Designing teaching activities for kindergarten: student-teachers' proposals for the rainbow

KLEOPATRA PASKOU, ATHINA CHRISTINA KORNELAKI, GEORGE KALIAMPOS

Abstract

The present paper discusses a pathway to study pre-service teachers’ actual knowledge through their designed teaching activities on topics of Natural Sciences. Its importance lies on the assessment of teachers’ readiness and the effectiveness of their potential interventions. To this direction, a theoretical grid is proposed, which classifies teachers’ activities into four theoretical frameworks (empiricist, Piagetian, socio-cognitive, socio-cultural). The research was implemented to 17 3rd year students – future preschool teachers from the Department of Educational Sciences and Early Childhood Education of the University of Patras in Greece. Students were asked to design teaching plans about the rainbow phenomenon and their texts were analyzed qualitatively using the aforementioned grid. The results showed that most of the students approached the topic in the empiricist framework intentionally or not. Their difficulty to apply the theoretical frameworks into practice indicates the strong influence prior experiences have on the teachers and raises questions about the formal education’s effectiveness. 

Keywords

Theoretical frameworks, preschool teaching scientific activities, rainbow

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References

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.26220/mje.4001

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