Enhancing teachers' understanding and perceived roles to teach nature of science (NOS) through the use of classroom videos

Abstract

Effective NOS instruction relies on teachers' understanding and their perceived roles in teaching NOS. Making use of critical incidents is identified as a useful approach to develop teachers' understanding of what effective NOS instruction means. For instance, Nott and Wellington (1998) used written cases of critical moments to probe teachers' conceptions of NOS before and after joining the teacher professional development (TPD) programme. Nevertheless, 'identifying and capitalizing on spontaneous teachable moments in lessons' has remained difficult for teachers (Schwartz & Lederman, 2002). Other than teachers' understanding, another factor affecting NOS instruction is the teachers' beliefs and intentions (Lederman, 1999). Teachers may be unaware of their roles in teaching NOS (Bartholomew, Osborne & Ratcliffe, 2004). Therefore we held two consecutive TPD programmes for the secondary science teachers; and put their beliefs and perceived role as one of our emphases. In the workshops, videos capturing critical moments of NOS instruction were used to elicit teachers' reflection and discussions. In this study, we aimed not only to understand how they would identify ‘teachable moments’ in classrooms, but also to answer the following research questions: 1. What is the nature and significance of critical incidents in reviewing teachers' beliefs and their perceived roles to teach NOS? 2. In what ways can teachers’ reflection be facilitated by using lesson videos depicting critical incidents of teaching NOS? Our data sources mainly came from: (1) the videos of the discussions in both TPD programmes; (2) the written reflection task of teachers completed after the discussions in the second TPD programme, and (3) the semi-structured interviews held right after the discussion and at the completion of the second TPD programme. The findings confirmed that videos capturing critical incidents facilitated our teachers to identify the very fine details of classroom interactions. They were able to notice pedagogically important events and hence to improve their NOS understanding. In our second TPD programme, we guided our teacher participants to reflect on their practices according to the Five Dimensions of Effective Practices (FDP) framework (Bartholomew et al., 2004). Analysis on teachers' comments could exemplify how their beliefs and perceived roles in NOS teaching changed accordingly. Reviewing the videos for at least twice in a collaborative manner also positively influenced teachers in their conceptions and values to teach NOS. Incorporating some of these features would be promising for improving NOS instruction.