‘Educating rita’: Is an academic science course for prospective infant and primary teachers appropriate

Conclusion

Our decision to choose the Open University S101 Science: A Foundation Course represents a direct attempt on our part to provide a background in science for our prospective infant and primary teachers. Our objective that this course achieve parity with first year Faculty of Science courses may appear to be an unattainable goal, given the methodological problems that have to be faced for such a general purpose course. It would certainly not be feasible for a lecture staff of four persons were it not for the printed readers, texts, assignments, examinations, and audio-visual software purchased, with approval, from the Open University in the United Kingdom.

Our pilot study in 1983 gave us some encouragement and, most interestingly, 10 out of the 17 students continued with Science study into Year 2 in 1984, thus committing them to the major study in science in Years 3 and 4. Given that three students failed, 10 out of 14 is a far higher retention rate than anything we have experienced previously.

Clearly, the evaluation of our efforts to influence the teaching of science in Tasmanian primary schools must wait, but these evaluative studies should make a contribution to the research data on curriculum issues in Australia.

This course could play an important in-service function for present primary teachers. We are hopeful that such a content-based approach to science teacher education may help to convince teachers to take the extensive range of available curriculum materials seriously.