Instr Sci (2014) 42:6790

DOI 10.1007/s11251-013-9296-z

How to make guided discovery learning practical

for student teachers
Fred J. J. M. Janssen Hanna B. Westbroek Jan H. van Driel

Received: 14 July 2012 / Accepted: 31 October 2013 / Published online: 15 November 2013
 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract Many innovative teaching approaches lack classroom impact because teachers
consider the proposals impractical. Making a teaching approach practical requires instrumentality (procedures), congruence (local fit), and affordable cost (limited time and
resources).This paper concerns a study on the development and effects of a participatory
design based teacher training trajectory aimed at making guided discovery learning (GDL)
practical for student biology teachers. First, we identified practical heuristics for designing
GDL lessons by analyzing design protocols made by biology teachers who are experts in
GDL. Next we inventoried student responses to their regular lessons and to GDL based
lessons. Based on this we prepared a teacher training program for eleven student biology
teachers in which they applied the heuristics and stepwise extended their teaching repertoire in the direction of GDL. The participants design processes and resulting lesson plans
were scored on both use of design heuristics and GDL characteristics. The participants
were interviewed about their motivational beliefs before and after the program. Results
showed that student teachers are able to design GDL lessons and used the heuristics to
design GDL lessons. Their motivation for implementing GDL in their classroom had
increased substantially. The paper concludes with a critical reflection on our method of
participatory design and its applicability.
Keywords Guided discovery learning
Student teachers
Student learning

Practicality
Biology education
Participatory design

F. J. J. M. Janssen (&)
J. H. van Driel

ICLON, Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching, P.O. Box 905, 2300 AX Leiden,
The Netherlands
e-mail: fjanssen@iclon.leidenuniv.nl
J. H. van Driel
e-mail: Driel@iclon.leidenuniv.nl
H. B. Westbroek
Centre for Educational Training, Assessment and Research, VU University Amsterdam,
De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
e-mail: h.b.westbroek@vu.nl

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Introduction
Several educational innovators and researchers have advocated the implementation of guided
discovery learning (GDL) practices in secondary education (Bruner 1961; Brown and
Campione 1994; Hmelo-Silver et al. 2007). The common aspect in different GDL practices is
that teaching starts by posing a challenging problem, and that students themselves contribute
to the knowledge development needed to solve the problem (Hmelo-Silver et al. 2007). When
students receive sufficient support in developing the necessary knowledge, GDL can help
them to become more motivated, develop flexible knowledge, and learn how knowledge is
developed in a specific domain (Reiser 2004; Hmelo-Silver et al. 2007; Lijnse and Klaassen
2004). Many teachers also recognize the potential of GDL and are in principle positive about
adding this teaching approach to their repertoire (Keys and Bryan 2001).
In spite of the perceived benefits of GDL, and even though GDL practices are generally
part of teacher training curricula in most countries, large-scale observation studies show
that teachers have scarcely practiced GDL (Gage 2009). Most teaching is still more or less
dominated by a structure that may be described as the teacher first explains the theory,
after which students practice. Furthermore, teachers tend to ask students lower-order
questions that do not challenge them to discover new knowledge (Borko and Putnam 1996;
Chin 2007).
The disappointing classroom impact of this potentially valuable teaching approach can be
explained by the differences in perspectives that educational designers and teachers have on
developing new teaching practices. Roughly put, educational designers generally primarily
focus on optimizing student learning when developing formats for teaching practices. When
teachers evaluate new teaching approaches, potential benefits for learning processes of students play a role, but are not decisive. Teachers evaluate new practices primarily on practicality criteria (Doyle and Ponder 1977; Janssen et al. 2013). Teachers consider new teaching
practices practical when (a) efficient procedures (heuristics) are available to translate innovative ideals into concrete instruction (instrumentality); (b) the proposed change sufficiently
fits the teachers current practice and goals (congruence), and (c) implementation of the
innovation will take limited investment but the expected benefits are substantial (cost). A
change proposal that does not meet these criteria raises an impregnable barrier for implementation: a teacher will decline the proposal or adapt it to make it fit the criteria, often losing
the core characteristics of innovation (e.g., Spillane et al. 2002).
Thus, to enhance the classroom impact of GDL, professional development arrangements
or teacher training arrangements should ensure that the perspective of student learning
through GDL and the practicality perspective of teachers are both sufficiently elaborated.
For this, it is advisable that educational designers become involved in design activities in
cooperation with teachers (Konings et al. 2005). Participatory design is common practice in
many domains in (information) technology and services (Simonson and Robertson 2012).
The idea is that involving users at an early stage in the design process ensures that the end
product will be fit for use, which enhances implementation. In the field of education participatory design is still rather uncommon, but gaining momentum (Konings et al. 2011).
In the case of professional development or teacher training trajectories that aim at
supporting teachers to develop new teaching repertoires, the challenge is to structure
participatory design activities in such a way that, on the one hand, the core content of the
new teaching practice (e.g. GDL) is preserved and, on the other hand, that this is done in
such a way that the teachers consider the new teaching practice as practical. This way,
teachers are offered tools for implementing a new teaching practice that is generally
considered important. They are enabled to explore GLD in different variations according to

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69

their own preferences, and for topics that they choose themselves. Based on these experiences they can make an informed decision about how to add GDL to their repertoire.
This aim asks for an approach that supports the utilization of the expertise of the
educational designer about effective characteristics of the new practice, as well as the
expertise of the teachers about the context they work in (his/her own capacities, his/her
students, the curriculum, the available resources and time and the goals that need to be
achieved simultaneously). If this can be realized, mutual learning can take place.
In this study, educational designer and teachers cooperated in the design of GDL-based
lessons. Starting point for the development of the participatory design trajectory was a set
of research based design criteria for GDL lessons. The criteria were the result of an earlier
design research project conducted by the first author (Janssen 1999; Janssen and Waarlo
2010). Next, a group of experienced teachers, in cooperation with the educational
researcher, developed design heuristics for designing GDL based lessons. These heuristics
enable teachers to realise GDL lessons in a practical way, that is: within the limited time
and resources that they have at their disposal, and given their regular teaching context.
The GDL criteria, together with the heuristics formed the basis for the development of
the teacher-training trajectory that aimed at making designing GDL-based lessons practical
for student teachers. To establish what practicality means for this particular group, the
development of this trajectory started with the systematic identification of goals, capacities
and work conditions of the participating student teachers. After being introduced to GDL
and addressing a GDL based lesson conducted by the educational designer, the student
teachers were specifically asked to respond to GDL lessons: what they considered pros,
cons and difficulties. Based on this information a trajectory was developed that enabled
student teachers to stepwise develop GDL based lessons in cooperation with each other and
the educational designer. Furthermore, the student teachers decided on the topics, on which
key features they wanted to implement successively in their lessons and in what way. The
educational researcher provided feedback.
The study at hand concerns a teacher training trajectory for biology student teachers.
First of all, the way GDL criteria play out exactly, is domain dependent (Shulman and
Quinlan 1996). Furthermore Seidel and Shavelson (2007) have shown that domain specific
learning activities contribute the most to learning effects. Moreover, this study concerns a
teacher-training trajectory as research shows that beginning teachers play a crucial role in
the implementation and dissemination of innovations in the science subjects in schools
(Davis et al. 2006). It has additionally been shown that beginning teachers who implement
innovative teaching approaches such as GDL teaching are more effective teachers, which
promotes/enhances student learning, but also lowers the chance that they leave the teaching
profession at an early stage (Davis et al. 2006).
In this paper we will first describe the key characteristics of effective GDL lessons and
present a general framework for making teacher training trajectories practical, that is:
instrumental, congruent, and low cost. Next, we will discuss an empirical investigation into
applying the general framework in the design of a teacher training trajectory in order to
make GDL practical for student biology teachers. We will conclude with a critical
reflection on our method and its applicability.

What makes guided discovery learning effective?

There is ample evidence that unguided or minimally GDL is not effective (Kirschner et al.
2006; Mayer 2004) and that the success of discovery learning critically depends on how it

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is supported (Brown and Campione 1994; Hmelo-Silver et al. 2007; Reiser 2004; Lijnse
and Klaassen 2004). Reiser (2004) distinguishes two ways of support: (1) structuring the
problem and (2) problematizing student solutions. First, students need guidance in structuring the problem they have to solve. An important way to do this is by dividing the
problem into sub problems for them (Reiser 2004). If these sub problems can be sequenced
in such a way that solving each sub problem makes students feel the need to solve the next
sub problem, students will experience the problems as their own (Lijnse and Klaassen
2004). Second, students need to be supported to problematize their solutions, i.e., to
critically evaluate and improve the solutions they develop (Reiser 2004).
How to sequence problems and how to evaluate solutions is to a large extent determined
by the domain students are to develop knowledge about (Shulman and Quinlan 1996). Our
study focused on the domain of biology. A biological system, such as the immune system,
generally consists of many sub-systems (e.g., different types of white blood cells such as
macrophages) that cooperate. Every sub-system fulfils one or more functions of the system
as a whole (in this case, destroying invading pathogens). Characteristic of biological
systems is that these functions are typically realized in such a way as to have the fewest
disadvantages for both the survival and the reproduction of the organism it is part of
(Dennett 1995; Lewens 2009). This allows biologists to approach function-structure
relations of biological systems as design problems, and develop knowledge about biological systems by redesigning them within the constraint that solutions should have the
fewest disadvantages for survival and reproduction (Dennett 1995; Lewens 2009; Wouters
2007).
It has earlier been shown that it is possible for students in secondary biology education
to develop flexible knowledge about the functions and mechanisms of complex biological
systems by having them redesign the system (Janssen 1999; Janssen and Waarlo 2010).
The flow of lesson segments in such a biology GDL lesson is as follows (see Table 1,
showing part of a lesson about the immune system). The starting point is the function of the
biological system as whole, which is reformulated as a design problem (e.g., how can
invading pathogens be destroyed?, lesson segment 1). Next, students work on a solution
(first individually, then in groups), and are instructed to search for the simplest solution.
The heuristic search for disadvantages of different solutions and choosing the solution with
the fewest disadvantages for the organism as a whole helps students to problematize and
further develop their solutions (lesson segments 2 and 3). Then, guided by the teacher, the
best solution from each group (for example: eating cell) is discussed, evaluated, and related
to the solution selected by nature (macrophage, lesson segment 4). At this point, students
have developed knowledge about a part of the system (in this case the macrophage as part
of the immune system). However, if the system only consisted of that particular part
(eating cell), this would have disadvantages (i.e., a possible attack of ones own body
material). This disadvantage can now be rephrased as the next design problem in a natural
way (lesson segment 6). This way, students discover that for the realisation of one function
of a biological system cooperating sub-systems with different functions are needed. Before
students turn to the next design problem they first apply the newly discovered knowledge
to consolidate that knowledge (lesson segment 5).

How to make guided discovery learning practical for student teachers

Although our knowledge about how to make GDL effective for students has substantially
increased, it has had hardly any impact on classroom practice (Macalalag and Duncan

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Surround the
pathogen
Disadvantage
can attack
material of the body
itself
pathogens are still
in our body

Solution A
Let the pathogen be eaten by
an eating cell
Disadvantage
can attack material of the
body itself

1. Start with the function of the biological system as a whole and

reformulate this in a design problem

2. Developing multiple solutions and determining the disadvantages of the

solutions students can contribute

Eating cells actually exists! Immunologist call them macrophages. The process of eating and
digesting by phagocytosis is clarified.
E.g., considering the functions of macrophages: where in our body do you expect a high density
of macrophages, and why there?
Disadvantage

4. The solution is compared with the solution selected by nature.

Additional knowledge is provided when needed

5. Students apply the acquired knowledge in additional questions

6. The disadvantage of the chosen solution is rephrased as a new design

problem.

How can the macrophage be prevented from attacking materials of our own body?

New design problem

Macrophages can potentially attack our material of the body itself.

The eating cell has not the drawbacks of the other solutions but still can attack material of the
body itself

3. Alternative solutions are weighed and the simplest solution that has the
fewest disadvantages is chosen

can attack material of the body itself

poison could come out the pathogen and
spread in your body

Disadvantage

Things that break down a pathogen (like

a kind of needle)

Solution C

Function of the immune system: rendering invading pathogens harmless.

How can invading pathogens be rendered harmless?
Solution B

Sample fragment of a lesson

Flow of lesson segments

Table 1 Flow of lesson segments in a GD biology lesson, illustrated for part of a lesson about teaching the immune system

GDL practical for student teachers

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F. J. J. M. Janssen et al.

2010; Gage 2009) Practicality theory helps us explain why GDL is not implemented on a
large scale by teachers in general and student teachers in particular (Doyle and Ponder
1977; Janssen et al. 2013). Teachers will often consider proposals for GDL impractical for
the three related reasons mentioned above. We will discuss these reasons in more detail.
First, efficient procedures to translate principles of GDL into concrete instruction and
plans for action are lacking (instrumentality). The blueprints or design criteria of GDL
often offered to teachers are too general, whereas the exemplary materials typically are too
specific to provide teachers with efficient design procedures (Borko and Putnam 1996).
Second, teachers often do not know how proposals for GDL fit their current practice and
goals (congruence). It is important to note here that teachers are not focused solely on
optimizing student learning; rather, they need to realize different goals simultaneously.
Student teachers in particular have concerns about the content that needs to be covered and
the classroom order that needs to be maintained. Student teachers typically also have more
personal needs, such as keeping teaching situations predictable (Borko and Putnam 1996;
Davis et al. 2006; Kennedy 2010). An implementation of GDL in which students have to
struggle with challenging tasks and specific support is needed makes it difficult for teachers
to realize all their other goals simultaneously. This is especially the case for student
teachers (Davis et al. 2006; Borko and Putnam 1996).
Finally, teachers often expect that implementing GDL requires large investments
against what would be at least unpredictable benefits (cost-benefit). An important cost
factor is time, because time is particularly limited (Kennedy 2010). Designing GDL lessons takes especially student teachers a lot of time as they do not have the necessary
expertise yet. They often lack knowledge about what might be suitable problems for a
specific topic and what relevant prior knowledge their students have (Borko and Putnam
1996; Davis et al. 2006). The development of such knowledge is both time and resource
intensive. On top of that, student teachers often are unsure whether they are able to
implement GDL in way that the expected benefits are realized (Davis et al. 2006). In sum,
it is especially student teachers who will generally consider GDL impractical because it
lacks instrumentality and congruence, and costs are high.
Although practicality theory helps us understand why student teachers do not implement
GDL, it does not provide us with guidelines for making GDL practical without losing its
core characteristics. We first need to understand exactly which practicality aspects determine a student teachers response to GDL. For this, we draw on two theories that can help
us identify guiding factors that underlie the practical reasoning of student teachers: the
theory on fast and frugal heuristics (Gigerenzer and Gaissmaier 2011), and evolutionary
planning theory (Pollock 2006).
How people act in complex practical situations
We have limited time and resources when we need to make decisions, not only in daily life
but also in professional practices such as sports, medicine, and law. Gigerenzer and his
colleagues have shown that in order to deal with these constraints we make simplified
models of a situation and typically use heuristics to find solutions (Gigerenzer and Gaissmaier 2011). As methods to realize certain goals heuristics are cost-effective, because
they enable us to ignore most of the information, and select only that relevant information
that may relatively easily be accessed and processed. And, although this might seem
counterintuitive, Gigerenzer and colleagues show that such simple heuristics often lead to
better solutions than complex optimizing methods.

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Baseball players, for example, use the gaze heuristic: If they want to catch a high ball,
they (1) fix their gaze on the ball; (2) start running, and (3) adjust their running speed so
that the angle between the eye and the ball remains constant (Gigerenzer 2004). In order to
position themselves baseball players only need to focus on the angle of the gaze, which
they can easily exploit, and ignore all causal variables necessary to compute the trajectory
of the ball such as initial distance, velocity, air resistance, etc. Heuristics can underlie both
intuitive and deliberative performance. Often heuristics, like the gaze heuristic, are learned
in a deliberate fashion but after practice become routinized to a point that they are used
effortlessly and intuitively.
Gigerenzer and colleagues have studied the use of heuristics in various domains, such as
medicine, sports, law, economics, however, not for the domain of teaching. We therefore
provide an example from our own research of a deliberative heuristic that a teacher used to
redesign a cookbook practical where students were given detailed step-by-step instructions on what to do, into a more open, inquiry based practical. This teacher operated as
follows: (a) he cut the original prescriptions of the practical in the following bits: question,
method for collecting data, method for organizing data etc.; (b) next he offered his students
the topic the practical was about and the practical materials; (c) next, he let his students
first think a few minutes about each next step in the practical (what would be a good
question?, what might be a method for collecting data?, etc.). If students got stuck the
teacher offered them the respective bit of the practical prescription that he had cut
beforehand. This way, the bits of prescriptions provided a clue for the students how to
move on. By using this heuristiccut the cookbook prescription in bits that reflect steps in
inquiry and provide students with the respective bit when they get stuckthe teacher was
able to transform a cookbook practical into a differentiating and more open practical,
within limited time and with limited resources.
The theory of fast and frugal heuristics helps us to explain and elaborate the practicality
dimensions of instrumentality, and partly also the cost/benefit trade-off. Thus, in order to
make GDL practical for student teachers we need to identify cost-effective procedures (fast
and frugal heuristics) that they can use to translate the abstract design characteristics of
GDL into concrete instruction.
How people extend their repertoire
Even if we provide teachers with the heuristics by which they can implement an innovative
teaching approach such as GDL, they still have to consider whether this teaching approach
will fit their current goals and circumstances sufficiently (congruence), and whether they
consider the innovative alternative will be an improvement (cost/benefit trade-off). Pollocks theory on evolutionary planning can help us to address these issues. Pollock argues
that people in complex practical situations do not aim for the best, optimal solution, but
instead plan for actions that are geared at improving the current situation. In other words: a
decision maker starts with a good enough plan for action and over time can improve this
plan step by step. People can do this, because a plan typically consists of a sequence of
action segments that can be recombined and/or somewhat adjusted in order to create a
slightly new plan. Pollock formulated rules by which this evolution is guided: people
consider any adjustment to be an improvement if it leads to an increased expected value of
the action plan. The expected value of an action is defined as the product of values of the
outcomes (desirability) of that action, discounting each by the probability of that outcome
occurs when the action is performed. Thus, people will only replace their existing plan for
action if the expected value of the new plan is higher than that of the original one. This

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does not imply that people always perform these calculations deliberately; on the contrary,
these evaluative responses are often formed automatically (Fishbein and Ajzen 2010).
The cost/benefit trade-off criterion used in teachers practical reasoning can now be cast
in terms of Pollocks more precise expected value framework. Pollock also takes the
congruence dimension explicitly into account, by making regular teaching practice (i.e.,
the sequence of lesson segments that constitutes a lesson) the reference point in decisionmaking, instead of an unreachable optimum. Evolutionary planning theory predicts that
teachers are willing to use a certain heuristic only if they expect the resulting flow of lesson
segments to have a higher expected value than their regular way of teaching. Expected
value in turn is based on motivational beliefs (Fishbein and Ajzen 2010). The desirability
component of expected value is based on the estimated advantages and disadvantages of a
plan for action. The probability component of expected value is based on the estimated
difficulties with designing and enacting an action plan.
Theories on evolutionary planning (Pollock) and on fast and frugal heuristics (Gigerenzer) elaborate complementary aspects of practicality. Gigerenzer has shown the
importance of fast and frugal heuristics in addressing complex practical problems. Gigerenzer does not work out how such heuristics can be developed and how people decide to
use certain heuristics to improve their existing situation. Pollock (2006) explains fairly
precisely what makes people decide to adjust their current plans of action. Additionally he
shows that people tend to adjust their plans of action by recombining their action plan
segments. When we combine the work on heuristics and the work on evolutionary planning, we conclude that heuristics in fact describe how someone can recombine his/her
action segments, in order to realize the desired situation in a time and resources saving
way. Additionally we conclude that people are willing to use such heuristics for adjusting
their action plans this way, when they estimate that the expected value their new action
plan is higher than the expected value of their current action plan (desirability and probability) (Janssen et al. 2013).
Based on these insights, we expected in the case of the GDL trajectory, that the student
teachers are able to stepwise implement GDL aspects in their lessons by subsequently
recombining their lesson segments when offered fast and frugal design heuristics. We also
expected that for an implementation of each of the GDL aspects, they would be willing to
use heuristics for recombining their lesson segments if they estimated that the expected
value of the outcome (the more GDL like lesson) would outperform the expected value of
their current lessons. For a more detailed elaboration of this theoretical framework on how
(student) teachers think and act, including empirical research that emerged from this
framework on how to make different innovative teaching approaches practical see Janssen
et al. (2013).
Drawing on practicality theory and the theories on fast and frugal heuristics (Gigerenzer) and evolutionary planning (Pollock), we formulated the following characteristics of
an intervention aimed at making GDL practical for student biology teachers. Such an
intervention should:
Start with the student teachers regular flow of lesson segments
Provide the student teachers with heuristics that enable them to stepwise recombine
and/or adapt regular lesson segments in the direction of GDL
Make the student teachers consider each adaption an increase of the expected value,
Based on our theoretical framework, we formulated the following hypotheses about the
outcomes of the trajectory. We expected that the student teachers after the intervention
would:

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1. Design lessons in which more lesson segments meet the GDL criteria than before the
intervention.
2. Use the identified heuristics more than before the intervention.
3. Estimate the desirability of GDL lessons higher than before the intervention.
4. Estimate the probability of GDL lessons higher than before the intervention.
5. Estimate the expected value of GDL lessons higher than expected value of their
regular lessons.

Methods
Participants and context
Our trajectory aimed at making GDL practical was part of a subject-specific pedagogy
course for biology student teachers in the context of a 1-year postgraduate teacher education program. Eleven biology student teachers participated in this study. Prior to entering
the program all had gained a Masters degree in biology or biomedical sciences. At the
time these student teachers were in the fourth month of their postgraduate biology teacher
training year. 1 day per week the student teachers attend courses at the teacher training
institute; besides that, they have a traineeship at a secondary school. The student teachers
had been independently teaching a few biology classes for 3 months, with a teaching load
ranging from 5 to 12 h per week. At the teacher training institute they had taken general
courses on classroom management, teacher-directed types of instruction, and assessment.
In the subject-specific pedagogy course teacher-directed types of instruction were applied
in teaching biology topics.
Teacher training trajectory for GDL in biology
For the design of the teacher training trajectory we needed information about the desired
situation (desired flow of lesson segments and accompanying heuristics) and the existing
situation of the student teachers (their regular flow of lesson segments, expected value, and
underlying motivational beliefs). On the basis of this information we developed a teacher
training trajectory that helped the student teachers to adapt their regular flow of lesson
segments stepwise in the direction of the desired flow of lesson segments.
In order to establish the desired situation we first formulated GDL for biology in terms
of lesson segments, as discussed earlier (see Table 1). On this basis we developed a rubric
by which to assess the student teachers lesson designs for every typical lesson segment. A
fragment of this rubric, showing one of the six lesson segments, is presented in Table 2.
Establishing the desired situation
In a pilot, we identified fast and frugal design heuristics that might be used to design GDL
lessons. For this, we identified heuristics that experienced GDL biology teachers use to
design GDL lessons. We contacted fifteen biology teachers who had attended a workshop
about teaching immunology according to GDL organized by the first author 2 years earlier.
Since then, these teachers have regularly reported to the first author about how they design
and enact GDL in their teaching (with respect to the topic of immunology as well as other
topics). Thirteen teachers were willing to participate. From each of them we collected two

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The new design problem is a
reformulation of the disadvantage of
the solution

The new design problem has emerged from a

disadvantaged of the solution, but new criteria
are formulated
Design problem
How can an eating cell specifically recognize
materials of the own body?

The new design problem has not

emerged from a disadvantage of
the solution

Design problem

How can an eating cell disarm body

cells that are infected by viruses?

6. The disadvantage of the chosen

solution is rephrased as a new
design problem

Example

Solution: eating cell (Macrophage)

Disadvantage: can attack material of
the body itself

How can it that a macrophage be

prevented from attacking materials of
the body itself?

Design problem

Good

Adequate

Unsatisfactory

Lesson segment

Table 2 Fragment of the rubric used to assess student teachers lesson designs

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lesson designs for the use of GDL for a particular biology topic (among others: plant
anatomy; hormones; the working of the human eye; nerves, lungs and excretion), and
assessed these by means of the rubric. For eleven teachers the lesson designs appeared to
be sufficient (scoring adequate or good on at least four lesson segments). In order to
establish which design heuristics these eleven teachers used to design GDL biology lessons
they were asked to write down which activities they had undertaken so far (design notes)
every 3 min during the design process. In these notes we searched for information and time
saving procedures: fast and frugal heuristics that teachers use to realise certain GDL lesson
segments in their lessons. Two raters underlined independently the heuristics they found in
de design notes. Below is an example of a design note of an experienced teacher, after
3 min of designing a lesson. The underlining is done by one of the raters.
I first established what the function actually is of the eyes. First I though of seeing,
but than I realized that seeing images is in fact a complex form of orienting yourself
in a space. So, I then formulated as a problem how do you orient in space using your
sight. Next I started to think about what would be the most simple solution for this
problem? For this I thought of other animals that do this in a more simple way than
we. Via Euglena I thought of a light sensitive spot, just a simple sensecell that can
distinguish between light and dark.
After identifying the heuristics, the two raters independently categorized the heuristics
they had found, placing similar heuristics in one category. This way the following heuristic
was, for example, formulated: Find the function of a biological system as a whole and
reformulate this as the first design problem (Table 3 no. 4). With respect to one heuristic
there was a difference between the assessors that could easily be solved (Table 3 no. 6):
this appeared to consist of three sub heuristics (i.e., using technological, historical, and
comparative analogies) that one assessor had rated as separate heuristics and the other
assessor as part of one overarching heuristic. Analysis of the design notes resulted in the
identification of eight different design heuristics. These heuristics are presented in Table 3,
together with an indication of how often they were used in the lesson designs of the
experienced teachers.
Establishing the existing situation
Next, we determined the existing situation of the participating student teachers: to what
extent they were already capable of designing a GDL lesson and which design heuristics
they used. We additionally determined what new aspects of GDL they were willing to
develop on the basis of their motivational beliefs.
We first analyzed two lesson plans of each student teacher (which they had already
included in their portfolios for the teacher education program), in order to establish how
the participants taught their regular flow of lesson segments and how they scored the
expected value of their regular lessons. Next, student teachers were introduced to the
principles of GDL for biology by having them redesign the immune system as if they were
students, similar to the way described earlier (see Table 1). Afterwards they were asked to
design a GDL based lesson about the heart. We assessed the resulting lesson plans by
means of the rubric, to see to what extent they were capable of implementing GDL lesson
segments, and which heuristics they used without practical support (see Table 3, column
before). Finally, for all student teachers we established their expected values for GDL
lessons and the corresponding motivational beliefs: their perceptions of the advantages,
disadvantages, and difficulties with respect to designing and enacting GDL lessons

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2
2

10
10
6
7

4. Find the function of the biological system as a whole and

reformulate this as the first design problem

5. For each design problem, formulate multiple possible

solutions and find their disadvantages

6. If no alternatives can be thought of, think of technical,

comparative, or historical analogies

7. Test (in a thought experiment) whether students would be

able to think of a solution by examining what prior
knowledge is required

8. If students are not likely to think of a solution, divide the

problem into sub-problems, and/or give hints, and/or offer
possible choices

9**

7*

9**

9**

10

After

n = 11 for all groups

* p \ 0.05; ** p \ 0.01 (one-sided)

Note column 2 shows the frequency with which each of the heuristics were used by the experienced teachers. The heuristics were offered to the student teachers. Columns 3
and 4 show the number of student teachers used the heuristics before and after the teacher training trajectory, respectively

8
8

3. Work out what the disadvantage would be for the organism

that the biological system is part of if it would not be there

Before

Student teachers

2. Reverse structurefunction order

1. Determine on the basis of the curriculum standards the

knowledge that needs to be covered with respect to the
biological system at hand

Heuristics

Experienced teachers

Number of teachersa using the heuristic

Table 3 Number of experienced teachers and student teachers using a heuristic to design and enact GDL biology lessons; for student teachers, before and after the teacher
training trajectory

78
F. J. J. M. Janssen et al.

GDL practical for student teachers

79

(Table 4, column 2). This information was used to establish the existing situation of the
student teachers and guided the design of our teacher training trajectory.
Development of teacher training program
On the basis of the information about both the desired and existing situations we developed
a teacher training trajectory aimed at making GDL practical for student teachers. The
student teachers regular lessons typically have the following flow of lesson segments: they
start with an explanation of the structure of a biological sub-system and explain its function
afterwards. This is followed by exercises, after which the structure of a new sub-system is
explained, and so on. GDL lessons can be gradually developed by recombining and
adapting this typical lesson segment flow in four steps. The trajectory consists of the
following steps (see for numbered heuristics Table 3).
(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Reverse structurefunction order. In their regular lesson segments student teachers

often start by introducing the structure. Thus, student teachers were now invited to
start by introducing the function of the biological system, followed by an explanation
of its structure (heuristics 1 and 2);
Formulate functions as design problems and structures as solutions for these
problems. For instance, instead of telling students that invading pathogens should be
rendered harmless (function), the student teachers were invited to present this as a
design problem, such as how can invading pathogens be rendered harmless? and to
present a macrophage as the solution to this problem (heuristics 3 and 4);
In addition to steps 1 and 2 the student teachers were asked to present and evaluate
multiple solutions (heuristics 5 and 6), such as surrounding, eating, and breaking
down (see Table 1);
Finally the student teachers were stimulated to gradually help their students to
develop their own solutions and evaluate these independently (heuristics 7 and 8).

For each step student teachers were offered specific heuristics. These were first applied
by the teacher educator (modelling), and then practiced by the student teachers. In each
step the teacher educator provided feedback on the lesson plans. Afterwards the student
teachers taught at least one lesson in their own classes and evaluated the lesson. They
discussed and reflected on their experiences in the next session of the teacher training
trajectory. In this way the design and enactment task for student teachers was gradually
built up from simple to more complex. This incremental development was intended to
allow student teachers to actually experience the expected benefits of GDL, and at the same
time postpone any anticipated disadvantages and difficulties.
Data collection and analysis
We will now discuss how we identified the lesson segments and heuristics, and estimated
the expected values and underlying motivational beliefs.
To determine the lesson segments and their quality, written lesson plans were collected
and evaluated using the rubric (see for a fragment Table 2). For any lesson segment three
levels were defined (1 = unsatisfactory, 2 = adequate, and 3 = good). The student
teachers lessons were independently assessed by two assessors (the first author and an
expert in biology education), using the rubric. We examined how many teachers scored
adequate or good on implementing a particular GDL lesson segment. The raters agreed
in 8 of the 11 cases (73 %). In three cases there was disagreement on whether the

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Difficulties (enactment)

Difficulties (designing)

Dis-advantages

8
2
6

Higher probability of class management problems

Students may incorrectly think that organisms are designed

Students will remember incorrect alternative solutions as well

8
3
1
1

How to handle unexpected answers?

How to give due attention to alternatives and yet arrive at the right answer?

How and where to wrap up the lesson in order to easily pick up the thread?

When to offer additional information?

How to determine what students should discover themselves and what should be instructed?

What to do if the alternative solution is better than natures solution?

How to estimate beforehand what students will come up with?

How to stimulate students to think of alternative solutions?

How to handle design problems that build on earlier problems?

How to handle students who know the answer right away?

9
1

How to think up alternative solutions and disadvantages?

Only good students can handle this

Establishing which system level you start with?

10

Takes more time to execute a lesson

You go outside the textbook; teaching becomes exciting again

11

You gain more insight into students thinking

Takes more preparation time

6
6

Students learn how to handle functional biological problems themselves

As a teacher you learn better how the system works and why it works this way

Students study the subject matter more creatively and critically

Students work on the subject matter more motivated and actively

Students learn how a system works and why it is built like it is

Advantages

Student teachers
before (n = 11)

Motivational beliefs

Category

Table 4 Estimated advantages and disadvantages and difficulties of GDL according to student teachers, before and after the teacher training trajectory

10

11

Student teachers
after (n = 11)

80
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81

implementation of a GDL lesson segment should be scored as 2 (adequate) or 3 (good).

However, this made no difference to the final score because the characteristics on which
these scores were based were added, because we considered both adequate and good as
good enough. We conducted the Wilcoxon Signed Rank test to test our hypothesis that
student teachers will implement more lesson segments that meet the criteria of GDL in
their lessons after the intervention compared to before.
To determine the heuristics student teachers used, they were asked to write down in
their own words which activities they had undertaken so far (design notes), every 3 min
during the design process. Next, two raters independently analyzed the design notes using
the category descriptions that were identified based on the heuristics that the experienced
teachers used. The raters each underlined the heuristics and additionally established to
which category the heuristics belonged. No additional category of heuristics were found.
Next, we established for every design heuristic how many student teachers used it. We
conducted the McNemar test to establish for each heuristic whether changes in the use of
that heuristic were significant. The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test was used subsequently to
test our hypothesis that student teachers use more heuristics after the intervention compared to before.
The student teachers expected values were established regarding their regular teaching
approach and GDL, respectively. Because the expected value was determined by the
product of the estimated desirability and probability, the student teachers were asked to
score both desirability and probability on a bipolar 7-point scale (Ajzen and Fishbein
2008). This is based on the desirability scale ranged from very undesirable (-3) to very
desirable (?3). The probability scale ranged from I will certainly not succeed in that
(-3) to I will certainly succeed in that (?3). On the basis of these data we determined
average scores for desirability and probability at the beginning and the end of the professional development trajectory. A Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test was used to test our
hypotheses that after the intervention student teachers estimate (a) the probability and
(b) the desirability of implementing GDL, higher than prior to the intervention. We
additionally expected that the student teachers would estimate the expected value of GDL
higher than the expected value of their regular lessons after the intervention. To test this
hypothesis we first established for each student teacher their estimated value of GDL and
of their regular lessons. Following Ajzen and Fishbein (2008) we transformed bipolar
scores (-3 to ?3) for probability and desirability to unipolar scores (17), by adding 4
points to each score. Next, we estimated the expected value by multiplying the probability
scores with the desirability scores. The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test was used subsequently
to test our hypotheses.
As we explained in the section on how people extend their repertoire, the estimated
desirability and probability were determined by a persons underlying motivational beliefs.
Desirability was determined by someones estimation of the advantages and disadvantages
of their regular lessons and of GDL lessons. Probability was determined by someones
estimation of the difficulties of designing and enacting regular lessons and GDL lessons
respectively. Estimated advantages, disadvantages, and difficulties were identified by
asking the participating student teachers to mention the four most striking pros and cons,
and the four most serious difficulties with regard to both the design and the enactment of
GDL. We chose to limit the number of estimated advantages, disadvantages, and difficulties we asked the participants to mention, because research on attitudes shows that when
making decisions people can take only a few salient beliefs into account (Fishbein and
Ajzen 2010). Thus, we aimed at getting a view on those beliefs which potentially determine the student teachers decisions the most. Student teachers responses were

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independently clustered and counted by the two raters. In only two cases differences of
opinion emerged; in both cases, one rater appointed and scored two reported difficulties as
separate instances, while the other reviewer had merged them into one difficulty. The raters
agreed to choose the latter option.

Results
Changes in quality of the lesson segments
Our hypothesis that student teachers implement more lesson segments that meet the GDL
criteria after the intervention than prior to the intervention was confirmed by the results
(Mdnbefore = 2.00; Mdnafter = 6.00, Z = -2.86, p \ 0.01, r = -0.61).
About the first attempt by student teachers to design GDL lessons after the short
introduction it was particularly striking to note that their lesson plans often: (a) did not start
with the function of the system as a whole, (b) did not contain alternative solutions, and the
formulated solutions they included often could not be expected to be devised by students;
(c) did not contain the simplest solutions with the fewest disadvantages (Table 5). One
student teacher, for example, proposed a four-chambered pump with valves as the only
solution for the problem of how blood can circulate in our veins. Students cannot be
expected to find this out straight away. They could arrive at the thought that a vein can
squeeze itself, and they could discover that if a vein squeezes, blood will run both ways.
This could be rephrased by the teacher as the next design problem: how can blood be
prevented from running in two directions? After this, students might think of valve-type
constructions as a way to solve this. After the intervention, most of the student teachers
lesson plans met with most of the criteria for GDL lesson segments of sufficient quality
(Table 5).
Changes in use of heuristics
The results show that the student teachers used more heuristics after the intervention than
prior to the intervention (Mdnbefore = 1.00; Mdnafter = 6.00; Z = 2.94, p \ 0.01,
r = 0.63)
At the start of the trajectory, the student teachers mostly did not spontaneously use the
heuristics provided by the experienced teachers (Table 3). Experienced teachers often
started with the function of the system as a whole, by imagining what would happen when
the organism would lack the system in question. Experienced teachers also generated more
alternatives (heuristic 5), by making much greater use of analogies (heuristic 6): how could
technology solve the problem? (technically), how do other species do that? (comparatively); or how have people thought about this in earlier times? (historically). Because they
generated more alternatives and determined more conclusively whether or not a simpler
solution was possible, experienced teachers would often plan smaller steps in subsequent
design problems for their students than student teachers would (heuristic 8). Moreover, by
explicitly checking what prior knowledge was required for a specific problem solution,
experienced teachers more often verified if students would actually be able to arrive at the
solution (heuristic 7). Finally, many experienced teachers used a number of ways (splitting
up the design problem, hints, offering choices) to provide students with enough design
space for discovery, but also with sufficient guidance for succeeding (heuristic 8).

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7**
11**

4
8

5
6

3. Alternative solutions are weighed and the simplest

solution that has the fewest disadvantages is chosen

4. The solution is compared to the solution selected by

nature. Additional knowledge is provided when
needed

5. Student apply the knowledge acquired in additional

questions

6. The disadvantage of the chosen solution is rephrased

as a new design problem

n = 11

* p \ 0.05; ** p \ 0.01 (one-sided)

8**

2. Development of multiple solutions and the

disadvantages of the solutions. Students can
contribute

10**

8**

7*

1. Start with the function of the biological system as a

whole and reformulate this in a design problem

After

Before

Lesson segments

-2.71

-2.46

-2.46

-2.27

-2.59

-2.00

Number of student teachersa using the lesson segment adequate or good

-0.58

-0.52

-0.53

-0.48

-0.55

-0.43

Table 5 Number of student teachers who scored adequate or good on the use of a particular GDL lesson segment; before and after the teacher training trajectory

GDL practical for student teachers

83

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F. J. J. M. Janssen et al.

Furthermore, after the intervention the student teachers used almost all the heuristics we
had identified for the experienced teachers (Table 3). Also, student teachers plans typically started with the function of the system as a whole (lesson segment 1). They were able
to generate sequences of design problems, with several different solutions their students
could be expected to be able to formulate (lesson segment 2), of which the simplest with
the fewest disadvantages was chosen (lesson segment 3) and rephrased as a new design
problem (lesson segment 6). Student teachers additionally compared selected solutions
with the factual solution (lesson segment 4) more carefully, and more often formulated
exercises for their students (lesson segment 5).
Furthermore, when finding solutions for a design problem student teachers used fewer
ways to limit the design space for students than experienced teachers (heuristic 8).
However, student teachers verified even more often than experienced teachers whether
their students would be able to find a solution, by checking the prior knowledge required
for that particular solution (heuristic 7). Student teachers also generated more alternatives
for a design problem than before the trajectory/program, and used analogies more often
(heuristics 5 and 6).
Student teachers varied in the extent to which they let their students think of solutions
themselves. Three of the eleven student teachers limited the space for students input to
merely letting them choose between, and evaluate, given alternatives. Two student teachers
did not limit the evaluation of solutions to just weighing the advantages and disadvantages
of a specific solution for the organism as a whole, but additionally asked the students to test
the solutions empirically. Sometimes this involved the student teacher offering the students
data from which they were to deduct which solution was best. In other instances student
teachers had students design, sometimes also execute, an experiment to test a solution. In
short, our results show that after the trajectory all student biology teachers were better able
to design lessons that met the GDL design criteria, and that for this they used most of the
heuristics that experienced teachers tend to use.
Changes in expected value
Next, we will discuss the question whether the student teachers considered this extension
of their repertoire an improvement. Based on this question, we formulated three hypotheses, that all three are confirmed by our results. First of all, the student teachers estimated
desirability of GDL was higher after the intervention (Mdnbefore = 2.00; Mdnafter = 3.00,
Z = -3.05, p \ 0.01, r = -0.65). Second, the estimated probability of GDL also raised
(Mdnbefore = -1.00; Mdnafter = 2.00; Z = -2.99, p \ 0.01, r = -0.64). Finally, the
results show that 8 out of 11 student teachers estimated the expected value (the product of
the estimated probability and desirability) of GDL higher than the expected value of their
regular lessons after the intervention (Table 6). However this difference turned out
to be not statistical significant due to our small sample size (Mdnregular lessons = 30;
MdnGDL lessons = 42; Z = -1.13, p = 0.13, r = -0.24).
On average, the student teachers gave their regular lessons and GDL lessons similar
scores on desirability (1.5 on a 7-point scale from -3 to ?3). However, their expectations
with respect to the probability that the desired effects would in fact be achieved were
substantially lower for GDL lessons than for their regular lessons: 2.2 for regular lessons
versus -0.9 for GDL lessons. Further results indicate that this might be explained by the
student teachers motivational beliefs.
The desirability component of the expected value is determined by the estimated
advantages and disadvantages of GDL. As advantages student teachers named the fact that

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GDL practical for student teachers

Table 6 Expected value scores
of regular and GDL teaching,
both after the teaching training
trajectory

85

Student teacher

Expected value of
Regular teaching

Expected value
of GDL teaching

35

49

30

15

30

20

35

42

30

42

30

36

30

42

30

42

30

42

10

30

42

11

36

24

Table 7 Desirability and probability of regular and GDL teaching as rated by student teachers; before and
after the teacher training trajectory
Scores student teachersa
Before
Min.

After
Max.

Mean

SD

Min.

Max.

Mean

SD

Regular teaching
Desirability

1.55

0.522

1.27

0.467

Probability

2.00

0.632

2.00

0.632

GDL biology
Desirability

1.45

0.934

2.45

0.820

Probability

-2

-0.91

0.831

-1

1.45

1.214

Note scale range from -3 to ?3

a

n = 11 for all groups

their students would be more actively involved in the teachinglearning process, and
expected their students understanding to increase with GDL (Table 4). Important expected
disadvantages were time and class management: The student teachers were all worried that
GDL would cost much more preparation and teaching time, that GDL was only suitable for
the smart students, and that the less capable students would pull out, which would probably
cause chaos. The student teachers expected value that GDL would be a success was
considerably limited by their fear that they would not be able to think of alternative
solutions, estimate and anticipate their student reactions, and deal with unexpected answers
from students.
After the trajectory the student teachers estimated desirability and probability of GDL
lessons had increased by 0.8 and 2.4, respectively (Table 7). In other words: It was not
only the desirability of GDL that had increased substantially, but the probability that the
student teachers would be able to design and provide adequate GDL had also risen sharply.
Table 7 also shows that the student teachers scored the desirability for GDL even higher at
this point than for their regular lessons. After the trajectory, the desirability of GDL was

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2.3 against 1.3 for the regular lessons. The probability estimation of the student teachers
for GDL had risen from -0.9 to 1.5; however, this is still less than their estimations of their
regular lessons (2.2).
The main disadvantages that initially played a role for most student teachers, such as
longer execution time, discipline problems, and their expectation that the approach would
be suitable only for the better students and that students would not remember the correct
solution/right answer, were now mentioned much less often (Table 4). Many of the student
teachers now perceived issues such as inventing alternative solutions, assessing what
students would think, and dealing with unexpected answers as less difficult.

Conclusion and discussion

Although teachers generally subscribe the merit of GDL, it is still rarely realised in
practice. Similar to many innovative teaching approaches, GDL is primarily geared at
optimizing student learning rather than being practical for teachers to implement in class.
In this study, we developed a teacher training trajectory for developing biology GDL
lessons that used a participatory design approach. Our aim was to build on the expertise of
both the biology student teachers as well as the educational designer, in order to achieve
that the biology student teachers would be able to implement effective aspects of GDL in
their lessons and would consider these lessons as practical. Based on the work of Gigerenzer and Pollock, we elaborated what practicality means for this group, particularly in the
context of implementing aspects of GDL in their lessons. This led to the further development of the trajectory and of a set of hypotheses about its outcomes. All but one of our
hypotheses were confirmed by our findings. First of all, the biology student teachers proved
to be willing and capable to implement GDL aspects in their lessons. Furthermore, they all
increasingly used the heuristics developed by experienced teachers for designing GDL
lessons that were offered to them. Also their willingness to use the heuristics for designing
GDL lessons increased after the intervention. Both the estimated desirability and probability of GDL lessons increased. And finally, for most student teachers the expected value
of GDL after the trajectory was higher than the expected value of their regular lessons,
despite the rather negative motivational beliefs of the student teachers at the start of the
trajectory about their ability to design and enact GDL lessons. However due to sample size
this hypothesis could not be confirmed as statistical significant.
With this participatory design trajectory we specifically aimed at including both the
perspective of the educational designer and the student teachers by using a theory based
systematic methodology. By doing so this trajectory differs from many current GDL
training trajectories that are more directive and generally underexpose the practicality
perspective of the teachers (Keys and Bryan 2001). First of all, in most current trajectories
design support is offered in the form of general criteria that effective GDL lessons should
meet without providing procedures how to do this, given the teachers limited time and
resources (instrumentality). Also, other goals and concerns that teachers have besides
optimizing student learning (e.g. cover content in time, be a good disciplinarian) are
usually not addressed, although such factors co-direct design decisions of teachers (congruence and cost, Doyle and Ponder 1977). Research shows that this type of interventions
typically leads to an increased knowledge of teachers about GDL, and to a more positive
attitude, but it rarely leads to implementation in classroom practice (see Macalalag and
Duncan 2010, for a review).

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87

In contrast with regular GDL training programs, this study concerns an example of
participatory design. Our approach shares the core ideas of all participatory design
approaches, but elaborates these ideas in a specific way. In a recent handbook Simonson
and Robertson (2012) formulate the core of participatory design as follows: The participants typically undertake the two principle roles of users and designers. Where the
designers strive to learn the reality of the user situation, while the user strive to articulate
their desired aims and learn appropriate means to obtain them (p. 2). Robertson and
Simonson additionally note that in many participatory design projects, users also perform
design activities. Our approach also concerns a mutual learning process between designers
(i.e. educational designers) and users (i.e. teachers). Point of departure is a shared ideal, in
this case: GDL. The educational designer has knowledge about what are effective design
principles (for GDL) at his or her disposal, and why they are effective. Additionally, the
teachers and student teachers have indispensable knowledge about the situation in which
GDL is to take place. This practical knowledge not only concerns what they consider
possible to realize in a specific class, but also knowledge about the students and what
topics the lessons need to be about. Our approach aims at facilitating a mutual learning
process that productively connects these two types of knowledge and enables teachers to
actually implement GDL lessons in their regular teaching practice. In this process, the
teacher not only takes the role as user, but also as designer. On the one hand, design
heuristics were derived from teachers who have experience with developing GDL lessons.
On the other hand, student teachers that participated in the trajectory used these heuristics
to design their own GDL lessons. The student teachers determined themselves the topics of
the lessons and how these topics were elaborated in GDL lessons.
Our approach differs from many other participatory design approaches with respect to
the role of theory in facilitating such a mutual learning process. Based on theories on
practical reasoning of people in complex situations (practicality theory; theory on fast and
frugal heuristics; theory on evolutionary planning) we developed a methodology that can
be used to establish rather precisely what practicality means for a teacher in a concrete
situation and how we could develop a trajectory that made designing GDL lessons practical
for student teachers. Our main reason was that this enabled us to preserve both the core
content of the GDL innovation and the student teacher perspective on teaching a lesson.
The methodology can be summarized in three main steps:
1. Establish the desired situation by representing the innovative teaching approach as a
flow of lesson segments. This facilitates the explicit comparison of teachers regular
flow of lesson segments with the innovative flow and helps to detect which elements of
their current flow of lesson segments can be used and adapted to move towards the
innovative teaching approach. Additionally, using input from teachers who have
experience with this teaching approach in order to identify corresponding fast and
frugal design heuristics.
2. Use participatory design activities to establish the existing situation of teachers who
will participate in the intervention: what is their regular flow of lesson segments? How
do they estimate the expected values for both their regular lessons and the innovative
teaching approach (including underlying motivational beliefs)? Insight into the student
teachers motivational beliefs (expected disadvantages, advantages and difficulties)
underlying the expected values, makes it possible to develop design support to
maximizing perceived advantages and minimizing perceived disadvantages and
difficulties.

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3. Specification of both the desired situation and the relevant aspects of teachers existing
situation provide the foundation for the design of a teacher training trajectory that
enables and motivates teachers to add stepwise aspects of the innovative teaching
approach to their repertoire. This stepwise progression from teachers existing
practices to a realization of the innovative teaching approach, should be sequenced in a
way that teachers can see each step in the direction of the innovative teaching
approach as an improvement (i.e. increase of expected value) of their current practice.
Teachers should be provided in every step with heuristics that enable them to
recombine and adapt their regular lesson segments in the direction of the innovative
flow of lesson segments.
We think that our methodology is more broadly applicable than to only the particular
case reported here, because practicality issues are a reality for teaching in general. Indeed,
explorative studies on other innovative teaching approaches, and involving teachers with
different levels of experience, show similar positive results (e.g., Janssen et al. 2013 for an
overview and task-centered instruction; Dam et al. 2013. for context-based education;
Janssen et al. (accepted) for open inquiry science labs).
However, we also see limitations of the study described here, and these limitations of
course sketch the lines for future research. First of all our research design, a one-group pretest and post-test, has limitations. We cannot link the changes we saw directly to (aspects
of) the intervention. To enhance the internal validity of the results and to evaluate our
participatory design approach more directly, the study should be repeated with a control
group. In order to compare the strength of our approach the control group can be designed
according to principles of a regular GDL trajectory as described above. Both groups can be
followed for a more extended time period when they enter a professional teacher position.
Secondly, although the student teachers enacted their lesson plans and reflected on their
experiences, our assessment of whether or not they implemented GDL lesson segments
was restricted to their lesson plans. In future research we aim to include both teacher and
student behaviour in our studies, and compare behaviour with lesson plans. This information can then be used for additional support for teacher learning (Borko et al. 2010).
Thirdly, our study indicates that heuristics can be powerful tools to help teachers extend
their design and enactment repertoire. However, we did not investigate how exactly these
heuristics functioned for the teachers, experienced as well as beginning, during the design
process, that is: how they enable teachers to define and limit the problem space, and
mobilise and integrate readily available knowledge.
A final limitation is that we only measured expected values and motivational beliefs
before and after the trajectory. To gain more insight into the learning processes of participating (student) teachers, and to be able to link changes in the student teachers
behavior and beliefs, and specifically into the relation between using fast and frugal
heuristics and stepwise improvement of expected value and motivational beliefs, we need
to examine the process more closely. On the basis of Banduras research on effects of
success experiences on confidence and self-efficacy (Bandura 1997), and of what we
observed in our explorative studies (Janssen et al. 2008) we assume that it is the success
experiences of teachers using a new teaching approach that form the link. When a teacher
designs a lesson by means of a fast and frugal heuristic, and when this leads to a success
experience, we expect this will then lead to an enhancement of the expected value for the
innovative teaching approach, and thus to a more frequent application of such an approach
in practice, which in turn can result in an increase in student motivation and understanding
of both knowledge and knowledge development in a specific domain.

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89

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