PROMOTING EFFECTIVE SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION AND SCIENCE TEACHING: A FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHER DECISION-MAKING

MICHAEL P. CLOUGH, CRAIG A. BERG and JOANNE K. OLSON

PROMOTING EFFECTIVE SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION ANDSCIENCE TEACHING: A FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHER

DECISION-MAKING

Received: 11 February 2008; Accepted: 30 September 2008

ABSTRACT. Learning and effective teaching are both complicated acts. However,many administrators, teachers, parents, and policymakers appear not to recognize thosecomplexities and their significance for practice. Fueling this perception, recommenda-tions from isolated research findings often neglect the complexities in learning andteaching, and when implemented in classrooms often fall well short of the advertisedeffect. Consequently, education research is generally ignored, and the resultingresearch-practice gap raises concerns regarding the utility of university-based teachereducation, and education research more generally. However, the strength of educationresearch resides in the synergy resulting from its integration into a unifying system thatguides, but does not determine, decision-making. Dewey (1929) argued for teacherdecision-making guided by education research, but recently several writers have justlycriticized education researchers for not providing comprehensible assistance toeducators and policymakers (Good, 2007; Shymansky, 2006; Windschitl, 2005). Thispaper proposes a decision-making framework for teaching to help beginning andexperienced teachers make sense of education research, come to understand crucialteacher decisions, and how those decisions interact to affect student learning. Theproposed decision-making framework for teaching has significant utility in the design ofscience methods courses, science teacher education programs, effective student teachersupervision experiences, and professional development workshops.

KEY WORDS: decision-making framework, research synthesis, teacher decision-making,teacher development, teacher education

INTRODUCTION

Learning and effective teaching are both highly complex acts. Leinhardt &Greeno (1986, p. 75) write that, “the task of teaching occurs in a relativelyill-structured, dynamic environment.” Classroom conditions change inunpredictable ways, and information arises during the act of teaching thatby necessity must inform performance as it occurs. Reflecting thesecomplexities, classroom teachers make hundreds of non-trivial decisionseach day working with children (Good & Brophy, 1994; Jackson, 1990;MacKay & Marland, 1978). However, the general public, policymakers,and even many teachers appear not to recognize these complexities. This is

International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education (2009) 7: 821Y847# National Science Council, Taiwan 2008

evident in widely held beliefs such as: (1) command of subject matter issufficient for effective teaching; (2) effective pedagogical practices developnaturally through teaching experience; (3) teaching is simply a matter ofpersonal style; and (4) teaching is essentially the passing of informationfrom teacher to students. These beliefs manifest themselves in shallowtraditional and alternative teacher licensure programs, back-to-basics fads,high-stakes testing that reflects trivial knowledge, and simplistic business-model approaches to education.

Apparently teacher educators and teachers have poorly communicatedthe intricacies of effective teaching to key stakeholders. Fullan (1996)argued that one of the main reasons that teachers seem to be constantlydefending themselves from external critics is that they cannot explainthemselves adequately. He writes that:

Critics are increasingly using clear language and specific examples in their charges, whileeducators are responding with philosophical rationales (e.g., we are engaged in activelearning). Abstract responses to specific complaints are not credible. …What does it meanto say that educators cannot explain themselves adequately? Perhaps teachers do not fullyunderstand what they are doing, or perhaps they are simply unable to articulate it. (p. 423)

The capacious and enduring research-practice gap in teaching reflectscomplex tensions and dilemmas (Anderson, 2002; Windschitl, 2002)within and between conceptual, pedagogical, cultural and political realms.However, this alone is an insufficient explanation as tensions anddilemmas exist in many fields where the disparity between research andpractice is less pronounced. To make matters worse, oftentimes, the mostvocal critics of education research are teachers themselves! That largenumbers of teachers don’t see the value of education research raisesquestions regarding what goes on in teacher education programs. Perhapsas Berliner (1985) suggests, because teacher educators come from theranks of teaching they:

. . . see themselves as practical people, hired from or strongly identified with the world ofpractice. They believe in experience and apprenticeship as the major ways of learning toteach. This commitment has resulted in timidity about reading, critiquing, or using thescientific literature about teaching. (p. 130)

THE NEED FOR SYNTHESIS OF EDUCATION RESEARCH

Clough (2003a) argues that the utility of education research is eithermuted or insignificant for understanding learning and teaching, unless it is

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collected into a coherent whole—into a research-based framework (RBF)for teaching science. He writes:

The research-practice gap exists to a large extent because, beginning in their teacherpreparation programs, teachers quickly find that recommendations from isolated researchfindings have little or no effect in their classrooms. The linear thinking of elementary andsecondary preservice science teacher education students is illustrated in their believingthat the value of multiple behaviors and strategies is that if one doesn’t work, then theyhave others to try (Clough & Olson, 2003; Olson, 2007). (p. 16)

The concerns raised by Clough (2003a) echo those of Dewey (1929) whocautioned educators to resist the urge to apply solitary strategies derivedfrom scientific research (For Dewey, reference to “science” meantsystematic study) to solve education issues:

“The human desire to prove that the scientific mode of attack is really of value bringspressure to convert scientific conclusions into rules and standards of schoolroom practice”(p. 18). However, “No conclusion of scientific research can be converted into animmediate rule of educational art. For there is no educational practice whatever which isnot highly complex; that is to say, which does not contain many other conditions andfactors than are included in the scientific finding” (p. 19). “The significance of one factorfor educational practice can be determined only as it is balanced with many other factors”(p. 19, italics added).

The caution voiced by Dewey is, unfortunately, often used bypractitioners to dismiss education research. Such rejections are typicallyaccompanied by statements such as, “That won’t work in my classroombecause that research was done with (urban children, a different sciencetopic, older students, etc.).” Dewey, anticipating such concerns, wrote,“Nevertheless, scientific findings are of practical utility, and the situationis wrongly interpreted when it is used to disparage the value of science inthe art of education. What it militates against is the transformation ofscientific findings into rules of action” (p. 19). Eighty years ago, Deweywrestled with the relatively new field of educational research and its rolein practice. Even then, he recognized that isolated research findingsconverted to practical classroom strategies could result in practices thatcontradict other research implications, are ill-suited for particularstudents, or are simply ineffective. His desire for a research base foreducational practice was premised upon the need for research to bebrought together into a systematic whole. In addition, that whole was notto become a list of prescriptions for practice, but a mindset through whicha practitioner could better observe, interpret, and judge unfoldingclassroom events.

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Each investigation and conclusion is special, but the tendency of an increasing numberand variety of specialized results is to create new points of view and a wider field ofobservation. Various special findings have a cumulative effect; they reinforce and extendone another, and in time lead to the detection of principles that bind together a number offacts that are diverse and even isolated in their prima facie occurrence…. Facts which areso interrelated form a system, a science. The practitioner who knows the system and itslaws is evidently in possession of a powerful instrument for observing and interpretingwhat goes on before him. This intellectual tool affects his attitudes and modes of responsein what he does. Because the range of understanding is deepened and widened, he cantake into account remote consequences which were originally hidden from view and hencewere ignored in his actions. Greater continuity is introduced; he does not isolate situationsand deal with them in separation as he was compelled to do when ignorant of connectingprinciples. At the same time, his practical dealings become more flexible. Seeing morerelations, he sees more possibilities, more opportunities. He is emancipated from the needof following precedents. His ability to judge being enriched, he has a wider range ofalternatives to select from in dealing with individual situations. (pp. 20–21)

PREVIOUS EFFORTS TO SUMMARIZE AND APPLY EDUCATION RESEARCH

Efforts to summarize and apply education research have included lists ofinstructional strategies linked to student learning (e.g., Marzano, Gaddy &Dean, 2000), literature reviews targeting a particular area of research(e.g., Balzer, Evans & Blosser, 1973), and collections of literature reviewsappearing as chapters in large handbooks devoted to particular fields ineducation (e.g., Abell & Lederman, 2007; Gabel, 1994; Richardson,2001; Sikula, 1996; Springer, 2008). The topical summaries appearing inliterature reviews and handbooks, while important to researchers, do littleto bring coherence to the field of education or provide a framework thatmight help teachers, administrators, parents, and policymakers understandthe complex interplay between research findings. Perhaps that is not theintent of these mammoth undertakings, but the omission reflects andexacerbates the research-practice gap.

A more serious threat to understanding the complexity of learning andteaching, and considering the many synergistic variables excluded inresearch findings, is the prescription of isolated research-based instruc-tional strategies. For instance, in What Works in Classroom Instruction(Marzano et al., 2000), the authors, using results from meta-analysis,provide a list of “nine instructional strategies that have the highestprobability of enhancing student achievement for all students in allsubject areas at all grade levels” (p. 4). This reflects the once popular, buthighly criticized, approach to education advocated by Madeline Huntertwo decades ago (Berg & Clough, 1991a, b), and perpetuates the isolated

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prescriptive strategy approach to education practice that Dewey criticizedalmost 80 years ago.

A notable attempt to summarize research and create a framework forimplementing practices consistent with that research is found in HowPeople Learn (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 2000). The authorsacknowledge that “there is no universal best teaching practice” (p. 22)and that research findings do not tell us what to do in all situations, butinstead “become a rich set of opportunities from which a teacherconstructs an instructional program rather than a chaos of competingalternatives” (p. 23). Their framework clearly describes principles andcongruent strategies, but falls short of being a powerful decision-makingmodel readily useable by practitioners and researchers. The centralproblem is that the crucial role of the teacher is missing, and how to usethe advocated principles as a lens to make decisions is not clear. Theydepict a Venn diagram consisting of three intersecting circles—“Learner-centered environments”, “Knowledge-centered environments”, and “As-sessment-centered environments”—all existing in a larger circle of“Community-centered environments.” The focus on four distinct, yetslightly overlapping “environments” pushes the focus toward theappearance of the classroom rather than the teacher decision-makingprocess that is necessary to make those environments a reality. Thequestion remains, what decisions must be considered to create theseenvironments? A framework useful to practitioners should clearlyarticulate factors that teachers must consider and explicitly relate thosefactors to desired ends and how students learn.

HELPING TEACHERS SYNTHESIZE AND USE RESEARCH TO INFORM PRACTICE

Teacher education is often criticized for being too theoretical andseparated from practice (Kagan, 1992). Preservice and inservice teachereducation is the very place where the research-practice gap is supposed tobe bridged. Ideally, in these settings, teacher educators work withprospective and experienced teachers to help them understand how theresearch base can be used to inform practice. These efforts should bedevoted to developing and supporting habits of planning, classroomobservation, analysis, decision-making, and reflection informed byrelevant research. Helping teachers make sense of the education researchbase and bring some rationality to decision-making is essential fordiminishing the research-practice gap.


Recent efforts that place primacy on “randomized control groupexperiments [as] the only form of viable evidence from which decisionscan be made” (Windschitl, 2005, p. 531), or simplistic lists of what“works” in classroom practice have done little more than create aconfusing array of prescriptive strategies and recommendations that arenot linked to one another in a meaningful fashion. Such efforts ignoreDewey’s warning almost one century ago, and eschew the complexities oflearning, teaching, and rational decision-making in favor of magic bulletsto cure our education ills.

Rather than prescriptive strategies, a framework that makes teacherdecision-making a central feature, while explicitly addressing thosedecisions and how they interact would do much to help educatorsunderstand synergistic relationships and aid in making sense of thedizzying array of research findings. It would make clear that teachers aredecision-makers in complex dynamic environments, and would valueeducation research as a coherent whole. Such a framework wouldarticulate factors of classroom life that must be considered simultaneouslywhen making informed decisions.

TEACHER DECISIONS AND THEIR INTERACTIONS

What are some of the non-trivial decisions that teachers need tounderstand; how do these decisions interact with one another; and howcan teachers be helped to understand these decisions and theircomplexities? Understandably, foremost in teachers’ minds is havingsomething for students to do, preferably a task that students findinteresting and will complete with little resistance (Appleton, 2006).The very real need to have something for students to do often interfereswith teachers’ thinking about the goals they have for students and howpeople learn. Duschl & Gitomer (1997, p. 65) noted that teachers seeteaching as “dominated by tasks and activities rather than conceptualstructures and scientific reasoning.” However, while teachers may focuson tasks and activities, in making those decisions they have also tacitly,and often unknowingly, made decisions regarding the developmentalappropriateness of content (Bransford et al., 2000) and materials (Olson &Clough, 2001). Decisions regarding what science content to teach andtasks and materials that will help students make desired meaning areinterrelated and should be thoughtfully made in light of desired goals forstudents and how people learn.

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Ensuring that students’ classroom experiences are aligned with howpeople learn and desired goals also demands that teachers explicitlyconsider decisions regarding teaching models and strategies. Teachingmodels that reflect how students learn and promote desired goals include,but are not limited to, the learning cycle (Karplus, 1977; Schneider &Renner, 1980), the generative learning model (Osborne & Freyberg,1985), the 5-E model (Bybee, 1997), search, solve, create, and share(Pizzini, Shepardson, Abell, 1989), and the science writing heuristic(Keys, Hand, Prain & Sellers, 1999). Teaching strategies like Predict-observe-explain (POE), think-pair-share (TPS), and the HRASE ques-tioning strategy (Penick, Crow & Bonnstetter, 1996) should be chosen inconcert with other teacher decisions for optimal impact on studentlearning. However, even if content, tasks, materials, teaching models andstrategies are wisely chosen, desired ends are severely curtailed orthwarted without appropriate teacher interaction with students.

While interesting and developmentally appropriate content, tasks, andmaterials spark students’ curiosity and set a stage for learning, whatteachers do during those tasks is crucial. Effective teaching is a highlyinteractive activity, but too often teachers have only vague ideas abouthow to create and maintain that kind of environment (Gallimore & Tharp,1990). Several research-based teacher behaviors implemented in concertare needed to establish meaningful interactive environments to helpstudents make desired connections. The questions teachers ask, the wait-time I & II they provide, the non-verbal behaviors they exhibit, and howthey respond to students’ ideas together have an enormous impact on theclassroom environment, determining what students think, and helpingstudents make desired connections (Clough, 2002, 2003a; Southerland,Kittleson, Settlage & Lanier, 2005). Yet teachers are largely unaware oftheir personal behaviors while teaching and the impact they have onstudents. For instance, teachers can, and often unknowingly do, conveythe message that they do not value students’ ideas in a number of ways—by the kinds of questions they ask, the little time they provide students tothink and formulate answers, their unintentional negative body language,ignoring unwanted student responses, and only acknowledging or usingdesired answers.

All the above teacher decisions interact with one another to create thelearning environment. Moreover, teacher decision-making should reflectan incessant feedback loop—that is, content, tasks, materials, models andstrategies, along with critical teacher behaviors and interaction patters areselected to move students forward while also assessing their thinking sothat more-informed decisions may be made. However, Duschl & Gitomer


(1997, p. 65) noted that “teachers are not used to using studentinformation to guide and revise instructional decision-making.”

DECISION-MAKING FRAMEWORK AND ITS UTILITY

Figure 1 provides an overarching visual representation to help preserviceand inservice science teachers conceptualize these many teacher deci-sions, and understand their importance and interactions. First generatedby Clough & Berg in 1988, the Decision-Making Framework has sinceundergone several iterations (Berg & Clough, 1991b; Clough, 1992;

Student Goals

consistent with

Student Actions

selected to promote informs decisions regarding

selected to understand informs decisions regarding

Selection of teacher

behaviors &

interaction patterns

Selection of teaching

strategies & teaching

models

Selection of content,

tasks, activities &

materials

The Learner Student’s Thinking

Student’s Self-efficacy

Student’s Prior Knowledge

Student’s Developmental Differences

Student’s Zone of Proximal Development

Key Synergetic Teacher Decisions

Figure 1. Framework illustrating teacher decisions and their interactions

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Clough & Berg, 1995; Clough & Kauffman, 1999; Clough, 2003a;Clough & Berg, 2006) leading to what is presented here. The Decision-Making Framework makes explicit the crucial and incessant role ofassessment in teacher decision-making. While the Decision-MakingFramework certainly does not capture all that goes into learning andteaching, it must be seen in its purpose of assisting novice andexperienced teachers to make sense of the complex decisions they oftenunknowingly make moment to moment in the classroom.

Understandably, attention immediately is drawn to the broad catego-ries. However, of greater importance are the arrows conveying theimportance of teacher decisions and their interactions. The overarchingintent of the Decision-Making Framework is to illustrate that all teacherdecisions regarding science content, tasks, activities, materials, models,strategies, and teacher behaviors should be made in light of desired goalsfor students and how students learn. In making explicit key teacherdecisions and their interactions, the framework has many uses.

Illustrating How Pedagogical Research Best Informs Practice Whenit Comes as a Coherent Package

All beginning teachers and many experienced teachers struggle tounderstand how all the decisions displayed in the Framework coalesceto define the educational process. Attention is easily drawn to the morediscernible polar extremes of more obvious decisions, rather than tosubtlety, interaction, and complexity. The problem is magnified withnovices who, lacking automated routines for many teaching tasks, quicklyfind their working memory overwhelmed. In wrestling with thecomplexities of learning and teaching and the cognitive overload thatoften results, teachers’ thinking becomes piecemeal and black-or-white innature. Teachers tend to view suggested ideas as either “working” or “notworking,” and often fail to see how the success of a changed practicedepends upon the simultaneous effective use of myriad other practices.Many experienced teachers face the same problem but for differentreasons.

The following example illustrates the complex and subtle interplay ofdecisions and teaching practices. Beginning and experienced teachersoften complain that students rarely become engaged in discussions.Several research-based teacher behaviors implemented in concert areneeded to establish meaningful interactive environments. Teachers whoimprove their questioning are often frustrated when student interactiondoes not immediately increase. While questions set an academic mood,


they alone do not encourage students to ponder and respond. Eveneffective questioning and appropriate wait-time are often insufficient forenticing many students to “risk” responding.

Answering a teacher’s questions, particularly in front of peers, can be aterribly intimidating experience for many students. An intellectually safeenvironment must be promoted, in part by exhibiting a number ofencouraging non-verbal behaviors alongside appropriate questions andwait-time. Body language and how long a teacher waits for an answercommunicate how open a teacher is to student responses. Teachers whogenuinely want student interaction will appropriately incorporate encour-aging and expectant non-verbal behaviors such as smiling, proper eye-contact with students all around the classroom, movement around the roomand among students, leaning forward when students are speaking, raisingeyebrows to show interest, inviting hand-gestures (Bavelas, Chovil, Coates& Roe, 1995; Roth, 2001), positioning themselves to be at similar physicallevels as students, and wait-time I and II (Rowe, 1974a, b).

However, even more is required for promoting and maintaining studentinteraction. Carefully listening to students and sensitively responding towhat they say is imperative for creating an intellectually safe environmentthat encourages students to bare their thinking. Rather than immediatelyevaluating student responses, teachers should encourage interaction byacknowledging student ideas, writing students’ ideas on the board, usingstudent ideas as a focus for further instruction, asking students to elaborate,and asking for the implications of proposed ideas. This does not mean thatall student answers are accepted as correct. Instead, by using student ideasfor further thinking and discussion, the focus of the discussion moves froma sole concern for right answers to reasoning and justification for ideas(correct or incorrect), and in the process, students often find errors insubstance and logic that lead them to revise their own thinking.

Clough (2003a) refers to the synergy that results from effectivequestioning, positive non-verbals, listening, wait-time, and respondingthat further engages students as the central core of effective teachingpractices. The importance of these behaviors is that they are the essential“tools” teachers always have at that their disposal for understandingstudents’ thinking, promoting student understanding of content, andadvancing student learning. Moreover, it emphasizes that teaching is,above all else, an activity centered on human interaction that requiressimultaneous attention to several crucial teacher behaviors.

But even if a teacher’s interaction pattern reflects all the above, studentdiscussion may be muted if the science content chosen is notdevelopmentally appropriate, if the task is not somewhat meaningful, if

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needed experiences were not previously available for students to drawfrom, if helpful concrete materials are not available during the discussion,and/or if materials are developmentally inappropriate.

The crux of the matter is that “practical suggestions from research,when implemented in isolation, often result in effects that are eithermuted or non-existent” (Clough & Kauffman, 1999, p. 532). The powerof what we know about teaching and learning is in the synergy that resultswhen research findings are collected into a coherent whole. The Decision-Making Framework in Fig. 1 illustrates how many decisions must bemade in concert to achieve desired ends, and that particular pedagogicalresearch findings must be integrated and judged alongside otherpedagogical decisions.

Illustrating How Perceived Contradictions and Dilemmas in EducationResearch may be Resolved

Teachers often complain that disparate education research findings appearto provide an array of seemingly conflicting implications for practice.This is nicely illustrated in a conversation that Bruce Joyce recountshaving with Herbert Thelan regarding discomfort and learning. He writes:

At the University of Chicago, 30 years ago, I ended a conversation with Herbert Thelen byborrowing a copy of his Education and the Human Quest (1960); I spent much of the nightreading the book. The next day we had a chance to talk again. Among the powerful ideasThelen had generated, one left me most stimulated and uncomfortable—significant learningis frequently accompanied or impelled by discomfort. Sometimes he put it pungently: “Thelearner does not learn unless he does not know how to respond” (Thelen, 1960, p. 61). . . .Thelen challenges the effects of the “norms of comfort and accommodation” (p. 80) thatexist in so many classrooms and that mitigate against the argumentation and difficult,uncomfortable tasks that characterize effective instruction as he sees it. . . . My first reactionwas confusion. Thelen’s ideas appeared to conflict with what I had been taught regardinglearners as fragile egos that had to be protected by a supportive environment, so that theywould in fact feel comfortable enough to stretch out into the world. How can the learner bemade comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time? I asked Thelen that question, and heonly smiled and replied, “That is a puzzling situation you will have to think about.” (Joyce& Weil, 1996, pp. 386–387)

This is indeed a puzzling situation, but one that illustrates well thecomplexities in teaching, the inadequacies of education research whenconsidered separately, and the power of it when brought together into acoherent whole. A solution to this apparent contradiction is reflected inSanford’s (1987) noting that exemplary teachers employ elaborateinstructional devices, something she refers to as “safety nets” to


encourage and support students through their discomfort associated withhigher-level thinking tasks. Hence, an understanding of researchassociated with comfort, discomfort, and learning calls for teachers tocreate a warm and supportive classroom atmosphere where students feelsafe in taking intellectual risks. At the same time, however, the academicexpectations should push students toward cognitive discomfort associatedwith being near their proximal level of development where a studentcannot alone comprehend an idea, but with appropriate assistance from ateacher or peer, the concept may be understood (Vygotsky, 1978, 1986).Jones, Rua & Carter (1998, p. 968) write that “These more capable peersassist development in the zone by prompting, modeling, explaining,asking leading questions, discussing ideas, providing encouragement, andkeeping the attention centered on the learning context.”

Contradictions and dilemmas are part of any complex activity such asteaching. The proposed framework illustrates that effective teacherdecision-making must weigh many factors including desired studentgoals, how people learn, and the interaction among pedagogical practices.In doing so, perceived inconsistencies in education research findings canoften be resolved.

Planning Lessons

Teachers’ lesson planning decisions are made sometimes with deliberatethought and sometimes haphazardly. Personal beliefs, the adoptedtextbook, colleagues and the institutional setting are major factors inplanning and carrying out lessons. The consistent findings from studies ofscience teaching practices reveal a generally inadequate consideration ofhow people learn (Bransford et al., 2000) and classroom practices that failto engage children in meaningful learning (Weiss, Pasley, Smith,Banilower & Heck, 2003). Sadly, what Goodlad (1983) wrote over 20years ago would fit verbatim in any contemporary science educationreform document:

One would expect the teaching of social studies and science in schools to provide ampleopportunities for the development of reasoning: deriving concepts from related events,testing in a new situation hypotheses derived from examining other circumstances,drawing conclusions from an array of data, and so on. Teachers listed those skills andmore as intended learnings. We observed little of the activities that their lists implied, andteachers’ tests reflected quite different priorities—mainly the recall of information. Thetopics that come to mind as representing the natural and social sciences appear to be ofgreat human interest. But on the way to the classroom they are apparently transformed andhomogenized into something of limited appeal (Alfred North Whitehead’s words on theuselessness of inert knowledge come to mind) (p. 468).

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When planning lessons, teachers often struggle when asked to expresshow they decide what science content within a discipline is worthteaching. Rationales are post-hoc and rarely reflect deep thinking aboutthe structure of the discipline, how students learn, and other importantfactors. Too often the selected textbook defines the course scope,sequence, and depth implying that a textbook’s inclusion of informa-tion, in part, legitimizes teaching that content (Weiss, 1993; Weisset al., 2003). Textbooks also exert a significant influence on how contentis taught—from the sequence of material to the manner in which it ispresented (Weiss et al., 2003).

The Decision-Making Framework reminds teachers that decidingwhat content to teach in a lesson, as well as decisions regardingtasks, activities and materials should reflect how people learn andpromote desired student goals. Using the Decision-Making Frame-work as an organizer for planning lessons emphasizes the need tocoordinate one’s thoughts and decisions through careful considerationof all parts of the framework, to use educational research as a filter,and to consider the synergistic and compounding relationshipsbetween parts of the framework. The Decision-Making Frameworkis helpful for keeping in mind key decisions in planning andpreparing to teach lessons and units, and that the crucial role of theteacher is foremost in that thinking.

Emphasizing the Crucial Role of the Teacher

Effective teaching promotes a highly interactive environment. Whileinteresting and developmentally appropriate content, tasks, activities, andmaterials spark students’ curiosity and set a stage for learning, whatteachers do during a lesson is crucial. For example, Southerland et al.(2005), in a study of a third-grade urban classroom, reported that:

…despite a school year of learning cycle-based lessons, conceptual discussions about thephysical phenomena the students were exploring occurred only in the presence of aninstructor probing them for explanations. …If the students were to make sense of thisactivity so that it bore a resemblance to a scientific understanding, then the teacher’smonitoring and shaping of ideas and observations became necessary. (pp. 1043–1044)

Teachers exert the greatest influence in the classroom through the waythey cognitively and emotionally engage students in a lesson.However, the overwhelming layered complexities of learning andteaching often cloud the value of important findings regarding theteacher’s role in creating powerful learning experiences for children.


Too often teachers ignore or downplay their own behaviors andinteraction patterns and how those significantly influence the educationexperience (Olson et al., 2004). Whether or not teachers are consciouslyaware of their classroom behavior, they develop quite consistentinteraction patterns that change surprisingly little from one classroomcontext to another. Understanding the learner and promoting desiredgoals depends a great deal on how teachers interact with students(Shymansky & Penick, 1981; Tobin & Garnett, 1988; Weiss et al.,2003). The Decision-Making Framework illustrates that a teacher’sbehaviors and the resulting interaction pattern will interact with otherdecisions and significantly influence the teaching and learning process.

Guiding Self-Reflection on and in Action

At any stage of a teacher’s professional development the Decision-Making Framework may also serve a useful role for assessing andimproving one’s practice. The Decision-Making Framework helps makeexplicit many important decisions teachers must consider in planning andconducting effective lessons. Making these decisions explicit is importantfor understanding why a lesson went well and providing a basis fortrouble-shooting when things don’t work (Schön, 1983, pp. 60–61).Working individually, with colleagues, or with a professional developer,the Decision-Making Framework is useful for targeting unexaminedroutines and making them explicit for more deliberate study. Greaterwork, concentration, and responsibility are demanded of teachers movingfrom common didactic practices to more interactive ones (Cohen, 1988),and the Decision-Making Framework helps teachers identify whatrequires more work, on what they must concentrate, and what preciselyare the larger pedagogical responsibilities demanded. In doing so, theDecision-Making Framework presents a mechanism for self-reflection—both on action and in action. Reflection on-action entails analyzingpractice after teaching a lesson. For instance, when reviewing audio andvideo recordings of practice, the Decision-Making Framework helpsteachers see events and complex interactions that would otherwise gounnoticed.

Reflection in-action, during the act of teaching, is extremely difficultbecause it requires teachers to quickly process both what they are doingand what students are doing and immediately use both to makepedagogical decisions. Schön (1983, p. 164) refers to a practitioner’sability to both shape a situation while taking in information that willinfluence further decision-making as ‘double vision’ and this depends on

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“certain relatively constant elements brought to a situation otherwise influx.” For instance, as noted earlier in this article, lack of studentparticipation in a class discussion may be due to a multitude of factorsthat include, but are not limited to, the following:

� Content that is beyond students’ developmental level� Lack of concrete materials or inappropriate materials that confuse

students� Poorly asked teacher questions� Inappropriate wait-time I and/or II� Passive or negative teacher non-verbal behaviors� Inappropriate teacher responses to previous student comments� Students needing more time to process information.

Keeping the Decision-Making Framework in mind during the act of teachingcan help teachers remember the multiple factors they should consider whenmaking pedagogical decisions in action. For instance, in the above exampleif a teacher has good reason to think students need more time to processinformation, then implementing a think-pair-share strategy might be theappropriate decision to make. Generating such options and deciding amongthem is facilitated by using the Decision-Making Framework.

Accurate and effective reflection in-action requires that teachersunderstand how multiple factors coalesce to define the education process.Inherent in this is an incessant feedback loop—activities, materials, andeven content, along with critical teacher behaviors and strategies areselected to move students forward while also assessing their thinking sothat more-informed decisions are made that repeat the cycle. TheDecision-Making Framework has utility in helping address a crucialproblem noted by Duschl & Gitomer (1997) that teachers struggle atusing student information to guide and revise instructional decisions.Learning how to reflect on-action and in-action requires making theimplicit beliefs explicit—a process of “developing a language for talkingand thinking about practice by questioning the sometimes contradictorybeliefs underlying their practice” (Uhlenbeck, Verloop & Beijaard, 2002,p. 249). This requires much effort, time, and experience, but from richreflection-on-action episodes come more meaningful and productiveaction plans for improvement that, in time, make for better reflection-in-action. The “small wins” (Weick, 1984; Rhatigan & Schuh, 2003) thatfollow can be placed within the overarching Decision-Making Frameworkand, over time, are more likely to accumulate in a way that makeseffective teaching a reality.


Helping Teachers Explain Themselves

Even the most well-educated and determined teachers will face a numberof institutional constraints during their teaching careers. These institu-tional constraints may simply be a lack of support for particular practices,but may entail formidable barriers or fierce attacks by certain stake-holders. Early in this article we quoted Fullan (1996) who argued thatteachers seem to be constantly defending themselves, in part, becausethey cannot explain themselves adequately. Echoing this same perspec-tive, Windschitl (2002), in addressing the political dilemmas teachers facein moving from didactic to highly interactive practices, writes, “Withoutconceptual grounding, reform-minded teachers can generate neithercoherent instructional strategies nor arguments to advance their aspira-tions past conservative gatekeepers in the school community” (p. 160).Some potential constraints that teachers face are:

� Colleagues and administrators who attempt to mold new teachersinto archaic practices.

� Students who see current views of learning/teaching as foreign andresist such practices.

� Parents who challenge a science teacher’s classroom practices.� Archaic curriculum.� Required assessment practices that reflect archaic curricula, and

views of learning.

Teachers cannot avoid the necessity of persuasively communicating thecomplexities of learning and teaching to others. Science teachers unableto articulate such a framework are open to many attacks for which theywill have no convincing defense. This increases the likelihood they willreturn to archaic practices. The Decision-Making Framework is useful inhelping teachers understand the complexities of learning and teaching andframe their responses to stakeholders who are questioning their practices.That so many prospective and experienced teachers can at best onlyvaguely communicate the complex nature of learning and teachingdegrades public confidence in schools, adds to the perception thatteaching is not quite a profession, calls into question the utility ofeducation research, and rightfully leads to a skeptical view toward teachereducation.

Structuring Science Methods Courses and Programs

The Decision-Making Framework plays a central role in our respectivesecondary science teacher education programs. Early in the program

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emphasis is primarily placed on understanding the persistent problems inscience education and understanding how people learn. This provides abasis for developing a list of goals for students that has much in commonwith those appearing in Table 1. The chasm existing between the desiredand actual state of science teaching exists for many reasons, but is due atleast in part to the abstract nature of many student goals listed in Table 1.In making sense of education research, planning lessons, and reflecting inand on-action, teachers must have more concrete descriptors of studentactivity in mind. The importance of this is illustrated in the difficultiesprospective and experienced science teachers often have when attemptingto articulate what students ought to be observed doing that would beconsistent with the goals advocated in Table 1.

At least two very important insights emerge from articulating studentactions consistent with each goal. First, student actions for various scienceeducation goals have much in common, making apparent the intercon-nectedness of student goals. This is critical to persuade teachers thatpromoting deep understanding of science content is linked to promotingother goals as well. That is, a deep understanding of fundamental scienceideas requires attention to other science education goals such as creativity,

TABLE 1

Common science education goals for students

Students will:

1. Demonstrate deep robust understanding of fundamental scienceconcepts rather than covering many insignificant/isolated facts

2. Use critical thinking skills3. Convey an accurate understanding of the nature(s) of science4. Identify and solve problems effectively5. Use communication and cooperative skills effectively6. Actively participate in working towards solutions to local, national,

and global problems7. Be creative and curious8. Set goals, make decisions, and self-evaluate9. Convey a positive attitude about science10. Access, retrieve, and use the existing body of scientific knowledge

in the process of investigating phenomena11. Convey self-confidence and a positive self-image12. Demonstrate an awareness of the importance of science in many careers


critical thinking, problem-solving, communication skills, the nature ofscience and others that are often slighted. The overlap in student actions isalso a blessing because promoting multiple goals does not requiredisparate pedagogical approaches.

Second, a clear vision of congruent student actions raises practicalquestions regarding how to engage students in the complex cognitivetasks described by those actions. In Alice in Wonderland, Alice askswhich way she should go, and is told, “That depends a good deal onwhere you want to get to.” The Decision-Making Framework makes clearthat understanding the learner and having a clear vision of scienceeducation goals and congruent student actions are necessary for makingeffective decisions regarding:

� What content to teach� What tasks and activities to implement� What materials to use� What teaching models and strategies to consider� What teacher behaviors and interaction pattern to exhibit

While student actions may serve as one important means to assessstudents’ progress, their role for teacher decision-making is moreimportant. That is, at all times noting what students are (and are not)doing and saying, and what this conveys about the learner, provides cuesthat ought to immediately inform teacher decision-making. Again, theDecision-Making Framework makes apparent that effective teacherdecisions requires ‘double-vision’ (Schön, 1983)—attending to both thelearner and desired ends in making pedagogical decisions.

From this, a more clear and relevant role for education researchemerges. Much of the difficulty in making sense of education researchlies in a failure to consider how it is or is not relevant to particular desiredends and how people learn. A vision of desired goals for students and anunderstanding of how people learn are both needed for selecting andmaking sense out of the vast educational literature. Different views oflearning and/or different desired outcomes may call for different or morecomplex orchestration of practices. Without guidance regarding both thegoals of education and how students learn, little basis exists to make senseof education research and to inform classroom practice. We use theDecision-Making Framework as a focal point throughout our scienceeducation courses to introduce and revisit the complexities inherent inlearning and effective teaching, and to provide organization to thiscomplex and often chaotic environment. For example, the following aresome ways we use the Decision-Making Framework in our respective

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science teacher education programs and in our work with experiencedteachers:

� Process all activities using the Decision-Making Framework. Whenmodeling effective and ineffective practices we explicitly drawprospective and experienced teachers’ attention to the layeredcomplexities of teaching represented in the Decision-MakingFramework.

� Link readings to the components of the Decision-Making Frame-work. For instance, readings regarding questioning, wait-time andnon-verbal behaviors are linked to understanding the learner andpromoting desired goals.

� Have prospective and experienced teachers use the Decision-MakingFramework to develop and critique lesson plans.

� Have prospective and experienced teachers use the Decision-MakingFramework to analyze videotape of experienced teachers andunderstand and gain insight into their decisions in-action, and theconsequences of those decisions on children.

� Have teachers use the Decision-Making Framework to analyze thelayered complexities in their own classroom teaching practices (e.g.,using audio or videotape, or post-lesson conferences).

See Clough & Berg, (1995), Clough (2002, 2003b), Clough, Madsen,Williams, Bruxvoort & Vanderlinden (2003) and Olson & Appleton(2006) for more detailed examples of how we use the Decision-MakingFramework in our work with teachers at all levels.

Supervision

Cooperating teachers sometimes struggle to clearly identify and commu-nicate a student teacher’s shortcomings and how improvement is to beaccomplished. Too often student teaching and accompanying supervisionexperiences are poorly linked to what students learned in their preserviceprogram. The Decision-Making Framework can be useful in guidingcooperating teachers’ and university supervisors’ coaching of studentteachers to address these and other issues that occur during studentteaching. For example, when student teachers face inevitable classroommanagement issues and other instructional struggles, they often rush toblame the learner (and inappropriately implement punishment/rewardstrategies) or seek quick fixes such as entertaining activities. Cooperatingteachers and university supervisors can use the Decision-MakingFramework to pose questions that remind a student teacher to consider


decisions made in the lesson that may account for undesirable studentbehaviors and lesson outcomes.

For instance, students’ lack of engagement and resulting managementissues may partly result from cognitive challenges in a lesson being toofar above or below students’ developmental level, or too far removedfrom students’ prior knowledge. Or perhaps the cognitive challenges donot permit entry points for the variety of abilities and backgroundsexisting among the many students in the class. What strategies (e.g.,predict-observe-explain or think-pair-share) did the student teacher utilizeto encourage all students to be mentally engaged? During periods of wait-time I and II, what non-verbal behaviors did the student teacher exhibit tomaintain student engagement? When students are well behaved, whatgoals were promoted and what did the student teacher consciously do topromote those goals? How well did the student teacher probe students’thinking and use that knowledge to promote desired understandings? Allteachers, but particularly novices, must always be on guard not to equatequiet and compliant students with good teaching (Slater, 2003; Stofflett &Stefanon, 1996). Directing student teachers’ attention to the Decision-Making Framework is an extension of efforts in the teacher educationprogram to develop habits of thought, observation, and reflection on keysynergetic decisions necessary for effective teaching.

Avoiding Fads in Education

Disconnected research, as well as perceived and real conflictingimplications for practice from isolated research findings, sends practi-tioners the message that anything goes when teaching, and thus teachingis simply a matter of personal style. Effective use of the Decision-MakingFramework helps elicit conflicting beliefs, address contradictory recom-mendations from research, and reconsider research-based recommenda-tions that “don’t work” in isolation. In making sense of learning andteaching, the Decision-Making Framework helps classroom teachers andteacher educators identify early, and thus be less susceptible to, educationfads (Slavin, 1989) and reforms that Cuban (1990) writes “return again,again and again” (p. 11). Keeping in mind enduring science educationgoals, how students learn, and the coherence of effective pedagogyprovides a means to assess the latest “innovation” for its merits, and staythe proper course during recurring waves of ill-conceived school reform.Professional developers will find the Decision-Making Framework usefulfor assisting science teachers in becoming critical consumers of

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educational research and wisely integrating education literature into theirdecision-making practices.

CONCLUSIONS

No genuine science is formed by isolated conclusions, no matter how scientifically correctthe technique by which these isolated results are reached, and no matter how exact theyare. Science does not emerge until these various findings are linked up together to form arelatively coherent system—that is, until they reciprocally confirm and illuminate oneanother, or until each gives the others added meaning. (Dewey, 1929, pp. 21–22)

Effective teaching is not simply a matter of subject matter contentknowledge, personal style and experience, nor can it be codified into a listof “What Works” as put forth by Marzano et al. (2000). The research-practice gap exists to a large extent because, beginning in their teacherpreparation programs, teachers quickly find that recommendations fromisolated research findings have little or no meaningful effect in theirclassrooms, and they lack a comprehensible means to synthesize the vastarray of research findings into a coherent whole. For example, thepositive effects of the well-supported learning cycle approach can easilybe negated by myriad variables including, but not limited to, the selectionof developmentally inappropriate content, materials that hinder desiredlearning, and/or teacher behaviors that do not encourage students toexpress their ideas and make the desired connections.

The Decision-Making Framework in Fig. 1 is useful for makingapparent and managing the layers of complexity that exist in learningand teaching. The Decision-Making Framework is not intended tocomprehensively address all that is required for effective teaching andlearning. Even if such a framework could be created, it would likely befar too complicated to be grasped by novices and those who areunfamiliar with the complex interactions in teacher decision-making.Thus, its utility for organizing reflection prior to, during and afterteaching would be limited. The Decision-Making Framework describedhere serves as a useful and comprehensible starting point for discussionsand reflections of teaching. The Decision-Making Framework illustratesthat the strength of education research resides in the synergy resultingfrom the integration of disparate research findings into a unifyingsystem. Without some organizing framework, the enormous complexi-


ties of learning and effective teaching can easily overwhelm educators.Darling-Hammond (1996) writes that teachers and administrators havedifficulty creating both learning-centered and learner-centered environ-ments because in emphasizing subject matter content, they lose sight ofstudents, and in emphasizing learners they lose sight of curriculum goalsand the teacher’s critical role. Anderson (2002) reminds us thattechnical, political and cultural obstacles and dilemmas make theimplementation of inquiry activities far more difficult than simplyfinding good activities and materials. Fullan (2001) captures thedisjointed thinking often observed in classroom practice when he writes:

it is possible to change “on the surface” by endorsing certain goals, using specificmaterials, and even imitating the behavior without specifically understanding theprinciples and rationale of the change. Moreover, with reference to beliefs, it is possibleto value and even be articulate about the goals of the change without understanding theirimplications for practices. (pp. 42–43, italics in original)

Some may dismiss the Decision-Making Framework, believing itreflects a bygone era of technical rationality in professional knowledge(Schön, 1983). The current academic climate in education researchdemands one to be almost apologetic when suggesting that at least somerational causal relationships exist in teaching. In the first chapter of themost recent Handbook of Research on Teaching (Richardson, 2001),Floden (2001, p. 14) writes, “Successful attempts to find causalconnections refute the radical critics who deny the possibility of causalunderstandings in the human sciences.” However, the following eightchapters in Part 1 of the Handbook take up that radical and unproductiveperspective and “leave readers thinking that researchers, practitioners, andpolicymakers should abandon hopes for research on teaching that can leadto improvements in education” (Floden, 2001, p. 13). Advocates of suchan extreme view may choose to interpret the Decision-Making Frame-work as mechanical and rigid. Use of the Decision-Making Frameworkdoes not deny that effective teacher decision-making involves more thanpure rationality. However, the constants that professional practitioners inany field, including teaching, bring to reflection-in-action include theoverarching ideas that help make sense of complex situations (Schön,1983, p. 270). Research, teacher education, and teaching have allbenefited immensely from the recognition that cause-effect relationshipsalone betray the complexities of teaching and learning. However, learningto teach, reflection-on-action, and reflection-in-action can be promotedwith an overarching framework to guide, not determine, what in the finalsense, is the art of teaching.

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We are using the Decision-Making Framework to challenge simplisticnotions of learning and teaching, and narrow the research-practice gap.Using the Decision-Making Framework to promote effective teacherdecision-making is a moderate position between prevalent unproductiveextremes. It recognizes the fallacy of teacher training and invariant cause-effect relationships in teaching, while maintaining that learning andcharacteristics of effective teaching are not as much a mystery as radicalcritics of rationality claim. This approach also recognizes the importanceof personal experience while being keenly aware of its limitations(Kindsvetter, Wilen & Ishler, 1989). It eschews using research findings asprescriptions for practice, what Fenstermacher (1983) calls “structuralelaboration,” in favor of decision-making or “personal elaboration.” Theproposed Decision-Making Framework has significant utility in teaching,the design of science methods courses, science teacher educationprograms, effective student teacher supervision experiences, and profes-sional development workshops. Finally, it provides a realistic response tothe eighty-year old call for coherence in the system of education researchto inform teaching practice.

Many factors coalesce to create the learning environment and itsimpact on learners. Reporting single cause-effect teaching and learningrelationships is contrary to the complex and dynamic nature of thoseprocesses. Education research and teacher education efforts must makeexplicit the crucial and synergetic interactions, like those illustrated in theDecision-Making Framework, involved in teaching and learning. Other-wise, the field will continue to be perceived as piecemeal, contradictory,and continually in search of the “magic bullet” that will save education.We can, and should, do better.

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Center for Excellence in Science and Mathematics EducationIowa State UniversityN157 Lagomarcino, Ames, IA, 50011-3190, USAE-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee323 Enderis Hall, Milwaukee, WI, 53211, USAE-mail: [email protected]


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PROMOTING EFFECTIVE SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION AND SCIENCE TEACHING: A FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHER DECISION-MAKING