Developing a WERA International Research Network on Didactics – Learning and Teaching

Brian Hudson

Workshop @ SERA 2014

University of Edinburgh

20th November 2014

Workshop contributionsDeveloping a WERA International Research Network on Didactics – Learning and Teaching: Introduction and overview

Brian Hudson, Centre for Teaching and Learning Research (CTLR) – University of Sussex, UK

Comparative didactics: a reconstructive move from subject didactics

Florence Ligozat, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Dialogic Teaching and Moral Learning

Andrea English, University of Edinburgh, UK

A three-tier teaching model for teaching mathematics in context

Ernest Davis and Joseph Ampiah, College of Education Studies, University of Cape Coast, Ghana

The planning-reflection of classes and the analysis of learning tasks in textbooks: a cross point of German didactics and Japanese pedagogy Nariakira Yoshida, University of Hiroshima, Japan

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What has the study of Didactics offered me? What has the study of Didactics offered me in relation to teaching

and learning?

What has the study of Didactics offered me in terms of the development my own practice?

What key issues have emerged from my search to derive meaning from this tradition in a way that makes sense to my own experience and practice?

Hudson, B. (2000) Seeking connections and searching for meaning: teaching as reflective practice. Symposium on Didaktik: an International Perspective, European Conference on Educational Research, University of Edinburgh, 20-23 Sept 2000.

Some key issues to emerge

Recognising and holding complexity

Where attention is focused

Tools for holding complexity

Meaning and intentionality

The role of the teacher

Hudson, B. (2002) Holding complexity and searching for meaning - teaching as reflective practice, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 34, 1, 43-57.

Tools for holding complexity - pedagogical relation

Tools for holding complexity - didactic relation

Important to stress that this analysis takes place within a school and societal context

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Hudson, B. and Meyer, M. (eds) (2011) Beyond Fragmentation: Didactics, Learning and Teaching in Europe. Opladen and Farmington Hills: Verlag Barbara Budrich, p8.

Didactical analysis and the didactical design process

Didactical design for technology enhanced learning

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Hudson, B. and Meyer, M. (eds) (2011) Beyond Fragmentation: Didactics, Learning and Teaching in Europe. Opladen and Farmington Hills: Verlag Barbara Budrich, Chapter 13.

Developing Mathematical Thinking in the Primary Classroom – some key concepts ‘Didactic transposition’ (Schneuwly, 2011) - related to the school

context, in which the knowledge in question is not knowledge for acting and solving problems in the social contexts in which it was created and where it is used, but it is instead transposed into knowledge to be taught and to be learned – such that there is a ‘rupture’ between daily life and school, which changes the knowledge profoundly.

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Developing Mathematical Thinking in the Primary Classroom – Epistemic quality High epistemic quality - maths as fallible, refutable and uncertain

involving critical thinking, creative reasoning, the generation of multiple solutions and learning from errors and mistakes.

Low epistemic quality – maths as infallible, authoritarian, dogmatic, absolutist, irrefutable and certain and which involves rule following of strict procedures and right or wrong answers.

The rupture can lead to the epistemic quality of the subject becoming degraded as it is transposed into school mathematics (Hudson et al., 2014)

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Initial composition of the WERA IRN

20 participants from Sweden, Ghana, Brazil, Canada, France, Mexico, South Korea, Switzerland, Germany, Niger, Benin, Thailand, Japan, and the United States

Regions represented – Europe (9), North America (3), Latin America (2), South East Asia (3), Sub Saharan Africa (3)

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Work plan and expected outcomes

The WERA IRN will work over a period of 3 years with the aim of producing 3 major outcomes, as follows:

A synthesis report based on a landscape review that aims to map the major territories in the field of research on Didactics – Learning and Teaching worldwide for publication in 2015/16 (Hudson&Meyer)

A special issue of the (planned) World Education Research Journal on Didactics – Learning and Teaching (2016/17)

A roadmap aimed at stimulating future research on Didactics – Learning and Teaching to be published as part of the special issue of WERJ (2016/17)

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Year 1 (2014)

6-7 February 2014, University of Rennes - Initial planning meeting of core group (Hudson, Meyer, Trautmann, Loquet, Gruson and Sensevy) was held.

25-26 June 2014, Münster Seminar - A follow-up planning meeting was held (Hudson and Meyer) in Münster.

1– 5 September 2014, University of Porto - Research Workshop, Developing a WERA International Research Network on Didactics - Learning and Teaching, European Conference of Educational Research, University of Porto, 1st – 5th September 2014.

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Year 1 (2014)

19-21 November 2014, University of Edinburgh - Research Workshop, Developing a WERA International Research Network on Didactics - Learning and Teaching, Annual Conference of the Scottish Educational Research Association/WERA Focal Meeting, University of Edinburgh, 19-21 November 2014

An open and flexible online working environment within the redesigned WERA website has been established http://www.weraonline.org/?DidacticsIRN

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Year 2 and 3 (2015/16)

A proposal for a Symposium is planned for the WERA Focal Meeting 2015 at ECER 2015, University of Budapest, 7-11 September 2014.

Communication and interaction will be maintained via the open and flexible online working environment provided by WERA website and through meetings at AERA, EERA and the WERA Focal Meetings in 2015 and 2016.

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Today’s workshop

Structure of the workshop:

Contributions x5 @ 10 minutes each (50-60 mins)

Workshop discussion (15-20 mins)

Feedback, contributions and questions (15-20 mins)

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Some questions for workshop discussion How do we decide which studies to include within the field of

'Didactics – Learning and Teaching'? 

How do we decide what are ‘the major territories’ of research in this field? What criteria can we use to evaluate and decide?

Where are the obvious gaps in relation to work that we need to take into account?

How do we develop this international research network in a way that is really world wide?

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References Hudson, B. (2000) Seeking connections and searching for meaning: teaching as

reflective practice. Symposium on Didaktik: an International Perspective, European Conference on Educational Research, University of Edinburgh, 20-23 Sept 2000.

Hudson, B. (2002) Holding complexity and searching for meaning - teaching as reflective practice, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 34, 1, 43-57.

Hudson, B. and Meyer, M. (eds) (2011) Beyond Fragmentation: Didactics, Learning and Teaching in Europe. Opladen and Farmington Hills: Verlag Barbara Budrich.

Hudson, B., Henderson, S. and Hudson, A., (2014) Developing Mathematical Thinking in the Primary Classroom: Liberating Teachers and Students as Learners of Mathematics, Journal of Curriculum Studies http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2014.979233

Schneuwly, B. (2011) Didactic Transposition: a Key Concept in the French Tradition of ‘Didactiques des disciplines/Fachdidaktik’, Symposium on Fachdidaktik – European Perspectives, European Conference of Educational Research, Freie Universität Berlin, 13-16 September 2011.

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