 | Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 8, Issue 2, Article 2 (Dec., 2007) Behiye AKCAY Effectiveness of professional development program on a teacher's learning to teach Science as inquiry |
Effectiveness of professional development program on a teacher's learning to teach Science as inquiry
Behiye AKCAY
University of Iowa
Department of Science EducationE-mail: bbezir@gmail.com
Received 18 Oct., 2007
Revised 22 Nov., 2007
Contents
This is a study of a science teacher's beliefs concerning how a professional development program affect both the teaching strategies used and the beliefs professed influence classroom instruction after participating in the Iowa Chautauqua Professional Development program. The results of the study indicate that teachers often have problems with implementing new instructional strategies especially, inquiry teaching. The causes for the difficulty were found to include: (a) a major gap between the teacher's common knowledge and their common practices, (b) more experience with the inquiry teaching and learning approaches is needed, (c) getting student participation as a partner in inquiry is new, (d) some students are resistant to working on their own inquiries, and (e) management issues. The Iowa Chautauqua Professional Development program helped the teacher to change her philosophy of teaching and learning and use of more constructivist learning environment practices.
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