Taking Science Teacher Education Online: A Critical Look at the Effect on Teacher Candidate’s Efficacy, Beliefs, and Perceptions of Science Teaching
Abstract: This presentation describes a design study of an online secondary science methods course. This course was created to address the need for a meaningful and rigorous online secondary science method course based on the increasing trend of online learning courses at the post-secondary level (Allen & Seaman, 2008) and the call for research-based, student-centered online learning environments (Revere & Kovach, 2011). This study was meant to determine the effect this course had on the self-efficacy, beliefs, and perceptions of teacher candidates associated with science teaching methods. In a mixed-method design, a one-group pretest–posttest design was used to determine the effect on self-efficacy and beliefs. The perceptions of the teachers were identified through phenomenography. The results of this study have important implications for cyberlearning because with the changing landscape of both the K-12 and university learning environments, there exists a challenge to create meaningful online
Presider: Iris Iddaly Méndez-Gurrola, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana