Professor Debra McGregor

There are many approaches to educational research that can support professional development for teachers. Currently, there is much discussion about ‘evidence‐informed practice’, ‘close‐to‐practice research’, ‘teacher enquiry’ and ‘practitioner research’. Action Research (AR) is a particular approach that could be included within each of these types of activity. It may feel that the practice of teaching itself, of energetically collecting, scrutinising and analysing evidence from pupils might be deemed AR. This is, however, a somewhat limited view of AR. It usually involves generating an intervention or novel approach to improve something. An educational AR project designed to support professional development can involve an individual teacher, a department of colleagues, a whole school or even a group of schools.

This article considers teachers’ perspectives of creativity in both their Arts and Science lessons. It elaborates on the ways they reflectively report that they are creative in their teaching and how they foster learner creativity. Drawing on questionnaire data from over a hundred teachers recognised for specialist excellence, this article contemplates the extent and nature of these teachers’ varied views. The questionnaire responses were collated and analysed to present descriptive statistics and a thematic analysis. Comparison across teachers’ perspectives of creativity in Arts and Science suggests a sophisticated picture, describing features that characterise creativity across subjects as well as subject-specific contrasts. From these findings, propositions are offered about ways that teachers could promote creativity across subject disciplines and ideas for supporting it specifically in Science. An outcome from this study is a proposed framework of creative teaching practices which could be drawn on to develop pedagogies to support learner creativity within and across Science and the Arts.

Background: Randomised Control Trials (RCT) involving large numbers of schools, teachers and pupils, can provide statistically significant evidence that an intervention ‘works’, or makes a difference to learning. However, often the quantitative data collected to illustrate the extent of impact is insufficient to illustrate exactly ‘how’ the intervention was enacted, what was done and ‘why’ it was successful. This paper collates a range of forms of data from an innovative professional training programme to indicate the nature of the promoted strategies that comprise the ‘intervention’ and consider how they worked in practice.  
Purpose: To illustrate how a mixed methods approach is required to substantiate the nature, as well as the extent of impact, of an educational intervention. Namely, Thinking Doing and Talking Science (TDTS). 
Sample: The project reported on here involved 42 schools in a south east county in England, UK. 21 were the ‘experimental’ schools and 21 were ‘control’ schools. 
Design and Methods: The project was an Educational Endowment (EEF) Funded RCT, designed to assess the impact of the TDTS intervention. 
Results: Quantitative data showed TDTS had a statistically significant impact on the academic attainment of nine and ten-year olds, by an average of 3 months. The addition of the different forms of qualitative data provided here offer evidential insights illustrating how and why the intervention had the impact it did on thinking and attainment. 
Conclusions: Designing research projects that examine both the nature and extent of impact on pupils’ learning requires a mixed methods approach. This necessarily involves the statistical comparison of quantitative evidence from both the experimental and control school groupings. However, in addition to the quantitative data, qualitative evidence is required to elicit the precise nature of the intervention. This included observations during the professional development sessions, lesson transcripts, evaluative questionnaire data and interviews (with teacher and pupils) after in-service training each contributing to capturing a more comprehensive ‘picture’ of the key characteristics of a successful science learning intervention. 

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Creativity and the way it could be supported in schools is understood differently by policy makers, practitioners and scientists. This article reviews, with a chronological lens, the development of policies that include teaching creativity and teaching for creativity. The epistemic tensions between the intentions of government and the nature of creativity as it emerges in learning or scientific work is introduced and reflected upon. There have been more than nine key educational policies that have been introduced over the last 50 years. Each of these are considered in this article and related to the ways that creativity is understood and expected to be taught, supported or enacted in schools by policy makers. In light of the need to support creativity as a key twenty‐first‐century skill, to ultimately enable current students (who will become the next generation of scientists) to develop the capabilities to address global concerns, this article highlights issues related to this issue. Epistemic insights are offered that relate to the development of aspects of creativity, including questioning, developing alternate ideas, ‘seeing’ things differently, innovation, curiosity, problem solving and evaluating. The ways that policy related to creativity in science appears not to recognise how creativity can be reified in these ways in schools suggests the need for rapid review, especially in light of the upcoming international creativity tests in 2021.

Understanding the nature of science (NoS) is perplexing for young children because it is concerned with not only understanding how evidence is generated but also what kind of meanings can be made from information collected. However, acting as a scientist-in-role, making independent decisions about what information to collect and deciding how to go about it, can enable students to experience scientific practices that empower them to better appreciate and understand the NOS.  This paper illustrates how drama processes, in two international settings in Wellington, New Zealand and Oxford, United Kingdom encouraged nine to ten year old children to engage in the scientific ‘as-if’ world. The data collected from these two locations was analysed deductively to illustrate how working-in-role can influence the nature of learning and shape the scientific practices experienced that consequently inform how the NoS is understood. The children in Wellington (New Zealand) worked in-role as atmospheric scientists to design a reduced-emissions race track.  The class in Oxford (UK) adopted the role of technological scientists theorising about properties of materials to create and test original carriers designed to transport a range of everyday objects. How drama promoted working-in-role to experience scientific practices supporting the understanding of the NoS, are discussed. The findings suggest that being in-role as a scientist offered learners various opportunities to be agentive, to think and act scientifically, better appreciate the nature of work that scientists do and consequently appreciate the NoS.

A long‐term, 2 year in‐service provision to develop pupils thinking capability was provided for 91 secondary schools during the period 1998–2002. The science teachers involved reported that the in‐service experience impacted on their pedagogic practice. The evidence was gathered through reflective surveys and interviews. The in‐service programme engaged the teachers in authentic learning activities. The findings suggest that engaging the teachers in actions or processes which are then transformed into conceptual (scientific and cognitive) objectives can influence their perception of learning. Through collective reflection of their active participation they objectified connections between learning processes and learning outcomes. The explicit reflections of the modelled experiences provided the opportunity for the teachers to empathize, as learners, with their pupils' learning situations. They were guided to reflect on how the nature of social interactions can impact on reasoning and meaning making. The reflective cognitive and learning objectivity of the in‐service programme appeared to influence their pedagogy in a variety of ways. The pedagogic changes included a significant increase in pragmatic interpretation and application of learning theories to classroom situations. Teaching strategies were also developed to include: proactive management of collaborative learning; a generally more interactive and dynamic way of learning through questioning; promotion of more prediction opportunities; encouragement of more reflection, in a variety of ways, on the processes by which potential or actual solutions to scientific tasks or challenges were reasoned. As a result of this study pedagogic principles to support learning and cognitive development in science and learning generally are proposed. =

Une expérience continue à long terme sur une période de deux ans pour développer la capacité de réfléchir chez les élèves a été offerte à 91 collèges et lycées pendant la période entre 1998 et 2002. Les professeurs de sciences qui y étaient engagés ont déclaré que l'expérience continue a influé sur leur pratique pédagogique. Les preuves ont été réunies grâce aux enquêtes et aux interviews. L'expérience a engagé les professeurs dans des activités d'apprentissage authentiques. Les conclusions semblent indiquer qu'en engageant les professeurs dans des actions ou des procédés qu'on transforme ensuite en objectifs conceptuels (scientifiques et cognitifs) on peut influer sur leur perception de l'apprentissage. En réfléchissant collectivement à leur participation active, ils s'étaient engagés dans l'activité collective de faire de ce qu'on faisait auparavant l'objet de réflexion. Par suite de ces réflexions, les professeurs, en tant qu' apprenants, ont pu comprendre ce que ressentent leurs élèves dans les situations d'apprentissage. Ils ont été guidés à considérer l'effet des relations sociales sur le raisonnement et la compréhension. Il paraît que l'objectivité d'apprentissage cognitive et réflective a influé sur leur pédagogie à bien des égards. En ce qui concerne les changements pédagogiques, il y a eu une augmention significative de l'interprétation pragmatique et de l'application des théories d'apprentissage dans la salle de classe. Des stratégies pédagogiques ont également été développées qui comprennent une direction d'apprentissage qui fait preuve d'initiative; une façon d'apprendre en posant des questions qui est généralement plus interactive et dynamique; la promotion de plus de possibilitiés de prévision et l'encouragement à réfléchir plus à bien des égards sur les procédés qu'on utilise pour arriver aux solutions potentielles ou réelles des tâches et des défis scientifiques. L'impact de ces développements pédagogiques dans la salle de classe a été étudié mais on le présente ailleurs. Par suite de cette étude on propose des principes pédagogiques pour soutenir chez les élèves le développement cognitif et l'apprentissage des sciences et l'apprentissage en général. =

Un estudio a largo plazo de dos años se llevó a cabo en 91 escuelas secundarias durante el periodo de 1998–2002, para desarrollar las capacidades de pensamiento de los alumnos. Los profesores de ciencia que participaron en el estudio informaron que la experiencia tuvo impacto en sus prácticas pedagógicas. La evidencia se obtuvo a través sondeos y entrevistas de reflexión. El estudio involucró a los profesores en experiencias auténticas de enseñanza. Los hallazgos sugieren que involucrar a los profesores en acciones o procesos los cuales luego son transformados en objetivos cognoscitivos (científicos o conceptuales), puede influenciar su percepción a cerca del aprendizaje. Las reflexiones explícitas de las experiencias modeladas proveyeron la oportunidad a los profesores de tener empatía, como estudiantes, con las situaciones de aprendizaje de sus alumnos. Ellos fueron guiados a reflexionar a cerca de cómo la naturaleza de las interacciones sociales puede tener impacto en el razonamiento y en el proceso de crear significado. La reflexión cognoscitiva y la objetividad del aprendizaje por parte de los profesores participante pareció influenciar sus métodos pedagógicos de varias formas. Los cambios pedagógicos incluyeron un aumento significativo en la interpretación pragmática y la aplicación de las teorías de enseñanza en las situaciones en la sala de clases. También se desarrollaron estrategias de enseñanza para la administración activa del aprendizaje en colaboración; una forma de aprendizaje a través de hacer preguntas que es generalmente más interactiva y dinámica; el promover más oportunidades para hacer predicciones y estimular más reflexión, de varias maneras, en los procesos por los cuales se razonan las soluciones actuales o potenciales para las tareas o retos científicos. Se estudió el impacto de estos desarrollos pedagógicos en el aprendizaje de los alumnos, pero son mencionados en otra parte. Como resultado de este estudio se proponen principios pedagógicos que apoyan la enseñanza y el desarrollo cognoscitivo en las ciencias y la enseñanza en general. =

Zwischen 1998 und 2002 wurde an 91 amerikanischen Mittelstufenschulen ein zweijähriges Projekt durchgeführt, das dazu diente, die Fähigkeit zu selbständigem, wissenschaftlichem Denken der Schüler zu entwickeln und zu fördern. Die beteiligten Lehrer in den wissenschaftlichen Fächern berichteten, dass dieses Experiment ihre pädagogische Praxis beeinflusst hat. Dieses Ergebnis beruht auf der Auswertung von Fragebögen und Einzelgesprächen. Durch das Projekt wurden die Lehrer mit authentischen Lernprozessen konfrontiert. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass die Einbeziehung der Lehrer in Prozesse, die anschließend in konzeptionelle (wissenschaftliche und kognitive) Zielsetzungen umgewandelt werden konnten, ihre Vorstellung vom Lernprozess ändern kann. Durch die expliziten Reflektionen über die gewonnene Erfahrung wurde es den Lehrern ermöglicht, sich als Lernende mit den Lernsituationen ihrer Schüler zu identifizieren. Sie wurden angeregt, darüber nachzudenken, wie die Art sozialen Umgangs Einfluss auf Argumentation und Meinungsbildung haben kann. Die reflektive kognitive Objektivität des Experiments scheint die Pädagogik auf mehrere Arten zu beeinflussen. Pädagogische Änderungen erstreckten sich u.a. auf eine signifikante Zunahme der pragmatischen Interpretation und Anwendung von Lerntheorien auf Situationen im Klassenzimmer. Darüber hinaus wurden Lernstrategien entwickelt, um proaktives Management kollektiven Lernens, eine generell interaktivere und dynamischere Art des Lernens durch gezielte Fragen, eine Förderung von Vorhersagemöglichkeiten und Ermutigung zu mehr Reflektion auf verschiedene Arten einzuschließen. Die Auswirkungen dieser pädagogischen Entwicklungen auf das Lernverhalten von Schülern wurden untersucht und in einer separaten Studie veröffentlicht. Aufgrund dieser Studie werden pädagogische Prinzipien zur Unterstützung kognitiver Entwicklungen in Wissenschaft und Lehre vorgeschlagen.