Prospective Elementary Teachers' Science Teaching Orientations and Experiences that Impacted their Development

Abstract

A large body of literature illustrates that many elementary teachers are reluctant to teach science and confess a lack of confidence to teach it. Nevertheless, a review of the literature indicates a few cases of elementary teachers who do well in science and offers rare examples of enthusiast elementary teachers. The question then becomes how those cases came to be? The purpose of this study is to document two such cases of prospective elementary teachers, illustrate their unique characteristics and shed light on how those came to be. The study was designed upon a narrative inquiry approach focusing on the collection of personal stories. Multiple sources of data were used in order to examine the participants’ science teaching orientations and the kinds of experiences that influenced their development: drawings, interviews, reflective assignments, and others. The analysis of the data was grounded within the Three-Dimensional Space Narrative Structure. The findings of the analysis illustrated that the participants perceived certain experiences they had during their university coursework as critical to shaping their orientations to science and science teaching: inquiry-based investigations, contemporary theoretical discussions, outdoors field study, friendly classroom environment and the characteristics of their instructors. These findings have implications for the design of teacher education courses that aim to engage prospective elementary teachers, especially females, in meaningful learning experiences and support them in developing science teaching orientations that are in line with reform recommendations.