How Has the Evaluation of the Gymnasium Curriculum Inspired the Project of Gymnasium Dydactic

Zora Rutar Ilc, Ph.D, National Education Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia

How has the evaluation of the Gymnasium Curriculum inspired the project of Gymnasium didactic reform

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Ghent, 19-21 September 2007

Abstract

Ten years ago a great curriculum reform started in Slovenia. The main didactic principles that should be carried into practice refer to the developing different thinking strategies with problem approach and active methods of teaching and learning, to the integration of knowledge, to learning how to learn …

The follow up study done through questionairs, interviews and monitoring as a combination of quantitative and qualitative approach has confirmed some commonsense presumptions about the gymnasium teaching process: about few pupils’ active role, frontal way of teaching with emphasis on teacher’s explanations, few interdisciplinary connections and authentic problem situations and a weak feeling of sense of some (especially natural science) subjects.

Having such results we have decided to use these findings as a challenge for introducing more persuasively dydactic changes into practice in the context of the project called »Didactic reform of gymnasium«.

We have designed our project on two levels: initiating and introducing changes on the level of schools and didactic innovations on the level of teachers (for example implementing more active methods and introducing the new culture of assessment and grading)

We have started with the project in the year 2003. In three years we have gradually included10 schools and more than 300 teachers. Now the project is coming to the end and the experiences will be used in the national wide project of gimnasium reforms. Introduction

In my presentation I would like to contribute to the question about how can a research guide educational practice. I refer especially to the relationship between the research results and future implementation of the research findings. In other words: in my presentation I would like to establish that educational research should have relevance for guiding practice and to ilustrate this with the concrete example.

In last years there are many reasons for intensifying introducing changes in Gymnasium:

- there are more and more pupils from the newly reformed nine years primary school (»devetletka«) who are used to more active methods of work and are trained not only for gaining content knowledge but also for developing competences - nowadays pupils are different not only by the structure of their knowledge but also by their habits and behaviour; old patterns of treating young people are usually not very proper and new, more productive ones should be found - changes are going on very quickly nowadays and school must be responsive on different challenges from various fields - and last but not least: in the follow up study (whis is presented in the next chapter) we have confirmed that many reform principles which were set at the beginning of the national reform were not persuasively brought in practice.

Theoretical background

The core of the newest school reform in Slovenia was a process approach to curriculum design and teaching, which stresses the importance for the students to acquire not only content-specific knowledge, but also the processes, strategies and skills.

Contemporary learning theories conceptualise knowledge as a construction and learning as a process of this construction. Not only results but also the ways that lead to them are important. Teaching is less and less serving ready made knowledge and procedures and becomes more and more arranging circumstances for active and selfindependent acquiring and processing knowledge.

Schools and teachers can support such approach especially by stimulating pupils to express their ideas and by providing opportunities for their active discovery and for developing process skills at this. One of the most important strategies is the art of posing such questions, tasks and performances that lead pupils through the construction of knowledge.

Accordingly also practices of assessment and grading must be transformed too. In addition to the question: »Which contents do pupils know and in what amount« a question »How do they understand these contents, how do they persuasively use them in different new circumstances, how do they analise and sintetise them, how they critically evaluate them and how they present their own ideas in different ways« is put. Questions and problems should be posed in such a way that they stimulate different process and that they give insight into them.

In accordance to these ideas the main dydactic principles in our recent national reform were posed:

- »… to strenghten the quality and durability of school knowledge: - with developing different thinking strategies… - with problem approach and other (active) methods of teaching and learning, - with integration and connecting knowledge, - with attention on cognitive, motivational and emotional processes and factors - with learning how to learn, - …to develop the competency for independent, creative and selfconfident problemsolving ...« (The Origins of National Curriculum Reform - Izhodišča kurikularne prenove …, 1996)

Therefor our intention was to find out how all this ambitious declarative ideas are realised in practice.

The study of following the teaching and learning process in Gymnasium

The study was being carried out from 1998th to 2004th by National Education Institute. Our institution has been evaluating some aspects of the National curriculum reform. The main object of study was the process that had been taking place in the classrooms. We were interested especially in how problem approach in teaching and how active role of pupils are realised.

The most appropriate way to find out how the above mentioned principles of National Curriculum Reform are coming into daily school life was to build this principles into the study design and into the instruments. Therefor we have arisen from these principles as by selecting areas of study as by constructing items on questionairs and observation scales.

We have namely decided for the combination of quantitative and qualitative approach. Quantitative was based on three questionars for teachers and students and qualitative was based on observations, interviews and content analysis of teachers’ materials. Lessons' observations were done by subject experts at cca 8-10 teachers of each subject (together over 100 observations were carried out). Also interviews with teachers and groups of pupils were executed after each observation.

In the continuation we will present first some findings from the quantitative part of the study and then from the qualitative one. The presented results are form the last year of following up and are got on the greatest numerus (N of pupils: 2137, N of teachers: 78).

The first group of quantitative results refer to the 5 levels scale, where 4 means »regularly«, 3 – »often« (frequent), 2 – »sometimes« (periodically), 1- »seldom« and 0 – »never«. They relate on students’ estimation of some aspects of the teaching and learning process that are in connection with above mentioned principles of recent curriculum reform: • Sudents estimate as frequent or often the possibility of getting additional explanation from teachers (2,9) and their willingness to accept their questions (2,9)

• The estimation of feeling of general understanding is between sometimes and often (2,6); similar is with the students’ feeling of sistematicity of the teaching process (2,4)

• Between sometimes and often there is also teh result for teachers’ connecting teaching with the life – especially giving examples (2,4)

• Students sometimes feel subjects as having some sense for them (2,2) and lessons as interesting (2.0) (science and math are at the bottom – 1,9, english is at the top)

• Least of all is assessing knowledge before grading (1,7)

Second group of quantitative results concern active methods and formats of teaching and learning. In acoordance to students' estimations of the frequency of having experience with concrete method (here the options were: weekly, one a month, one to three times a year and never), we have found out that:

• There is a lot of discussion and learning with texts and other sources: two thirds of pupils mention that this two methods are present almost each hour or at least once a month

• There is much less other active methods and formats: - group and individual work: weak third of pupils mention that they are without experiences with this kind of work at some subjects - project work: almost half of pupils is without experience at some subjects - authentic learning situations: almost half of pupils is without experience at some subjects - learning by discovery and research: more than half pupils affirms that it is present only one to three times a year; similar is with experiental lerning

One third of pupils also mention that they are only sometimes a year encouraged to make their own findings and statements.

The third group of results refers to the students’ estimation of taxonomic structure of lessons:

• Consolidation of definitions, formulas, data, vocabularies …(26%) • Consolidation of explanations, interpretations, procedures … (22%) • Routine solving of tasks (18%) • Knowledge application and giving examples of their own (17%) • Independent thinking, giving ideas, explanations and interpretations (18%)

We have confirmed that there are important differences between various subjects:

• About the perception of subject: the feeling of sense of the subject matter and about its understanding • About the didactic aspect of subject: teachers’ care for pupils’ understanding, their systematic approach, efforts for all kind of connections, giving feedback…

Important differences have appeared also between schools: • About connections (interdisciplinary approach) • About the possibilities of dialogue with teachers • About assessment criteria

But the greatest differences are between teachers and pupils. There are statistically important differences on all items; that means that teachers claim they’re doing something (for inst.: “often”), but pupils don’t see this in the same way

For example: teachers are sure that they often give feedback, but pupils estimate, that this is only sometimes.

These findings were confirmed with the complementary findings that have been got from observations and interviews with teachers and pupils (made by subject experts). Here we are citing some of their main perceivings:

• weak planning; especially process learning objectives are neglected • thought provoking learning situations only periodically and not very systematically • few problem oriented approach learning situations • domination of frontal approach at most subjects • domination of explanation method • interdisciplinary approach is rare • there are more connections with life situations (teacher’s giving examples) and with preliminary knowledge.

So we can conlude that we have found out in our study that lectures style teaching still prevails in our Gymnasiums. Teachers stimulate students to some active methods (e.g. experiments, work with texts, field works and research), but these are mostly in the function of ilustration and support for more traditional ways of teaching. Their lectures are often problem oriented but teachers themselves are the ones who do most of the activities instead of pupils. Complementary, pupils are more in the position of accepting knowledge from their teachers than actively constructing it.

There is more emphasis on transmission and consolidation of knowledge than on independent student approach to problems and to developing their own ideas and explanations.

So we have confirmed the commonsense presumptions about the gymnasium teaching process

- that there is few pupils’ active role (few learning by discovering and few independent problemsolving) - frontal way of teaching with emphasis on teacher’s explanations is prevailing, with few connections and few authentic problem situations; there is also only few perusasive and authentic interdisciplinary approach - there is a weak feeling of sense and reasonablness of some (especially natural sciences) subjects … (Inner material from The National Education Institute, 1999, 2004).

Therefor we can conclude that some of the important curriculum reform aims are still not being fullfied enough persuasively and that we should put more efforts into the bringing the principles of curriculum reform into life . Or as foreign authors state:» Schools still prepair their pupils for yesterdays problems instead of solving problems our pupils will have to solve when they will be grown up.” (Husen and others in Kimonen, 2001)

The aims of the Project Didactic reform of Gymnasium

On the ground of our findings a crucial question has arised:

How to support our schools and teachers in the weak areas?

At least three levels of introduction of innovations should be considered for this purpose:

1. system changes: some system regulations and organisational frames are sometimes perceived as obstacles; therefor they should be challenged at the same time as innovations on the teachers' and school level go on

2. initiating and introducing changes on the level of schools (for example: support for schools at planning for inovations and at implementing them, at action research, at evaluation …)

3. didactic innovations on the side of the teachers (for example implementing more active methods and introducing the new culture of assessment and grading).

In the time the project started, no system changes were possible. Therefor we have decided to support teachers and schools by the introduction of changes on the second and third level. The support on the school's level was the task of our Institute's strategic project team in relation to school teachers’ team, project teams and headmasters. The support on teachers' level was the task of our subject counselors. We should throw light now on the way we have desgined a project, which should enable this.

We have started with the project in the year 2003 with some schools. In the first year four Gymnasiums were invited into the partnership, and in the second and third year of the project another 6 schools have been associated.

The main aims of the project are didactic and arise from the principles of recent National Reform and are posed as follows:

1. on didactic level:

- to stimulate the use of process- and problem approach - to stimulate wider repertoire of methods and strategies of teaching and assessing - to carry out interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary connections and to some extension integrated curriculum - to streghten the authenticity of learning situations - to find propriate organisation solutions.

2. at the level of strategies of change implementation: »to support schools at developmental planning and action research, what all leads to the changing schools into learning communities«.

The final aims are to deepen learners’ knowledge and to enlarge the amount of their active role, to stimulate their complex, problem oriented and critical thinking, to enlarge their study competences and to add to their lifelong learning.

Our experiences with the implementation of some novelties in the context of project “Didactic reform of gymnasium”

As above mentioned, 10 schools were included and more than 300 teachers. In the first year of the project when we started with four schools, the project was more top down oriented.

The already mentioned main aims of the project for didactic level were mostly posed top down (in acoordance with National Reform Principles) at first, but they were discussed with all the teachers and put into connection with their expectations and needs. Inspite of that at the beginning there were constantly problems with the awareness of project's goals and aims. And if goals and aims are not clear the motivation and dedication are weaker. It was obvious that the aims and goals – althoug persuasive and fine sounded – were not assimilated by teachers – teachers didn't feel them as their own, because they were a bit imposed to them and not set in the common process through their cooperation.

The »lesson« from this mistake was built in the project design and when we started with the next generation of schools, we allured them to the project with more bottom up process: we included in the project two novelties. We put much more intention on the starting activities, that means on the preparing the stimulating environment for the change implementation and in the continuation we attract teachers with the elements of action research.

But the didactic core of the project remained unchanged. It incluced:

- seminars and workshops for teachers’ team about actual topics (planning for active learning, new culture of assessment, crosscurriculum approach, motivation, communication …) - afterwards mentoring, consultations and observations with subject counselours followed - one important point of the project was a crosscurriculum planning.

The work in the project was also planned in such a way, that all the teachers of each subject have their meetings orderly; theese meetings were purposed for the exchange of experiences, results and materials.

The main shift in the project happened, when we strengten the performing of project at the individual level. Teachers were adivsed to plan their innovation activity individually – in the so called »personal projects« (of course in the cooperation with their collegues), implement it with the support of subject counsellors and evaluate it and documente with evidences. In such a way they have taken the responsibility for the project on themselves and felt more power and interest about it. The sense of ownership, selfregulating activity and consequently greater responsibility are developed in such a way. Another guarantee for greater responsibility was on the level of school development project teams. They have planed their following activities together in acoordance to workshops that we had prepaired for them. The school teams were namely the one who took care for the project activities on schools after the frontal seminars had been passed.

Main project activities were: goal oriented planning connected to process approach, active methods, authentic learning situations, interdisciplinary connections and crosscurricular approach, new culture of assessment and grading and also experimentin with some new organisational arrangments such as block schedules and project days and weeks.

Some findings from the evaluation of the project

We have made different kind of project evaluation all the time. With simoultanous evaluation some effects of the project soon became transparent. Still in the first year of the project subject counsellors realised at their observations that:

- Renewed, more systematic and conscious approach to planning and learning (including greater attention on learning aims, not only to contents – how the knowledge is gained and processed) - More frequent use of active methods - More thoughtfull (for example taxonomy oriented) learning activities - Crosscurricular connections, projects and project weeks - Discussions with students about aims and goals and about assessment criteria - First tryings of qualitative criteria - Efforts for more authentic learning situations - Organisational inovations (for. ex. more intensive and more strategic implementation of schedules).

Also as the occasioinal as more organised evaluation discussions with teachers showed that we had stimulated many teachers to intensive thinking about new approaches and that we had involved “creative unrest”; the so called »early innovators« were quickly persuated that this new, more active and process oriented approach is worth and they had started with its implementation because they saw a challenge in this and the benefits for their students; many of them reported that they were more active now; teachers also perceived the development potential of most of the project activities as the big gain of the project.

Discussions and questionars teachers had made with students showed that most of the students prefered such curriculum which is based on their activity because it is more interesting and authentic.

Headmasters reported that teachers had started to discuss about pedagogic affairs and that they had started with action research and development planning, critical friendship had arosen and reflection and more openess for change.

The most important message for us was that many of teachers have recognised that care for their personal growth and development is not the sign of weakness but – on the contrary -the assurance for the quality.

So still after first year of the project we could conclude that we were making small steps but that they gradually added to the improvement of school climate and to its development orientation, professional growth and to the culture of selfevaluation and reflexion.

Final evaluations are going on now when we are in th last year of the project. Here are some first findings, that were gathered as the answers on open questions about the project effects (after 2, 3 and 4 years) perceived by headmasters. Headmasters see as the greatest contribution of the project following:

• Awareness of necessity of innovations and actions in this way • Affirmation of prior innovation activities • New approaches and more activity for all • More interesting and thouht provoking learning process • More qualitative teaching and learning process • Better results, for ex reaching more process goals and gaining more longlife knowledge • Awareness of the importancy of better relations • better cooperation on all levels • New quality of cooperation in subject teams • More systematic, goal oriented approach • Awareness on taxonomic levels of knowledge • The shift from traditional concepts to more advanced (teacher is not the only source of knowledge) • Putting students in the centre (awareness on their activities) • Consequently students’ higher motivation, selfregulation and responsibility • Rising awareness of qualitative assessment and grading • Intensifying Interdisciplinary approach • Introducing action research • Stress on school vision and mission • More opened school • Promotion in wider environment • School really becomes learning organisation • Professional development and personal growth for teachers

Here are also some results from a kind of quantitative anlysis, which was done through questionars teachers had answered on. They had to compare the intensity of their efforts on the main project areas before the project and after it. The results are statistically important on all the areas of improvement (compare with project aims!) – we allege them in the order of change intensity:

• interdisciplinary connections (the biggest progress) • systematic care for their own professional development. • new culture of assessment and grading • authentic learning situations • process and problem approach with the use of taxonomies • active methods of work. •

Basic Principles at change introduction We would like to conclude with the lesson we learned through carring out our project: that introducing changes must combine top down approach with bottom up strategies.

As we have already mentioned at first our project was oriented into teachers and the didactic support to them at most. But more and more the need to work with a school as a team has arosen. Therefor we have reoriented ourselves a bit and try to follow the following principles.

We have perceived teachers and schools as partners – we have recognised that hey must be involved in change planning. Our role has changed from pushing to supporting – we have become “change agents”.

Main power should be installed in schools not in external institution such as ours. We talk about a shift from depowerment to impowerment. In such a way the feeling of importancy and responsibility of schools and teachers is strenghtened. They also show more interest for their own project planning than for something that is prescribed from outside and imposed to them from top down.

We have also discovered that we should foster an individualised approach in relation to schools, because they are very different in interests, attitudes, dynamic and structure.

First changes in thinking should be reached than the renewal of acting can be expected. Therefore a lot of concept carifying, the strategies of critical reflection and selfregulation, action research and critical friendship and supervision go on. All the teacher of each school had to go together through the process of analyisis the initial state, capacities and needs, through discussions about the basic concepts of knowledge and learning, through stating priorities (their own individual one and the common – scools' one), through creating a vision and consequently – through development planning and evaluation. Until all this acitivities had been done at the level of whole the school, the realisation of different tasks couldn't really start.

One important recognition was also that we are the one, who should accept the annoyment which acompanies the changes with empaty, because it is a signal of change processes. We talk about the so called spiral development: all the time the old balancy is being breaken and the restablishment on a qualitative higher niveu is going on.

An at last: we must accept that the effects will be seen after some time but intime – the change of culture in going on – we need some patience.

This is in acoordance with Hargraves (in Kimonen, 2001) trends in promoting teacher’s new interactive professionalism:

▪ From individualism to cooperation ▪ From hierarchies to teams ▪ From control to support ▪ From teaching to mentoring and stimulatin profesiional development ▪ From dependency to partnership ▪ From authority to dialogue ▪ From survival strategies to empowerment In such a way scools become learning organisations that develop their capacity to act on their own future and they take responsibility for change.

The conclusion

Althoug at the beginning exclusively didactic leaden we ended in the quite different area. We have started with »pure« didactics: the findings from our study refered only to didactic matters and the aims of the project that had been stimulated with the study findings were at the beginning exclusively didactic oriented. But through the process, we have learned out that the dydactic reform of schools is not only a technical matter, but is in the first place a very sensitive dealing with people and with group processess that are not didactic by their nature in the first place. Implementing didactic novelties demands many activities designed to the preparation of innovation friendly environment.

Bibliography

Kimonen E. (ed.), (2001), Curriculum approaches, Jyvaskyla: University of Yvaskyla