T EACHER ’ S CONTENT KNOWLEDGE

The dilemma of not knowing if and what the students have learned in the series and parallel circuits topic led the teacher to conduct a whole class teaching to clarify doubts and to take the learning process forward. However, during this whole class teaching the teacher was seen to encounter circumstances where there were some difficulties with the teaching materials and the CCDC application. The teacher’s lack of familiarity with the topic and the application used also had a role to play in causing these difficulties. Therefore, this finding throws light on the importance of teacher’s content knowledge in PBSL.

The CIs in TABLE 14 show the series of events that took place during the whole class teaching. The class began by the teacher going through the difference between parallel and series circuits. Then, with the help of a video, the teacher explained the concept of voltage and current. After this, the teacher with the help of another student started to construct series and parallel circuits in the CCDC application to show the students how to measure voltage and current, this was displayed on the white screen.

TABLE 14 Electricity project, Week 7 CI Description Events

As the teacher constructs the circuits, students are asked to write down the readings.

CI 28 Ensuring students

fill the booklet Teacher goes around the class to check if everyone is writing down the readings

The student continues adding bulbs to the circuit in series and parallel and to measure the voltage and current

To check the current in the circuit, the student connects the ammeter. The battery gets set on fire.

CI 29 Learning how to

After filling out all the values in the table, they went through the questions provided in the booklet.

CI 31 Answers arrived at don’t match answers in the booklet

The teacher notices that the answers provided in the booklet were different from the answers they arrived at

The teacher tries to construct the circuit again, but the battery gets set on fire again

It was now almost time for break, so the students go out for the break.

During the break, the teacher and I were discussing the answers to the questions in the booklet and were trying to figure out what went wrong. All the instructions provided in the booklet were followed, yet the answers arrived at were wrong. The teacher shared with me that doing projects requires the teacher to stay on top of all topics and content and be able to solve such unpredictable incidents but this is hard to achieve.

FIGURE 17 CCDC whole class teaching

FIGURE 17 shows an example of the circuit construction projected on the screen.

Three very important points stand out as important in the CIs presented above.

One, using the online CCDC needed some practice. Two, the teaching materials that were used for this activity were not appropriate for the students. Three, the teacher was unfamiliar with the topic being taught. CCDC was a new application for both the teacher and the students, this means that they needed to get used to learning how to use the tools provided to make circuits and measurements. In the beginning, the students spent much time trying to figure out how to use the tools. The tools provided in CCDC had various options. For example, the students were able to change the voltage in the batteries and the resistance on the bulbs. Doing so impacted the values read by the ammeter and voltmeter, this was one of the causes for the wrong conclusions.

The booklet that was used was not only difficult for the students to follow but it was also restrictive as the students had to follow the steps mentioned in the booklet and could not deviate from it too much. Over-reliance on the teaching material was seen to impact the purpose of investigation in projects negatively.

However, the teacher’s unfamiliarity with the topic and importance placed on self-guided learning led to this over-reliance on the materials.

In the post-interview, the teacher also shared that this is her first time using the CCDC tool. Therefore, it was difficult for her to teach using this tool while she was building her knowledge about it. However, she considered the whole group teaching as necessary because it played a dual role in taking the learning process forward. One, it allowed the students to confirm what they have been doing with the circuits. Two, it offered the teacher an opportunity to gauge the students’ understanding by asking them questions as they went through the booklet together. The below excerpt is the teacher’s comment on her experience of the events represented in TABLE 14.

I felt a bit like unsure of course because I had not been using it and also to get into that situation where you don’t master all things that you know are happening.

The teacher also acknowledges that the booklet used to investigate parallel and series circuits was hard for the students to follow and therefore there was a need to go through it together with them to get a shared knowledge of the concept.

She thought of it as a situation that both the teacher and students were in together, figuring out how to solve the questions.

I could test also do they know what to do next like “what shall we do after I set the battery here” so that was also the testing point. But I felt that uh.. the form that I had uh.. like that was a bit complicated for children to understand how to fill it our so we had to go through it together. So I think that these took the process of learning forward, we needed that to get the shared knowledge.

In conclusion, this finding points to the importance of teacher’s familiarity with the tools used and the topic being learned through projects. This finding also shows that teachers have to be careful about the appropriateness and quality of the materials used during projects.