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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 21, Issue 1, Article 4 (Dec., 2021) |
This investigation aimed to seek the perspectives of secondary science teachers’ perspectives on teaching outside their subject specialisation. It is concluded that science teachers teaching outside their subject specialisation face some difficulties and their difficulties drips down to students. The very prominent finding emergent from the study that a significant majority of students (60 percent) face difficulties in the same subject where teachers experience difficulties in teaching, is a matter of grave concern to all stakeholders. Learning experiences of students at the secondary stage play a pivotal role in the development of scientific literacy and their choice of continuing to study science subjects at the higher level. Hence, no compromise should be made in this regard. When teaching happens outside their subject specialization, due to shortage of teachers or whatever reasons, sufferers are students. One-to-one mapping of teachers' difficulties with students' difficulties as observed by the teachers, conclusively directs the stakeholders to assign the science teachers the task of teaching within their subject specialisation.
However, it can be argued that overemphasizing the teaching assignment within teachers ‘area of specialisation is not practicable. While it may not be feasible to do away with teaching outside the subject specialisation, continuous professional development programme can play a crucial role in providing adequate support to the practicing science teachers in integrated science teaching.
Hence, more significantly, there is an urgent need for a powerful and focused capacity building programme for the teachers teaching outside their area of specialisation. 77 percent of the teachers have expressed the need of capacity building programme to support them in teaching-learning of science. It is of paramount importance to structure such programme on specific issues concerned with the concepts as identified by the teachers in the study, viz. carrying out experiments and activities, new methods of teaching, conceptual understanding and use of information and communication technology. Further, science teachers also need to be equipped with a range of pedagogical skills such as engaging students at various stages of teaching-learning of the concepts, interweaving assessment with the teaching-learning process to maximize learning outcomes, designing learning experiences that can facilitate students to self-study and improvising teaching-learning materials to address teaching-learning challenges. Participating in long-term professional development can also be a powerful learning experience for these teachers. This issue is aligned with the National Education Policy- 2020(Government of India) vision of continuous professional development (CPD). The policy recommends that teachers will be given continuous opportunities for self-improvement and to learn the latest innovations and advances in their professions. Each teacher will be expected to participate in at least 50 hours of PD opportunities every year for their own professional development, driven by their own interests.
The opinion of 92 percent of teachers that if there are separate teachers to teach Physics, Chemistry and Biology, students’ difficulties in conceptual understanding of science can be minimized, needs to be valued.
In the past 10 years, more countries have been documented as recognising and responding to out-of-field teaching, and more and more researchers are exploring the phenomenon in depth. The time is right to work internationally to share our insights (Hobbs and Günter ,2019).
The present research highlights the need of understanding science teachers’ perspectives to understand the ground reality and the teaching-learning situations holistically. Teachers’ voice must find a space in educational scenario and their perspectives must arguably be the cornerstone to quality enrichment of science education.
Acknowledgments
The author acknowledges the support and financial grant sanctioned by the National Council of Educational Research and Training, New Delhi.
