Prospective science teachers' teaching orientations and practices

The purpose of this study was to examine prospective science teachers' orientations within the scope of Scholl Experience course and how they put their orientations into practice in Teaching Practice course. Orientation is seen as a central component of PCK, which is defined as 'knowledge and beliefs about the goals of science teaching at a certain grade level and the general ways of thinking on science teaching'. Participants of this research, which was carried out using the case study, are 6 prospective science teachers attending their last academic term in the teacher training program in a state university. Observations, interviews, lesson plans and journals were used as data collection tools and the data were analysed by using deductive analysis. The findings showed that the participants did not have discovery, didactic and inquiry orientations, while they possessed mainly academic rigor, guided inquiry, activity driven and rarely conceptual change and project based orientations. Prospective teachers displayed guided inquiry, academic rigor and activity driven orientations during teaching practices, too. It was concluded that science prospective teachers who developed student-centred orientations required by reformist curriculum were able to put them into practice, although with some difficulties.