LEARNING BY TEACHING: MICROTEACHING IN GEOSCIENCE CONTENT COURSES FOR PRESERVICE ELEMENTARY TEACHERS

Most elementary-level teacher preparation programs require preservice teachers to take a range of science content classes. Ideally, more knowledgeable teachers are more confident in their ability to teach science and will therefore do it better. While research has linked a teacher’s high self-efficacy beliefs (SEB’s) to more time spent on science lessons and even enhanced student performance, previous work has shown that science content classes do not typically improve SEB. At my urban state university, we use the STEBI-B to track SEB’s in science content courses dedicated to preservice elementary teachers. As in previous research, I find no overall change in students’ attitude about their effectiveness as future teachers of science (p < 0.30; n = 144). Our content-centered university classes have two limitations: 1) they do not provide a clear link for how university-level knowledge can be transferred to a K-12 classroom, and 2) they lack many of the key experiences known to improve SEB’s such as successfully performing the task of teaching.

I designed a science content course with goals to teach science content and improve teaching SEB’s. All lessons in the course are taught through “microteaching” within teams. Each team is a mini-classroom with one member serving as the teacher for the week’s lesson and the remaining members acting as students. The microteacher teaches a pre-made 45 minute lesson with all materials provided to them. Students complete an anonymous assessment form online with a rubric and written feedback (20 minutes). We end with a 30 minute class discussion of the content. After class, microteachers access their feedback instantly online. This course produces strong growth in content knowledge (pre/post quiz normalized gains ~40%-50%) and significant growth in the self-efficacy scores on the STEBI-B (normalized gains ~20-30%, n=344). I advocate extensive use of microteaching in all science content courses for preservice teachers.