Science teachers’ interactions with science centres: an exploratory study into professional development benefits and how they occur

This research investigated the benefits that science teachers experienced to their professional development as a result of their interactions with science centres. Such interactions included accompanying field trips and incursions, undertaking formal professional development and field work programs, and self-guided visits. Through narrative, semi-structured interviews with ten participants this study revealed that teachers experienced multiple benefits to aspects of their intellectual, attitudinal, or behavioural professional development. The interpretive analysis highlights the roles that teachers undertook throughout these interactions, enabling an understanding of how these benefits occurred. For example, for teachers accompanying field trips, being able to observe their students being taught by another science professional was important as it enabled teachers to observe and connect with their students in different ways to what they were able to do in the context of their classrooms. In turn, this led to a variety of professional development benefits for teachers. This study also provides evidence that short duration, one-off, informal learning experiences can facilitate lasting professional development benefits for science teachers. Therefore, valuing teachers participating in interactions with science centres should be considered as part of supporting science teachers’ professional development.