Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 16, Issue 2, Article 3 (Dec., 2015)
Sasithep PITIPORNTAPIN and Deanna Marie LANKFORD
Using social media to promote pre-service science teachers’ practices of socio-scientific issue (SSI) - based teaching

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Conclusion and Discussion

As a result of this study, many pre-service science teachers had a good perception about using online mentoring to develop their use of SSI-based teaching. Individuals can access Web pages on mentoring or send an e-mail at any time of the day or night, seven days a week (Wah, 2000). Action research also affected because I learned how to change my practice for advising them how to do classroom action research related to using SSIs-based teaching in their classrooms. Loucks-Horsley et al. (2003) indicate that action research is utilized as a way of involving teachers in changes that improve teaching practice for the researcher. I found five social media strategies that were effective in terms of promoting pre-serviced science teachers’ implementations of SSI-based teaching:

Using social networking as the channel for providing feedback could eliminate my pre-service science teachers’ lack of understanding about SSI, especially when such a lack of understanding could lead to feelings of fear, anger and distrust towards the scientific community (Hodson, 2008). So my pre-service science teachers felt more confident in both their classroom action research and their SSI-based teaching. This result confirmed that social networks can be used as an educational channel for students and teachers to communicate, reflect, share, or learn their ideas from and to each other (Goldfarb et al., 2011; Schlenkrich & Sewry, 2012). I also confirmed that e-mentoring is best suited to short specific questions, and more complex or personal questions require face to face mentoring (Stokes, 2001). In order to increase their understanding and practice of SSI-based teaching and classroom action research, I also provided them an empirical example for their holistic views of SSI-based teaching related to Magnusson et al. (1999), which indicated that effective teachers require an array of teacher resources, subject-matter knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. SSI-rich instructional contexts may well provide a productive context that promotes their integration of knowledge structures, including pedagogical content knowledge (Zeidler et al., 2005). The changing process can occur when pre-service teachers are confident about the outcomes of teaching strategies (Bell, 1998). It also occurs when they recognize a need, make plans to improve, engage in improvements, and allow for time to evaluate the effectiveness of new practices (Boling & Martin, 2005).           

When I provided a friendly atmosphere, my pre-service science teachers increased their efforts to reduce the problems with SSI-based teaching. Starcevich (2004) noted that the good mentor should provide advice, share knowledge and experiences, and teach using a low-pressure, self-discovery approach. Moreover, I learned that not only could I promote my pre-service science teachers understanding and practices of SSI-based teaching or doing classroom action research but cooperative teachers and expert teachers could also do so in their schools as facilitators and scaffolders (Bell, 1993). Similarly, Korthagen & Kessels (1999) indicated that teachers may learn a lot of teaching methods and strategies for many types of situations from professional development experiences but typically do not know how to apply these to specific situations occurring in everyday teaching. In addition, professional development should have sufficient time and on-going professional support (Radford, 1998). For continually following their progress in SSI-based teaching, my pre-service science teachers progressed faster than before. I believe that changes in knowledge and belief take time and persistence (Loucks-Horseley et al., 2003). Therefore, a good mentor should help students stay on track and successfully progress through their work (Michigan Virtual University, 2014).

Implications and Recommendations
From the findings of this study, most pre-service science teachers including William and Nancy had good perceptions about using social media for professional development, and their perceptions might affect my practice of using social media to promote SSI-based teaching. Moreover, the processes of action research made me develop my practice and understand my pre-service science teachers more than before. Although they completed their work and their degrees, I still continue to use social media to:

In order to support the sustainability of changing their practices in line with SSI-based teaching, I suggest that these strategies can be applied to designing an online mentoring program for pre-service science teachers’ teaching practice according to SSI-based teaching.

University teachers should consider the context of their practice. The strategies that I used for advising them how to do classroom action research related to using SSI-based teaching in their classrooms might work well or not depending on that context. This study also points out some interesting issues for further studies. Based on the finding that cooperative teachers did not have much knowledge about SSI-based teaching, as a science educator, I still have questions about what strategies I can use to promote that might be beneficial to my advisees who are interested in SSI-based teaching.

 

 

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