An investigation of student teachers' teaching of difficult ideas in chemistry

It is not surprising that, in view of the conceptual and theoretical nature of chemistry, there are many ideas in chemistry that pupils find difficult. A review of the work in this area shows an extensive body of literature in which pupils' misunderstandings of key ideas in chemistry in the 12 15 age range are documented. However, much of this research does not give any assistance in terms of the development of teaching strategies or implementation of intervention packages. In fact, it appears from the literature that comparatively little research has been carried out into how student teachers teach ideas in those areas of chemistry where misunderstandings arise. This study investigated how student teachers draw on the guidance they are given in their training course about dealing with pupils' misunderstandings in chemistry. The project is a case study of practice in one institution and is also characterised by aspects of an action research project. A baseline study was carried out to establish a benchmark of current practice among student teachers. This was followed by the development and implementation of an Intervention Package to assist a second group of student teachers in teaching these difficult ideas. Data were gathered by means of classroom observation, questionnaires, interviews and analysis of lesson plans. A theoretical framework was developed to assist in the analysis of the baseline data and the post-intervention data. Models of educational evaluation were used to develop a strategy for assessing the effectiveness of the Intervention Package. The results of this assessment indicate that the Intervention Package was successful in a number of areas, e. g. increasing the awareness of the student teachers of the problems involved in teaching difficult ideas, encouraging the student teachers to use particular types of resources in their teaching, helping them to develop new teaching strategies and encouraging them to foster a greater climate of understanding in the classroom. The attitude of the student teachers towards the material covered in the Intervention Package was found to be very positive since they viewed this material as a practical strategy to help their teaching of difficult ideas in chemistry.

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