Preservice Elementary Teachers' Lesson Plan Design Decisions: Prepare and Attend to Essential Features of Inquiry

• In Event: 49.088 - Roundtable Session 17
  In Roundtable Session: 49.088-23 - Preservice Teacher Education

Abstract

Our purpose was to describe the ways in which 34 pre-service elementary teachers developed and enacted a science lesson plan. The study took place in the context of a science methods course focusing on inquiry-based teaching. Participants were involved in a process of discussing inquiry-based teaching principles, developing lesson plans, providing and receiving peer feedback, and then teaching the revised planned lesson. We analyzed the lesson plans, their subsequent critiques, and the enactments of the revised lesson plans. Our findings suggest that the participants showed a continued improvement in their abilities to design and implement inquiry-based science lessons, possibly due to the reflective nature of the process in which the participants were involved, as well as the support provided.

Authors

• Loucas T. Louca, European University Cyprus

• Thea Skoulia, University of Cyprus

• Zacharias C. Zacharia, University of Cyprus