Profiling Preservice Science Teachers’ Science Teaching Orientations and Science Teaching Practices

Author(s):

Nurcan Cansiz(presenting / submitting)Mustafa Cansiz

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES E 02, Pre-service Teachers and Education

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-21

15:30-17:00

Room:

W3.11

Chair:

Javier Diez-Palomar

Contribution

There have been major changes in current national curriculum of different disciplines in 2004 and 2013 in Turkey. Science was one of those disciplines that underwent radical changes. Science has been rearranged to reflect the relation between science and daily life and the dynamic interaction between science and technology more (MoNE, 2006). The recent curriculum framework has brought a different approach to learning for science and technology. There has been a pedagogical shift from behaviorist to constructivist approaches starting from 2000. The committee, responsible from science curriculum, suggested that teacher-centered traditional teaching activities like lecturing, note-taking, following steps in laboratory-work to confirm results are not sufficient to educate scientifically literate individuals (MoNE, 2006). Therefore, the curriculum places less emphasis on teacher-centered traditional classroom activities and more emphasis on student-centered, inquiry based activities to educate students for scientifically and technologically developing world. The aim is to help students to be creative, discover knowledge, to test hypothesis and evaluate results, to argue and make decisions based on evidence. Such a great goal, of course, cannot be achieved without teachers. Teachers’ pedagogical shift from behaviorist to constructivist approaches cannot be so expeditious. Here their orientations toward teaching science play a significant role in implementing updated science curriculum. Orientations toward teaching science refer to “teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about the purposes and goals for teaching science at a particular grade level” (Magnusson, Krajcik, & Borko, 1999, p. 97). There is a substantial body of literature highlighting the role of teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about teaching science on the success of the reforms in science education (e.g. Czerniak & Lumpe, 1996; Handal & Herrington, 2003; Levitt, 2002). For reforms to be successful, it is necessary to explore teachers’ orientations and to support them in changing or combining their orientations in coherence with the goals of reform (Abell, 2007; Nargund-Joshi, Rogers, & Akerson, 2011). With this in mind, this study is seeking to find answers to the question how much Turkish preservice science teachers are ready to apply the recent reform in science curriculum.

Method

Research Problem The following research questions were addressed in this study: 1. the nature of science teaching orientation of four preservice science teachers 2. the extent to which their orientations toward teaching science are in congruent with their classroom practices, 3. the potential role of their early experiences in science classes as a learner in shaping their orientation toward teaching science and their classroom practices as a science teacher. Research Design Guided by Merriam (2009), this study employed a basic qualitative research method. Merriam (2009) explained that researchers design and implement a basic qualitative research to explore how people interpret their experiences, how they construct their worlds, and what meaning they attribute to their experiences. Participants were four senior preservice science teachers. Study Context The context of this study was School Experience and Teaching Practice courses. The former is the prerequisite of the latter. They were offered during seventh and eighth semesters of teacher education program, respectively. In School Experience course, PSTs performed two microteachings and they prepared a lesson plan for each. For the microteachings, they decided on teaching method, teaching activities, assessment strategies and other elements of teaching. After microteachings, PSTs received feedback from the instructor, two teaching assistants, and their classmates about their teaching performance. In addition to microteachings, PSTs visited cooperating schools for a ten-week period and six class hours in each week. They did not teach in cooperating schools in School Experience course. In Teaching Practice course, PSTs go through entirely the same process except they taught in cooperating schools. PSTs’ teaching in cooperating schools were observed by a researcher and their mentor teacher and they received feedback from both. Data Collection and Analysis The primary methods of data collection in this study were 1) initial interviews to select participants purposefully, 2) classroom observations of selected four PSTs to identify how they teach science and 3) final interviews with four PSTS to explore their orientations toward science teaching and their past experiences. Observations and lesson plans were other data sources. Data Analysis was performed deductively based on the conceptualization of science teaching orientations according to Magnusson et al. (1999). Data analysis began with the first interviews and observation and occurred occasionally throughout the research. Two researchers completed coding independently, then met to compare their coding and finally resolved any discrepancies through negotiation.

Expected Outcomes

A Representative Case Preservice Science Teacher Alice Alice’s first microteaching was well suited with the characteristics of didactic teaching. In her microteaching practice, she “transmit[ted] the facts of science” which is the goal of didactic science teaching (Magnusson, et al., 1999, p. 100). The nature of instruction associated with didactic teaching includes presenting information by the teacher through lecture or discussion, and teacher asks questions to hold students responsible for knowing the scientific facts. This way of teaching was apparent in Alice’s first microteaching. Alice mostly presented factual information about aerobic respiration to the students. She asked questions and expected students to answer as they learned in the lesson. Moreover she expected students to take notes from the board. And above all, her lesson was teacher-centered as she minimized the interactions between students. The observation of Alice’s three consecutive microteachings, one real classroom practice and the investigation of her lesson plans showed consistency with her teacher-centered science teaching orientation. After four microteachings and one real classroom practice, Alice was interviewed for her beliefs for teaching science toward the end of her teacher education program. Alice’s beliefs about teaching science were somehow different than her practices. Alice’s beliefs about teaching science showed that she had student-centered orientation toward teaching science. Her orientation was mostly well suited with discovery orientation suggested by Magnusson et al. (1999). When Alice’s classroom practices were considered, the orientation Alice hold was not fitting to how she taught science in the classroom. Although she expressed student-centered views for teaching science, she enacted teacher-centered approaches in practice. From Alice’s early science learning practices, it can be concluded that her past science teachers performed teacher-centered approach in which they transmitted knowledge to the students with the purpose of preparing them to the nationwide exams.

References

Magnusson, S., Krajcik, J., & Borko, H. (1999). Nature, sources and development of pedagogical content knowledge. In J. Gess-Newsome & N. G. Lederman (Eds.), Examining pedagogical content knowledge: The construct and its implications for science education (pp. 95–132). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Ministry of National Education [MoNE] (2006). Ilkogretim Fen ve Teknoloji dersi (6-8. siniflar) Ogretim Programi (Elementary School Science and Technology Curriculum (grades 6-8)). Ankara, Turkey: MoNE. Levitt, K. E. (2002). An analysis of elementary teachers' beliefs regarding the teaching and learning of science. Science Education, 86(1), 1-22. Handal, B. & Herrington, A. (2003). Mathematics teachers’ beliefs and curriculum reform. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 15(1), 59-69. Czerniak, C. M. & Lumpe, A. T. (1996). Relationship between teacher beliefs and science education reform. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 7(4), 247-266. Abell, S.K. (2007). Research on science teacher knowledge. In S.K. Abell & N.G. Lederman(Eds.), Handbook of research on science education (pp. 1105–1149). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Nargund-Joshi, V., Rogers, M. A. P., & Akerson, V. L. (2011). Exploring Indian secondary teachers' orientations and practice for teaching science in an era of reform. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 48(6), 624-647. Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. San Francisco: John Wiley and Sons.

Author Information

Nurcan Cansiz (presenting / submitting)

Artvin Coruh University

Faculty of Education

Artvin

Mustafa Cansiz

Artvin Çoruh University