IMPACT ON STUDENT CHANGE IN SCIENTIFIC CREATIVITY AND SOCIO-SCIENTIFIC REASONING SKILLS FROM TEACHER COLLABORATION AND GAINS FROM PROFESSIONAL IN-SERVICE

This study examines the impact on 9th grade students' change in socio-scientific reasoning and scientific creativity skills as a result of their science teachers' professional change, as a result of participating in longitudinal in-service courses. Eight chemistry and four biology teachers participated in two consecutive intervention studies, each running for 8 months, both designed to guide teachers on promoting the level of scientific literacy in their students. During the in-service courses, the teachers created teaching materials for 4 integrative teaching modules and taught their students using a designed STL teaching approach. The students' development was determined in terms of scientific creativity and socio-scientific reasoning skills, as indicators of scientific literacy gains, with an initial pre-test in the fall of the school year and a post-test in the spring after the STL intervention. The results of the study revealed that the degree of teachers' professional level in promoting problem solving and decision making teaching and its impact on student gains, as well as the number of teachers collaborating together in the teaching within a school, had a significant impact on their students' improvement in skills associated with socio-scientific reasoning and scientific creativity.