REFLECTION

As a postdoc in science education, one primary mission of my future college teaching will be effectively preparing K-12 science teachers. Though I have taught both in-service novice science teachers and experience science teachers in my Ph.D. program and had been a teaching mentor for several national wide teacher professional development programs, this is the first time I observed and shadowed teaching method course prepared for science teacher intern. This learning experience will be essential for me to improve my teaching competence and better prepare as a teacher education researcher.

The core knowledge and skills for teaching this course include (1) science subject knowledge; (2) pedagogical knowledge; (3) K-12 science teaching strategies (e.g., formative assessment, lesson planning). By improving these competencies, I learn how to prepare science teacher interns for their professional development, including but not limited to preparing a lesson plan, developing assessment, demonstrating experiments, guiding students in investigation. The competence could also be transferred to teaching in-service teachers. 

I attended the classroom activities designed for science teacher interns, such as discussion and observing teaching clips, which helps me to learn the teaching strategies. I mentored a teacher intern by assisting her with lesson plan design and assessment development. I observed Dr. Alicia Alonzo’s teaching and studied her teaching materials, which helped me to better understand how to prepare to teach for teacher interns. In order to better understand teacher interns’ needs and challenges when they teach in the field schools, I volunteered to teach science in Hiawatha Elementary school for five periods. This valuable experience helped me better prepared my future college teaching in science teacher education. 

There are many valuable strategies I learned in this course that could be implemented in my college teaching. For example, I learned that in order to better prepare teacher interns, I could use teaching clips and encourage the teacher interns to critique the teaching and plan their own teaching. This approach is very effective for science teacher interns to practice lesson planning.