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Strategy Two: Modeling Alternative Pedagogy
It is sometimes important to model teaching strategies that promote a deeper scientific understanding of everyday phenomena. Broadening the pedagogical repertoire of preservice elementary science teachers is a main objective of the course, and iMovies that document local progressive science classrooms can enable prospective elementary science teachers to engage vicariously in inquiry teaching.
One drawback of teacher education programs offering only one science methods course is that science is not a generic process. Learning to teach biology is different from the process of learning to teach physics but, because of the curricular constraints of the elementary schools with which we collaborate, we often must teach only one science topic. This severely limits the exposure of my preservice teachers to a variety of strategies for teaching biological, physical, and chemical sciences. This can present a challenge because inquiry-based teaching methods for biology are not equivalent to those used in physics or chemistry. For example, field experiences in which children examine organisms in their natural habitat are less applicable for the study of motion and general kinematics. However, the videos that document actual lessons and the artifacts from children (e.g.; student work, drawings, small group interactions) involved in past university and elementary collaborations allow my preservice teachers to explore a wider variety of strategies for addressing the children's conceptions they have explicated in their own videos.
(Link to iMovie, example 2.)
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