Developing Pedagogical Practices to Enhance Confidence and Competence in Science Teacher Education

The aim of this self-study research was to deepen my understanding of pedagogy for teacher education and the factors that enhanced and hindered my confidence and competence as a teacher educator. I recorded my impressions and descriptions of events, discussions, and interpretations as a result of studying my practice in an electronic journal. Student teachers' responses to questionnaires, peer evaluation guidelines, and interviews provided alternative views about the efficacy of my pedagogy. Data collection and analysis was a hermeneutic and recursive process revealing emergent themes. One theme was that a focus on science content knowledge gave a false sense of confidence and overshadowed our ability to engage in meaningful conversations about learning to teach-a practice challenged through self-study research.