en and exchanged their experiences. In total, 44 teacher students and eight teachers participated in the courses running in winter 2012/13 and semester 2013. They developed together 12 school projects and reached 300 pupils of the secondary level.
Fig.1. Schedule and content of the INQUIRE Course Bremen.
Questions and design of research
The focus of the evaluation of the INQUIRE course Bremen laid on the professional growth of the participants regarding their Subject Knowledge (SK) and Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) according to Park & Oliver (2008).
For the evaluation of the course we used research diaries of teacher students, questionnaires (pre-post), and structured interviews (pre-post). For data triangulation we worked with the “World Café”-method (Schieffer, Isaacs & Gryllenpalm, 2004).
Findings and conclusions
Student teachers as well as teachers reported an increase of subject knowledge in the field of biodiversity as well as an increase of methodological knowledge about IBSE (comparison of pre-post questionnaire). During the course the participants gained a more differentiated picture about the dimensions of biodiversity: genes, species and landscapes. They gained elaborated knowledge about the aspects and concepts of biodiversity.
One of our goals was to describe a multi-faceted IBSE approach. We encouraged the school teams to plan and develop IBSE activities and school projects – according to the specific circumstances of the school classes – open, guided or structured. We showed different IBSE hands-on and minds-on activities, mysteries, cartoons and mind maps and invited the school teams to choose or to develop the IBSE activities themselves on a level of openness they thought to be suitable for their school classes.
We identified an increase of the self-estimation of the teacher students and teachers about their own IBSE competences. Based on the novice-expert-paradigm (Dryfus & Dryfus, 1987) the participants moved from mainly “beginners” to “advanced” or “experienced” regarding their IBSE competences.
Fig.2. The self- estimation of IBSE competences (N=52)
In conclusion, the INQUIRE for Teacher Students Course Bremen was successful by linking pre-service and in-service education, linking science educators and scientists, linking school and university.
Based on its success and the satisfaction of the teacher students we decided to implement the INQUIRE for Teacher Students Course in the Master of Education program of ongoing biology teachers of the secondary level (6 Credit points; 180 hours course).
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Article written by: Doris Elster, Scientix Deputy Ambassador