Chinese Journal of Science Education

Abstract

This study explored the professional change for an experienced teacher in the instruction of controversial socioscientific issue, and the factors causing the change. The participants were a science teacher with twenty years teaching experience and his fifth-grade students in three classes of an elementary school. The lesson unit was the issue of genetically modified food (GM food) designed and instructed by the case teacher. The data were collected through the ways of classroom observation, interviews with the case teacher, the teacher’s journals and his teaching plans, and the teacher’s concept map about the GM food. The results uncovered that there was a space for the experienced teacher’s professional change and growth. The teacher’s beliefs of the instruction of GM food influenced his teaching practices through self-reflection and self-awareness in action, and vice versa. The case teacher’s pedagogical content knowledge about GM food was context-dependent, and developed gradually. Furthermore, this knowledge was completely integrated when the case teacher was adept at the teaching material, or he repeatedly elaborated his instruction. The many factors causing teacher’s professional change included self-reflection and self-awareness, the teaching experience, the students’ responsive reactions in class, the stimuli from individual interviews, the new teaching materials, and the active character of the teacher in learning. Among the above factors, the active character of the teacher in learning is the most essential and important one in this study.

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