Abstract

One of the biggest challenges in science education today is to train teachers who will employ learning focused practices based on scientific inquiry and oriented towards the development of scientific literacy. Various studies have shown that, in general, initial teacher training has little impact on teachers’ pedagogic practices after they graduate. Although a large amount of content is covered, the way it is taught – focused on the teacher – directly contradicts how it should be taught – focused on the student. Thus other experiences in the teachers' lives, such as schooling, employment experience, etc., would appear to have a greater influence on their classroom practices in the long run. The object of the present study is to identify common elements in the life stories of six secondary school science teachers whose practices are student focused, highly interactive, receptive to the student in both cognitive and affective terms, and oriented towards the development of scientific literacy. These life stories were collected through interviews and analyzed from a biographical-narrative focus. Based on the findings of common elements in the life stories of these teachers, suggestions are made for both the initial and in-service teacher education of science teachers.