An investigation of causal relations between complex classroom practices and science learning using high capacity new research technologies and multiple theory-testing

Personnel: David Clarke, Christina Hart, Jenny Arnold, Lay Hoon Seah, Russell Tytler and Li Hua Xu

This project uses new video technology and sophisticated analytic software to make fine-grained studies of science classrooms in a way that can test and show particular causal relations between specific classroom activities and the learning of science. The project tests three major theoretical perspectives on classroom activities and builds robust evidence on effective forms of pedagogy. The project will provide new forms of evidence relating learning to classroom arrangements and pedagogical activities; will build an archive of examples that can be widely used in both the research and the professional community; and will refine existing theoretical frameworks on pedagogy and learning science.

The strategic importance of science and the need for high-quality science teaching is being highlighted at national and state levels. A variety of science education initiatives have been funded by government to address this priority. Policy makers and curriculum developers rightly demand that the advocacy of educational innovations be supported by empirical evidence, which, to now, has been limited by available research methods. This study exploits recent advances in the sophistication of educational theories, research designs and available technology to generate much more compelling evidence of the effectiveness of specific classroom practices for improving student knowledge and understanding of science.

Strengthening Standards of Teaching through Linking Standards and Teacher Learning: The Development of Professional Standards for Teaching School Geography

Personnel: Dianne Mulcahy, Jeana Kriewaldt, and David Clarke

This innovative project proposes to source data from teachers and students via video enactments of accomplished teaching towards producing multiple and situated understandings of standards and thereby effecting a distinctive standards development approach. Capturing in a powerful and compelling fashion the unique and essential components of teachers’ professional practice, these video data will be used additionally to elicit understandings of how these components can best be utilised to enhance teacher professional learning and, as a consequence, the quality of learning opportunities for students. It is intended that these rich data will not only form the basis of a distinctive set of standards for school geography but also augment existing knowledge of teacher learning

The Learner's Perspective Study

This sixteen-country international project extends the methodology employed in the Negotiation of Meaning Project to document "well-taught" mathematics classrooms through the use of three cameras, supplemented by post-lesson video-stimulated interviews with students and teachers, test data, teacher questionnaires, and copies of student and teacher written material.

In each country, three teachers were identified as competent by the local community and a sequence of ten eighth-grade mathematics lessons videotaped for each teacher. The resultant data set of over 480 lessons (at least 30 lessons per country: videotapes, interviews, test, questionnaire, and written material) provides an unprecedented documentation of the practices of mathematics classrooms internationally, of the meanings that classroom participants ascribe to those practices, and of the associated learning outcomes.

The analysis of this large and complex data set is the focus of collaborative activity by the international research team centered on the ICCR. A book series has been initiated, reporting the findings of this project. The first two volumes in this series (as shown above) have been published by Sense Publishers. These books can be ordered through the Sense website.

The role of optimism in collaborative problem solving.

Research Team:
Chief Investigator
Dr Gaye Williams, Faculty of Education, Deakin University (Burwood Campus)
Research Assistants: Dan Fox, Katie Fox, Michelle Hines, Emily Thornton

Funding for Project:
Deakin University Central Research Grant
Northern Metropolitan Regional Department of Education and Training

Project Overview
Australian primary students' mathematical performances on international benchmark tests have slipped to average, with students' lack of mathematical confidence a major contributing factor (TIMSS, 2002). To overcome this problem, mathematics education research needs to focus on psychological as well as mathematical domains. Problem solving has been found to be an effective way for students to develop a deeper understanding of mathematical ideas and concepts (Cobb, Wood, Yackel, & Mc Neal, 1992) but students are not always inclined to try to solve unfamiliar problems. Individual students' inclination to solve unfamiliar problems (Williams, 2003) has been associated with optimism or resilience and, optimism can be built through achieving success in overcome challenges (Seligman, 1995). Building optimism and inclining to engage in mathematical problem solving are thus mutually sustaining processes. How does optimism influence group rather than individual problem solving though? To enhance mathematics learning through group problem solving we need to know how the relative optimism (or lack thereof) of group members could influence group problem solving performance. This could inform the composition of groups likely to enhance student learning. Such information could assist teachers, teacher educators, task designers, and policy makers interested in finding ways to raise the mathematical performance of students. It should also stimulate further research in this important area.

Research Design
Collaborative problem solving was studied in classrooms in which a high frequency of optimism building activity was expected to occur (teaching experiment derived from Williams, 2005). Students in Grade 5/6 classes in a government school were studied as they undertook three collaborative problem solving tasks that extended over one or more lesson during 2006. Data was collected using a modification of the innovative video-stimulated post-lesson interview technique developed through the Classroom Learning Project (Clarke, 2001) and refined for the international Learners' Perspective Study. This project adapts those data collection techniques to better suit study of collaborative groups that report to the whole class at intervals. Three cameras capture the activity of the six groups of four students. Microphones capture the talk of three of these groups (with opportunity to change the microphone focus). A fourth camera is available to capture reporting activity not clearly visible elsewhere. After each lesson, four students were interviewed individually. They examined mixed image video, and / or single camera video of their group and the reporting sessions. They discussed what they had learnt, and what had influenced their learning.

Responsibility for knowledge generation in Australian and Korean mathematics classrooms

Research Team:
Professor David Clarke (University of Melbourne)
Professor Frederick Leung (University of Hong Kong)
Associate Professor Kyungmee Park (Hongik University, Korea)

Project Outline:
The students' role in the generation of knowledge in the classroom is central to the reform agenda in 'Western' mathematics education. Asian education systems traditionally assign this role to the teacher. How do we reconcile Western educational theory with the success of Asian classrooms? In this project, the clichéd 'student-centred' versus 'teacher-centred' dichotomy is reconceptualized in terms of the distribution of responsibility for knowledge generation in the classroom. This analytical framework is applied to well-taught mathematics classrooms in Australia and Korea, connecting classroom practice directly to student learning outcomes in order to identify mutually-informing effective practice within both instructional traditions.

We need to reconcile the apparent differences in instructional practice between well-taught 'Asian' and well-taught 'Western' mathematics classrooms. If this can be achieved then best practice in one tradition can inform best practice in the other. An analytical approach based on the distribution of responsibility for knowledge generation is applied to well-taught classrooms in Australia and Korea in order to accommodate the effective practices of competent teachers in both traditions within the same explanatory framework. Only then will teachers in one tradition have access to effective practice in the other tradition in a form likely to sustain culturally-appropriate adaptation. The benefits to Australian schools will be considerable.

e-Research in the Social Sciences: The Collaborative Web-mediated Analysis of Large Data Sets

Research Team:
Professor David Clarke, Cameron Mitchell (University of Melbourne)
Dr Fritjof Sahlstrom (Uppsala University, Sweden)
Professor Frederick Leung (Hong Kong University)

Project Outline:
The major challenge for large-scale international collaborative research is to develop effective means of sharing and analysing the very large data sets that are being developed internationally. The term e-Research encapsulates this activity precisely. The 16-country LPS project has generated a complex database of classroom video and other material on an unprecedented scale. Secure web-mediated access to this data set will dramatically improve the current level of international collaborative analytical activity and offer a model to other international research consortia, particularly in the Social Sciences. Collaborative analysis with Uppsala and Hong Kong universities will provide an effective test case.

Trends in Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS)

Trends in Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS) are conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). The IEA is an independent, international cooperative of national research institutions and governmental research agencies that conducts large-scale comparative studies of educational achievement in order to understand the effects of policies and practices within and across systems of education. It has been in operation since 1958 and has conducted more than 20 cross-national studies of achievement. The foci of its studies have been achievement in the middle primary (Year 4) and lower secondary (Year 8) with some studies also involving the final year of school.
The Australian Council for Educational Research is the Australian centre for IEA studies. It has conducted the Australian component of the TIMSS and other IEA studies including data collection and data management as well as analysis and reporting at the national level.
Australia, through the Australian Council for Educational Research, has participated in the TIMSS 99 videotape study of mathematics and science teaching in Year 8 across seven countries. For Australia that study involved a random sample of 87 mathematics and 87 science lessons that provided the basis for a national and an international report. Video and transcript data from the mathematics component of this study have been added to the extensive classroom data set held at the ICCR. Data from the science component of this study will be added as soon as this is available.

The Negotiation of Meaning Project

This Australian project used a two-camera, split-screen display, to video record 54 mathematics and science lessons in grades 7 through 10.

The video record was supplemented by post-lesson video-stimulated interviews with students focusing on their identification of learning occurring in the course of the lesson and the classroom activities they associated with that learning.

A multi-faceted analysis of eight of those lessons (four mathematics and four science) has been published by Kluwer Academic Publishers as Perspectives on Practice and Meaning in Mathematics and Science Classrooms (Clarke, 2001). The data would support additional complementary analyses.