Exploring the Transition From Science Teacher Education to the Teaching Profession

Bringing new approaches to science teaching such as interdisciplinary, problem-based teaching into schools has proved a slow and difficult process. One of the means to bring about the change has been through teacher education, but it has been contested whether new teachers were able to transfer what they had learned from education to profession. This study is a qualitative study inspired by constructivist grounded theory which explores how three new teachers educated from programs with an explicit focus on changing science teaching in
schools, experience the transition from being a teacher student to being a teacher. The study found that new teachers experienced opportunities to transfer their approaches to science teaching from education to profession in the cases where 1) their teaching profile gave them the flexibility to plan interdisciplinary science teaching, 2) they were supported by management and 3) they experienced support in a community of practice with people they had studied with.