Tracing teachers’ change of pedagogical design capacity through professional development

ABSTRACT

Curriculum adaptation is unavoidable, according to both Turkish and international research. Deliberative adaptations, however, are not as simple as they appear, and teachers with low pedagogical design capacity (PDC) may make haphazard adaptations or fail to make the necessary adaptations. Therefore, professional development (PD) is crucial in making teachers’ adaptations more deliberatively and systematically. In this case study, drawing on the interconnected model of professional growth, the change of pathways of four mathematics teachers’ PDC was explored within the context of a PD. The findings revealed that the capacity to use curricular resources, the capacity to use personal resources, and beliefs towards the use of curriculum emerged as three change indicators of PDC. While teachers’ interactions with the facilitator were effective in fostering knowledge change, getting and reflecting on students’ learning outcomes was effective in fostering belief change. The results are discussed in the context of curricular and PD studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Teachers’ curriculum adaptations
• teachers’ pedagogical design capacity
• teachers’ professional growth
• teacher change

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the teachers who participated in the study. We are also grateful to Ege University Planning and Monitoring Coordination of Organizational Development and Directorate of Library and Documentation for their support in editing and proofreading service of this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).