jurnal discovery learning 1

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How to make guided discovery learning practical

for student teachers

Fred J. J. M. Janssen • Hanna B. Westbroek • Jan H. van Driel

Received: 14 July 2012 / Accepted: 31 October 2013 / Published online: 15 November 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract Many innovative teaching approaches lack classroom impact because teachers

consider the proposals impractical. Making a teaching approach practical requires instru-

mentality (procedures), congruence (local fit), and affordable cost (limited time and

resources).This paper concerns a study on the development and effects of a participatory

design based teacher training trajectory aimed at making guided discovery learning (GDL)

practical for student biology teachers. First, we identified practical heuristics for designing

GDL lessons by analyzing design protocols made by biology teachers who are experts inGDL. Next we inventoried student responses to their regular lessons and to GDL based

lessons. Based on this we prepared a teacher training program for eleven student biology

teachers in which they applied the heuristics and stepwise extended their teaching reper-

toire in the direction of GDL. The participants’ design processes and resulting lesson plans

were scored on both use of design heuristics and GDL characteristics. The participants

were interviewed about their motivational beliefs before and after the program. Results

showed that student teachers are able to design GDL lessons and used the heuristics to

design GDL lessons. Their motivation for implementing GDL in their classroom had

increased substantially. The paper concludes with a critical reflection on our method of

participatory design and its applicability.

Keywords Guided discovery learning Student teachers Student learning

Practicality Biology education Participatory design

F. J. J. M. Janssen (&) J. H. van Driel

ICLON, Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching, P.O. Box 905, 2300 AX Leiden,

The Netherlands

e-mail: [email protected]

J. H. van Driel


H. B. Westbroek

Centre for Educational Training, Assessment and Research, VU University Amsterdam,

De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands


Instr Sci (2014) 42:67–90

DOI 10.1007/s11251-013-9296-z


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Introduction

Several educational innovators and researchers have advocated the implementation of guided

discovery learning (GDL) practices in secondary education (Bruner 1961; Brown and

Campione 1994; Hmelo-Silver et al. 2007). The common aspect in different GDL practices isthat teaching starts by posing a challenging problem, and that students themselves contribute

to the knowledge development needed to solve the problem (Hmelo-Silver et al. 2007). When

students receive sufficient support in developing the necessary knowledge, GDL can help

them to become more motivated, develop flexible knowledge, and learn how knowledge is

developed in a specific domain (Reiser 2004; Hmelo-Silver et al. 2007; Lijnse and Klaassen

2004). Many teachers also recognize the potential of GDL and are in principle positive about

adding this teaching approach to their repertoire (Keys and Bryan 2001).

In spite of the perceived benefits of GDL, and even though GDL practices are generally

part of teacher training curricula in most countries, large-scale observation studies show

that teachers have scarcely practiced GDL (Gage 2009). Most teaching is still more or less

dominated by a structure that may be described as ‘the teacher first explains the theory,

after which students practice’. Furthermore, teachers tend to ask students lower-order

questions that do not challenge them to discover new knowledge (Borko and Putnam 1996;

Chin 2007).

The disappointing classroom impact of this potentially valuable teaching approach can be

explained by the differences in perspectives that educational designers and teachers have on

developing new teaching practices. Roughly put, educational designers generally primarily

focus on optimizing student learning when developing formats for teaching practices. When

teachers evaluate new teaching approaches, potential benefits for learning processes of stu-dents play a role, but are not decisive. Teachers evaluate new practices primarily on practi-

cality criteria (Doyle and Ponder 1977; Janssen et al. 2013). Teachers consider new teaching

practices practical when (a) efficient procedures (heuristics) are available to translate inno-

vative ideals into concrete instruction (instrumentality); (b) the proposed change sufficiently

fits the teacher’s current practice and goals (congruence), and (c) implementation of the

innovation will take limited investment but the expected benefits are substantial ( cost ). A

change proposal that does not meet these criteria raises an impregnable barrier for imple-

mentation: a teacher will decline the proposal or adapt it to make it fit the criteria, often losing

the core characteristics of innovation (e.g., Spillane et al. 2002).

Thus, to enhance the classroom impact of GDL, professional development arrangementsor teacher training arrangements should ensure that the perspective of student learning

through GDL and the practicality perspective of teachers are both sufficiently elaborated.

For this, it is advisable that educational designers become involved in design activities in

cooperation with teachers (Könings et al. 2005). Participatory design is common practice in

many domains in (information) technology and services (Simonson and Robertson 2012).

The idea is that involving users at an early stage in the design process ensures that the end

product will be fit for use, which enhances implementation. In the field of education par-

ticipatory design is still rather uncommon, but gaining momentum (Könings et al. 2011).

In the case of professional development or teacher training trajectories that aim at

supporting teachers to develop new teaching repertoires, the challenge is to structure

participatory design activities in such a way that, on the one hand, the core content of the

new teaching practice (e.g. GDL) is preserved and, on the other hand, that this is done in

such a way that the teachers consider the new teaching practice as practical. This way,

teachers are offered tools for implementing a new teaching practice that is generally

considered important. They are enabled to explore GLD in different variations according to

68 F. J. J. M. Janssen et al.


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their own preferences, and for topics that they choose themselves. Based on these expe-

riences they can make an informed decision about how to add GDL to their repertoire.

This aim asks for an approach that supports the utilization of the expertise of the

educational designer about effective characteristics of the new practice, as well as the

expertise of the teachers about the context they work in (his/her own capacities, his/herstudents, the curriculum, the available resources and time and the goals that need to be

achieved simultaneously). If this can be realized, mutual learning can take place.

In this study, educational designer and teachers cooperated in the design of GDL-based

lessons. Starting point for the development of the participatory design trajectory was a set

of research based design criteria for GDL lessons. The criteria were the result of an earlier

design research project conducted by the first author (Janssen 1999; Janssen and Waarlo

2010). Next, a group of experienced teachers, in cooperation with the educational

researcher, developed design heuristics for designing GDL based lessons. These heuristics

enable teachers to realise GDL lessons in a practical way, that is: within the limited time

and resources that they have at their disposal, and given their regular teaching context.

The GDL criteria, together with the heuristics formed the basis for the development of

the teacher-training trajectory that aimed at making designing GDL-based lessons practical

for student teachers. To establish what practicality means for this particular group, the

development of this trajectory started with the systematic identification of goals, capacities

and work conditions of the participating student teachers. After being introduced to GDL

and addressing a GDL based lesson conducted by the educational designer, the student

teachers were specifically asked to respond to GDL lessons: what they considered pros,

cons and difficulties. Based on this information a trajectory was developed that enabled

student teachers to stepwise develop GDL based lessons in cooperation with each other andthe educational designer. Furthermore, the student teachers decided on the topics, on which

key features they wanted to implement successively in their lessons and in what way. The

educational researcher provided feedback.

The study at hand concerns a teacher training trajectory for biology student teachers.

First of all, the way GDL criteria play out exactly, is domain dependent (Shulman and

Quinlan 1996). Furthermore Seidel and Shavelson (2007) have shown that domain specific

learning activities contribute the most to learning effects. Moreover, this study concerns a

teacher-training trajectory as research shows that beginning teachers play a crucial role in

the implementation and dissemination of innovations in the science subjects in schools

(Davis et al. 2006). It has additionally been shown that beginning teachers who implementinnovative teaching approaches such as GDL teaching are more effective teachers, which

promotes/enhances student learning, but also lowers the chance that they leave the teaching

profession at an early stage (Davis et al. 2006).

In this paper we will first describe the key characteristics of effective GDL lessons and

present a general framework for making teacher training trajectories practical, that is:

instrumental, congruent, and low cost. Next, we will discuss an empirical investigation into

applying the general framework in the design of a teacher training trajectory in order to

make GDL practical for student biology teachers. We will conclude with a critical

reflection on our method and its applicability.

What makes guided discovery learning effective?

There is ample evidence that unguided or minimally GDL is not effective (Kirschner et al.

2006; Mayer 2004) and that the success of discovery learning critically depends on how it

GDL practical for student teachers 69


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is supported (Brown and Campione 1994; Hmelo-Silver et al. 2007; Reiser 2004; Lijnse

and Klaassen 2004). Reiser (2004) distinguishes two ways of support: (1) structuring the

problem and (2) problematizing student solutions. First, students need guidance in struc-

turing the problem they have to solve. An important way to do this is by dividing the

problem into sub problems for them (Reiser 2004). If these sub problems can be sequencedin such a way that solving each sub problem makes students feel the need to solve the next

sub problem, students will experience the problems as their own (Lijnse and Klaassen

2004). Second, students need to be supported to problematize their solutions, i.e., to

critically evaluate and improve the solutions they develop (Reiser 2004).

How to sequence problems and how to evaluate solutions is to a large extent determined

by the domain students are to develop knowledge about (Shulman and Quinlan 1996). Our

study focused on the domain of biology. A biological system, such as the immune system,

generally consists of many sub-systems (e.g., different types of white blood cells such as

macrophages) that cooperate. Every sub-system fulfils one or more functions of the system

as a whole (in this case, destroying invading pathogens). Characteristic of biological

systems is that these functions are typically realized in such a way as to have the fewest

disadvantages for both the survival and the reproduction of the organism it is part of

(Dennett 1995; Lewens 2009). This allows biologists to approach function-structure

relations of biological systems as design problems, and develop knowledge about bio-

logical systems by redesigning them within the constraint that solutions should have the

fewest disadvantages for survival and reproduction (Dennett 1995; Lewens 2009; Wouters

2007).

It has earlier been shown that it is possible for students in secondary biology education

to develop flexible knowledge about the functions and mechanisms of complex biologicalsystems by having them redesign the system (Janssen 1999; Janssen and Waarlo 2010).

The flow of lesson segments in such a biology GDL lesson is as follows (see Table 1,

showing part of a lesson about the immune system). The starting point is the function of the

biological system as whole, which is reformulated as a design problem (e.g., how can

invading pathogens be destroyed?, lesson segment 1). Next, students work on a solution

(first individually, then in groups), and are instructed to search for the simplest solution.

The heuristic search for disadvantages of different solutions and choosing the solution with

the fewest disadvantages for the organism as a whole helps students to problematize and

further develop their solutions (lesson segments 2 and 3). Then, guided by the teacher, the

best solution from each group (for example: eating cell) is discussed, evaluated, and relatedto the solution selected by nature (macrophage, lesson segment 4). At this point, students

have developed knowledge about a part of the system (in this case the macrophage as part

of the immune system). However, if the system only consisted of that particular part

(‘eating cell’), this would have disadvantages (i.e., a possible attack of one’s own body

material). This disadvantage can now be rephrased as the next design problem in a natural

way (lesson segment 6). This way, students discover that for the realisation of one function

of a biological system cooperating sub-systems with different functions are needed. Before

students turn to the next design problem they first apply the newly discovered knowledge

to consolidate that knowledge (lesson segment 5).

How to make guided discovery learning practical for student teachers

Although our knowledge about how to make GDL effective for students has substantially

increased, it has had hardly any impact on classroom practice (Macalalag and Duncan



5/26 T a b l e 1

F l o w o f l e s s o n s e g m e n t s i n a G D b i o l o g y l e s

s o n , i l l u s t r a t e d f o r p a r t o f a l e s s o n a b o u t t e a c h i n g t h e i m m u n e s y s t e m

F l o w o f l e s s o n s e g m e n t s

S a m p l e f r a g m e n t o f a l e s s o n

1 . S t a r t w i t h t h e f u n c

t i o n o f t h e b i o l o g i c a l s y s t e m a s a

w h o l e a n d

r e f o r m u l a t e t h i s i n a d e s i g n p r o b l e m

F u n c t i o n o f t h e i m m u n e s y s t e m : r e n d e r i n g i n v a d i n g p a t h o g e n s h a r m l e s s .

H o w c a n i n

v a d i n g p a t h o g e n s b e r e n d e r e d h a r m l e s s ?

2 . D e v e l o p i n g m u l t i p

l e s o l u t i o n s a n d d e t e r m i n i n g t h e d i s a d v a n t a g e s o f t h e

s o l u t i o n s s t u d e n t s c

a n c o n t r i b u t e

S o l u t i o n A

S o l u t i o n B

S o l u t i o n C

L e t t h e p a t h o g e n b e e a t e n b y

a n e a t i n g

c e l l

S u r r o u n d t h e

p a t h o g e n

T h i n g s t h a t b r e a k d o w n a

p a t h o g e n ( l i k e

a k i n d o f n e e d l e )

D i s a d v a n t a g e



c a n a t t a c k m a t e r i a l o f t h e

b o d y i t s e l f

c a n a t t a c k

m a t e r i a l o f t h e

b o d y

i t s e l f

p a t h o g e n s a r e

s t i l l

i n o u r b o d y

c a n a t t a c k m a t e r i a l o f t h e b o d y i t s e l f

p o i s o n c o u l d c o m e o u t t h e p a t h o g e n a n d

s p r e a d i n y o u r b o d y

3 . A l t e r n a t i v e s o l u t i o n s a r e w e i g h e d a n d t h e s i m p l e s t s

o l u t i o n t h a t h a s t h e

f e w e s t d i s a d v a n t a g e s i s c h o s e n

T h e e a t i n g

c e l l h a s n o t t h e d r a w b a c k s o f t h e o t h e r s o l u t i o n s b u t s t i l l c a n a t t a c k

m a t e r i a l o f t h e

b o d y i t s e l f

4 . T h e s o l u t i o n i s c o m p a r e d w i t h t h e s o l u t i o n ‘ s e l e c t e d

b y n a t u r e ’ .

A d d i t i o n a l k n o w l e d

g e i s p r o v i d e d w h e n n e e d e d

E a t i n g c e l l s a c t u a l l y e x i s t s ! I m m u n o l o g i s t c a

l l t h e m m a c r o p h a g e s . T h e p r o c e s s o f e a t i n g a n d

d i g e s t i n g

b y p h a g o c y t o s i s i s c l a r i fi e d .

5 . S t u d e n t s a p p l y t h e

a c q u i r e d k n o w l e d g e i n a d d i t i o n a l q u e s t i o n s

E . g . , c o n s i d

e r i n g t h e f u n c t i o n s o f m a c r o p h a g e

s : w h e r e i n o u r b o d y d o y o u e x p e c t a h i g h d e n s i t y

o f m a c r o p h a g e s , a n d w h y t h e r e ?

6 . T h e d i s a d v a n t a g e o f t h e c h o s e n s o l u t i o n i s r e p h r a s e d a s a n e w d e s i g n

p r o b l e m .


M a c r o p h a g

e s c a n p o t e n t i a l l y a t t a c k o u r m a t e

r i a l o f t h e b o d y i t s e l f .

N e w d e s i g n

p r o b l e m

H o w c a n t h

e m a c r o p h a g e b e p r e v e n t e d f r o m

a t t a c k i n g m a t e r i a l s o f o u r o w n b o d y ?



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2010; Gage 2009) Practicality theory helps us explain why GDL is not implemented on a

large scale by teachers in general and student teachers in particular (Doyle and Ponder

1977; Janssen et al. 2013). Teachers will often consider proposals for GDL impractical for

the three related reasons mentioned above. We will discuss these reasons in more detail.

First, efficient procedures to translate principles of GDL into concrete instruction andplans for action are lacking (instrumentality). The blueprints or design criteria of GDL

often offered to teachers are too general, whereas the exemplary materials typically are too

specific to provide teachers with efficient design procedures (Borko and Putnam 1996).

Second, teachers often do not know how proposals for GDL fit their current practice and

goals (congruence). It is important to note here that teachers are not focused solely on

optimizing student learning; rather, they need to realize different goals simultaneously.

Student teachers in particular have concerns about the content that needs to be covered and

the classroom order that needs to be maintained. Student teachers typically also have more

personal needs, such as keeping teaching situations predictable (Borko and Putnam 1996;

Davis et al. 2006; Kennedy 2010). An implementation of GDL in which students have to

struggle with challenging tasks and specific support is needed makes it difficult for teachers

to realize all their other goals simultaneously. This is especially the case for student

teachers (Davis et al. 2006; Borko and Putnam 1996).

Finally, teachers often expect that implementing GDL requires large investments

against what would be at least unpredictable benefits (cost-benefit). An important cost

factor is time, because time is particularly limited (Kennedy 2010). Designing GDL les-

sons takes especially student teachers a lot of time as they do not have the necessary

expertise yet. They often lack knowledge about what might be suitable problems for a

specific topic and what relevant prior knowledge their students have (Borko and Putnam1996; Davis et al. 2006). The development of such knowledge is both time and resource

intensive. On top of that, student teachers often are unsure whether they are able to

implement GDL in way that the expected benefits are realized (Davis et al. 2006). In sum,

it is especially student teachers who will generally consider GDL impractical because it

lacks instrumentality and congruence, and costs are high.

Although practicality theory helps us understand why student teachers do not implement

GDL, it does not provide us with guidelines for making GDL practical without losing its

core characteristics. We first need to understand exactly which practicality aspects deter-

mine a student teacher’s response to GDL. For this, we draw on two theories that can help

us identify guiding factors that underlie the practical reasoning of student teachers: thetheory on fast and frugal heuristics (Gigerenzer and Gaissmaier 2011), and evolutionary

planning theory (Pollock 2006).

How people act in complex practical situations

We have limited time and resources when we need to make decisions, not only in daily life

but also in professional practices such as sports, medicine, and law. Gigerenzer and his

colleagues have shown that in order to deal with these constraints we make simplified

models of a situation and typically use heuristics to find solutions (Gigerenzer and Gai-ssmaier 2011). As methods to realize certain goals heuristics are cost-effective, because

they enable us to ignore most of the information, and select only that relevant information

that may relatively easily be accessed and processed. And, although this might seem

counterintuitive, Gigerenzer and colleagues show that such simple heuristics often lead to

better solutions than complex optimizing methods.



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Baseball players, for example, use the gaze heuristic: If they want to catch a high ball,

they (1) fix their gaze on the ball; (2) start running, and (3) adjust their running speed so

that the angle between the eye and the ball remains constant (Gigerenzer 2004). In order to

position themselves baseball players only need to focus on the angle of the gaze, which

they can easily exploit, and ignore all causal variables necessary to compute the trajectoryof the ball such as initial distance, velocity, air resistance, etc. Heuristics can underlie both

intuitive and deliberative performance. Often heuristics, like the gaze heuristic, are learned

in a deliberate fashion but after practice become routinized to a point that they are used

effortlessly and intuitively.

Gigerenzer and colleagues have studied the use of heuristics in various domains, such as

medicine, sports, law, economics, however, not for the domain of teaching. We therefore

provide an example from our own research of a deliberative heuristic that a teacher used to

redesign a ‘cookbook’ practical where students were given detailed step-by-step instruc-

tions on what to do, into a more open, inquiry based practical. This teacher operated as

follows: (a) he cut the original prescriptions of the practical in the following bits: question,

method for collecting data, method for organizing data etc.; (b) next he offered his students

the topic the practical was about and the practical materials; (c) next, he let his students

first think a few minutes about each next step in the practical (what would be a good

question?, what might be a method for collecting data?, etc.). If students got stuck the

teacher offered them the respective bit of the practical prescription that he had cut

beforehand. This way, the bits of prescriptions provided a clue for the students how to

move on. By using this heuristic—cut the cookbook prescription in bits that reflect steps in

inquiry and provide students with the respective bit when they get stuck—the teacher was

able to transform a cookbook practical into a differentiating and more open practical,within limited time and with limited resources.

The theory of fast and frugal heuristics helps us to explain and elaborate the practicality

dimensions of instrumentality, and partly also the cost/benefit trade-off. Thus, in order to

make GDL practical for student teachers we need to identify cost-effective procedures (fast

and frugal heuristics) that they can use to translate the abstract design characteristics of

GDL into concrete instruction.

How people extend their repertoire

Even if we provide teachers with the heuristics by which they can implement an innovativeteaching approach such as GDL, they still have to consider whether this teaching approach

will fit their current goals and circumstances sufficiently (congruence), and whether they

consider the innovative alternative will be an improvement (cost/benefit trade-off ). Pol-

lock’s theory on evolutionary planning can help us to address these issues. Pollock argues

that people in complex practical situations do not aim for the best, optimal solution, but

instead plan for actions that are geared at improving the current situation. In other words: a

decision maker starts with a good enough plan for action and over time can improve this

plan step by step. People can do this, because a plan typically consists of a sequence of

action segments that can be recombined and/or somewhat adjusted in order to create aslightly new plan. Pollock formulated rules by which this evolution is guided: people

consider any adjustment to be an improvement if it leads to an increased expected value of

the action plan. The expected value of an action is defined as the product of values of the

outcomes (desirability) of that action, discounting each by the probability of that outcome

occurs when the action is performed. Thus, people will only replace their existing plan for

action if the expected value of the new plan is higher than that of the original one. This



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does not imply that people always perform these calculations deliberately; on the contrary,

these evaluative responses are often formed automatically (Fishbein and Ajzen 2010).

The cost/benefit trade-off criterion used in teachers’ practical reasoning can now be cast

in terms of Pollock’s more precise expected value framework. Pollock also takes the

congruence dimension explicitly into account, by making regular teaching practice (i.e.,the sequence of lesson segments that constitutes a lesson) the reference point in decision-

making, instead of an unreachable optimum. Evolutionary planning theory predicts that

teachers are willing to use a certain heuristic only if they expect the resulting flow of lesson

segments to have a higher expected value than their regular way of teaching. Expected

value in turn is based on motivational beliefs (Fishbein and Ajzen 2010). The desirability

component of expected value is based on the estimated advantages and disadvantages of a

plan for action. The probability component of expected value is based on the estimated

difficulties with designing and enacting an action plan.

Theories on evolutionary planning (Pollock) and on fast and frugal heuristics (Gige-

renzer) elaborate complementary aspects of practicality. Gigerenzer has shown the

importance of fast and frugal heuristics in addressing complex practical problems. Gige-

renzer does not work out how such heuristics can be developed and how people decide to

use certain heuristics to improve their existing situation. Pollock (2006) explains fairly

precisely what makes people decide to adjust their current plans of action. Additionally he

shows that people tend to adjust their plans of action by recombining their action plan

segments. When we combine the work on heuristics and the work on evolutionary plan-

ning, we conclude that heuristics in fact describe how someone can recombine his/her

action segments, in order to realize the desired situation in a time and resources saving

way. Additionally we conclude that people are willing to use such heuristics for adjustingtheir action plans this way, when they estimate that the expected value their new action

plan is higher than the expected value of their current action plan (desirability and prob-

ability) (Janssen et al. 2013).

Based on these insights, we expected in the case of the GDL trajectory, that the student

teachers are able to stepwise implement GDL aspects in their lessons by subsequently

recombining their lesson segments when offered fast and frugal design heuristics. We also

expected that for an implementation of each of the GDL aspects, they would be willing to

use heuristics for recombining their lesson segments if they estimated that the expected

value of the outcome (the more GDL like lesson) would outperform the expected value of

their current lessons. For a more detailed elaboration of this theoretical framework on how(student) teachers think and act, including empirical research that emerged from this

framework on how to make different innovative teaching approaches practical see Janssen

et al. (2013).

Drawing on practicality theory and the theories on fast and frugal heuristics (Gige-

renzer) and evolutionary planning (Pollock), we formulated the following characteristics of

an intervention aimed at making GDL practical for student biology teachers. Such an

intervention should:

• Start with the student teachers’ regular flow of lesson segments

• Provide the student teachers with heuristics that enable them to stepwise recombineand/or adapt regular lesson segments in the direction of GDL

• Make the student teachers consider each adaption an increase of the expected value,

Based on our theoretical framework, we formulated the following hypotheses about the

outcomes of the trajectory. We expected that the student teachers after the intervention

would:



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1. Design lessons in which more lesson segments meet the GDL criteria than before the

intervention.

2. Use the identified heuristics more than before the intervention.

3. Estimate the desirability of GDL lessons higher than before the intervention.

4. Estimate the probability of GDL lessons higher than before the intervention.5. Estimate the expected value of GDL lessons higher than expected value of their

regular lessons.

Methods

Participants and context

Our trajectory aimed at making GDL practical was part of a subject-specific pedagogycourse for biology student teachers in the context of a 1-year postgraduate teacher edu-

cation program. Eleven biology student teachers participated in this study. Prior to entering

the program all had gained a Master’s degree in biology or biomedical sciences. At the

time these student teachers were in the fourth month of their postgraduate biology teacher

training year. 1 day per week the student teachers attend courses at the teacher training

institute; besides that, they have a traineeship at a secondary school. The student teachers

had been independently teaching a few biology classes for 3 months, with a teaching load

ranging from 5 to 12 h per week. At the teacher training institute they had taken general

courses on classroom management, teacher-directed types of instruction, and assessment.

In the subject-specific pedagogy course teacher-directed types of instruction were appliedin teaching biology topics.

Teacher training trajectory for GDL in biology

For the design of the teacher training trajectory we needed information about the desired

situation (desired flow of lesson segments and accompanying heuristics) and the existing

situation of the student teachers (their regular flow of lesson segments, expected value, and

underlying motivational beliefs). On the basis of this information we developed a teacher

training trajectory that helped the student teachers to adapt their regular flow of lesson

segments stepwise in the direction of the desired flow of lesson segments.

In order to establish the desired situation we first formulated GDL for biology in terms

of lesson segments, as discussed earlier (see Table 1). On this basis we developed a rubric

by which to assess the student teachers’ lesson designs for every typical lesson segment. A

fragment of this rubric, showing one of the six lesson segments, is presented in Table 2.

Establishing the desired situation

In a pilot, we identified fast and frugal design heuristics that might be used to design GDL

lessons. For this, we identified heuristics that experienced GDL biology teachers use todesign GDL lessons. We contacted fifteen biology teachers who had attended a workshop

about teaching immunology according to GDL organized by the first author 2 years earlier.

Since then, these teachers have regularly reported to the first author about how they design

and enact GDL in their teaching (with respect to the topic of immunology as well as other

topics). Thirteen teachers were willing to participate. From each of them we collected two



10/26 T a b l e 2

F r a g m e n t o f t h e r u b r i c u s e d t o a s s e s s s t u d e n t t e a c h e r s ’ l e s s o n d e s i g n s

L e s s o n s e g m e n t

U n s a t i s f a c t o r y

A d e q u a t e

G o o d

6 . T h e d i s a d v a n t a g e o f t h e c h o s e n

s o l u t i o n i s r e p h r a s e d a s a n e w

d e s i g n p r o b l e m

T h e n e w d e s i g n p r o b l e m h a s n o t

e m e r g e d f r o m

a d i s a d v a n t a g e o f

t h e s o l u t i o n

T h e n e w d

e s i g n p r o b l e m h a s e m e r g e d f r o m

a

d i s a d v a n

t a g e d o f t h e s o l u t i o n , b u t n e w c r i t e r i a

a r e f o r m

u l a t e d

T h e n e w d e s i g n p r o b l e m

i s a

r e f o r m u l a t i o n o f t h e d i s

a d v a n t a g e o f

t h e s o l u t i o n

E x a m p l e

D e s i g n p r o b l e m



S o l u t i o n : e a t i n g c e l l ( M a c r o p h a g e )

D i s a d v a n t a g e : c a n a t t a c k m a t e r i a l o f

t h e b o d y i t s e l f

H o w c a n a n e a t i n g c e l l d i s a r m b o d y

c e l l s t h a t a r e

i n f e c t e d b y v i r u s e s ?

H o w c a n a n e a t i n g c e l l s p e c i fi c a l l y r e c o g n i z e

m a t e r i a l s o f t h e o w n b o d y ?

H o w c a n i t t h a t a m a c r o p

h a g e b e

p r e v e n t e d f r o m a t t a c k i n

g m a t e r i a l s o f

t h e b o d y i t s e l f ?



11/26

lesson designs for the use of GDL for a particular biology topic (among others: plant

anatomy; hormones; the working of the human eye; nerves, lungs and excretion), and

assessed these by means of the rubric. For eleven teachers the lesson designs appeared to

be sufficient (scoring ‘adequate’ or ‘good’ on at least four lesson segments). In order to

establish which design heuristics these eleven teachers used to design GDL biology lessonsthey were asked to write down which activities they had undertaken so far (design notes)

every 3 min during the design process. In these notes we searched for information and time

saving procedures: fast and frugal heuristics that teachers use to realise certain GDL lesson

segments in their lessons. Two raters underlined independently the heuristics they found in

de design notes. Below is an example of a design note of an experienced teacher, after

3 min of designing a lesson. The underlining is done by one of the raters.

I first established what the function actually is of the eyes. First I though of seeing,

but than I realized that seeing images is in fact a complex form of orienting yourself

in a space. So, I then formulated as a problem how do you orient in space using yoursight. Next I started to think about what would be the most simple solution for this

problem? For this I thought of other animals that do this in a more simple way than

we. Via Euglena I thought of a light sensitive spot, just a simple sense—cell that can

distinguish between light and dark.

After identifying the heuristics, the two raters independently categorized the heuristics

they had found, placing similar heuristics in one category. This way the following heuristic

was, for example, formulated: Find the function of a biological system as a whole and

reformulate this as the first design problem (Table 3 no. 4). With respect to one heuristic

there was a difference between the assessors that could easily be solved (Table 3 no. 6):this appeared to consist of three sub heuristics (i.e., using technological, historical, and

comparative analogies) that one assessor had rated as separate heuristics and the other

assessor as part of one overarching heuristic. Analysis of the design notes resulted in the

identification of eight different design heuristics. These heuristics are presented in Table 3,

together with an indication of how often they were used in the lesson designs of the

experienced teachers.

Establishing the existing situation

Next, we determined the existing situation of the participating student teachers: to whatextent they were already capable of designing a GDL lesson and which design heuristics

they used. We additionally determined what new aspects of GDL they were willing to

develop on the basis of their motivational beliefs.

We first analyzed two lesson plans of each student teacher (which they had already

included in their portfolios for the teacher education program), in order to establish how

the participants taught their regular flow of lesson segments and how they scored the

expected value of their regular lessons. Next, student teachers were introduced to the

principles of GDL for biology by having them redesign the immune system as if they were

students, similar to the way described earlier (see Table 1). Afterwards they were asked todesign a GDL based lesson about the heart. We assessed the resulting lesson plans by

means of the rubric, to see to what extent they were capable of implementing GDL lesson

segments, and which heuristics they used without practical support (see Table 3, column

‘before’). Finally, for all student teachers we established their expected values for GDL

lessons and the corresponding motivational beliefs: their perceptions of the advantages,

disadvantages, and difficulties with respect to designing and enacting GDL lessons



12/26 T a b l e 3

N u m b e r o f e x p e r i e n c e d t e a c h e r s a n d s t u d e n t t e a c h e r s u s i n g a h e u r i s t i c t o d e s i g n a n d e n a c t G D L b i o l o g y l e s s o n s ;

f o r s t u d e n t t e a c h e r s , b e f o r e a n d a f t e r t h e t e a c h e r

t r a i n i n g t r a j e c t o r y

N

u m b e r o f t e a c h e r s

a

u s i n g t h e h e u r i s t i c

E x p e r i e n c e d t e a c h e r s

S t u d e n t t e a c h e r s

H e u r i s t i c s

B e f o r e

A f t e r

1 . D e t e r m i n e o n t h e b a s i s o f t h e c u r r i c u l u m s t a n d a r d s t h e

k n o w l e d g e t h a t n e e

d s t o b e c o v e r e d w i t h r e s p e c t t o t h e

b i o l o g i c a l s y s t e m a t h a n d

9

6

1 0

2 . R e v e r s e s t r u c t u r e – f u n c t i o n o r d e r

8

2

9 * *

3 . W o r k o u t w h a t t h e

d i s a d v a n t a g e w o u l d b e f o r t h e o r g a n i s m

t h a t t h e b i o l o g i c a l s y s t e m i s p a r t o f i f i t w o u l d n o t b e t h e r e

8

0

4

4 . F i n d t h e f u n c t i o n o f t h e b i o l o g i c a l s y s t e m a s a w h o l e a n d

r e f o r m u l a t e t h i s a s

t h e fi r s t d e s i g n p r o b l e m

1 0

3

9 * *

5 . F o r e a c h d e s i g n p r

o b l e m , f o r m u l a t e m u l t i p l e p o s s i b l e

s o l u t i o n s a n d fi n d t h e i r d i s a d v a n t a g e s

1 0

3

7

6 . I f n o a l t e r n a t i v e s c

a n b e t h o u g h t o f , t h i n k o f t e c h n i c

a l ,

c o m p a r a t i v e , o r h i s t o r i c a l a n a l o g i e s

6

2

7 *

7 . T e s t ( i n a t h o u g h t

e x p e r i m e n t ) w h e t h e r s t u d e n t s w o u l d b e

a b l e t o t h i n k o f a s o l u t i o n b y e x a m i n i n g w h a t p r i o r

k n o w l e d g e i s r e q u i r e d

7

2

9 * *

8 . I f s t u d e n t s a r e n o t

l i k e l y t o t h i n k o f a s o l u t i o n , d i v i d e t h e

p r o b l e m i n t o s u b - p r o b l e m s , a n d / o r g i v e h i n t s , a n d / o r

o f f e r

p o s s i b l e c h o i c e s

9

3

7

N o t e c o l u m n 2 s h o w s

t h e f r e q u e n c y w i t h w h i c h e a c h o f t h e h e u r i s t i c s w e r e u s e d b y t h e e x p e r i e n c e d t e a c h e r s . T h e h e u r i s t i c s w e r e o f f e r e d t o t h e s t u d e n t t e a c h

e r s . C o l u m n s 3

a n d 4 s h o w t h e n u m b

e r o f s t u d e n t t e a c h e r s u s e d t h e h e u r i s t i c s b e f o r e a n d a f t e r t h e t e a c h

e r t r a i n i n g t r a j e c t o r y , r e s p e c t i v e l y

* p \

0 . 0 5 ; * * p \ 0 . 0 1 ( o n e - s i d e d )

a

n =

1 1 f o r a l l g r o u

p s



13/26

(Table 4, column 2). This information was used to establish the existing situation of the

student teachers and guided the design of our teacher training trajectory.

Development of teacher training program

On the basis of the information about both the desired and existing situations we developed

a teacher training trajectory aimed at making GDL practical for student teachers. The

student teachers’ regular lessons typically have the following flow of lesson segments: they

start with an explanation of the structure of a biological sub-system and explain its function

afterwards. This is followed by exercises, after which the structure of a new sub-system is

explained, and so on. GDL lessons can be gradually developed by recombining and

adapting this typical lesson segment flow in four steps. The trajectory consists of the

following steps (see for numbered heuristics Table 3).

(1) Reverse structure– function order. In their regular lesson segments student teachersoften start by introducing the structure. Thus, student teachers were now invited to

start by introducing the function of the biological system, followed by an explanation

of its structure (heuristics 1 and 2);

(2) Formulate functions as design problems and structures as solutions for these

problems. For instance, instead of telling students that invading pathogens should be

rendered harmless (function), the student teachers were invited to present this as a

design problem, such as ‘how can invading pathogens be rendered harmless?’ and to

present a macrophage as the solution to this problem (heuristics 3 and 4);

(3) In addition to steps 1 and 2 the student teachers were asked to present and evaluate

multiple solutions (heuristics 5 and 6), such as surrounding, eating, and breakingdown (see Table 1);

(4) Finally the student teachers were stimulated to gradually help their students to

develop their own solutions and evaluate these independently (heuristics 7 and 8).

For each step student teachers were offered specific heuristics. These were first applied

by the teacher educator (modelling), and then practiced by the student teachers. In each

step the teacher educator provided feedback on the lesson plans. Afterwards the student

teachers taught at least one lesson in their own classes and evaluated the lesson. They

discussed and reflected on their experiences in the next session of the teacher training

trajectory. In this way the design and enactment task for student teachers was graduallybuilt up from simple to more complex. This incremental development was intended to

allow student teachers to actually experience the expected benefits of GDL, and at the same

time postpone any anticipated disadvantages and difficulties.

Data collection and analysis

We will now discuss how we identified the lesson segments and heuristics, and estimated

the expected values and underlying motivational beliefs.

To determine the lesson segments and their quality, written lesson plans were collected

and evaluated using the rubric (see for a fragment Table 2). For any lesson segment three

levels were defined (1 = unsatisfactory, 2 = adequate, and 3 = good). The student

teachers’ lessons were independently assessed by two assessors (the first author and an

expert in biology education), using the rubric. We examined how many teachers scored

‘adequate’ or ‘good’ on implementing a particular GDL lesson segment. The raters agreed

in 8 of the 11 cases (73 %). In three cases there was disagreement on whether the



14/26 T a b l e 4

E s t i m a t e d a

d v a n t a g e s a n d d i s a d v a n t a g e s a n d

d i f fi c u l t i e s o f G D L a c c o r d i n g t o s t u d e n t t e a c h e r s , b e f o r e a n d a f t e r

t h e t e a c h e r t r a i n i n g t r a j e c t o r y

C a t e g o r y

M o t i v a t i o n a l b e l i e f s


b e f o r e ( n =

1 1 )


a f t e r ( n =

1 1 )

A d v a n t a g e s

S t u d e n t s l e a r n h o w a s y

s t e m w o r k s a n d w h y i t i s b u i l t l i k

e i t i s

8

1 1

S t u d e n t s s t u d y t h e s u b j e

c t m a t t e r m o r e c r e a t i v e l y a n d c r i t i c a l l y

7

9

S t u d e n t s l e a r n h o w t o h a n d l e f u n c t i o n a l b i o l o g i c a l p r o b l e m s t h e m s e l v e s

5

7

S t u d e n t s w o r k o n t h e s u

b j e c t m a t t e r m o r e m o t i v a t e d a n d

a c t i v e l y

6

1 0

A s a t e a c h e r y o u l e a r n b e t t e r h o w t h e s y s t e m w o r k s a n d w h y i t w o r k s t h i s w a y

6

9

Y o u g a i n m o r e i n s i g h t i

n t o s t u d e n t s ’ t h i n k i n g

3

8

Y o u g o o u t s i d e t h e t e x t b o o k ; t e a c h i n g b e c o m e s e x c i t i n g a g a i n

3

7

D i s - a d v a n t a g e s

T a k e s m o r e p r e p a r a t i o n

t i m e

1 1

5

T a k e s m o r e t i m e t o e x e c u t e a l e s s o n

1 0

2

O n l y g o o d s t u d e n t s c a n

h a n d l e t h i s

7

3

H i g h e r p r o b a b i l i t y o f c l a s s m a n a g e m e n t p r o b l e m s

8

4

S t u d e n t s m a y i n c o r r e c t l y t h i n k t h a t o r g a n i s m s a r e ‘ d e s i g n

e d ’

2

3

S t u d e n t s w i l l r e m e m b e r

i n c o r r e c t a l t e r n a t i v e s o l u t i o n s a s

w e l l

6

2

D i f fi c u l t i e s ( d e s i g n i n g )

E s t a b l i s h i n g w h i c h s y s t e m l e v e l y o u s t a r t w i t h ?

0

3

H o w t o t h i n k u p a l t e r n a

t i v e s o l u t i o n s a n d d i s a d v a n t a g e s ?

9

4

H o w t o h a n d l e d e s i g n p

r o b l e m s t h a t b u i l d o n e a r l i e r p r o b

l e m s ?

1

2

H o w t o e s t i m a t e b e f o r e h a n d w h a t s t u d e n t s w i l l c o m e u p w i t h ?

7

4

W h a t t o d o i f t h e a l t e r n a t i v e s o l u t i o n i s b e t t e r t h a n n a t u r e

’ s s o l u t i o n ?

2

2

H o w t o d e t e r m i n e w h a t

s t u d e n t s s h o u l d d i s c o v e r t h e m s e l v e s a n d w h a t s h o u l d b e i n s t r u c t e d

?

1

4

D i f fi c u l t i e s ( e n a c t m e n t )

H o w t o s t i m u l a t e s t u d e n

t s t o t h i n k o f a l t e r n a t i v e s o l u t i o n s ?

2

3

H o w t o h a n d l e s t u d e n t s

w h o k n o w t h e a n s w e r r i g h t a w a y

?

4

1

H o w t o h a n d l e u n e x p e c t e d a n s w e r s ?

8

4

H o w t o g i v e d u e a t t e n t i o n t o a l t e r n a t i v e s a n d y e t a r r i v e a

t t h e r i g h t a n s w e r ?

3

2

H o w a n d w h e r e t o w r a p

u p t h e l e s s o n i n o r d e r t o e a s i l y p

i c k u p t h e t h r e a d ?

1

1

W h e n t o o f f e r a d d i t i o n a

l i n f o r m a t i o n ?

1

2



15/26

implementation of a GDL lesson segment should be scored as 2 (adequate) or 3 (good).

However, this made no difference to the final score because the characteristics on which

these scores were based were added, because we considered both adequate and good as

good enough. We conducted the Wilcoxon Signed Rank test to test our hypothesis that

student teachers will implement more lesson segments that meet the criteria of GDL intheir lessons after the intervention compared to before.

To determine the heuristics student teachers used, they were asked to write down in

their own words which activities they had undertaken so far (design notes), every 3 min

during the design process. Next, two raters independently analyzed the design notes using

the category descriptions that were identified based on the heuristics that the experienced

teachers used. The raters each underlined the heuristics and additionally established to

which category the heuristics belonged. No additional category of heuristics were found.

Next, we established for every design heuristic how many student teachers used it. We

conducted the McNemar test to establish for each heuristic whether changes in the use of

that heuristic were significant. The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test was used subsequently to

test our hypothesis that student teachers use more heuristics after the intervention com-

pared to before.

The student teachers’ expected values were established regarding their regular teaching

approach and GDL, respectively. Because the expected value was determined by the

product of the estimated desirability and probability, the student teachers were asked to

score both desirability and probability on a bipolar 7-point scale (Ajzen and Fishbein

2008). This is based on the desirability scale ranged from ‘very undesirable’ (-3) to ‘very

desirable’ (?3). The probability scale ranged from ‘I will certainly not succeed in that’

(-3) to ‘I will certainly succeed in that’ (?3). On the basis of these data we determinedaverage scores for desirability and probability at the beginning and the end of the pro-

fessional development trajectory. A Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test was used to test our

hypotheses that after the intervention student teachers estimate (a) the probability and

(b) the desirability of implementing GDL, higher than prior to the intervention. We

additionally expected that the student teachers would estimate the expected value of GDL

higher than the expected value of their regular lessons after the intervention. To test this

hypothesis we first established for each student teacher their estimated value of GDL and

of their regular lessons. Following Ajzen and Fishbein (2008) we transformed bipolar

scores (-3 to ?3) for probability and desirability to unipolar scores (1–7), by adding 4

points to each score. Next, we estimated the expected value by multiplying the probabilityscores with the desirability scores. The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test was used subsequently

to test our hypotheses.

As we explained in the section on how people extend their repertoire, the estimated

desirability and probability were determined by a person’s underlying motivational beliefs.

Desirability was determined by someone’s estimation of the advantages and disadvantages

of their regular lessons and of GDL lessons. Probability was determined by someone’s

estimation of the difficulties of designing and enacting regular lessons and GDL lessons

respectively. Estimated advantages, disadvantages, and difficulties were identified by

asking the participating student teachers to mention the four most striking pros and cons,and the four most serious difficulties with regard to both the design and the enactment of

GDL. We chose to limit the number of estimated advantages, disadvantages, and diffi-

culties we asked the participants to mention, because research on attitudes shows that when

making decisions people can take only a few salient beliefs into account (Fishbein and

Ajzen 2010). Thus, we aimed at getting a view on those beliefs which potentially deter-

mine the student teachers’ decisions the most. Student teacher’s responses were



16/26


17/26 T a b l e 5

N u m b e r o f

s t u d e n t t e a c h e r s w h o s c o r e d ‘ a d e q u a t e ’ o r ‘ g o o d ’ o n t h e u s e o f a p

a r t i c u l a r G D L l e s s o n s e g m e n t ; b e

f o r e a n d a f t e r t h e t e a c h e r t r a i n i n g

t r a j e c t o r y

N u m b e r o f s t u d e n t t e a c h e r s a u s i n g t h e l e s s o n s e g m e n t

a d e q u a t e o r g o o d

L e s s o n s e g m e n t s

B e f o r e

A f t e r

Z

r

1 . S t a r t w i t h t h e f u n c

t i o n o f t h e b i o l o g i c a l s y s t e m a s a

w h o l e a n d r e f o r m u l a t e t h i s i n a d e s i g n p r o b l e m

4

7 *

- 2 . 0 0

- 0 . 4 3

2 . D e v e l o p m e n t o f m

u l t i p l e s o l u t i o n s a n d t h e

d i s a d v a n t a g e s o f t h e s o l u t i o n s . S t u d e n t s c a n

c o n t r i b u t e

2

8 * *

- 2 . 5 9

- 0 . 5 5

3 . A l t e r n a t i v e s o l u t i o n s a r e w e i g h e d a n d t h e s i m p l e s t

s o l u t i o n t h a t h a s �

jurnal discovery learning 1

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