Professional development of teachers through activity-based learning skills in science

Activity-Based Learning Skills (ABLS) strategy for the teaching of science creates an inquiry environment for a teacher’s professional development. It draws upon the perceptions and experiences of science teachers, who demonstrate their theories, and practices of science teaching and reflections. This is a mini-project in the classroom. Its pre-intervention involved three CPs as a team for data collection, and the data analysis was done individually. Findings from the situational analysis emerged and were backed by interviews held earlier with a science teacher, students and the principal who were the focus of the study. They all raised a need for shift in the teaching strategy from ‘Chalk and Talk’ to more ‘Student-centered learning methods’, such as the ABLS. The post-intervention action implementation of the ABLS in the classroom involved co-teaching. The ABLS project enhanced the teachers’ experiences, creativity and imagination to enrich the science classroom activities. ABLS was to bridge the existing teaching approaches with inquiry-based teaching and active learning. This is an attempt in form of a small project in which 4 lessons have gone through the project cycle. The other 2 units are given as initiatives to carry forward the ABLS project. Findings from this project show that learning new knowledge through ABLS project facilitates change child-centered learning gradually. The vice-principal of the school appreciated ABLS and said: ‘I assure you, I will continue with activity-based learning through workshops and sharing with teachers low-cost and no-cost materials’ price.’ This indicates that the foundation for post-intervention has been laid! The project further reinforced the need for the intervention to target the whole school to minimize the dominance of lecture teaching beyond Grade 5. ABLS although is time-consuming, yet it requires coteaching for sustainability and continuous improvement of the project, such as this