Browsing by Subject "Pre-Service Teacher"

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Open Access
Biology teachers’ perceptions about field trips and their pre-service preparation
(2018-09) Soysal, Gamze
Recent studies have shown that although being aware of the considerable supplementary benefits of field trips for biology lessons in high school, biology teachers complain about difficulties when planning and implementing field trips. In addition to these barriers, teachers indicate that their pre-service preparation for field trips is insufficient. Thus, the current study investigated biology teachers’ (N=39) perceptions about field trips and related pre-service preparation. Survey data was collected from 10 public and four private schools in Ankara. The significant findings showed that as the years of teaching increased, the teachers considered field trips more challenging especially for providing student safety and being supported by administration. Additionally, the results indicated that the biology teachers with an undergraduate degree considered field trips more challenging than teachers who had earned their Master’s or doctorate. Furthermore, while private school teachers had higher confidence levels and considered field trips more beneficial, public school teachers focused more on the challenges. There were notable differences between male and female teachers regarding perceptions of financial constraints, parental support for field trips and confidence level. Moreover, the field trip activities in pre-service preparation were seemed they were restricted to participation level. Lastly, to eliminate the challenges and include field trip related objectives to classroom lessons, this study suggests adding various field trip activities by teacher education institutions than participation.
Open Access
“Books i used as a child were mathematically incorrect”: reasons to use children’s shape-related books as a resource to improve mathematical knowledge for teaching
(Modestum Publishing Ltd., 2021-04-05) Alexander, Anita N.; Nurnberger-Haag, Julie; Singh, Rashmi; Wernet, Jamie L. W.
Some goals of mathematics teacher education include ensuring that pre-service teachers (PSTs) have strong content knowledge, the skill to anticipate and interpret student thinking, the ability to plan how to respond, and the ability to critically select resources for instruction. These goals are especially challenging for the topic of geometric shapes. Thus, we share an instructional activity that focuses PSTs’ attention on an inaccurate resource of geometric information, children’s books, to accomplish these goals in mathematics content as well as methods courses. Analyses of surveys and content assessments conducted to assess efficacy of the Shape Book Critique Activity were interpreted with the Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) framework. Based on the findings we suggest that this short 40-minute activity is a promising way to promote PSTs’ growth in three aspects of MKT for geometric shapes.