Using Self-Study to Learn to Teach Genetics to Pre-service Teachers for Understanding and for Teaching

Abstract

Teacher educators should be able to teach Pre-service teachers (PSTs) about teaching whether one is teaching methodology or content subjects if the purpose of teacher education is to be achieved. A survey of most of the S-STEP literature however, shows that most of the research that has been done has focussed on teaching about teaching in methodology courses and not in content courses. In the study that is reported in this chapter, I used the methodology of self-study and modelling teaching, to learn to teach genetics (a content course) to PSTs for understanding of content and for teaching. The analysis of interview transcripts showed that PSTs learnt about genetics as well as about the teaching of genetics from my teaching. I therefore argue that it is possible to teach PSTs content for understanding and for teaching when teaching content subjects by modelling teaching practices.