Science Teacher Change II: Itineraries of Progression and Obstacles in Prospective Primary Teachers

Abstract

This paper, the second in a series of two, presents the progress and obstacles experienced by five teams of prospective primary education teachers who participated in courses based on the constructivist-oriented model «Teacher Education for Inquiry into Practice (FOPIP)», and in the «Students’ Conceptions and Curricular Innovation (CAIC)» course. The categories analyzed were: the students’ ideas, school science con- tent, and the methodology of Science Teaching. For the analysis, three levels of progression were proposed and then reformulated and expanded in the light of the data, resulting in General Itineraries of Progression. The results were suggestive of two substantive obstacles: the students’ ideas have no epistemological value, and scientific knowledge represents absolute truths. There was evidence that the teams had surpassed the first obstacle, but not the second.

Keywords

• professional knowledge
• teachers’ conceptions
• students’ ideas
• content
• method
• constructivism
• itineraries of progression
• obstacles