Elementary Preservice Teachers’ Challenges in Designing and Implementing Socioscientific Issues-Based Lessons

Abstract

Socioscientific issues (SSI) have been found to improve scientific literacy skills among K—12 students. Elementary preservice teachers (PSTs), however, are reluctant to implement SSI due to a lack of confidence with content knowledge concerning SSI and pedagogical abilities. Existing research focuses on helping PSTs overcome these concerns through microteaching, adapting existing curricula, and experiencing SSI through methods courses. While it has been noted that formal preparation is required for PSTs to feel confident in their abilities to facilitate SSI, little has been done to prepare elementary PSTs to facilitate SSI during field experiences. PST’s concerns regarding science instruction with SSI are speculative since existing empirical evidence has been collected outside the context of the classroom. In this qualitative multicase study, we explored the challenges identified by three elementary PSTs as they facilitated SSI in the classroom. Community of practice (CoP) meetings provided formal training to prepare these participants’ PSTs to facilitate SSI. Recordings of the CoP meetings, lesson plans, observations, and interviews served as data sources. Analysis revealed the following challenges as themes: student concerns, time constraints, and obstacles implementing the SSI framework. We present findings associated with each of these themes and identify implications for preparing elementary PSTs for SSI instruction.

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