Prospective teachers’ changing knowledge about teaching science

Abstract

This paper describes and analyzes the proposals made by 92 teams of future teachers to teach concrete contents of science when starting and finishing an initial training course of constructivist orientation, taking as reference the model of school research. In order to study the change in their knowledge about science teaching, we have selected four categories: the presentation of the contents to the students, the didactic use of their ideas, the methodological sequence followed and the purpose of the assessment. The results show that less one team, all the others are in an initial situation in a traditional approach to teaching. However, at the end of the course, 55 teams are in transition towards school research with different degrees of progression while 37 teams continue in the first approach. In all of them the methodological sequence is the category that progresses the most, whereas the purpose of the evaluation is the most resistant to change. Finally, we indicate the implications in the initial formation of teachers.