KNOWLEDGE-BASED MODEL

Knowledge-based Model

Knowledge-based Model

Introduction

Mental models about teaching and learning

Cognitive schema theory (Anderson, 2005) proposes that people draw from their prior experiences to develop mental models that provide the frameworks for understanding events. Mental models are representations of situations, both real and imaginary (Johnson-Laird, 1999; Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 2003). It is not difficult to conceive that prospective teachers' experiences during their own schooling years would contribute to the formulation of substantial mental models about the nature of teaching and learning. For example, Feiman-Nemser (2001) told how pre-service teachers come to teacher education with a wealth of knowledge, good and bad, about teaching and learning gained through years of first-hand experience with schooling. Work by Entwistle, Skinner, Entwistle and Orr (2000), Northfield and Gunstone (1997), and Whitebeck (2000) suggests that pre-service teachers hold emotionally charged beliefs, consciously constructed conceptions and innate self-ability attributions about teaching that are drawn from their relevant life experiences (including teaching practicum, but also their own experiences as pupils, experiences with their own children and representations in the media). However, ideas about good teaching and learning practices change from generation to generation. For example, current prescriptions for scaffolded guided discovery, social-constructivist class discussions, collaborative group work, peer feedback, reciprocal teaching, communities of learners, self-regulated learning, and reflective practice (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000) were in theoretical development, and not explicitly transferred to classroom practice, when many current pre-service teachers were at school. This is particularly salient for a large number (in Australia) of mature-age students enrolling in teacher education courses.

Thus current pre-service teachers' mental models about teaching and learning in school are likely to be substantially informed by practices such as the teacher as 'fount of all knowledge', chalk and talk, worksheets, seat-work, between-student competition and IRE questioning (initiate, respond, evaluate) (Bruning, Schraw, Norby, & Ronning, 2004). For example, Klein (1996) investigated pre-service teachers' epistemologies and conceptions of learning and proposed a range of factors that represented 'the many controversies that characterise educational thought' (p. 368). Of interest is Klein's finding that traditional transmissionist views and contemporary constructivist views could be held simultaneously by participants. At worst, these divergent beliefs could be interpreted to imply that participants held a non-coherent body of knowledge. At best, both beliefs could be held, and selectively applied according to specific teaching contexts.

Translating mental models about teaching and learning into teaching actions

A major premise underlying our research is that students need to develop good quality mental models about teaching and learning, because those mental models will inform their plans and actions in their prospective classrooms. This point was argued by Kerr (1981), who proposed that good quality teaching actions are informed by good quality intentions and plans, which are in turn informed by good quality knowledge about teaching and learning. An example of the profound influence of teachers' mental models of teaching and learning is provided by Stigler and Hiebert's (1999) analysis of their collected videotapes and questionnaire responses from teachers in Year 8 mathematics lessons across the ...