The Analysis of Natural Science Lesson-Plans Integrating the Principles of Transformative Pedagogy

This paper investigated how graduating Natural Science pre-service teachers were able to integrate the principles of Transformative Pedagogy in their lesson-plan designs. The study draws on the theoretical tenets of Transformative Pedagogy, a form of pedagogy that combines social constructivism and critical theory, in order to teach for equity and equality. The study was qualitative in nature; it and made use of a documentary analytical method to respond to the primary research question: how do graduating Natural Science pre-service teachers integrate the principles of Transformative Pedagogy in their lesson-plan designs? To respond to this primary research question, descriptive text that derived from the purposely selected sample of lesson-plan designs of the pre-service teachers was analysed. An analysis of the three-lesson plan designs revealed that the principles of Transformative Pedagogy, namely the “prompting of learners’ critical consciousness about social issues”, “the existence of open-dialogue amongst learners” and “learners’ engagement in educational collaborative practices” were thoughtfully considered and integrated within the lesson-plan designs. Based on the findings, this study holds a series of implications for future research in the scholarship of pre-service teacher development, especially in the field of science education. Given the ideals of Transformative Pedagogy, future research could focus on the capability of pre-service teachers to infuse the principles of Transformative Pedagogy in other science-related school subjects, such as Physical science and Chemistry teaching. Future research could also perhaps explore how pre-service teachers experience the integration of Transformative Pedagogy in their lessons.