Inquiry Pedagogy and the Preservice Science Teacher By Lisa Mar ...

their understandings of inquiry pedagogy, with evidence that most preservice teachers were able to employ inquiry pedagogy as a result of their progression through a series of science teaching methods courses. This data supports the idea that teacher licensure programs would benefit by providing more than one science teaching methods course. Mentors play an important role in the classroom, as prospective teachers indicated, through interviews, that their mentor teachers’ views of inquiry influenced their own views, whether positive or negative. As teachers benefit by long-term professional development, similarly, prospective teachers would benefit from the long-term exposure to reform teaching strategies that are often foreign to them, as well as from guidance and support from positive mentors (Akerson & Abd-El-Khalick, 2003; Loucks-Horsley, Hewson, & Love, 2003; Luft & Pizzini, 1998; Wang, 2001).

As science educators in higher education institutions revise their teacher preparation programs, the effectiveness of different program models is often considered. The Iowa-SSTEP is one example of a program demonstrating significant change in prospective teachers’ understandings of inquiry and implementation of teaching inquiry lessons in the science classroom. Other higher education institutions may wish to examine the way in which this particular program has fostered change in preservice teachers’ pedagogy as we, as a science education community, continue to move from passive to active learning.