Challenging preservice teachers thinking about school science education with a values and knowledge education (VaKE) experience

Abstract

Science preservice teachers (PSTs), as successes of the school system, often mimic what they experienced as a student when they start teaching, which can be problematic if they never experienced science taught in contextualized ways. Since not all school students report that they find school science relevant, it is important to provide opportunities for PSTs to consider ways to connect science teaching and learning in more relevant ways for their students' lives. Values and knowledge education (VaKE), is a student-centered pedagogical approach, that uses dilemma stories and a series of purposeful steps to combine values education with knowledge education, provides such an opportunity. This qualitative study investigated secondary science PSTs views on the ways a VaKE experience challenged their assumptions about school science to support their future development as quality teachers of science, and the extent to which PSTs feel confident, able and likely to use VaKE as a teaching strategy in their future teaching of science. VaKE, an innovative pedagogy, provided a powerful and novel learning experience for almost all PSTs, by challenging and inspiring them to critically reflect on their own schooling and expand their pedagogical knowledge for teaching science in the future.