an innovative approach

Cross Case Studies:
Implementation and the Impacts of the Teaching Intervention
This study describes the context that three participant teachers studied in an
intensive manner. Mrs. Engka, Mr. Vyn and Mrs. Amp, the three different biology
teachers, differed in terms of the teaching background, in particular content
knowledge, the belief about how students learned and how teachers should teach, and
the teaching planning. These differences individually resulted in teaching and
learning photosynthesis.
The teacher’s belief of student learning had affected correcting Grade 11
students’ misconception about introductory photosynthesis. The teachers, who
believed in constructivist approach, appeared to focus on explicating and correcting
the students’ prior/introductory misconceptions using several learning activities. For
example, Mrs. Engka who believed that teaching by only lecturing could not longer
develop the students’ learning about biology consistently corrected her students’
misconceptions using discussion, game, reading assignment, concept mapping and
collaborative learning. Then, a majority of her students were found to complete
correcting the misconceptions about plant food and plant materials. Hazel and
Prosser (1994) and Brown (2003) supported that concept mapping with discussion
powerfully helped teachers to explore and analyze the students’ conceptions. The
discussion might enable correcting the misconceptions.
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On the other hand, the teachers, who were unaware of the prior
misconceptions and strongly believed in teacher-centered approach, appeared to teach
by emphasis on lecturing. For example, Mr. Vyn who believed that students had to
learn from teacher’s transmission, and Mrs. Amp who believed that students learned
from writing words/statements on their notebook, often used lecture and reading
homework without discussion. The study found that their students retained the
misconceptions and generated new misconceptions about introductory photosynthesis.