Bringing design practices to chemistry classrooms: studying teachers’ pedagogical ideas in the context of a professional learning community

Figures & data

Table 1. Participants’ reported teaching and professional design experiences.

	Teaching experience	Design teaching experience		Professional design experience
	secondary school	in general STEM course	in chemistry course
T1	Over 20 years	Includes implementing project on biomedical design (10th grade)	Includes developing and implementing project on chemical Rube Goldberg machines (9th grade), and implementing upper secondary school project on drugs	(None)
T2	About 5 years	(None)	Includes developing and implementing project on fireworks (10th grade), and project on soaps and fragrances (11th grade)	Chemical process engineering
T3	First year of teaching	(None)	Includes developing and implementing project on rocket fuels (10th grade), and implementing project on soaps and fragrances (11th grade)	Biotechnological engineering
T4	About 8 years	(None)	(None)	(None)
T5	About 2 years	(None)	(None)	(None)
T6	About 8 years	Includes implementing project on ‘dropping an egg’ (8th grade), and upper secondary school project on water purification systems	(None)	(None)

Table 2. Teacher 2’s pedagogical ideas per category (result of the second analysis cycle).

	Design in chemistry education means (to Teacher 2)
Category 1 Relating design in chemistry education to teaching design	Teaching design as a stepwise process
	Teaching the logic of a simplified form of the design cycle
	Teaching most important design skills of the curriculum
	Teaching students to formulate a design problem
	Teaching students to generate partial solutions
	Teaching design throughout secondary school
	Engaging students by making a concrete product
	Using the design cycle as theoretical background
	Using examples and students’ practical design experiences
	Having students share final designs
	Having students reflect on the design process
	Assessing intermediate and final design products using criteria
	Not knowing (how to assess) what students learn regarding design
Category 2 Relating design in chemistry education to teaching chemistry content	Teaching to look up chemistry theory to answer a design-related question
	Stimulating students to practice micro-macro thinking when designing
	Possible teaching approach for most chemistry concepts, but time consuming
	Possible teaching approach for all students, but makes senior students nervous
	Difficult to learn chemistry concepts well through design
	Stimulating concept learning early in design project
	Alternating concept- and design-focused lessons and projects
	Choosing design setting related to multiple chemistry topics
	Using a design-based approach from first year chemistry education onwards
	Practicing concept-based final assessment during design project
	Setting content-based criteria for design-based final assessment
Category 3 Relating design in chemistry education to teaching research	Teaching why research is needed when designing
	Using design as a practical approach to teach research
	Teaching most important research skills
	Teaching research throughout secondary school
	Teaching the logic of a simplified form of the research cycle
	Teaching students to design a simple experiment
	Teaching students to formulate a research question
	Stimulating students to control variables
	Teaching students to take lab notes
	Teaching students to analyse data and formulate quantitative and qualitative results and conclusions
	Teaching students to summarise and share research outcomes
Category 4 Relating design in chemistry education to teaching soft skills	Stimulating students’ collaborative skills
	Stimulating students’ organising skills
	Students need to get used to things going wrong
Category 5 Design in chemistry education as project-based, hands-on learner-centred teaching	Motivating students through hands-on activities
	Stimulating students’ feeling of involvement and responsibility
	Basing activities and student workbooks on students’ intuitive approach
	Making different agreements on using lab materials
	Giving students extra time to do hands-on activities
	Nudging students when they are stuck by asking questions
	Sharing and clarifying expectations and assessment criteria more regularly
	Using student workbooks, asking questions, observing and having students talk as assessments
	Experiencing difficulties in fairly and summatively assessing group projects
	Assessing students’ personal development to understand their learning