Involving teachers in the design process of a teaching and learning trajectory to foster students’ systems thinking

Abstract

Systems thinking – the ability to reason about biological systems in terms of characteristics that define them as a system – can assist students in developing a coherent understanding of biology, but to achieve this it first has to find its way into the biology classroom. To implement systems thinking in a sustainable way a collaboration has been set up between biology teachers (n = 2) and researchers (n = 3) in the context of two Lesson Study (LS) cycles. LS is an approach in which a lesson is collaboratively designed, performed, observed and evaluated. This study aimed to determine teachers’ contributions and reported learning experiences. The LS meetings were audio-recorded and summarized and the design choices and challenges were highlighted and categorized into emerging categories to determine teachers’ contributions. Interviews were conducted before and after the trajectory to determine teachers’ reported learning experiences. The results show that teachers’ knowledge of student capabilities, didactical knowledge and practical applicability can be brought together with theoretical knowledge from the research community to come to new theoretical knowledge regarding teaching systems thinking. Moreover, the results show that teachers learned to think more in-depth about the design of a lesson and how they can embed systems thinking in their daily classroom practice.