Using Sociocultural Theory to Understand the Relationship between Teacher Change and a Science-based Professional Education Program
by Milne, Catherine; Scantlebury, Kathryn; Otieno, Tracey
This paper focuses on a model of teacher change based on a study of a science discipline-based professional education program and on an understanding of teacher change in terms of an agency| structure dialectic. Professional education programs should expand teachers’ capacity to act in a range of fields. Conducted over one year, this study used socio-cultural theory to examine the role of cultural schema and resources in the enactment of new pedagogical structures by two teachers who demonstrated widely variable responses to their experience of a professional chemistry education program. Hermeneutic and phenomenological methods of study supported the examination of teacher actions and narratives as sources of data. The analyses of these data sources resulted in greater understanding of the relationship between schema, resources and structure and the relationship between structure and teacher agency. Structures are dynamic and if a teacher uses a resource such as an inquiry-based instruction protocol without the attendant cultural schema such as the value of questioning then the structure that is implemented will be different from that the teacher experienced in the professional education program. This understanding supported an explanation of teacher change in terms of teacher agency that constituted our learning from the study and resulted in changes to aspects of the professional education program.
DOI: 10.1007/s11422-006-9013-1
Online Date: 8/23/2006
Print publication date: 9/1/2006
View article on SpringerLink
This article addresses an increasingly important issue for the knowledge society; how teachers can go beyond existing practices, expand their repertoires, and ultimately advance their own as well as their students’ knowledge. In short, this is a study of transformed practices. The study also clearly documents that such transformation is not without risks, that it is unpredictable, difficult and even painful, and that the conditions under which such transformation takes place are of vital importance. The article should be of great interest to anyone interested in teacher education. The empirical material (teacher narratives and videotaped activities) is rich and convincing in showing how one teacher (Beth) is successful in enacting transformational agency and another (Hugh) comes across as disempowered. The context is a one-year Master of Science in Chemistry degree program. There is an interventionist quality to the study, although this is not discussed in detail.
My first question pertains to the conceptual approach taken; “the relationship between resources, schemas and structures” (p.349) that seeks to explain the phenomenon under examination, and in particular the (to me) somewhat fuzzy notion of schema. With its Piagetian and cognitive roots, the concept does not seem to translate easily into a sociocultural approach. For instance, the authors argue that, “Our definition of schemas as internalized codes also suggest the ability of teachers to creatively apply a “rule” to different contexts”. My question is to which extent schemas can be seen as historically and culturally situated or as generic and context independent. The empirical material and discussion suggest that they are the former, but the authors’ conceptualization suggest the latter. I think Olson (2003) provides a relevant analysis on how educational theories and institutions are related and the gap between the personal and the institutional. He offers a theoretical account of the relation between the minds of learners and the institutional structures of schools.
My second question addresses what I find to be the somewhat vague object of the transformation. It seems to be a mix of improved praxis and improved chemistry knowledge among teachers (from the Master program) and inquiry-based practices – “our understanding what constitutes “good” science teaching” (p.334) – as offered by the authors. However, I would have liked to see the object of the transformation more explicated in order to better understand why Beth Succeeds and Hugh does not. They are both involved in object-oriented, expansive activities within historically institutionalized practices and to me a closer examination of this tension or even contradiction would seem to provide an interesting analytical approach.
This is not to say that the authors should have written a different study! I bring up these more activity theoretical notions in order to raise the questions of how we can best study, explain, and support theoretically informed (science) teacher change. Any takers?
Olson, D. R. (2003). Psychological Theory and Educational Reform: How School Remakes Mind and Society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Milne, Scantlebury and Otiendo’s article successfully argue that if a professional education program allows teachers the chance to examine new resources and schema which aren’t part of teachers’ dispositions/habitus, then these experiences may widen teachers alternatives for action, hence, altering teachers’ agency and advocating teacher change (p. 328). In other words, through their analyses, they recommend that in order to support teacher change, professional education should provide a field that increases teachers’ cultural schema so that through teachers’ work, with these new schema, they may alter the structures that they construct and experience in their lived world as science teachers (p. 347). And they superbly point out that “it is through the process of negotiation that teachers, both consciously and unconsciously, decide on the cultural schema and resources they will appropriate from their professional education experiences to use in other fields, such as science classrooms and schools” (p. 327-28). One cannot help but agree with their line of reasoning on this point. They offer two constrasting teacher responses (Hugh and Beth)to a Master of Science Chemistry Education (MSCE) courses. Hugh, as noted in the article, is not successful in changing his teaching disposition (p. 347). They attribute this, in part, because changing his disposition would have required a level of committment Hugh could not make (p. 347). However, it is not clear the degree to which Hugh enacted and or failed to enact fully the process of negotiation to appropriate, from his professional education courses, suitable cultural schema and resources for his habitus. Was Hugh unable or unwilling to make such a committment or did he simply not possess sufficient character/change agent traits (Wireman, 1998) such as creativity, courage, perseverance and motivation which may enable a person, such as a teacher, to act with the intention of creating change in the classroom? It is, indeed, difficult to assess whether teachers, by virtue of their profession and perceived role, are natural agents of change or merely participants in the educational system? How did Hugh perceive, intrapersonally, his role in the MSCE Program? The authors briefly touch upon identity and how “it is associated with strategies of action” (p. 329). But,their analysis of Hugh’s responses could have included a wider discussion of identity and how could Hugh’s sense of identity affected his performance in the MSCE Program. Nevertheless, I am in full agreement with Milne, Scantlebury and Otiendo that educators, in professional education programs, should emphasize the relationship between significant schema and resources to allow the expanding teachers’ choices for action while still acknowledging the complexity of interaction between agency and structure within selected fields (p. 349). I would merely add that, perhaps, educators should also be cognizant of teachers transactional needs (Turner, 2002) within the interaction between teacher agency and structure. Turner, Jonathan H. (2002). Face to Face: Toward a Sociological Theory of Interpersonal Behavior. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Wireman, Billy O. (1998). Characteristics of Change Agents. Vital Speeches of the Day 65, 152-155.
I want to thank people for taking the time to engage with our paper and raise some interesting questions about teacher change and professional education. I am responding to some of the issues raised by each author. One of the issues that led us to write this paper was a response to a schema or norm, pervasive in professional education, for which new and varied resources are believed to be all that is necessary for teachers to change their classroom practices. Our experience with teachers in this two-and-a-half-year long discipline-based professional education program indicated that without attention to schemas more resources are unlikely to encourage teachers to change their practices
Can schemas be social?
Our interpretation of schema and schemas comes from cognitive anthropology and the writing of researchers and theorists such as Rumelhart (1980) and D’Andrade (1995). Schemas range from individual to cultural, from idiosyncratic to shared. D’Andrade argues that we become aware of the power of schemas when we interpret stories or other forms of social action. Analysis of such actions demonstrates that understanding requires more than knowledge of grammar and the meanings of words. I want to use the interaction between Cath and Hugh presented at the beginning of our paper to illustrate my claim.
Hugh: I have electricity, but that’s about it. I could do more [lab] than I do but having three different preps. I’m not used to that. But it is wrong that I don’t have lab. (Hugh is stirring the mixture in the beaker on top of the hotplate)
Cath: I find that amazing that somehow if you are not considered the cream of the crop [making reference to the way students are identified in Hugh’s school].
Hugh: Right! They take away, [pause] the things that would interest kids.
Even though Cath and Hugh do not share all of the same schemas about teaching: by their comments we interpret one of Cath’s schema about learning chemistry is that “laboratory activities are central to such learning”, and we interpret one of Hugh’s schema as “laboratory activities improve student engagement”. For Hugh and Cath to engage in a conversation about school laboratories suggests that Hugh and Cath also share some sub-schemas about the structure and purpose of laboratories and also sub-schemas about chemistry students. D’Andrade (1995) argues that some schemas also have a motivating force for some individuals. This suggests that some of the schemas in the MSCE program, such as the triadic structure of levels of representation in chemistry, motivated Beth to action as she recognized the connection of this schema with schemas associated with teaching students who previously had not been well served by the educational environment they had experienced.
Although we recognize the primacy given to mental schemas in cognitive psychology the schemas that frame people’s actions are only available to us through their social actions such as conversations. I would like to quote Garro (2005) who I think captures how we think of schemas:
Schemas, as content bearing processes are constituted through our relational experiences and transactions with the world. We seek patterning (structure) in the world and our schemas enter into and are modified by this effort after meaning. While some knowledge is explicit (declarative) and accessible to conscious awareness, much implicit (tacit) knowledge is gained through our embodied participation. p. 68
We find it very useful to examine how such schemas along with available resources frame the classroom actions of teachers such as Hugh. It is quite clear to me that these schemas and others that are associated with the structures that are enacted are historically and culturally located and emerge from our experiences.
About Transformation
I do not think of Hugh as being unsuccessful and Beth as being successful. Instead I think of Beth as having greater awareness of the relationship between schemas and resources for developing classroom structures and an ability to enact her agency in a context that supported such actions. I do not want to sound causal here but I do think that in any social situation there exists a complex interplay between schemas, resources and structures.
Are Teaching and Learning Interactions Transactions?
In a professional education setting perhaps the level of shared cultural schemas provides evidence of whether teaching and learning interactions are transactional as Turner (2002) describes transactions. We hope that as social beings teachers and students are working on common activities. I think this is more clearly the case with other social groups such as research groups (which I have written about) that have more clearly articulated commonly shared goals. As we argue in the paper although Hugh knew and understood the goals of the program, he did not share all the goals as framed by specific schemas. This has implications for what Turner (2002) calls facticity and we call intersubjectivity: the feeling and expectation that we share a common world that is real and constant, at least for the period of our transactions. Transactions are interactions with motivation, thereby associating transactions with emotion in social but purposeful contexts. Within transactions each participant is involved in identification of self while concurrently supporting intersubjectivity and collective effervescence associated with focus on group goals. I think you might agree that there is some debate about whether Hugh was engaged in transactions with the course instructors in all settings. If we consider Hugh’s identity, perhaps using inquiry-based instruction was not as central to his sense of self as it was to Beth. Therefore he was less invested in these aspects and less likely to be concerned about whether other members of the class saw him as a teacher of inquiry-based instruction. However, for Beth being seen by her teacher peers as an innovative and caring teacher in a challenging school was more central to her sense of self. This encouraged her to provide evidence such as the photographs of her students completing laboratory activities she had also completed in one of the courses in order to support her claim.
In the final wash up I appreciate how you have attempted to understand our position while concurrently communicating your stand on aspects of the paper. For me, the most important idea is that within education contexts certain schemas are valued and are associated with resources that professional education makes available to students. It is important for educators of these professional education programs to be aware of these schemas and make the schemas as explicit to the students as are the resources.
I quoted the following authors:
D’Andrade, R. (1995). The development of cognitive anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Garro, L. C. (2005). “Effort after meaning” in everyday life. In C. Casey and R. B. Edgerton (Eds.), A companion to psychological anthropology: modernity and psychocultural change (pp. 48-71). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Rumelhart, D. E. (1980). Schemata: The building blocks of cognition. In R. J. Spiro, B. C. Bruce, and W. F. Brewer (Eds.) Theoretical issues in reading comprehension: Perspectives from cognitive psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and education (pp. 33-58). Hillsdale, NJ