Abstract
Numerous studies on science teachers’ professional development status reported that despite having attended the required centralized courses and in-house trainings, there are those who still struggle to plan for and implement appropriate, well-structured lessons. This study has been carried out to identify aspects relating to instructional practices that science teachers are still lacking in, to investigate the nature of training that they have attended as well as the ones they would like to go for; and to unearth issues surrounding their training for professional growth. Twenty science teachers with less than 5 years of service were involved in this study. Data were obtained through qualitative means via interviews and document analysis. The findings revealed aspects that the science teachers had trouble in are associated with instructional strategies, content knowledge, understanding of learners, assessment and creativity in class. The teachers also raised concerns about the nature of existing and future trainings for the development of effective science teachers; on which recommendations are put forward and a possible professional development framework could be expounded.
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This paper is sponsored by Research Acculturation Grant Scheme (RAGS 2013) Ministry of Education, Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM).
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Ismail, M.H., Abdullah, N., Salleh, M.F.M., Yahya, M.S. (2016). Science Teachers’ Continuous Professional Development: A Preliminary Finding. In: Fook, C., Sidhu, G., Narasuman, S., Fong, L., Abdul Rahman, S. (eds) 7th International Conference on University Learning and Teaching (InCULT 2014) Proceedings. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-664-5_46
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