Unleashing creativity in STEM teacher education through scripting task pedagogy

Abstract

This paper proposes a creative pedagogical approach that aims to foster authentic STEM teacher education through incorporating scriptwriting tasks in science and mathematics courses for future secondary STEM teachers. These tasks invite teachers to create imaginary dialogues addressing specific pedagogical challenges, such as conceptual difficulties, misconceptions, or unexpected questions arising during instruction. We assert that traditional approaches to lesson planning in STEM methods courses do not provide sufficient opportunity for exploring both content and pedagogy and fostering student engagement. Hence, we propose scriptwriting-based pedagogy as an innovative and creative way of cultivating future STEM teachers' pedagogical content knowledge. This paper showcases three examples of scriptwriting tasks implemented in secondary STEM teacher education. We elucidate the pedagogical opportunities afforded by scriptwriting and underscore its pedagogical potential for STEM teacher education.