THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EQUITABLE TEACHING STRATEGIES BY HIGH-SCHOOL BIOLOGY STUDENT-TEACHERS

Teachers can perpetuate stereotypic cultural beliefs regarding girls' ability in, aptitude for. and suitability for science by their teachin g practices and behaviors. As teachers have a major influence on girls ' career choices their equitable teaching practices in the classroom a re important to encourage all students, but especially girls. to conti nue with science. Researchers have studied science classrooms and have defined common strategies and practices that can help create an equit able classroom environment. The purpose of this study was to determine if high school biology student teachers could transfer learned equita ble teaching strategies to actual teaching and the support conditions necessary for that transfer. Two support conditions were assessed: coo perating teacher and peer group support. Seven preservice teachers wer e placed into three groups. One group had both support conditions, the second group had only one condition (peer support), and the third gro up did not have either support condition. Both qualitative and quantit ative data sources were collected. Results showed that preservice teac hers could transfer learned equitable teaching into actual teaching pr actice. However, they were more successful in achieving the transfer i f they were supervised by cooperating teachers who are sensitized to t he issue of gender equity in education. Being involved in a peer suppo rt group was not as crucial to using the strategies as having a suppor tive cooperative teacher.