New Perspectives in Science Education

The purpose of this study is to investigate effect of the continuing professional development (CPD) program on teachers’ professional competences -views, teaching and learning beliefs, and classroom practices- about NOS was investigated. In this project, a CPD program was implemented for a year with voluntary attendance of 18 middle school science teachers and their students. The intervention process with the science teachers consisted of ten monthly meetings over two semesters. In this process teachers were introduced in a collaborative and reflective environment to various NOS aspects and ways of using explicit instruction and formative assessment in their NOS teaching. They were also introduced to different patterns of discourse and communication approaches by analyzing video recordings in the classroom. Also, the teaching activities and materials were provided to teachers to be implemented in their classrooms for one year. Teachers’ NOS views were assessed by pre-post semi-structured interviews using VNOS-C. During this process, 57 specially explicit NOS instruction activities were developed coherent with current curriculum and NOS tenets integrated within. Teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning NOS were assessed using two likert-type scales as pre-post tests. Teacher’s practices about NOS were assessed capturing videos during their classroom practices. The findings obtained from the project demonstrate that the CPD program was effective to improve teachers’ NOS views, beliefs, and classroom practices. 

Keywords: Continuing professional development in Teachers, Nature of Science, Professional Development;