Challenges and Experiences in Science Teacher Training

Dear Colleagues,

Many of the problems faced by contemporary society these days require a great deal of all-society action. Naturally, before people act, they need to be motivated and understand what the action means and what benefit it will have for themselves. From this point of view, even the biggest scientific breakthroughs will not help unless they are planted in correctly fertilized soil.

These conditions stress two important outcomes of science education: (1) curious generalists with at least neutral (but preferably positive) attitudes towards science, with the ability to distinguish science from pseudo-science and therefore critically evaluate scientific facts, and (2) students with ambition and also the abilities/skills to pursue a career in science.

Contemporary science education has been responding to this need for some time now, nevertheless, in a field as wide as this, it is easy to lose focus. There are three significant factors affecting the quality of science education: first, the functional curriculum belongs among the key pillars (under the condition that teachers actually follow it). Second, quality textbooks offer support to teachers as well as students, and third, the conditions in which teachers have to work. However, none of the aforementioned three impacts the product of our education unless utilized by a proficient teacher.

Teacher training research (in science) has been an issue for many decades now. There are many studies comparing national teacher training curricula, studies on professional vision development, or studies comparing teachers’ skills and knowledge to professionals. This Special Issue is a call for new ideas, new data and perspectives in science teacher training. We learnt a lot from the forced online teaching about students’ willingness to learn as well as many new teaching methods we had previous overlooked. This is, therefore, a chance to put these ideas together and shed light on the new, hopefully imminent, post-COVID-19 path.

Dr. Martin Rusek
Guest Editor

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• teacher training
• pre-service teachers
• professional vision
• ability to notice