PRE-SERVICE BIOLOGY TEACHERS' PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE REGARDING TEACHING EVOLUTION

This case study attempted to investigate senior pre-service biology teachers' pedagogical content knowledge, concerns, attitudes, and intensions related to teaching evolution in high school biology classes. Beside, their NOS understandings were explored. Data collected from seven senior pre-service biology teachers through individual semi-structured interviews. Participants although found to be fairly knowledgeable about students' difficulties, and had general ideas about measurement and evaluation techniques and instructional strategies, were unaware of the place of evolution in biology curricula and lacked necessary knowledge related to evolution and nature of science. Moreover, they seemed to harbor some doubt about their PCK necessary to teach evolution effectively and shared several concerns regarding teaching of this topic in their future biology classes. This study has some important implications for pre-service teacher preparation