Describing Physics Student Teachers' Orientations through Lesson Planning

Isik Saliha Karal

doi:10.13189/ujer.2017.050503

Abstract

Recent educational reforms realized in teacher education programs (TEPs) and secondary physics syllabus were aimed at placing the learning and teaching approaches in a constructivist framework. For this reason, student teachers in pre-service TEPs are expected to develop orientations adopting student-centred teaching approaches. The purpose of this study was to describe physics student teachers' science teaching orientations which can be defined as the general patterns of thought and behaviour related to physics teaching and learning. This case study explores 39 physics student teachers' orientations through lesson planning in their last academic term of TEP in the faculty of education. Student teachers' detailed lesson plans on a subject from secondary physics syllabus were used as data source and the data were analysed using content analysis to describe the participants' orientations. Findings show that more than half of the student teachers displayed student-centred orientations, clustered especially around activity-driven type of orientation; however some of them expressed their concerns about applicability of their lesson plans in inappropriate school environments and contexts.

Highlights

Reforms and concerns about the quality of teaching and learning in science education in the world led to a variety of changes in the way of teaching and educating teachers [1, 2]
That means the teacher-centred orientations of students formed in earlier schooling years are to change in the course of teacher education programs (TEPs), the TEPs should meet the expectations of the secondary teaching syllabus
In this work the determination of the orientations of [11]’s classification displayed by physics Student Teacher (ST) at the end of the TEP was aimed at, because changing national secondary teaching syllabus requires transformation of STs’ orientations in TEP and adoption of essentially student-centred orientations

Summary

Introduction

Reforms and concerns about the quality of teaching and learning in science education in the world led to a variety of changes in the way of teaching and educating teachers [1, 2]. The secondary physics teaching syllabus gives priority to teaching methods detecting individual learning differences, including group workings in classroom and laboratory activities These teaching methods are based on questioning and investigating That means the teacher-centred orientations of students formed in earlier schooling years are to change in the course of TEPs, the TEPs should meet the expectations of the secondary teaching syllabus. For these reasons these changes need to be examined and evaluated [3, 4], since this will eventually determine the success of any education reform [5, 6].

Objectives

Results

Conclusion