Scientific Inquiry Based Professional Development Models in Teacher Education.
Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: Scientific inquiry helps students develop critical thinking abilities and enables students to think and construct knowledge like a scientist. The study describes a method course implementation at a major public teachers college in Turkey. The main goal of the course was to improve research and teaching abilities of prospective physics teachers (N=48) by developing scientific inquiry skills. The impact of the course was measured in two-folds: (a) The results obtained from pre- and post-course scientific inquiry self-evaluations of student teachers, which showed a statistically significant improvement, (b) independently measured scientific inquiry levels, which were found highly correlated with student grades from practical courses. Qualitative data indicated that the student teachers were having difficulties in applying mathematical formula into physics applications. Key Words Professional Development Models, Physics Education, Teacher Education, Action Research, and Scientific Inquiry. (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.) Scientific inquiry based classroom activities help students develop critical thinking skills and enable them to construct knowledge like a scientist (Schneider, Krajcik, Marx, & Soloway, 2002). A strong foundational understanding of scientific inquiry has positive effects on both student achievement and attitudes towards mathematics and science (Anderson, 2002). Therefore, scientific inquiry is widely accepted as an effective instructional practice to teach science in today's classrooms and teachers need to excel in guiding their students to construct knowledge like scientists (National Research Council, 1996, 2000). The success of professional development of student teachers depends on the balance between theoretical and practical teaching applications offered in teacher education programs (National Science Teachers Association [NSTA], 1990, 2004, 2006). To achieve this balance, two common learning strategies are used to develop teaching abilities: action research and learning cycle. The student teachers use action research approach to improve their teaching in the classroom, whereas learning cycle helps them utilize teaching knowledge in the mental domain and helps student teachers understand the science concepts in depth by authentic handson activities (Elliot, 1993; Hopkins, 1993; Lawson, 1995; Stenhouse, 1975). Both strategies are at the core of the models developed in this study and they guide the implementation of the methods course. Thus, the main problem of the study was to describe the methods course in a physics teacher education program at a Turkish university and to determine its effectiveness in terms of student teachers' selfevaluations of their teaching and independent assessment of their scientific inquiry levels. Specifically, the study investigated whether scientific inquiry levels of the participants were statistically significantly regressed by their grades in theoretical and practical teacher education courses. Theoretical Framework Scientific Inquiry and Inquiry Oriented Learning: Scientific inquiry develops students' abilities to question the researchable events of the nature in a critical way. As students learn the concepts and the scientific processes, they develop skills on approaching phenomena like a scientist (National Research Council, 1996). The scientific inquiry helps students explore the unexplored knowledge by improving their critical thinking skills in authentic contexts (Roth & Roychoudhury, 1993). The proposition that links learning concepts and scientific inquiry is backed up by empirical research results, which indicated practically significant improvements in student achievement scores in multiple academic disciplines, including physics and mathematics (Anderson, 2002; Corlu & Corlu, 2007; Lawson, 1995; National Research Council, 2000). Action Research for Improving Teaching Skills and Strategies: Action research is an educational research strategy that was developed during the teacher as a researcher movement (Stenhouse, 1975). …
Authors: Mehmet Ali Çorlu, M. Sencer Çorlu
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W1928247651