Establishing a school and science education partnership: a science teacher education perspective

Abstract: Professional experience plays a significant role in the development of all preservice teachers. In an effort to better support the development of high quality science teachers, a partnership has been formed between the Faculty of Education and a Secondary School that connects professional experience and science education university experiences. In this paper, we will outline the partnership, consider the impact of the partnership from the perspective of science teacher educators and consider the influence this partnership has had on both the planning and delivery of our unit. The research was shaped by the overarching questions; how can we use this partnership to better support science pre-service teachers learning? And how has this supported our learning as science teacher educators? Data was collected from pre-service science teachers during their experience at the school, immediately after their experience at the school and at the end of the university year, through written feedback and focus group interviews. Data was also collected from the secondary school science teacher and the university science teacher educators’. The data was analysed to highlight the challenges and opportunities for our learning, always with a lens of how can we better support pre-service science teacher learning.