SMEC 2014 | Cecília Galvão

Why teachers should want to follow our curriculum design?

The change of a curriculum it is not that difficult if we can add the political will and some imagination to the research and knowledge about the subject. What is difficult is to implement it if it includes the change of teachers’ practices. How can it be done? How can we convince teachers to follow the new ideas? How can the structural, organizational and personal resistance be overcome? Taking as a starting point the competence based science curriculum in Portugal, for lower secondary education (from its conception and implementation in 2002 until its evaluation ten years later), I’ll discuss teachers’ professional development in close relation with their problems towards the proposed changes and I will try to understand teachers’ reasons and difficulties. Taking these findings as learning, I´ll introduce, as an organizational example, a training programme on science experimental work for teachers in primary school, which was a very successful experience. A third example comes from SAILS and the Portuguese Community of Practice, we expect it to work as a virtual place where change is possible.

The concept of shared reflection underlines all the situations presented. I’ll try to defend the idea of ​​teachers and researchers working in close collaboration as a way to smooth the path to personal changes. It is important to support teachers on the definition of their strategies to explicitly address important questions regarding inquiry activities’ structure, and inquiry activities’ design, development and assessment. But the main issue that emerges is the need to reflect about how to promote, in a process of curriculum change, an effective self-appropriation by teachers.  slides

Biography

Prof. Cecília Galvão is a Professor of the Institute of Education of the University of Lisbon. She has considerable experience in science education in Portugal. She coordinated the team responsible for the document of Specific Competences in Physical and Natural Sciences, which integrated the National Curriculum. She was also the coordinator responsible for the document Curricular Guidelines for Physical and Natural Sciences for the 3rdcycle of Basic Education (12-15 age), implemented in 2002/2003. She also was the Portuguese coordinator of the European Project PARSEL. She coordinated a national project aimed at evaluating the national science curriculum and she integrated the team responsible for the coordination of the Portuguese Learning Outcomes for the national curriculum. Presently She is the Portuguese coordinator of the EU FP7 Project SAILS (Strategies for Assessment of Inquiry Learning in Science) coordinated by Dublin City University.