Biology Teachers’ Re-Designed eLearning Units: The Relationships Between Knowledge Types and Scientific Practices

Abstract

Lately, eLearning has substituted traditional forms of teaching and learning. However, little is known about the possible link between eLearning, addressing epistemic knowledge and scientific practices. We aimed to analyze teachers’ re-designed eLearning units and examine the extent to which high school biology teachers address epistemic knowledge and scientific practices in the Personalized Teaching and Learning, PeTeL platform. We qualitatively mapped the re-designed ecology and evolution eLearning units according to knowledge types and scientific practices. We found that a few teachers addressed epistemic knowledge in their re-designed eLearning units, and that questions that include only content knowledge, mostly lacked scientific practices. Thus, it seems that most of the teachers find epistemic knowledge difficult to address.