Complementing Frameworks: Modular Frameworks for Practical and Generative Design Support in the Netherlands

• In Event: International Perspectives on Using Frameworks of Practice to Improve Teaching

Abstract

Purpose
Current teaching frameworks specify desired teaching behaviour but do not provide practical and generative design support for the development of challenging tasks and adaptive task support. We argue that complementary practical and generative design frameworks are needed. In this contribution we discuss a modular design framework for teachers called CATALYST (Challenging Teaching for All Students and Teachers) and some of its theoretical and empirical foundations (see also Janssen & van Berkel, 2015).

Theoretical perspective
Design support for teachers should meet three criteria (Janssen et al., 2013):
1. The designs that emerge from using it (task and task support) should promote effective learning of all students;
2. The design support itself should be generative: it must enable teachers to continuously expand their repertoire in order to develop multiple ways to promote effective learning;
3. The design support should be practical for teachers in order for them to be willing and able to use it: practical design support consists of procedures that specify how challenging task and task support can be designed (instrumentality), in a way that fits teachers’ current goals and circumstances (coherence) in a cost-effective way (low cost) (Janssen, Westbroek, & Doyle, 2015).
We based CATALYST on a modular design approach to meet all three criteria. Modular design is practical and generative because new designs emerge from recombining and/or adapting a limited set of existing building blocks (modules) (Baldwin & Clark, 2000; Author, in press; Simon, 1996).
Method and data sources
Eighteen biology student teachers, with a master’s degree in biology, have used CATALYST during their one-year teacher education program. Data collection took place at three moments during this year to investigate their progress. Laddering interviews (Little & Travis, 2007) were conducted to elicit each of their (evolving) ways of teaching a lesson and how these lesson building blocks connected to their goals. Student teachers additionally characterized their lessons using CATALYST and scored the CATALYST tool on the three dimensions of practicality (5-point Likert scale). Other data sources included written lesson designs, videotaped lessons, students’ individual scores (5-point Likert scale) on several effectiveness criteria (Janssen et al., 2013) and written lesson reflections.

Findings
The effectiveness of student teachers’ lessons increased considerably during the year (from an average of 3.1 to 4.1). Teachers scored the coherence aspect of practicality consistently high (on average 4.4). The scores for the other two practicality dimensions increased over the year (instrumentality from 2.8 on average to 4.2; low cost from 1.5 to 3.9), as they became more proficient in modular lesson design. All student teachers considerably expanded their teaching repertoire (generativity) on multiple dimensions using CATALYST. On the teaching-learning process dimension they first started with task-centered direct instruction lessons, and gradually implemented more student-controlled activities and subsequently developed a repertoire for adaptive task support.

Significance
This paper identifies a missing link in current frameworks for teaching: practical and generative design support. Modular design frameworks hold promise for addressing this missing link and for complementing existing teaching frameworks.

Authors

• Fred Janssen, Leiden University

• Hanna Barbara Westbroek, VU University Amsterdam