An investigation into the utilization of a constructivist teaching strategy to improve preservice elementary teachers geological content knowledge: Is there a relationship between intellectual level and content understanding

In that the topic of geological time and its related concepts is both complex and abstract students, at all levels of education, find it difficult to understand. This study sought to answer four questions about students enrolled in a 300 level science teaching methods course and those enrolled in an introductory (100 level) geoscience course with regard to the teaching and learning about geological time. The students had previous earth science, biology, and geology coursework in high school and college. The questions addressed were; what are the levels of intellectual development of these students, what was their content understanding at the start of the study, would a constructivists style of teaching improve their content understand and is here a relationship between their intellectual level and their content understanding? There were 36 education students and 49 geoscience students, of which 20 were also majoring in education participating in the study.; The students were assessed for their intellectual level and given a multiple-choice geology content knowledge assessment (GCKA) pretest dealing with absolute and relative time related questions and were ask to develop a graphic model (timeline) of the geological history of the Earth. Following the pretest the students participated in a lesson on constructivist teaching using geological time as its central theme. This intervention was followed, 56 days later, by a posttest consisting of another assessment of intellectual level, the content knowledge assessment and the graphic timeline.; The results were analyzed both in a quantitative and qualitative manner and the data showed a significant increase in content knowledge, for the education students, on the GCKA. However, none of the students improved on their development of the graphic timelines over the course of the study. The most improvement was demonstrated by students at the two lower levels, of four on Perry's (1980), continuum of intellectual development. At these stages it is perceived that there are correct answers to questions and solutions to problems. These findings indicate the need to assess students as to their intellectual levels in order to develop effective teaching strategies to improve learning at all levels in the educational process.