Reflections on our Professional Development Experiences
Dr. Patrice Potvin, professeur à l’UQAM
Le projet Chantier 7, ses contributeurs et ses promesses.
Le rôle que j’ai eu la chance de jouer dans le projet Chantier 7 dirigé par la professeure Anila Asghar se décline en plusieurs actions concrètes. Mais je crois que ma contribution principale se trouve au moment où l’équipe francophone, pilotée par la conseillère Julie Robidoux, conseillère pédagogique à la Commission scolaire des Chênes, a travaillé à l’établissement de la liste des conceptions fréquentes qu’on rencontre chez les élèves du secondaire en ce qui a trait à l’Univers Matériel (physique-mécanique, chimie de base). Dans cette équipe, on trouvait aussi des enseignants chevronnés et très motivés dont Magy Dimitri, Isabelle Guay et Mélanie Boulard.
À cette occasion, j’ai pu voir une belle rencontre entre les expertises issues de la recherche et les expertises issues du terrain. De cette rencontre et des heures de travail consenties a émergé une liste d’items dont plusieurs sont aujourd’hui présents dans la tâche diagnostique qui est le produit principal, je crois, du projet. Je crois que non seulement les enseignants participants ont été sensibilisés à l’importance de considérer les conceptions initiales des élèves pour le succès de leur enseignement, mais que tous les enseignants qui utiliseront le test pourront eux aussi entretenir une réflexion intéressante sur les processus de changement conceptuels. C’est en tous cas mon espoir.
Dr. Kenneth Elliott, Researcher, MELS – Chantier 7 Project, McGill University
Q: WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN THE CHANTIER SEVEN PROJECT?
A: Well I guess I had kind of an oversight role in that I helped get a lot of people together. My experience had been with the school board, as a school board director, so I knew a lot of the people that might be interested in participating in this kind of examination of some really serious science education issues. And I recently completed a doctorate at McGill, and kind of got interested in the whole research into science education set of issues.
Q: HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT?
A: Since it's inception. When was that? 2013.
Q: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM BEING INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT?
A: It's been very, very interesting making more concrete the difficulties that teachers have with getting to understand what their students know, before they get into the teaching of a particular subject or topic. It's sort of a basic principle of what's known as constructivism, which is students constructing their own knowledge and understanding. One of the key principles of it is understanding students' prior knowledge, and I think this project really tackles the issue of prior knowledge, prior conceptual understanding of scientific principles, and tackling the prior understanding issue really concretely. We're giving them a tool to really understand what their students' thinking is before teaching a particular subject.
Q: YOU SAID MAKING MORE CONCRETE THE DIFFICULTIES TEACHERS HAVE IN UNDERSTANDING THEIR STUDENTS' PRIOR KNOWLEDGE. COULD YOU GIVE ME A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE?
A: For example, a typical one would be understanding photosynthesis. So holding up a piece of wood and saying, "how come this wood has all this material in it? Where did it get it?" Something like that. And the students would typically respond, "well it came up through the roots, from the ground." So you devise a question which would ask something like that, and you give a bunch of answers. One of the answers would be sort of a photosynthesis type response. You know, the whole photosynthesis operation, the carbon dioxide through the leaves and blah, blah, blah. But you'd also offer a coming up from the roots. What we're trying to find is things that kids typically think. So we can't necessarily make that up. We might be able to through our own experience of teaching kids, but we need to really examine what the literature says. And there's lots out there that talks about student misconceptions, or as they put it, alternate conceptions. So we try to build in for each of the concepts that we're tackling, we try to build in what we know about what kids typically think about it, so that the teacher then can quickly give this question to their kids. Now whether the teacher says, "okay, here's a question, what do you think? A, B, C, D. Raise your hands." That could be one way. Or, what we've developed is an online tool where they can quickly all put their answers in and the software will crunch the numbers and the teacher will know immediately, "okay, fifteen of you think it comes up from the roots, ten of you think that it comes from the carbon dioxide, three of you think that it's part of the water." Whatever, you know? Fertilizer or whatever.
Q: YEAH. JUST TO MAKE SURE I UNDERSTAND, YOU FOUND THAT TEACHERS HAVE A DIFFICULTY IN NECESSARILY UNDERSTANDING STUDENTS' ALTERNATE CONCEPTIONS, AND YOU FOUND THROUGH THIS PROJECT THAT ENGAGING IN THIS TYPE OF INQUIRY IS AN EFFECTIVE MEANS OF GAUGING THAT PRIOR KNOLWEDGE?
A: Yeah, I'd say so. I think what I observed was, it was dawning on teachers as they struggle with... We had them look at all the various questions we had gleaned from various sources online, and the teachers went through those very thoroughly, and for each one of these questions, they were looking at what the conceptual understandings and misunderstandings involved in these questions were. So what I saw was them kind of developing it, "oh yeah, we've got to develop ways to divert them from here over to here." It was kind of, I think, a developmental process on the part of the teachers. It was for me too actually. Because typically I think that even though we know good teachers in all subjects try to figure out what their kids know before they teach. They'll ask all kinds of questions, "what do you know about the development of the railroad?" If they're not, they're very naive in thinking that they can just teach from scratch. So a good teacher is doing that all the time, but I think this gives a method of doing it, and a real direction. They don't have to waste their time thinking up what the kids might think, they can figure that out by the data they get from this diagnostic instrument.
Q: IN OTHER WORDS, INQUIRY WAS ALWAYS INTEGRAL BUT THIS TOOL PROVIDES KIND OF A FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHERS TO ENGAGE IN THAT INQUIRY?
A: That's right, yeah. There is one thing that I should add though, that the research that's being done over at UQAM, and in many other places, will tell you that misconceptions are very tenacious. So you can't just say, "oh no, it's not that, it's this." That's not going to work. You have to understand that the kids have these misconceptions, they've picked up these alternate conceptions somewhere. Maybe from at home, maybe just by their own intuitive observations, but they've got them, and they're not going to disappear like that. So the job of the teacher now is to develop activities that are going to be very convincing, and unfortunately, they're not always going to work. Part of the job here is that you're going to pre-test and you're going to post-test. And to many teachers' dismay, they post-test, and they find that they still think the same thing. So that's the challenge.
Q: YEAH, CERTAINLY. ALRIGHT. MY NEXT QUESTION IS, IN YOUR VIEW, WHAT IS THE NEXT STEP FOR UNIVERSITY PARTNERS TO SUPPORT TEACHERS IN THEIR PRACTICE?
A: Well I guess if university is where teachers are - pre-service teachers - are learning the trade, I guess part of the instruction should be this conceptual understanding bit; that you've got to work on conceptual understanding and misunderstanding. You've got to take the bull by the horns on that, rather than assume you can just teach a lesson from scratch. You know, "turn to page thirty-five and let's do this lesson on photosynthesis." You've got to have a better background understanding of what your children are already thinking about it.
Q: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE ISSUES TEACHERS FACE WHILE TEACHING SCIENCE?
A: Well, I think... This takes me back to one of my problems with science teaching and learning. This will get me to the answer to that, but when kids are really young - say, elementary school, primary school - the world is a fascinating place. Any little science activities that teachers do, the kids are bright-eyed, and they're anxious to take apart those leaves, or whatever the activity happens to be. But then it seems to me, what I don't understand, what I've never understood, is why something which seems to me so intrinsically fascinating, namely the world around us...how is it that by the time they get to senior high school, very few people want to take science? They don't like it, they get defeated by it in so many cases, and the number of people that graduate with a good science background from high school seems to be diminishing. So I think that's the big challenge. And the challenge is to keep kids interested, successful, engaged. Science has to talk to them. Science has to be part of their real life, not just some theoretical, distant concept that they really can't identify with as meaning something to them. So I think that's the biggest challenge, is to make science meaningful, personally, to students. They have to take it as something, "this means something to me personally," rather than just an obstacle to getting a high school diploma. And then, okay, how do you do that? That's the next question. And how do you make it significant for them? And how do you present these concepts in a way that's going to ensure more success. I think this project is part of that whole process. I don't think it's the answer, but it's one of those pieces that I think has to fit better into the puzzle.
Q: THANK YOU. NOW HAVING GONE THROUGH ALL THE QUESTIONS, IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU'D LIKE TO ADD? ANYTHING YOU WANT TO SAY BEFORE WE CONCLUDE THE INTERVIEW?
A: I think that with all the digressions that I've made, I've included most of the things I think of. What else do I think when I talk to other people about it? I'm a great believer in teachers and their devotion to... I'm talking about science teachers. Teaching science is a tough job. It takes a lot of dedication to really bring it alive, and to make it meaningful. I've met a lot of science teachers over the years, and especially in the last few years, that are very dedicated to trying to make science teaching more meaningful and more successful. I think if they buy into a tool like this or a process like this, it doesn't have to be our tool, but the process of being really aware of students' conceptions and pre-conceptions, and how powerful they are, and how difficult they are to modify, I think then we're maybe getting somewhere. If we can get people to understand this better, and not only to get them to understand it better, but then provide them with the tools to make it a little easier.
Q: GREAT. WELL THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME.
Eun-Ji Amy Kim, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE), McGill University
Q: COULD YOU EXPLAIN TO ME BRIEFLY YOUR ROLE IN THE CHANTIER SEVEN PROJECT?
A: Okay, so first year I was the project coordinator. My role was planning the pre-meetings for the PD workshop for teachers, dealing with all the admin stuff. From the second year on, I was working as a research assistant. So, I was mainly was involved in working with in-service teachers: developing the workshop and facilitating workshop discussions with teachers. Yeah. Also, during the first year I was also involved in the development the assessment tools, for example conducing a literature review- reviews on other similar assessment tools.
Q: HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT?
A: Since the beginning. The project started about three years ago I think. So three years.
Q: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM BEING INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT?
A: First and foremost, collaborating with in-service teachers was a great learning opportunity. It was great to learn from in-service teachers and get connected with science consultants in different school boards so I actually get to hear the issues and the concerns, and ideas directly from the science consultants and the in-service teachers. Second is that, through the conversation happened across the faculty members, I have learned a lot. Because out team have different faculty members involved in different projects coming from different diverse backgrounds. It was great to listen and discuss diverse ideas on the conceptual changes. But in the end, we actually get to try the assessment tool with the students, and hearing from the teachers what actually happened in the classroom, what they learned and what tools they further developed was a great learning moment for me. I learned from teachers and students from the field a lot.
Q: ALRIGHT. YOU SAID THAT YOU LEARNED FROM IN-SERVICE TEACHERS AND FROM CONSULTANTS. COULD YOU GIVE ME A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE OF SOMETHING THAT YOU LEARNED FROM THEM?
A: So during the workshop, the team already had some sort of pre-existing assessment items. We thought that the reading level was okay, we thought it was good, but when we actually brought the items to the teachers during the workshop discussion, teachers actually said, "in my experience this won't work." "oh, I know from my experience the words need to be cut down," or, "we need more visuals" for items. The teachers actually brought the specific strategies that were required to meet students' needs.
Q: SO IF I CAN EXTRACT THAT A BIT MORE, INITIALLY YOUR ASSESSMENT TOOLS WERE AT A HIGHER READING LEVEL, AND THE IN-SERVICE TEACHERS ADVISED THAT YOU BRING IT TO A LOWER READING LEVEL?
A: That too. Not only the reading level, but also how the teachers could use the assessment tool better in their classroom. So the research team initially thought of paper/pencil or developing some sort of online platform for the delivery of the assessment tools. but the teachers mentioned, "actually we could do it an easy way. We could actually tell the question in the class, and students could show their hands." A really easy and simple way. Sometimes researchers tend to think in really complicated ways I guess. And it's always very back-and-forth, back-and-forth process between the team and the teachers. So we try this, and the teachers try, and they give us feedback, and we develop more stuff, right? So it's actually these ongoing conversations, ongoing trials that I actually get to learn from teachers.
Q: IN YOUR VIEW, WHAT IS THE NEXT STEP FOR UNIVERSITY PARTNERS TO SUPPORT TEACHERS IN THEIR PRACTICE?
A: University members. I think the next step is actually helping teachers use tools more. So the university partners could develop more lesson plans that actually involves with the assessment items, so it's easily accessible and less work for teachers. Teachers could use it in their daily teaching. That would be my suggestion.
Q: YOU SAID HELPING TEACHERS TO USE TOOLS MORE. WHICH TOOLS ARE YOU REFERRING TO SPECIFICALLY?
A: The assessment items, or intervention strategies.
Q: THE ONES SPECIFICALLY COMING FROM THE PROJECT?
A: Yeah, specifically coming from the project. I think the assessment tool that came out of the project is targeted and geared for Quebec teachers and students particularly, and I think that's one of the greatest contributions that research team has made. Similar types of the assessment items are readily available in other contexts too, but for example, to customize to the Quebec's context, so we provide the items in French. The technological world, we don't actually see any other technological world assessment items elsewhere. I think that's one of the contributions, but teachers actually don't know how to use the assessment tool, and how and what to do stuff after, once they've used the assessment item. So developing more coherent lesson plans that actually involve with the assessment tool, how to use assessments, and then how to integrate them in their lessons, such coherent lesson plans make the usage of the assessment tool easier and accessible for teachers. Whether it be an online platform, or in print form, books provided by the school board, we need to provide a coherent and easy ways for teachers to include the assessment tools in their daily teaching. That's again with the partnership of the school board consultants I guess.
Q: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE ISSUES TEACHERS FACE WHILE TEACHING SCIENCE?
A: Oh. In general?
Q: DRAWING ON YOUR EXPERIENCE FROM THE PROJECT.
A: First, they don't have time. They want to do this stuff, and they are always willing to try new strategies. The teachers that we had in the team are great teachers who are really motivated to do so, but not all teachers are like that, because there's always time constraint. So that's number one, time. And then second is that... What was the question again?
Q: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE ISSUES THAT TEACHERS FACE WHILE TEACHING SCIENCE?
A: So time constraint is number one, and second is - and maybe I'm generalizing it - but from my experience, diverse abilities exist in one classroom. So you actually have really high achieving students, but at the same time you have students with a lower level of understanding or reading level whatsoever. It's so diverse, but there's so little time. So maybe in terms of assessment tools, maybe the assessment item is good, but we also need to think about how teachers can actually use assessment items for a diverse student population in their classrooms.
Q: NOW HAVING THOUGHT ABOUT THINGS A BIT MORE, ANSWERING ALL OF THE QUESTIONS, IS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU FEEL WAS LEFT OUT, THAT YOU WANT TO ADD?
A: I feel like the project, our initial plan was that we're going to review the assessment items more, and we were going to develop more intervention strategies, a resource that teachers could use. I think that's sort of left out, by internal or external forces I guess. I think that part, developing resources for teachers could have been further developed. But I think we were in the development stage.
Q: SO INTERVENTION STRATEGIES?
A: Yeah. Building intervention strategies, as a teacher resource.
Ying-Syuan (Elaine) Huang, Ph.D student, Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE), McGill University
Q; WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN THE PROJECT?
A: I've been involved in this project for two years. The first year I was a research assistant, so I helped doing some technical work, like organizing the files, helping with some administrative stuff. The second year I was involved, I was helping the project team to organize workshops, and coordinating emails and contacting people. So now it's the end of the project, we are finalize everything, and presenting our materials and workshops, our local workshops at an international conference.
Q: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM BEING INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT?
A: This is a whole area of research, conceptual change. I think that's the most valuable thing that I learned. Also, working with teachers, intensively sitting down with them, intensively thinking of the activities, the interventions, and how to build a lesson plan. I learned a lot from working with teachers. Also, through this project I had a lot of opportunities to talk with content experts or specialists, like the STIC team, and that's a fabulous experience.
Q: IN YOUR VIEW, HOW CAN UNIVERSITY PARTNERS SUPPORT TEACHERS IN THEIR PRACTICE?
A: I was actually just talking with Francois about that. So from my point of view, the role of educators at universities is to help pair up specialists, content experts, with practitioners, like teachers, and school consultants. At the university itself, like on campus, we should be facilitating this process. We also have more educational theory, and the whole philosophy behind science education, which would help facilitate building a holistic framework, holistic models for teaching science. So I don't see educators as at the front line to do the work, but I think educators or university partners play an important role in terms of facilitating a process, and gathering information from both sides is crucial.
Q: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE ISSUES THAT TEACHERS FACE WHILE TEACHING SCIENCE?
A: It depends on the levels that you are talking about, right? So at an elementary school level, we don’t get not enough training, not enough content knowledge.
On the other hand, high school teachers are overwhelmed by exams, by admin stuff. So I think the challenges for them would be, they don't have enough time to make their teachings more meaningful.
Q: THANK YOU.
Yannick Skelling, Étudiant à la maîtrise, Université du Québec à Montréal
Q: WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN THE CHANTIER SEPT PROJECT?
A: Well I started working on this project in 2013. Of course, as you can see with my accent, I was the French translator [laughs]. I was responsible at first to find validated questions, to build a first version of the diagnostics tool. My job was to find validated questions to make the first version of the tool. I also had to translate them in French, for a first version, to present them to French teachers. Well like I said I've been involved in quite a lot of activities, and I will also perform the statistical analysis that will come out from the results that they've gathered.
Q: WHAT WOULD YOU SAY YOU'VE LEARNED FROM BEING INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT?
A: Well, I'd say that this project is pretty close to my thesis but in a different way. I work a lot on the importance of teaching to an individual level, to take into account individual differences, and this tool, well it evaluates children to see what are their own difficulties, so we can address them. So I've learned that people, and actually teachers, are really interested in learning what's in the head of a single student...a single student's head.
Q: WHEN YOU SAY WHAT'S IN THEIR HEAD, YOU MEAN LIKE THE KNOWLEDGE THEY HAVE?
A: Yeah, the knowledge, the conceptions, what's more difficult for them, individually, not as a group necessarily. To see that there's an interest in the field for that, well, this is for me a big thing.
Q: IN YOUR VIEW, HOW CAN UNIVERSITY PARTNERS SUPPORT TEACHERS IN THEIR PRACTICE?
A: Of course, there's always difficulty linking research to practice. It's not just for this particular project, it's always the same. Linking research with practice is not done enough. This project tried and is actually doing quite well compared to many other research projects. I believe we have to continue in that sense, and generalize, make the tool known to teachers, make them understand the idea of diagnostics evaluation, and to make them want to use that tool in their practice. Yeah, to generalize and to reach a maximum number of teachers.
Q: WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE SOME OF THE ISSUES TEACHERS FACE, WHILE TEACHING SCIENCE?
A: There may sometimes be a conflict with the science content that is included in the science programs, in the curricula, and the science that we see and interact with in real life. Because, of course, science in real life is quite complex, and you have to nuance pretty much everything. When you start at the basics you can't do that kind of nuance, so you have to dilute the content, which makes it less interesting for children.
Q: IS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU WANTED TO ADD THAT MY QUESTIONS DIDN'T GIVE YOU THE OPPORTUNITY TO PUT FORWARD?
A: [laughs] Let me think about this one. Is there anything? Yeah, actually, this project is really about the teacher's side of the diagnostic tool, but I wonder what the children, the students would think about it. Also, it would be interesting to see how it affects teachers’ practices. So the teachers know their students' prior conceptions, but once they know it, do they change their way of teaching? I don't think that we know that yet. It would be interesting to see how it can affect the teaching, but also the students' perception of the teacher and his teaching methods.
Q: SO I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE I UNDERSTAND THE POINT YOU MADE. YOU WOULD BE INTERESTED TO KNOW IF AFTER THE TEACHERS DO THE DIAGNOSTICS AND USE THE TOOL, DO TEACHERS ACTUALLY CHANGE HOW THEY TEACH AS A RESULT?
A: Yes, exactly.
Q: OKAY PERFECT. THANK YOU SO MUCH YANNICK.
A: Thank you so much.
François Thibault, Étudiant au doctorat, Université du Québec à Montréal
Q: WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN THE CHANTIER SEVEN PROJECT?
A: I'm a research assistant. I mostly do translation stuff. That's my fault for being French. [laughs] It's actually been a long road. I noticed the next question is, how long have I been working there? The project has been a bit over a year, maybe nearly two years now. So yeah.
Q: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM BEING INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT?
A: This is really a hard question thought, because there's so many things. For the project, what I really like is working on the different questionnaires. I usually work on my own research interests. I work on conceptual change, and dealing with misconceptions. And I had the occasion during this Chantier Sept project to work on specific misconceptions and how they are related to specific school activities. It was interesting to try to build a bridge between the theory and the conceptual change models, and what the teachers do in class, and trying to find the activities that go from one to the other. I guess that this is where most of my interest went in this project, where I learned the most.
Q: YOU SAID YOU LEARNED ABOUT STUDENT MISCONCEPTIONS. COULD YOU GIVE A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE OF SOMETHING YOU LEARNED REGARDING STUDENT MISCONCEPTIONS, THAT CAME FROM THIS PROJECT?
A: Yeah, well normally I work on physics, mostly mechanics. But then, while translating the different items, I had so many conceptions that students held regarding biology, ecology or these fields of science...not that are neglected over the years, but where my own research interest didn't lie. But still they were parallel. So in chemistry, in biology, stuff really, really interesting. None of them come to mind right now somehow. I don't know, stuff parallel to my regular work, and it all fit together. And actually it fit so well with my own theories and models, that I'm thinking of using these questionnaires in other future research projects, because they honestly fit so well. It feels like I've learned many things, but at the same time it was a confirmation of what I knew from somewhere else, was valid in other areas. So it was enlightening.
Q: WHAT YOU FOUND IS THAT WHAT YOU HAD THEORETICALLY THOUGHT OF IN TERMS OF STUDENT MISCONCEPTIONS, YOU FOUND THAT MY ENGAGING THIS PROJECT YOUR THEORETICAL MODELS ENDED UP BEING USEFUL IN A PRACTICAL SETTING?
A: Yeah exactly. When you're trying to change students' misconceptions, to have them go from their misconceptions to a scientifically accurate solution to a specific problem, you have to overcome some form of resistance which are the misconceptions themselves. When you're trying to figure out how this process works there are many different theoretical models, but they are theoretical. So having an outlet for them, to put them into practice and try to see how you can maybe teach using those models. This is something that the research side of the question hasn't really explored yet. So having the chance to work on that, on this project, was actually very, very cool for this part of my research interest.
Q: I JUST WANT TO STEP BACK FOR A MOMENT, IN TERMS OF YOUR ROLE IN THE PROJECT. YOU WERE PRIMARILY WORKING ON TRANSLATING MATERIALS FROM ENGLISH TO FRENCH?
A: Yes. Well, when the project was early, I also worked on some of their research, finding misconceptions, finding studies that had validated teaching methods to overcome these misconceptions or to teach certain subjects, which was still pretty good. But as the project evolved, we started having a lot of English material, questionnaires and items that we could use to monitor the students' misconceptions. Since we wanted to have these questionnaires be universal, at least in the province of Quebec, we needed a French translation of the items. I used to be a high school science teacher, so I was kind of well placed to translate these items into scientifically accurate French versions also.
Q: IN YOUR VIEW, HOW CAN UNIVERSITY PARTNERS SUPPORT TEACHERS IN THEIR PRACTICE?
A: That's the hard part, right? One of the main points of this project was to build this diagnosis device, where a teacher could use these questions to diagnose the students' misconceptions, and afterwards be linked towards activities or practices that were validated by experience. But I figure that one of the next steps would be to probably find... I don't know, it's a theory or an idea that I've had, but we have a lot of contacts all over the place in different school boards. We know many teachers with various research interests. A lot of research has been done out of exemplary practices, finding the really good teachers and what do they do. Maybe we could combine these research interests, and try to find, "well hey, teachers are telling us that areas like X, Y and Z are where students have the most issues and they really don't understand." And what we could do is try to link these teachers with practices that are known to perform well in these areas. So maybe try to build a network or a place where they can exchange. Obviously, even though there are research and scientists everywhere who are trying to figure out new methods of teaching, we still need an outlet to practice in. Having these experienced teachers that are known for their successes in these areas trying to share their methods would be a cool start, I guess. Maybe they wouldn't be validated by experiment, but if they all agree on the same practices, maybe we could set up an experiment and validate them afterwards.
Q: SO ESSENTIALLY BUILDING A NETWORK AMONG EDUCATORS?
A: That would be quite interesting honestly. Like over lunch we were having this discussion about elementary school teachers that still have to teach science, but they, more often than not, do not feel qualified to teach science. Contrary to, let's say, a high school science teacher who has gone to college in a science program, and in university had lots of science classes, like two or three physics, chemistry, biology each. So they still have this university level understanding of a lot of science concepts.
Having this network of teachers that can talk to each other and maybe learn from each other, it would be a pretty good tool for those that don't feel comfortable teaching science.
Q: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE ISSUES THAT TEACHERS ARE FACING WHILE TEACHING SCIENCE?
A: Well it depends really on the level. For elementary school teachers, the lack of formation or knowledge probably is the main issue. In fact, in the earlier grades of elementary school they have to teach science, but it's not even evaluated for the students at the end of the year. So if they can skip it, some will actually completely forgo science teaching. So for the elementary school teacher, obviously the training part is the biggest issue. For the high school teachers, it's the place where you're starting to want the students to act a bit more like a scientist, and you're trying to go into a deeper understanding of science. When you're trying to go there, to a deeper understanding, you face more deeply entrenched misconceptions. So your obstacles become more tangible, and they relate to the actual conceptions you're trying to teach. They're not related to your own training necessarily, but if you're not properly prepared to... Because no teacher really wants to tell a kid, "well you're wrong, and this is how it works." No, you have to guide them. If they discover it by themselves and eventually begin to understand it, they'll realize that what they believed before was a misconception. But if you just tell them that what they're believing is wrong, they'll reject your explanation. This is pretty much the biggest challenge yet.
Q: HAVING GONE THROUGH ALL OF THESE QUESTIONS NOW, IS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU WANT TO ADD THAT WE DIDN'T NECESSARILY COVER?
A: Not really I guess. Like relating to the project?
Q: YEAH, RELATING TO YOUR EXPERIENCE OF THE PROJECT. DO YOU THINK THERE'S ANYTHING THAT YOU WOULD HAVE LIKED TO HAVE TOLD ME THAT MAYBE MY QUESTIONS DIDN'T ADDRESS?
A: No, not really. I mean, everybody on staff was really, really great. There were a lot of great minds working together, trying to work out solutions for people that may be too busy teaching to actually figure out the solutions. So if we can find these solutions for them, well good for us I guess. I've only had the best experiences so far, from a great team. I'm thrilled to see where it's going to end up.
Q: THANK YOU FRANCOIS.
Heather McPherson, Ph.D. student, Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE), McGill University
Q: WHAT WAS YOUR ROLE IN THE CHANTIER SEVEN PROJECT?
A: I was a research assistant, so I was involved with writing and editing some of the lesson plans, and I was also involved in the original literature reviews for the lesson plans.
Q: HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT?
A: Since last July or August. July probably.
Q: SO 2015?
A: Yes.
Q: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM BEING INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT?
A: I learned particularly the importance of understanding students' pre-conceptions, before you move on to a new topic. It's something I was aware of, but I'm much more aware of it now. As a teacher I can address those issues better now, having done the project.
Q: IN YOUR VIEW, WHAT IS THE NEXT STEP FOR UNIVERSITY PARTNERS TO HELP TEACHERS IN THEIR PRACTICE?
A: It would be nice to do the same kind of thing for grade ten, which involves a ministry exam. So the Chantier Sept as is was designed for grade seven and eight, and I think there's a real need for teachers who teach grade ten, dealing with ministry exam issues, to learn some of the skills, like the pre-conceptions, and also to just have access to more lesson plans.
Q: SO APPLYING THE TOOL FOR GRADE TEN AND ELEVEN STUDENTS AS WELL?
A: Not grade eleven, there is no science grade eleven. So just grade ten. Grade nine perhaps, but I think it's really important for grade ten, since it's the exit exam for science in Quebec.
Q: ALTHOUGH THERE IS THE CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS MINISTRY?
A: It's not ministry, and it's an optional course.
Q: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE ISSUES THAT TEACHERS FACE WHILE TEACHING SCIENCE?
A: It depends on the course. I haven't taught grade seven and eight for a long time. The issues we're dealing with... students' lack of background knowledge, or misconceptions. Those were always issues. And also developing lesson plans that dealt with the junior high students’ need to work collaboratively as a group, rather than sit and talk, and have the teacher go "blah, blah, blah" forever.
Q: AS A CURRENT TEACHER, WHAT DO YOU THINK THE PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS CAN LEARN FROM THIS PROJECT?
A: The lesson plans were all set up to follow the principles of high quality teaching. I think it's really good to confirm those skills that the pre-service teachers are learning at McGill. Because the lesson plans are developed with that in mind, I think it's a really good grounding for them, to see how to do what they've been taught to do. I think that was the main thing for pre-service teachers that I thought would be quite valuable.
Q: NOW THAT WE'VE GONE THROUGH ALL THE QUESTIONS, IS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU WANT TO ADD THAT MAY HAVE BEEN LEFT UNSAID?
A: No. Well, I found the experience quite rewarding. I would recommend other teachers to get involved with it. And certainly it gave me an experience to practice more what I've learned at McGill and apply it to the classroom. I think I learned a lot by doing the project, and I brought it to my classroom.
Q: THANK YOU.