The Development of Chemistry Pre-service Teachers' Professional Vision: An Observation Practice CourseImprovement
Abstract
The aim of the study was to evaluate effectiveness of a course focused on forming pre-service chemistry teachers' professional vision and to suggest possible improvements if needed. To enhance professional vision, an Observation Practice Course's (OPC) was designed.
It was built on regular visits in schools, lesson observations, their subsequent group analyses and finally individually elaborated, written reflection of the lessons. To assess the course's effect, initial and final pre-service chemistry teachers' (N = 12) reflections on the same video-lesson were analysed.
In order to check for their attention and overall quality, the reflections were divided into information units and coded into categories (actor, PCK, 3A). The results show significant increase between pre- and post-reflection categories.
Nevertheless, proportions of information units in coded categories did not change noticeably. This finding led to a conclusion that pre-service teachers' knowledge (and their ability to notice) deepens in areas they are already acquainted with.
However, it turned out that it is necessary to work with other dimensions (e.g. content knowledge) more methodically to deepen the pre-service (chemistry) teachers' professional vision in these areas too.