Database of Publications

Date: 2013.11.25

Posted by Mine Özkurt (Turkey)

Message: This paper gives a valuable insight of future prospects of pre-service science teachers. The controversial issue of teaching approaches is focused on. The student-centered approach is a object of preference in many countries. In Turkey, there are also implementations towards this direction.
In this research, it is obvious to see that science teachers pass a teacher-based approach through their own education. This affects later the own teaching process. But according to the statistics, it is possible to say that pre-service teachers are aware of student-centered approaches and know the efficiency. The fact that their knowledge is based on a textbook-driven learning approach, challenges the science teachers in applying a student-centered teaching in the classroom.
The statistic is a result of 66 pre-service chemistry teachers from three universities which 40 of them are males and 26 females. The results have shown that 39.4% both of the approaches, 37.9% student-centered, and 22.7% the teacher-centered style. Also, it has been shown that the teacher-based approach is more preferred by male teachers. A Draw-A- Scientist- Test was implemented. The requirement of the test was a self-image of the students which shows them on work. Besides of asking them various questions about personal information, the assessment was made by non-biased teachers.
If one considers the research, it does not provide solutions for a better, quasi student-centered approach but it gives important information about the recent status of the future perspectives of science teachers. It is possible to say that the pre-service teachers know how to teach efficient in the classroom but the curriculum forces the teachers to teach in a textbook-driven way which leads to a teacher-centered education approach. Also the characteristic features of individual teachers determine the teaching process. All in one, student-centered approaches are inevitable for efficient teaching but the circumstances determine the implementation.

Date: 2013.07.02

Posted by Mária Foltínová (Slovakia)

Message: This paper presents the research focuses on how pre-service teachers (student science teachers) see themselves in their future classrooms, whether they see themselves delivering a more teacher or student centred approach in their instructional style. The implication being that their styles would be as a result of their own experiences as students in the classroom.The research takes 66 pre-service chemistry teachers from three universities, 40 female and 26 male. They used a Draw-A-Scientist-Test. The results show 39.4% use both styles, 37.9% student-centred, and 22.7% showed the teacher-centred style. They also found more males to females showing the teacher-centred style. These results indicated that there is an awareness of the student-centred instruction among pre-service teachers at least on some level in spite of the fact that pre-service teachers have been affected by their teacher-centred school experiences as learners.This paper does not propose any real solutions to encouraging a more student-centred approach to prospective science teachers but it does highlight the issue of increasing the awareness the two approaches.

Date: 2013.06.01

Posted by Katerina Salta (Greece)

Message: In the “Introduction” session of this publication, authors review a great deal of educational research papers. The main conclusions of the review are the following:
(a) The pre-service chemistry teachers begin the teacher training programs with a set of values and beliefs about the nature of knowledge, how students learn, and what strategies may best be applied in a classroom environment.
(b) The pre-service chemistry teachers have many years of experience of textbook-driven, teacher-centred education that affect pre-service teachers’ images and beliefs about teaching and learning
(c) The pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning had a significant role in internalizing the information given in both subject-matter and pedagogy courses
(d) The beliefs of pre- service teachers influence their perceptions and ideas which in turn affect their classroom actions and their instructional style.
Therefore, it is worthy to support teachers and pre-service teachers to explore their ideas about how to teach science, consider alternative methodological approaches, and develop a preferred self image of themselves as chemistry teachers.

Reflective thinking is important for the chemistry teachers to be aware of their knowledge about teaching and learning and to organize their subsequent teaching practices. The DASTT-C test presented by this paper was used as data collection to explore the pre-service teachers’ ideas about teaching practices. Pre-service chemistry teachers were asked to \"Draw a picture of yourself as a science teacher at work.\" and to write a brief narrative describing their drawings and specifically answer the questions, \"What is the teacher doing?\" and \"What are the students doing?\" regarding their drawings. The narrative part is supportive of exploring the images of pre-service teachers in detail and more meaningfully.

The results of this study showed that pre-service chemistry teachers’ perspective of science teaching style is 37,9 % student-centred, 22.7% teacher-centred, and 39.4% reflect the characteristics of both student-centred and teacher-centred approaches. These results indicated that there is an awareness of the student-centred instruction among pre-service teachers at least on some level in spite of the fact that pre-service teachers have been affected by their teacher-centred school experiences as learners. The tendency or prone of chemistry pre-service teachers to teacher centred instruction is a serious problem regarding the adoption of very extensive reform in chemistry curricula.

Date: 2013.05.14

Posted by Diane Condon (Ireland)

Message: This publication begins by stating that in Turkey they have been striving for increasing the quality of science and technology education. They are also developing a more student-centred approach to science education. This is not only relevant to Turkey as we would have similar reforms occurring in Ireland. I would imagine this to be the case across Europe.

The research here focuses on how pre-service teachers (student science teachers) see themselves in their future classrooms, whether they see themselves delivering a more teacher or student centred approach in their instructional style. The implication being that their styles would be as a result of their own experiences as students in the classroom.

The research for this paper takes 66 pre-service chemistry teachers from three universities, 40 female and 26 male. I would find this a very small number of students to take to show valid results, especially as there is unequal numbers of males and females and a gender conclusion is drawn.

They used a Draw-A-Scientist-Test. The students were asked to draw themselves as a science teacher at work, and include a brief narrative to support the image. They were also asked a series of questions including type of high school, age, gender, family income, etc. They were given 20 minutes to complete their drawings. Impartial educators were asked to validate the findings.

The results show 39.4% use both styles, 37.9% student-centred, and 22.7% showed the teacher-centred style. They also found more males to females showing the teacher-centred style. Again I would mention that only 66 pre-service teachers were used in the research. In my opinion 66 is too few to draw conclusions from.

The discussion that follows the results suggest that despite commitment to reform students insisted on teacher-centred pedagogies, even though using their own results 77.3% use both student-centred and a combination of approaches. They mention that there is an “awareness” in pre-service teachers of the student-centred approach. It would appear that their results show more than an awareness of this type of teaching style.

I feel the paper does not propose any real solutions to encouraging a more student-centred approach to prospective science teachers but it does highlight the issue of increasing the awareness the two approaches.