Design of a Hands-on Biology Course for Elementary School Teachers in Training

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9354488 Hood A need for hands-on science in elementary schools has been identified by a number science education studies and reports. However, implementation of such curricula is often limited by the lack of appropriate science training of elementary school teachers. Most of the formal science education received by an elementary school teacher comes from traditional fact-based university lecture courses or very structured laboratory courses. As teachers tend to teach the way they were taught, we posit that the key to improving science education nationally is to change the way prospective teachers are taught science. For elementary school teachers to effectively teach a hands-on, inquiry-based curricula, they must learn science via a hands-on inquiry-based approach. This proposal seeks to develop a pre-service hands-on science course for teachers in training. The course will be developed in collaboration with colleagues in the college of education and master elementary teachers selected from area schools. We feel such a partnership is essential to design a course which prospective teachers can both succeed in and get excited about. The course will use biological examples to teach content from biology, chemistry and physics but will convey content via a "guided discovery" of heuristic approach. The course hopes to serve as model of science teaching which students in the course may apply in their future classrooms. In addition, a component of the course is designed to introduce students to a range of hands-on materials for use in teaching elementary school science.