Teachers' Pedagogical Reasoning and Students' Three-Dimensional Learning

Abstract

This article reports analyses of data from a design-based implementation project focused on middle- and high-school science teaching. Drawing on teacher interviews and surveys as well as student learning evidence, we examined the relationships between teachers' pedagogical reasoning and their students' three-dimensional learning. Most teachers were similar in their reasoning about the importance of facilitating students in active learning—what we call active-learning pedagogies. There were also important differences between two groups of teachers, though. Teachers of lower learning-gains classrooms reasoned that they should use investigations and hands-on experiences as means to engage students in a variety of interesting activities. Teachers of higher learning-gains classrooms reasoned that they should engage students in science learning activities including asking questions, carrying out practice-driven investigations, and constructing explanations to support students' sustained scientific engagement with phenomena—what we call three-dimensional pedagogies. The findings suggest the potential benefits of enacting professional learning that attends to and engages with teachers' reasoning about their purposes, their students, and their instructional practices. For example, teachers may benefit from reasoning collectively about how to simultaneously satisfy both commitments to meeting expectations of students, parents, and administrators (which privilege active-learning pedagogies) and commitments to supporting students' sustained scientific engagement (which privilege three-dimensional pedagogies).