Basic Informations

C.V

Master Title

The Effectiveness of a proposed programme in Scientific Education for Literary Departments’ students at faculties of Education

Master Abstract

This study aims at structuring a general frame work for a programme in scientific education that could function as a guideline for researchers working on this area and be used by students at arts departments in faculties of education

PHD Title

Towards Practising Constructivism in Pre-service Science Teacher Education Programmes in Egypt, Lessons from the British Experience

PHD Abstract

The need for educational reform in Egypt has been urgent. One of the reasons behind that is the weakness of teacher education programmes in Egypt. Accordingly, the Egyptian government adopted a policy that advocates teaching approaches from developed countries such as the UK and USA, by sending in-service Egyptian teachers to undertake 3 month-training courses. A pilot study revealed that the training courses presented to Egyptian in-service science teachers in Scotland were based on the constructivist perspective where constructivist aspects are modelled to the teachers who practise these aspects in learning settings. On the other hand, pre-service science teachers in Egypt are deprived from practising the teaching/learning approaches that they study at faculties of education. They are lectured didactically about these approaches by giving them massive abstract knowledge that they have to memorise to pass the exams. This research adopts a qualitative approach which is compatible with the constructivist view of teaching/learning science. The research involved two main phases. In the first phase, I tried to benefit from UK science teacher educators’ experience by getting some insight into the practice of constructivism in UK initial science teacher education programmes and schools. This was achieved by conducting in-depth interviews with 18 UK science teacher educators, observing three of them teaching science-methods courses, and by observing four of their PGCE student teachers teaching science in four primary schools. This phase ended with constructing a training model in an attempt to practise constructivism in pre-service primary science teacher education programmes in Egypt. The second phase of this naturalistic inquiry was crucial. It aimed to investigate whether and why constructivism could be implemented in Egyptian primary schools. This phase involved teaching the target model to nine pre-service primary science teachers at my Faculty, and observing them teaching science during their subsequent school placement. Despite the fact that the research findings revealed that some of the student teachers who studied the model were able to implement constructivist aspects in their science classes, these findings revealed some constraints of implementing these aspects, which highlight a theory-practice gap, i.e. a gap between what is required by policymakers and the actual practice of science education in Egyptian schools. The research concludes that advocating teaching/learning approaches imported from developed countries by Egyptian policymakers does not guarantee implementing these approaches in schools. Science education reform also requires the congruent efforts of all protagonists who understand why and how they must take part in this reform.