Producing Knowledge for Improvement: The 3A procedure as a tool for content-focused research on teaching and learning
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2016 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Pedagogika |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | http://pages.pedf.cuni.cz/pedagogika/?p=11641 |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.14712/23362189.2016.340 |
| Field | Pedagogy and education |
| Keywords | instructional quality; conceptual structure diagram; teaching and learning situations; pedagogical knowledge; knowledge for improvement |
| Description | The paper argues for a novel approach in research on (the quality of) the processes of teaching and learning which focuses on the ways in which students develop their understanding and their competences through those instructional activities that have them work with the content (the content-focused approach). Specifically, the paper aims to introduce a research approach that has been developed as a response to some identified challenges of prevailing methods in research on teaching and learning. The 3A procedure is introduced as a specific research methodology for analysing real-life teaching and learning situations in the classroom (captured on video). We start by noting some challenges that current research on teaching and learning is facing and indicate how these challenges are met in the proposed research approach. In the second part we briefly mention some of the well-known methodologies that provided inspiration in the development of the proposed approach. Then the 3A procedure is presented and briefly discussed. It consists of three distinct steps of (1) annotating, (2) analysing, and (3) altering a particular teaching and learning situation. To illustrate the approach, an example is provided of an analysis of a genuine teaching and learning situation. In the discussion, we argue that the use of the proposed methodology can bring systematic, empirically grounded, and theoretically argued knowledge that will contribute to the understanding of instructional quality. Such analyses also help in developing a shared language for describing and interpreting teaching. This kind of knowledge (pedagogical knowledge for improvement) – represented in the form of case studies – should become the basis for the building of a knowledge base for teaching and could be used when striving to improve teaching practices. |
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