PROSPECTIVE CHEMISTRY TEACHERS’ EXPERIENCES OF LEARNING DIFFICULTIES AT THE UNDERGRADUATE COURSE

Özet

Chemistry is one of the science subjects, students are taught at Undergraduate level in teacher education institutes to prepare them for prospective teaching chemistry in schools. The focus during the internship is on diagnosing, planning, and teaching science. The tremendous increase in students’ failure is seen in examinations conducted by university. One of the most important factors, which prevent students’ meaningful and permanent learning, is the non-seriousness during the teaching learning process in the classroom and during practical sessions. The purpose of this research is to identify and analyse learning difficulties in Chemistry of prospective teachers in National Level Teacher Education Institutes including RIEs and suggest remedial measures for overcoming the identified difficulties. The prospective chemistry teachers enrolled in four-year integrated teacher education programme were selected by intensity sampling. A systematic and elaborate instructional session, questioning approach, were employed to detect misconceptions. The results indicated that these prospective teachers have certain misconceptions in various concepts related   to basic chemistry concept Atomic structure at undergraduate level. The findings of this study concluded that chemistry teaching practice needs regular and smooth learning for the prospective teachers in their development as a teacher.