Abstract:

The importance given today to the process of development of thought in scientific education, requires teachers to constantly reflect on their practice, as a way of promoting a transition from their beliefs. This enables a better teaching, leaving behind a memorization-centered teaching, and moving toward the development of skills, attitudes, and values (Malvaez, 2013). The promotion of activities in pre service teachers that allow teachers to reflect on their practice in authentic spaces, makes it possible for rational and reflective thinking to produce practical theoretical and contextual knowledge, which involve the adoption of attitudes toward the reflective action (Vázquez, Jiménez & Mellado, 2007). In Chile, pre service teachers (in this case, chemistry and biology) is still focused on learning by observing the teacher, who is the guide and reference for good practice. In many cases, this sustains memorization-centered practices, with an analysis focused exclusively on procedural aspects, and therefore, there are few situations where pre service teachers reflect critically and intend for a deep analysis of their discourse and how they promote the development of scientific thinking in students. The present paper attempted to analyze the effect of reliving teacher practice through virtual reality (VR), 360 videos transcriptions of microclasses (MC) conducted by the teachers themselves using the self-analysis of discourse. This methodology was adapted from Amezua, Eizagirre, Arana and Galdos (2017), as it not only makes use of conventional video recordings. Video recordings have been used since the early 1970s (Sherin, 2003), when the observation of good practices and their reproduction was sought, as teaching was understood as a set of behaviors that has to be learned. In the 1980s, case studies through video were included, The new theories of learning allowed that these training models, focused on the development of skills through repetitive practice, shifted from the study of how teachers act to how teachers think their teaching. This study focused on those videos for “individual analysis” aimed at “promoting reflective practices” (Martin & Siry, 2012, p. 420). Unlike the methods traditionally used in the self-confrontation of teachers, this study used the recording of microclasses (MC) in 360 and their analyses via virtual reality (VR), as well as the transcription of the MC by the teacher. The study included 14 chemistry and biology pre service teachers and was organized into four moments: 1) Memories: A written reflection on the MC (Protocol A), 2) Self-analysis of an episode of the MC in VR (protocol B) plus personal interview, 3) Self-analysis of the type of questions in the transcriptions of the MC (protocol C), and 4) Self-analysis of the use of the questions in the MC (protocol D). Based on the results from the self-analysis of their actions and discourse in the MC, teachers were able to identify the obstacles and difficulties not perceived during the MC, which allowed a critical reflection on their practice and the proposals self-regulated toward it, particularly to promote scientific thinking in their students. A greater concern and awareness of the teaching role and its didactic action was also observed, which from our experience, had not been perceived using other methodologies, constituting thus an important contribution to pre service teachers programs in Chile.

Keywords:

Reflection, pre-service teachers, virtual reality, chemistry, biology.