This chapter aims to provide an in-service teaching model, which is named as a “reflective teachers-as-designers professional development model” based on the literature, designed to give teachers an understanding of teaching that focuses on developing real-life contexts and developing global competencies. First, the conceptual framework for the learning of teachers and their capacity as designers are discussed. Then, content components and process components of the model are presented by providing the rationale behind each element.
TopIntroduction
The world is changing. Everything that changes in one field in the world creates a butterfly effect in another field. Education also plays a role in this cycle, which is both affected by the change in other fields and triggers changes in them. The relationship is complicated and it is in precession. Thus, many educational programs have been revised in a way to lead this enormous and growing change in recent years. Based on the fact that the foundation of the skills, knowledge, and values needed by both the business world and a developing society will be laid at school, the developments, which focus on the curriculum and the design of education accordingly, also shape the educational policies in many countries in the world. For example, in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations, 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) have been directed towards an understanding of education that can develop not only knowledge but also global competencies. In this context, OECD has recently set a target for the measurement of global competencies for the first time in the PISA 2018 exam.
Changes and trends in education also affect mathematics education. Knowledge of mathematics that is learned in school helps individuals to interpret, understand, and solve daily life problems. Therefore, it is necessary to perceive school mathematics as a tool that acts -in conjunction with other courses- in gaining global competencies, and offers support for making the individual a world citizen as a whole; rather than just a list of learning outcomes that acquire knowledge. Students' ability to use mathematics in real-life situations and being literate in mathematics is one of the most important focal points of learning mathematics (De Lange, 1995; Muller & Burkhardt, 2007). For this point of view, new elements should be added to the practices and mathematics teachers should aim to train mathematics literate students and equip them with math-related competencies. Mathematics teachers need to handle the teaching process like designers and design a teaching process to serve this change. Teachers need to think about which big ideas or global issues can be used as a tool, and shape the teaching process on these big ideas. Big ideas can be defined as a rational, conceptual focus on the achievements in the curriculum (McTighe & Thomas, 2003). In more concrete terms, it is the focal point that will support students to find the answer to the question “What will be good for me to learn?” and guide the teacher to design the teaching process.
As one of the consequences of the shift in paradigm, design thinking has become a frequently heard concept in the field of education in recent years. While studies on how to gain 21st-century skills to students are increasing rapidly, how to design teaching processes for gaining these skills in parallel is an important research focus (Lin, Shadiev, Hwang & Shen, 2020). It is hard to equip students with life and career skills, learning and innovation skills, knowledge, media, and technology skills (Trilling & Fadel, 2009) by continuing usual teaching habits and mindset. As Edelson (2002) mentioned, “if the ultimate goal of educational research is the improvement of the education system, then results that speak directly to the design of activities, materials, and systems will be the most useful result.” (p.119). As an adaptation to this perspective, there is a need for teachers to position themselves as the designers of the teaching by bringing together many elements rather than being the exact implementer of a written curriculum.
Design thinking is a methodology to explore the solution of wicked problems (Cross, 2001). Like many other areas, educational practices also involve many wicked problems, and teachers are professionals who are directly exposed to such problems. In this context, “design thinking has the potential to be a useful learning and developmental tool for teacher professionalism” (Nelson & Anetta, 2016, p.12). As Dunne and Martin (2006) mentioned, “Under a design-thinking paradigm, students would be encouraged to think broadly about problems, develop a deep understanding of users, and recognize the value in the contributions of others” (p. 512). Considering that the learners here are teachers, it can be said that design thinking has the potential to be an important auxiliary tool for teachers to solve these problems.