Challenging pre-service students' teaching perspectives in an inquiry-focused program

The Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations

2642-1925

13

57

77

2013

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Inquiry teaching based on constructivist learning theory has been an emphasis in pre-service education for over a decade. In general, a developmental teaching perspective supports inquiry-based instruction where teachers view learners as constructors of knowledge and teaching as providing questions, problems, and challenges that form a bridge from the learners’ prior knowledge to a new, more sophisticated form of reasoning. Since teaching perspectives influence student learning, teacher effectiveness, and teacher attrition, challenging pre-service teachers to overcome experience-based convictions of a transmission perspective is necessary in teacher education. In this study, we examined the teaching perspectives of secondary, pre-service methods students at the midpoint of an inquiry focused program. Our findings suggest that, despite being introduced to a variety of teaching perspectives, overcoming preconceptions of “good teaching” and considering a perspective counter to one’s disciplinary major presents a dilemma for pre-service teachers.

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