Expertise Question Prompt-Novice and Expert Teachers

Expertise Question Prompt-Novice and Expert Teachers

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

Read and respond to the questions provided below under “Specific Question Prompt Instructions”. Your response must include references to the lecture, powerpoint, and/or text to ensure you have studied the material before you begin applying the material. See the rubric for guidelines regarding the exact manner in which you should reference the material. Your response must be ONE page in length and must be written in essay style consisting of paragraphs. There is no need to refer to the question numbers in your response. See the rubric for guidelines on how you will be graded with regard to length. Find ONE article to support your answer to the questions, and refer to it ANYWHERE in your response and upload the article with your Word document. If you include a quotation, you must explain what your quotation means and why it is relevant. Refer to the rubric to see how you will be graded in reference to incorporating the article within the text of your response. Include a reference page in APA style for each submission. The articles must be 7 to 20 pages long, published within the last 10 years, and peer reviewed. See the rubric for specifics on how you will be graded.

Deliverables:

  1. Submit a Word document via Canvas with your written response. You can keep the original DOC file. No other formats will be accepted.
    NOTE. Be sure to save your file as: EXP9-(LastName).(file extension) (e.g., EXP9-yourlastname.doc)
  2. One article in pdf format. No other format will be accepted. If your file cannot be read, you will not receive points. Links to the .pdf will not be accepted. You must download the article from the website in .pdf format and upload it to the link provided as only .pdf. The written portion of the assignment will be only accepted in .doc, or .docx formats.

SPECIFIC QUESTION PROMPT INSTRUCTIONS

1. Comparing Novice vs. Expert Teachers

Novice and Expert teachers were given the following scenario and their responses were compared (Angell, & Ryder, & Scott, 2019).

BALL IN THE AIR PROBLEM

You are teaching mechanics to a Year 10 class. One of the pupils, John, argues that the forces acting on a ball, when it is thrown up in the air, are as follows (the diagram shows the ball after it has been thrown).

Gravity.png

John says:

‘When you throw the ball up, it sets off with a BIG upward force but this gradually runs out and gets less, so that at the top the upward force is balanced by gravity and the ball stops going up. The ball then falls because of the pull of gravity’.

a. Do you think that John is correct in what he says?

b. What would you (the teacher) say in reply to John?

The results of the first question are shown below. Many of both the experts and the novices referred not surprisingly to gravity as the only force acting and that an upwards force was only acting when the ball was in contact with the thrower’s hand. The subject knowledge seemed to be very good within both groups, and few respondents exposed the misconception of a force in the direction of motion when the ball is moving upwards. The expert teachers were also more likely to refer to acceleration and change in velocity. Very few respondents referred to momentum, energy or for example the effect of air resistance.

Results1-1.png

The results of the second question are shown below. The result of the second question: The expert teachers were significantly more likely to reply with a question and to challenge students’ conceptions

Results2-1.png

A quotation from a novice teacher who gave an excellent response focusing on the content knowledge.

Beginning teacher:

“You apply a big upward force when you let go. Once you let go there is only one force acting downwards on the ball and that is gravity. The initial throw gives the ball upward movement. Gravity is opposing the movement, so it slows down, stop, then speed up as it falls back to earth.”

 

An expert teacher explicitly challenged the pupil’s view and the quotation is a good example of how an expert uses his or her pedagogical experience along with the content knowledge and provides some logical sequencing.

Expert teacher:

“I would tell him he was partly correct – and that his explanation of why the ball fell was right. I would ask him what applies the upward force after the ball leaves the thrower’s hand? – Mechanical forces need contact to apply them. Hopefully he would realise that there could not be an upward force. I would then use his own explanation of why the ball fell (i.e. gravity) in conjunction with Newton’s 1st law to explain why the ball slowed down AND why it left the thrower’s hand with an upwards velocity.”

In order to provide an overall image of the responses from the expert teachers and the trainees the researchers have computed the total sums of content and pedagogy for 8 total scenario. Indeed, what primarily characterizes an expert teacher compared to the novices is that the expert uses pedagogical arguments more extensively in his or her responses. On average each expert gave 7.7 pedagogical arguments in total compared to 2.5 for each trainee. The same pattern emerges when we look at the answers to all the eight questions in the questionnaire. On average each expert teacher gave 16.3 pedagogical arguments whereas each trainee gave 7.4. Thus, the biggest differences between the novices and the teachers were related to pedagogic knowledge rather than conceptual reasoning (see below).

Results3.png

The following list is a summary of the ways in which expert teachers exhibited pedagogic reasoning in their responses (result from all the 8 questions)

  • listing questions they would ask in the classroom;
  • explicitly challenging a pupil’s view;
  • addressing pupils’ everyday thinking;
  • referring to pupils’ prior learning experiences;
  • suggesting possible class activities and/or discussions;
  • suggesting teaching analogies that would help to explain the concept;
  • providing a logical pedagogical sequence in their responses;

 

 

Reference

Angell, C., Ryder, J. & Scott, P. (2019). Becoming an expert teacher: Novice physics teachers’ development of conceptual and pedagogical knowledge. Manuscript in preparation. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241757089 (Links to an external site.)

Please see attached manuscript: Angell, Ryder, & Scott 2019.pdfPreview the document

Questions:

  1. Summarize the main differences between novice and experts found by the study.
  2. Think back to your favorite teacher. How did your teacher exhibit expertise?
  3. Many first-time teachers quit teaching before their fifth year as a teacher. Using your knowledge of how long it takes to become an expert and the results the study above, what “pep talk” would you make to novice teachers?

Answer preview:

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