Science Camp to Train Teachers on Developing and Supervising Science Projects, and Introducing NOS

Author(s):

Duygu MetinIsmail Berkyurek Esra Yardimci Gulsen Bagci Kilic

Conference:

ECER 2010

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 02 D, Research on Programmes and Pedagogical Approaches in Teacher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2010-08-25

11:15-12:45

Room:

AUDITORIUM XIII, Päärakennus / Main Building

Chair:

Hazel Hagger

Contribution

Professional development is an important component of in-service science teacher education. In Turkey, it is usually organized and applied by the Ministry of Education. In recent years, Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (STRCT) has been supported science teacher professional development projects to educate science teachers on developing and supervising a project. STRCT also supports students’ science projects and organizes project competitions throughout the country. In order to increase the quality of students’ science projects, the council considered training science teachers on project process and its supervision. This study reports such a science teacher training at a science camp. The main goal of the science camp program was providing first-hand experience for science teachers on the process of project work from the planning to publishing.

There were also some other issues in science teacher professional development as to introduce contemporary science teaching and learning methods to support their professional development on science education. In order to enrich science camp program to support science teachers on these aspects of science education, some sessions related to nature of science (NOS), problem-based learning, project-based learning, and science simulation games. Teaching NOS was more dominant than other issues and more sessions were conducted to teach NOS than problem-based learning, project-based learning, and science simulation games. Because, understanding NOS was considered as a main element of scientific literacy and most of European countries including Turkey and the U.S. state the importance of NOS in science education programs. But, most of the research studies showed that science teachers had naïve views about most aspects of NOS (Abd-El-Khalick, 2005; Abd-El-Khalick & Akerson, 2004; Akerson, Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000). After such research results, some interventions were conducted to develop science teachers NOS views (Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000). This paper reports effectiveness of the science camp on participating science and a few math teachers.

Method

Science camp was organized and granted by STRCT. It was conducted in 2007 in a hotel next to a lake in Bolu. 24 science and mathematics teachers participated in science camp. In the first three days of camp, background training on science, math, and project development process was given. Teachers were requested to form small project teams with 3-4 members and decide a research question, which would be examined as a project work in two days. Each team was assigned a science project supervisor and worked with her/him throughout their project. NOS activities were conducted throughout science camp. These activities were developed by Lederman & Abd-El-Khalick (1998). To figure out the effect of science camp on teachers’ views of NOS, Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire C (Lederman, Abd-El-Khalick, Bell & Schwartz, 2002) was applied as pre- and post-test. Qualitative data were analyzed by interpretive technique (LeCompte ve Preissle, 1993).

Expected Outcomes

According to results, it was found that most of the teachers had adequate views about empirical, tentative and imaginative-creative aspects of NOS and some of them progressed to informed views at post-test. Teachers were aware of experiments in science, although they mostly thought that experiments are used for verification of scientific ideas at the pre-test. They generally accept tentativeness of scientific knowledge except laws. Almost all of teachers accepted the role of imagination and creativity in developing scientific knowledge. Most of the teachers had inadequate views about the difference between theory and law, observation and inference, theory-ladeness, and socio-cultural embededness and didn’t progress at all at post-test. They expressed that theories will become laws when they proved many times and emphasized that scientists discover all of the scientific knowledge when they can observe something. They thought that scientists are objective in their research. These results and similar results in the literature alert science educators all over the world in educating science teachers about NOS. Educating science teachers about NOS would better support them in teaching children about NOS from a contemporary perspective. But, results of this study indicated that longer training would be more effective in developing teachers’ NOS views.

References

Abd-El-Khalick, F. (2005). Developing deeper understandings of nature of science :the impact of a philosophy of science course on preservice science teachers' views and instructional planning. International Journal of Science Education, 27(1), 15-42. Abd-El-Khalick, F., Lederman, N.G. (2000). Improving science teachers’ conseptions of nature of science: a critical review of the literature. International Journal of Science Education, 22(7), 665-701. Abd-El-Khalick, F. & Akerson, V. (2004). Learning as conceptual change: factors mediating the development of preservice elementary teachers’ views of nature of science. Science Education, 88(5), 785-810. Akerson, V.L., Abd-El-Khalick, F., Lederman, N.G. (2000). Influence of a reflective explicit activity-based approach on elementary teachers’ conceptions of nature of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 37(4), 295-317. Lecompte, M. D. & Preissle, J., (1993). Ethnography and Qualitative Design in Educational Research (2nd Ed). San Diego: Academic Press. Lederman, N.G. & Abd-El-Khalick, F. (1998) Avoiding de-natured science: activities that promote understanding of the nature of science, In McComas, W. F. (Ed.), The nature of science in science education: Rationales and strategies (pp. 83-126). The Netherlands, Kluwer Academic Publishers. Lederman, N.G., Abd-El-Khalick, F., Bell, R.L., Schwartz, R.S. (2002). Views of nature of science questionnaire: Toward valid and meaningful assessment of learners’ conceptions of nature of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39(6), 497-521.

Author Information

Duygu Metin

Abant Izzet Baysal University

Science Education Department

Bolu

Ismail Berkyurek

Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey

Esra Yardimci

Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey

Gulsen Bagci Kilic

Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey

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