Abstract:

The constructivist paradigm obliges the teacher educator to determine the extent and structure of nascent, emerging prior conceptions before engaging in direct instruction to scaffold assimilated concepts and before attempting accommodation of the globally socially constructed (i.e., those accepted by normative forces) versions of such concepts. Technology can be useful in dertermining such latent conceptions, but, what about assisting their remediation? Personal response systems have been used as just that – a means of assisting students – however, in this work their use as an aid to furthering constructivist teaching, learning and assessment is discussed. A framework for combining constructivist teaching, learning and assessment (TLA) within the channelization of ICT is outlined. Aside from ascertaining (the usual role of personal response systems) and remediating (the purported benefit of such ascertaining) prior conceptions, the teacher needs to ‘assess’ movement through the teaching, learning and assessment cycle and this was attempted in the study. Student teachers (n=135) engaged in a pre-service undergraduate degree in education were probed for common alternative (or, mis-) conceptions, possible hypotheses for solving simple problems and opportunities for reflection concerning electricity using personal response technology. The TLA instrument used in this study was a set of questions presented as individual Powerpoint™ slides with the students responding using the Quizdom™ personal response system. The initial probe showed that remedial action was necessary, but given the constraints of teacher education courses, how such remediation should and could happen remains an open question. This study also demonstrated (again) that the development of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is a complex issue and requires explicit treatment. Nevertheless, it is considered desirable that the process of uncovering a student’s alternative (or, mis-) conceptions should be collaborative (between teacher educator and student personal construct systems) and reflective (within the students’ personal construct system but assisted by the teacher educator). In such a process, the teacher educator is a diagnostician helping the student follow up on the uncovered prior (or, mis-) conceptions involving reflection AND a remediator BUT ALSO a technologist both in the sense of being competent with ICT per se and being competent in combining ICT with TLA.

Keywords:

Constructivist, personal response system, teacher education.