Facilitating Meta-learning in Pre-service Teachers: Using Integration and Slowmation Animation

Meta-learning relates to one's ability to have an awareness of one's self as a learner, and being able to use this ability to become a more effective learner. It is important for pre-service teachers to develop this self-awareness about their own cognitive processes so that they can become more skilled in their approach to learning and therefor teaching. They become better equipped to make conscious changes in their approaches to learning and become more productive, independent learners (Winters, 2011, ). The purpose of this study was to use an inquiry-based learning experience so that primary pre-service teachers could explore their understandings of inquiry and begin to develop a meta-learning approach by integrating an innovative technology into a science methods workshop. Effectively, the aim was to create a learning experience for pre-service teachers that would enable them to participate in modelled inquiry experiences during their university classes, using curriculum and materials that were aligned with the requirements of the Australian Curriculum: Science, and had a focus on teacher content knowledge (knowledge of science subject matter (e.g. biology, physics), and knowledge of classroom inquiry). Inquiry-based learning and teaching is central to Australia's national science curriculum – the Australian Curriculum: Science. Australian teachers are mandated to apply inquiry-based learning in their classrooms, but unfortunately very few classroom teachers have experienced a scientific inquiry, and even the most experienced teachers appear to have little knowledge of inquiry (Capps & Crawford, 2013). It is quite possible that most of Australia's teachers learnt science through the traditional approaches. Loucks-Horsley et.al. (2003), argue that it is very difficult for a teacher to teach in ways in which they have not learned themselves. Thus, this paper explores the impact of an inquiry-based learning experience, as part of a teacher training program, in terms of self-awareness and meta-learning.