Microteaching Lesson Study: An Approach to Prepare Teacher Candidates to Teach Science through Inquiry

Abstract

Inquiry-based teaching has become the most recommended approach in science education for a few decades; however, it is not a common practice yet in k-12 school classrooms. In order to prepare future teachers to teach science through inquiry, a Microteaching Lesson Study (MLS) approach was employed in our science methods courses. Instead of asking teacher candidates to simply share (present) their inquiry-based lesson plans with peers, we requested teacher candidates to develop, teach, and collaboratively reflect upon their lessons. This paper reports our findings from a recently finished study that investigated teacher candidates‟ learning from and perspectives about MLS. Data were collected through teacher candidates‟ lesson plans, teaching performances, and reflective reports. The study concluded that MLS provided teacher candidates valuable practical opportunity and their learning through such collaborative action was significant. Participating teacher candidates highly valued MLS approach even though a few of them raised some concerns about it.