Teaching nature of science to pre-service early childhood teachers through an explicit reflective approach

Before the instruction most of the pre-service early childhood teachers did not have the contemporary viewpoints about the tentative, empirical, theory driven, creative and interpretive aspects of NOS and they had many misconceptions in their minds. These results recapitulate the results of many studies conducted with pre-service and in-service teachers (Akerson et al., 2000; Akerson et al., 2007; Buaraphan & Sung-Ong, 2009; Chin, 2005; Çelik & Bayrakçeken, 2006; Küçük, 2008). After a three-month course, 50% and more of the participants, where this ration went up to 70% and 90% with some aspects, obtained informed views. These findings reveal that the course carried the NOS understandings of all of the participants towards contemporary viewpoints. It is not realistic to expect for any course or program to provide full understanding for the target aspects of nature of science. In this regard, the picture after the course was quite successful. These results support the studies which reveal that explicit reflective approach is effective in teaching NOS (Akerson et al., 2000; Akerson et al., 2007; Akerson et al., 2006; Bell et al., 2000; Khishfe & Abd-El-Khalick, 2002; Küçük, 2008; Schwartz et al., 2002; Veal, 2004).

I can explain the change in the views of the student teachers about NOS with two reasons. One of the reasons is the explicit reflective approach activities which were implemented during the course instruction. The participants had experienced what the scientists experienced in real scientific study in the activities. Of course, these features of the activities are important but in order to make someone realize the NOS, they need implementations more than having experiences about a scientific study (Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000; Khishfe & Abd-El-Khalick, 2002; Lederman, 2006). Because of this, I would like to draw attention to how valuable the whole class discussions which follow the activities were. All the whole discussions were revolved around two main points. First of all, the questions which the activity focused on and helped to realize the aspects of NOS were discussed. For example, in Sequencing Events activity, after the small group completed its work, with the question of “how can you explain writing tales although you have the same picture?” it was aimed that the participants would notice that the same data would be interpreted differently. The theory driven and interpretive aspects of nature of science were explicitly emphasized with the answers given to this question. The expressions of a student in the lesson such as “Nobody had asked me such questions as what is science? What is inference? I question them for the first time and I realize my own opinions.” point that it is so important to emphasize the nature of science explicitly. The second point which was emphasized in whole class discussions was that the students built up close relations between the activities they developed and the scientific endeavor. In other words, they made reflections about the aspects of nature of science focused on. For example, in the Sequencing Events activity, the participants were able to build bridges between their own life and presentation of different theories about global warming and the formation of the universe.

In my opinion, the second reason for the positive change in the views of the participants about the target aspects of NOS is that the participants themselves designed an explicit reflective approach activity of NOS. What I observed in my study was that when I first asked the student teachers to develop activities, they thought that it was a very difficult task and they were worried that they could not achieve the task. As they analyzed the explicit reflective approach activities of NOS in literature, and talk with their friends about what they could do, they began to shape their own activities. After the first steps of the designing activities, the reduction in the worries of the participants drew my attention. Each week, a group presented their activity, the strengths of the activity were revealed with the whole class discussion, and some suggestions were made to make it better. All these implementations might have provided support to make the understanding of NOS obtained by the participants in the first stage of the course easy to understand and elaborate (Küçük, 2008). Maybe some viewpoints which could not be achieved in the first stage of the course were discovered during the activity development process. Depending on all these explanations, I might suggest that the courses where the explicit reflective approach of NOS is taught to the early childhood teachers and the teachers developed their own NOS activities should be designed and implemented. The NOS activities chosen by the instructor and the activities developed by the participants are independent of science content in this study. In the courses which will be designed after this, the instruction may be started with the activities separate from science content, and it can continue with the NOS activities depending on research within the science context. While the student teachers learn the NOS, they can also develop their science concepts and knowledge by this way.

The participants who joined the course of Science, Technology, and Environment Activities reported positive views about the instruction they took throughout the course. The results I obtained support the assertion by Veal (2004) that pre-service and in-service teachers enjoyed the courses where the NOS were taught. Moreover, Tao (2003) in his study conducted with junior secondary school students used science stories to develop the understanding on NOS. Tao reported in the interviews made by the students that the students liked the stories. As it is with my study, after a course where the NOS was taught with explicit reflective approach for three months, it is not surprising for the participants to make such sentences as “I corrected my mistakes, I learned what I did not know about the NOS, I am thinking of using these activities in the real class environment.” It may not be surprising but it is pleasing that the participants felt these after the course. To me, the instruction of NOS causing the pre-service teachers to like science, feeding their creative thinking skills, having them acquire the habit of looking at events from different perspectives are very valuable outcomes to be emphasized. Such feelings of the student teachers may result from internalizing what science is and how it works. Perhaps, how instruction of NOS changed the views of the people about the NOS and also the question of how and what it affects may be sought answer with the studies to be conducted in the future.