelevant,

especially at ages 11-16 (Byrne, & Brodie, 2013, p. 28). Even active methods of teaching and learning, in

which students work in groups, fail to promote sciences for most of the students. Taking into account

those facts, the PROFILES project tried to solve at least a part of those problems.

The main objective of the “ForEdu - Professionalization of the Teaching Career” training

program - developed within a dedicated POSDRU project -, wastheformationanddevelopmentofprimaryandsecondaryteachers’competences,inordertoimprovethemanagementandqualityoftheeducationalprocess.

The ForEdu training program, through the design of its specific training strategy, and the concrete ways of fulfillment of all its activities, offers to primary and secondary teachers the following opportunities: access to modern teaching methods - that can become benchmarks for their own professional development; expansion and restructuring of the psycho-pedagogical knowledge; improvement of their skills for implementing new strategies and techniques for intervention in situations of (micro)educational crisis; development of IT competences; development of classroom management competences; continuous self-regulation of the pedagogical practice in relation to a plurality of roles assumed by the teachers: educator, trainer, manager, methodologist, evaluator etc.; training the teachers, considering them as resourceful persons for school and community, facilitating the exchange of ideas and best practices between members of the same professional community.

Methodology

The aim of the investigative approach consists in a comparative analyze related to science

teachers’ feedback, expressed after their participation in the abovementioned two continuous professional

development programs: ForEdu and PROFILES .

The research methodology is based on a dedicated feedback questionnaire, filled in by 156 science

teachers, enrolled in both programs, from three different counties: Dâmbovița, Buzău and Teleorman.

The questionnaire included items with predetermined answers offering multiple choices. To some

items, the teachers chose a descriptive phrase that corresponds to the situation in which they are,

following the graduation moment of the training program. There are several aspects taken into account:

the usefulness of the training program, the novelty of the training materials, the applicability in the

didactic process, the reason for participating in such programs etc. Other items are direct related to the

skills that have been acquired after participating in the training programs: the ability to create a learning

environment suitable for students, the measure in which the teaching approaches are oriented on students,

the achievement of particular knowledge concerning the design of the educational activities having in

view the increase of the quality, the efficiency on using different teaching methods, the efficiency on

using of a variety of teaching materials, the way in which it can be provided a relevant feedback for

students, the achievement of a better students’ progress, the providing of an adequate support for the

students with special educational needs, the designing of a new curriculum, the collaboration with

students’ families and local community, the designing of a more effective teaching career, the designing

of successful interschool projects, the use of ICT in a more efficient way.

The data processing was mostly statistical, in correlation with qualitative analysis, based on the

information gathered from discussions with the involved teachers.

In the following paragraphs, there are illustrated two relevant items collected from the

questionnaire.

Results and Discussions

The first item analyzed in this paper refers to the science teachers’ feedback related to the

usefulness and the novelty of both training programs ( ForEdu and PROFILES ) and the motivation to

participate to such training programs. The teachers had to choose from six different options: (a) the

training programs seems to be useful for me; (b) just a few of the things learned in the program are

novelties for me; (c) from all the things I’ve learned in this program, I tried to apply a part in my

teaching activity; (d) from all the things I’ve learned in this program, I successfully applied two or three

things in my teaching activity; (e) I have difficulties to apply in my teaching activity things learned in this

program, because I don’t know how to do it yet; (f) I participate in the training program just to obtain

some credits.

Performing a comparative analysis on the responses of the two groups of science teachers (one

from ForEdu and one from PROFILES training programs), we can observe more similarities, but also

some differences (Fig.1). Both of the groups considered that the training program was useful (56%

PROFILES and 51% ForEdu ). Related to the novelty, just a small percentage of teachers considered that

few of the things learned in the program are novelties for them, which confirm the importance of the

transferred knowledge presented in both training programs. Analyzing the figure, we can easily observe

that none of the respondents chose the last two answer options, which indicate that the science teachers

are aware of the importance of their professional training and acquisition of real skills, not just intending

to get credits. From the comparative analyze, we can also observe some small differences between the

samples of teachers, meaning that PROFILES teachers considered in a great measure the training program was useful for them than the ForEdu teachers.

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The next important item of the questionnaire refers to the skills the teachers obtained after the

participating in both training programs. Here, the teachers had sixteen options, from (a) to (p): (a) Icreate

a learning environment suitable for my students; (b) I design a good educational process, centered on

students; (c) I make a better design of my lessons; (d) I use more effective various teaching methods; (e) I

use a variety of teaching materials, more effectively; (f) I select the teaching contents better; (g) I can

provide more relevant feed-back for my students; (h) I asses the progress of my students better; (i) I better support students with special educational needs; (j) I design a new curriculum; (k) I collaborate more

effective with the students’ families; (l) I collaborate more effective with the school community; (m) I

collaborate more effective with other teachers; (n) I design more effective my teaching career; (o) I make

successful interschool projects; (p) I use ICT in a more efficient way.

Analyzing the two figures (Fig.2a and Fig.2b), we can find that the most of the teachers’ answers

correspond to the first answer options. So, the highest percentages were recorded by the first answer

options - (a) -, 27% from PROFILES teachers and 24% from ForEdu teachers considering that the most

important skills obtained after their participation in the training program are related to the creation of a

learning environment suitable for their students. The next place is occupied by the fourth answer option,

17% from PROFILES teachers and 16% from ForEdu teachers considering that they use more effective

various teaching methods at the end of the training program. On the third place - in the perceptions of

both teachers’ samples - is the designing of a student-centered educational process.

We can also notice the differences between the answers of the teachers from both samples. The

ForEdu teachers considered that the most important skills, after their participating in the training

program, are: educational design skills, using various teaching methods, using ICT in a more efficient

way and designing more effective their own professional career. In the other sample, the PROFILES

teachers consider that the important skills, after their participating in the training program, are: a better

selection of the teaching contents, an effective collaboration with other school teachers and the

development of some successful interschool projects.

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gathered in the ForEdu training program gathered in the PROFILES training program

Conclusion

The whole analysis led to the idea that teachers are aware of the necessity of being permanent

involved in continuous training programs, which targeted to both direction: scientific preparation, but also

psycho-pedagogical / methodical training. Even there are a lot of similarities in terms of teachers’

answers collected from the mentioned training programs, it can be noticed that in the “Profiles -

Education through Sciences” program, where the activities were clearly focused on developing teaching strategies (mostly on IBSE - Inquiry Based Science Education), positive effects - at the level of formative

and informative acquisitions - were more evident. In addition, the teachers’ portfolios - based on a clear

imposed template - were strongly oriented on making connection between the science content - according

to the actual curricula - and the everyday life.

Acknowledgements

This work was funded through the Seventh Framework Program “ PROFILES - Professional

Reflection Oriented Focus on Inquiry-based Learning and Education through Science” No. 5.2.2.1 - SiS-

2010-2.2.1, Grant Agreement No. 266589, under the frame of: Supporting and coordinating actions on

innovative methods in Science education: teacher training on inquiry based teaching methods on a large

scale in Europe. The support offered by the European Commission in the fields of research and

innovation, through the project mentioned above, is gratefully acknowledged.

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