Investigating how teacher educators create opportunities for preservice teachers to learn biology

Abstract

This study explored the opportunities created by four teacher educators in a teacher education programme to bring about meaningful learning. The study sought to understand the complex communicative approaches employed by teacher educators to provide preservice teachers with a platform for engagement with biology concepts in large lecture settings. A case study methodology was adopted for the study. The main purpose of this research was to find out how teacher educators can promote productive discussion and learning experiences in their lectures when teaching selected biology topics. Data sources involved observations of lessons taught by four biology teacher educators in 2017 and 2018 and individual interviews on teacher educators’ teaching practices. To generate data for my study I observed four teacher educators teaching four different topics: population ecology, environmental studies, cell biology, and biochemistry of respiration. A total of fifteen lessons were observed and audio recorded. Data were analysed using the opportunities for the learning model. Results yielded eighteen categories of opportunities provided by teacher educators in their lectures. Findings suggest that teacher educators’ lectures were interactive with a varying spread of elaborative prompts and probing that is supportive of preservice teachers’ cognitive engagement with biology content. I discussed opportunities created by educators in their lecture spaces with a large student population and its implication for teacher education.