IMPROVING PROFESSIONAL AND METHODOLOGICAL READINESS OF FUTURE BIOLOGY TEACHERS THROUGH SCHOOL-BASED PRACTICE
Keywords:
School-based practice, biology teacher education, professional readinessAbstract
This article examines how structured school-based practice can improve the professional and methodological readiness of future biology teachers. Drawing on the theoretical foundations of pedagogical content knowledge, experiential and situated learning, and practice-based teacher education, the study proposes and analyzes a design-based methodology that integrates mentored lesson design, inquiry-rich classroom enactment, iterative reflection, and evidence-informed feedback. The methodology was developed over three iterative cycles with cohorts of pre-service biology teachers during their practicum. Multiple data sources were used for formative evaluation, including lesson plans, classroom video excerpts, mentor observation rubrics, reflective journals, and assessment artifacts such as student work and item analyses. The analysis focused on five readiness dimensions central to biology teaching: planning for conceptual change and inquiry, enacting investigations and fieldwork with attention to safety and ethics, formative assessment for learning, classroom discourse and explanation, and reflective decision-making informed by learner evidence. Results indicate consistent growth in the specificity and coherence of lesson plans, more accurate alignment of learning objectives with assessment tasks, richer use of scientific practices, and an increased capacity to anticipate and address common biological misconceptions. Mentoring quality and school resource constraints emerged as pivotal contextual factors, and the integration of digital tools contributed to better feedback loops when those tools were purposefully aligned to pedagogical goals. The article concludes that school-based practice, when framed as an iterative, mentored, evidence-seeking process rather than a single placement, substantially strengthens professional-methodological readiness and offers a replicable model for biology teacher education programs. Implications for program design include strengthening university–school partnerships, codifying observation and feedback protocols grounded in disciplinary practices, and building assessment literacy that links classroom evidence to instructional adjustments.
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