Sample records for urban science teaching
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Learning to teach science in urban schools
Tobin, Kenneth; Roth, Wolff-Michael; Zimmermann, Andrea
2001-10-01
Teaching in urban schools, with their problems of violence, lack of resources, and inadequate funding, is difficult. It is even more difficult to learn to teach in urban schools. Yet learning in those locations where one will subsequently be working has been shown to be the best preparation for teaching. In this article we propose coteaching as a viable model for teacher preparation and the professional development of urban science teachers. Coteaching - working at the elbow of someone else - allows new teachers to experience appropriate and timely action by providing them with shared experiences that become the topic of their professional conversations with other coteachers (including peers, the cooperating teacher, university supervisors, and high school students). This article also includes an ethnography describing the experiences of a new teacher who had been assigned to an urban high school as field experience, during which she enacted a curriculum that was culturally relevant to her African American students, acknowledged their minority status with respect to science, and enabled them to pursue the school district standards. Even though coteaching enables learning to teach and curricula reform, we raise doubts about whether our approaches to teacher education and enacting science curricula are hegemonic and oppressive to the students we seek to emancipate through education.
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Urban High School Teachers' Beliefs Concerning Essential Science Teaching Dispositions
Miranda, Rommel
2012-01-01
This qualitative study addresses the link between urban high school science teachers' beliefs about essential teaching dispositions and student learning outcomes. The findings suggest that in order to help students to do well in science in urban school settings, science teachers should possess essential teaching dispositions which include…
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Learning to teach science for social justice in urban schools
Vora, Purvi
This study looks at how beginner teachers learn to teach science for social justice in urban schools. The research questions are: (1) what views do beginner teachers hold about teaching science for social justice in urban schools? (2) How do beginner teachers' views about teaching science for social justice develop as part of their learning? In looking at teacher learning, I take a situative perspective that defines learning as increased participation in a community of practice. I use the case study methodology with five teacher participants as the individual units of analysis. In measuring participation, I draw from mathematics education literature that offers three domains of professional practice: Content, pedagogy and professional identity. In addition, I focus on agency as an important component of increased participation from a social justice perspective. My findings reveal two main tensions that arose as teachers considered what it meant to teach science from a social justice perspective: (1) Culturally responsive teaching vs. "real" science and (2) Teaching science as a political act. In negotiating these tensions, teachers drew on a variety of pedagogical and conceptual tools offered in USE that focused on issues of equity, access, place-based pedagogy, student agency, ownership and culture as a toolkit. Further, in looking at how the five participants negotiated these tensions in practice, I describe four variables that either afforded or constrained teacher agency and consequently the development of their own identity and role as socially just educators. These four variables are: (1) Accessing and activating social, human and cultural capital, (2) reconceptualizing culturally responsive pedagogical tools, (3) views of urban youth and (4) context of participation. This study has implications for understanding the dialectical relationship between agency and social justice identity for beginner teachers who are learning how to teach for social justice. Also
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Miranda, Rommel Joseph
By employing qualitative methods, this study sought to determine the perceptions that urban stakeholders hold about what characteristics should distinguish a high school science teacher whom they would consider to demonstrate high quality in science teaching. A maximum variation sample of six science teachers, three school administrators, six parents and six students from a large urban public school district were interviewed using semi-structured, in-depth interview techniques. From these data, a list of observable characteristics which urban stakeholders hold as evidence of high quality in science teaching was generated. Observational techniques were utilized to determine the extent to which six urban high school science teachers, who meet the NCLB Act criteria for being "highly qualified", actually possessed the characteristics which these stakeholders hold as evidence of high quality in science teaching. Constant comparative analysis was used to analyze the data set. The findings suggest that urban stakeholders perceive that a high school science teacher who demonstrates high quality in science teaching should be knowledgeable about their subject matter, their student population, and should be resourceful; should possess an academic background in science and professional experience in science teaching; should exhibit professionalism, a passion for science and teaching, and a dedication to teaching and student learning; should be skillful in planning and preparing science lessons and in organizing the classroom, in presenting the subject matter to students, in conducting a variety of hands-on activities, and in managing a classroom; and should assess whether students complete class goals and objectives, and provide feedback about grades for students promptly. The findings further reveal that some of the urban high school science teachers who were deemed to be "highly qualified", as defined by the NCLB Act, engaged in practices that threatened quality in science
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Borges, Sheila Ivelisse
Statistics indicate that students who reside in forgotten places do not engage in science-related careers. This is problematic because we are not tapping into diverse talent that could very well make scientific strides and because there is a moral obligation for equity as discussed in Science for all (AAAS, 1989). Research suggests that one of the reasons for this disparity is that students feel alienated from science early on in their K--12 education due to their inability to connect culturally with their teachers (Tobin, 2001). Urban students share an urban culture, a way of knowing and being that is separate from that of the majority of the teacher workforce whom have not experienced the nuances of urban culture. These teachers have challenges when teaching in urban classrooms and have a myriad of difficulties such as classroom management, limited access to experienced science colleagues and limited resources to teach effectively. This leads them to leaving the teaching profession affecting already high teacher attrition rates in urban areas (Ingersol, 2001). In order to address these issues a culturally relevant pedagogy, called reality pedagogy (Emdin, 2011), was implemented in an urban science classroom using a bricolage (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005) of different theories such as social capital (Bourdieu, 1986) and critical race theory (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995), along with reality pedagogy to construct a qualitative sociocultural lens. Reality pedagogy has five tools, which are cogenerative dialogues, coteaching, cosmopolitanism, context, and content. In this longitudinal critical ethnography a science teacher in an alternative teaching certification program was supported for two years as she implemented the tools of reality pedagogy with her urban students. Findings revealed that the science teacher enacted four racial microaggressions against her students, which negatively affected the teacher-student relationship and science teaching and learning. As the
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Bølling, Mads; Hartmeyer, Rikke; Bentsen, Peter
2018-01-01
. The data consisted of transcribed interviews with 4 experienced teachers and 11 pupils. The interviews were elicited by films showing group work in science teaching in urban environments: a parking lot, a green public park and a zoo. We conducted individual interviews with science teachers, while......In this study, we explored how teachers can take advantage of a ‘place’ in urban environments outside the school and thereby stimulate pupils’ situational interest in science teaching. Drawing on the Sophos research method, we conducted a single case study including film-elicited interviews...... places; (3) alignment between the environment and task; (4) integrating minimal cultivated places; (5) providing a science perspective on everyday places; (6) disseminating historical or cultural knowledge of places; and (7) surprises. Starting from a discussion drawing on studies that explored triggers...
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Ivestigating Earth Science in Urban Schoolyards
Endreny, Anna; Siegel, Donald I.
2009-01-01
The Urban Schoolyards project is a two year partnership with a university Earth Science Department and the surrounding urban elementary schools. The goal of the project was to develop the capacity of elementary teachers to teach earth science lessons using their schoolyards and local parks as field sites. The university personnel developed lessons…
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Urban science classrooms and new possibilities: on intersubjectivity and grammar in the third space
Emdin, Christopher
2009-03-01
In this article I explore research in urban science education inspired by the work of Kris Gutierrez in a paper based on her 2005 Scribner Award. It addresses key points in Gutierrez's work by exploring theoretical frameworks for research and approaches to teaching and research that expand the discourse on the agency of urban youth in corporate school settings. The work serves as an overview of under-discussed approaches and theoretical frameworks to consider in teaching and conducting research with marginalized urban youth in urban science classrooms.
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Adjapong, Edmund S.
This dissertation explores the context of urban science education as it relates to the achievement and engagement of urban youth. This study provides a framework for Hip-Hop Pedagogy, an approach to teaching and learning anchored in the creative elements of Hip-Hop culture, in STEM as an innovative approach to teaching and learning demonstrates the effect that Hip-Hop Pedagogy, as a culturally relevant approach to teaching has on teaching and learning in an urban science classroom. This study establishes practical tools and approaches, which were formed from by theory and research that transcend the traditional monolithic approaches to teaching science. Participants in this study are middle school students who attend an urban school in one of the largest school systems in the country. This research showed that as result of utilizing Hip-Hop pedagogical practices, students reported that they developed a deeper understanding of science content, students were more likely to identify as scientists, and students were provided a space and opportunities to deconstruct traditional classroom spaces and structures.
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Teaching Writing and Critical Thinking in Large Political Science Classes
Franklin, Daniel; Weinberg, Joseph; Reifler, Jason
2014-01-01
In the interest of developing a combination of teaching techniques designed to maximize efficiency "and" quality of instruction, we have experimentally tested three separate and relatively common teaching techniques in three large introductory political science classes at a large urban public university. Our results indicate that the…
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Tobin, Kenneth
2012-03-01
I have been involved in research on collaborative activities for improving the quality of teaching and learning high school science. Initially the collaborative activities we researched involved the uses of coteaching and cogenerative dialogue in urban middle and high schools in Philadelphia and New York (currently I have active research sites in New York and Brisbane, Australia). The research not only transformed practices but also produced theories that informed the development of additional collaborative activities and served as interventions for research and creation of heuristics for professional development programs and teacher certification courses. The presentation describes a collage of collaborative approaches to teaching and learning science, including coteaching, cogenerative dialogue, radical listening, critical reflection, and mindful action. For each activity in the collage I provide theoretical frameworks and empirical support, ongoing research, and priorities for the road ahead. I also address methodologies used in the research, illustrating how teachers and students collaborated as researchers in multilevel investigations of teaching and learning and learning to teach that included ethnography, video analysis, and sophisticated analyses of the voice, facial expression of emotion, eye gaze, and movement of the body during classroom interactions. I trace the evolution of studies of face-to-face interactions in science classes to the current focus on emotions and physiological aspects of teaching and learning (e.g., pulse rate, pulse strength, breathing patterns) that relate to science participation and achievement.
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Matusov, Eugene
2018-06-01
This opportunistic case-study highlights striking differences in 6 urban children's and 12 preservice suburban middle-class teachers' perception of science and discuss consequences of science education and beyond. I found that all of the interviewed urban children demonstrated scientific inquiries and interests outside of the school science education that can be characterized by diverse simultaneous discourses from diverse practices, i.e., "heterodiscoursia" (Matusov in Culture & Psychology, 17(1), 99-119, 2011b), despite their diverse, positive and negative, attitudes toward school science. In contrast to the urban children's mixed attitudes to science, the preservice teachers view science negatively. They could not see science inquiries in the videotaped interviews of the urban children. There seemed to be many reasons for that. One of the possible reasons for that was that the preservice teachers tried to purify the science practice. Another reason was that they did not see a necessity to be interested and engaged in the curriculum that they are going to teach in future. The pedagogical consequences and remedies are discussed.
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Teaching Planetary Sciences in Bilingual Classrooms
Lebofsky, L. A.; Lebofsky, N. R.
1993-05-01
Planetary sciences can be used to introduce students to the natural world which is a part of their lives. Even children in an urban environment are aware of such phenomena as day and night, shadows, and the seasons. It is a science that transcends cultures, has been prominent in the news in recent years, and can generate excitement in young minds as no other science can. It also provides a useful tool for understanding other sciences and mathematics, and for developing problem solving skills which are important in our technological world. However, only 15 percent of elementary school teachers feel very well qualified to teach earth/space science, while better than 80% feel well qualified to teach reading; many teachers avoid teaching science; very little time is actually spent teaching science in the elementary school: 19 minutes per day in K--3 and 38 minutes per day in 4--6. While very little science is taught in elementary and middle school, earth/space science is taught at the elementary level in less than half of the states. Therefore in order to teach earth/space science to our youth, we must empower our teachers, making them familiar and comfortable with existing materials. Tucson has another, but not unique, problem. The largest public school district, the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD), provides a neighborhood school system enhanced with magnet, bilingual and special needs schools for a school population of 57,000 students that is 4.1% Native American, 6.0% Black, and 36.0% Hispanic (1991). This makes TUSD and the other school districts in and around Tucson ideal for a program that reaches students of diverse ethnic backgrounds. However, few space sciences materials exist in Spanish; most materials could not be used effectively in the classroom. To address this issue, we have translated NASA materials into Spanish and are conducting a series of workshops for bilingual classroom teachers. We will discuss in detail our bilingual classroom workshops
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A Survey to Assess Barriers to Urban Teaching Careers
Creasey, Gary; Mays, Jennifer; Lee, Robert; D'Santiago, Verenice
2016-01-01
The "Urban Teaching Barriers" survey was created to assess barriers to urban teaching careers. Pre-service teachers (N = 377) completed this instrument, along with questionnaires that assessed urban teaching intentions and urban teaching self-efficacy. Six barrier domains were identified that tapped concerns over (a) lack of resources,…
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ASAS Centennial Paper: animal science teaching: a century of excellence.
Buchanan, D S
2008-12-01
Teaching has a long and varied history in the life of departments of animal science and the American Society of Animal Science. Some of the earliest reports from meetings of the society have strong indication that planning the curriculum was a prominent feature of the meetings. Teaching symposia were also included almost from the beginning. The society went through a lengthy period from the 1940s through most of the 1960s when teaching was not a prominent focus, but a symposium in 1968 appeared to be a catalyst for change, and, since that date, teaching has again been an important part of the meetings. In recent years, outstanding symposia and contributed papers have made the teaching section a vibrant entry. Departments of animal science have changed considerably since the early days in which "men taught boys" and the primary goal was to produce farmers. More female students, more urban students, interest in a wide variety of animals, and greatly diversified career goals have been emerging during the last few decades. Departments of animal science and the American Society of Animal Science are positioning to be able to respond to change and face the challenge of providing excellence in teaching during the next century.
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Montoya, Bonnie
This quantitative study is an examination of personal and professional factors that contribute to science teachers continuing to teach science in an urban area in South Texas despite the growing demands of the profession. This study examines why teachers in general leave the profession but focuses on what factors influenced these teachers to stay. Personal retention factors measured included being an effective teacher and positive rapport with students. Professional retention factors included administrative support and adequate time to meet professional obligations. There are 149 secondary science teachers in this large urban school district. Data was gathered from 109 of these educators to analyze factors personal and professional factors in regards to why these teachers remain in the field. For the purposes of this study a secondary science teacher will be any teacher who teaches science in grades 6-12, which is considered middle (6 through 8) and high school (9 through 12) in this area. The data for this quantitative study was collected by a paper survey (N=109) that was distributed at a professional learning session at the beginning of the school year. A Principal Component Analysis was run followed by three multiple regression analyses of the pertinent components to determine if there is any relationship between the demographics of the participants and personal and professional factors that cause these teachers to remain in the field. The results of this study will contribute to the literature regarding teacher education and theory that examines teacher practice affecting change. The results showed that professional factors like the amount of resources and the quality of those resources to assist teachers with job efficacy mattered as much as the personal factors such as positive teaching experience and an intrinsic sense of being an effective educator. Further implications of this study include an exploration of Generalist certifications at the middle grades
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Preparing teachers for ambitious and culturally responsive science teaching
Seiler, Gale
2013-03-01
Communities, schools and classrooms across North America are becoming more ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse, particularly in urban areas. Against this backdrop, underrepresentation of certain groups in science continues. Much attention has been devoted to multicultural education and the preparation of teachers for student diversity. In science education, much research has focused on classrooms as cultural spaces and the need for teachers to value and build upon students' everyday science knowledge and ways of sense-making. However it remains unclear how best to prepare science teachers for this kind of culturally responsive teaching. In attempting to envision how to prepare science teachers with cross-cultural competency, we can draw from a parallel line of research on preparing teachers for ambitious science instruction. In ambitious science instruction, students solve authentic problems and generate evidence and models to develop explanations of scientific phenomenon, an approach that necessitates great attention to students' thinking and sense-making, thus making it applicable to cultural relevance aims. In addition, this line of research on teacher preparation has developed specific tools and engages teachers in cycles of reflection and rehearsal as they develop instructional skills. While not addressing cross-cultural teaching specifically, this research provides insights into specific ways through which to prepare teachers for culturally responsive practices. In my presentation, I will report on efforts to join these two areas of research, that is, to combine ideas about multicultural science teacher preparation with what has been learned about how to develop ambitious science instruction. This research suggests a new model for urban science teacher preparation--one that focuses on developing specific teaching practices that elicit and build on student thinking, and doing so through cycles of individual and collective planning, rehearsal
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Science teaching in science education
Callahan, Brendan E.; Dopico, Eduardo
2016-06-01
Reading the interesting article Discerning selective traditions in science education by Per Sund , which is published in this issue of CSSE, allows us to open the discussion on procedures for teaching science today. Clearly there is overlap between the teaching of science and other areas of knowledge. However, we must constantly develop new methods to teach and differentiate between science education and teaching science in response to the changing needs of our students, and we must analyze what role teachers and teacher educators play in both. We must continually examine the methods and concepts involved in developing pedagogical content knowledge in science teachers. Otherwise, the possibility that these routines, based on subjective traditions, prevent emerging processes of educational innovation. Modern science is an enormous field of knowledge in its own right, which is made more expansive when examined within the context of its place in society. We propose the need to design educative interactions around situations that involve science and society. Science education must provide students with all four dimensions of the cognitive process: factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and metacognitive knowledge. We can observe in classrooms at all levels of education that students understand the concepts better when they have the opportunity to apply the scientific knowledge in a personally relevant way. When students find value in practical exercises and they are provided opportunities to reinterpret their experiences, greater learning gains are achieved. In this sense, a key aspect of educational innovation is the change in teaching methodology. We need new tools to respond to new problems. A shift in teacher education is needed to realize the rewards of situating science questions in a societal context and opening classroom doors to active methodologies in science education to promote meaningful learning through meaningful teaching.
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Adjapong, Edmund S.
2017-01-01
This dissertation explores the context of urban science education as it relates to the achievement and engagement of urban youth. This study provides a framework for Hip-Hop Pedagogy, an approach to teaching and learning anchored in the creative elements of Hip-Hop culture, in STEM as an innovative approach to teaching and learning demonstrates…
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Science Teaching in Science Education
Callahan, Brendan E.; Dopico, Eduardo
2016-01-01
Reading the interesting article "Discerning selective traditions in science education" by Per Sund, which is published in this issue of "CSSE," allows us to open the discussion on procedures for teaching science today. Clearly there is overlap between the teaching of science and other areas of knowledge. However, we must…
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Nam, Jeonghee; Seung, Eulsun; Go, MunSuk
2013-03-01
This study investigated how a collaborative mentoring program influenced beginning science teachers' inquiry-based teaching and their reflection on practice. The one-year program consisted of five one-on-one mentoring meetings, weekly science education seminars, weekly mentoring group discussions, and self-evaluation activities. The participants were three beginning science teachers and three mentors at the middle school level (7-9th grades) in an urban area of South Korea. For each beginning teacher, five lessons were evaluated in terms of lesson design/implementation, procedural knowledge, and classroom culture by using the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol. Five aspects of the beginning teachers' reflections were identified. This study showed that a collaborative mentoring program focusing on inquiry-based science teaching encouraged the beginning teachers to reflect on their own perceptions and teaching practice in terms of inquiry-based science teaching, which led to changes in their teaching practice. This study also highlighted the importance of collaborative interactions between the mentors and the beginning teachers during the mentoring process.
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Rivera Maulucci, Maria S.
2010-09-01
Examining role forces and resources available to new teachers is crucial to understanding how teachers use and expand cultural, social, and symbolic resources and how they engage teaching for social justice and caring in urban science education. This critical narrative inquiry explores three levels of story. First, the narratives explore my role as a district science staff developer and my efforts to leverage district resources to improve students' opportunities to learn science. Second, the narratives explore the ways in which a novice science teacher, Tina, navigated role forces and the aesthetic|authentic caring dialectic in a high poverty, urban school. A third level of narrative draws on sociological theories of human interaction to explore role forces and how they shaped Tina's developmental trajectory. I describe how Tina expanded cultural, social, and symbolic resources to enact her teaching role.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
José Manuel do Carmo
2016-12-01
Full Text Available The basic vision of learning science has changed as scientific culture concepts evolution and the nature of the teaching of science go along. From a model essentially based on information acquisition, science instruction has included the practice of the science method when the importance of emphasizing the development of personal skills, thinking processes, and action was considered. The concern about citizens’ education in matters referring to the relationship between science and society and enlightened social participation demanded a special attention in investigation and in students’ participation in issues related to urban, natural, and technological environment. This research seeks to develop an integrative model of curriculum organizations based on these three axes or perspectives: science, individual, and society. A matrix enabling the analysis of curricular proposals and organization plans of didactic units is built, as well as the observation of teachers’ representations in the teaching of science.
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International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
1968-01-01
A Panel of Experts on Nuclear Science Teaching met in Bangkok from 15 to 23 July 1968 to review the present status of an need for teaching of topics related to nuclear science at the secondary and early university level including teacher training, and to suggest appropriate ways of introducing these topics into the science curricula. This report contains the contributions of the members of the Panel, together with the general conclusions and recommendations for the development of school and early university curricula and training programs, for the improvement of teaching materials and for the safest possible handing of radioactive materials in school and university laboratories. It is hoped that the report will be of use to all nuclear scientists and science educators concerned with modernizing their science courses by introducing suitable topics and experiments in nuclear science
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In-Service Science Teachers' and the Use of Multimedia as a Teaching Tool
Ameyaw, Y.; Quansah, E.
2013-01-01
The study investigated the attitudes of in-service teachers' towards the use of multimedia as a tool for science teaching in Junior High Schools in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. The population sample consisted of 100 Junior High School (JHS) science teachers made up of 60 urban teachers and 40 rural teachers from three selected districts…
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Teaching planetary sciences to elementary school teachers: Programs that work
Lebofsky, Larry A.; Lebofsky, Nancy R.
1993-01-01
Planetary sciences can be used to introduce students to the natural world which is a part of their lives. Even children in an urban environment are aware of such phenomena as day and night, shadows, and the seasons. It is a science that transcends cultures, has been prominent in the news in recent years, and can generate excitement in young minds as no other science can. Planetary sciences also provides a useful tool for understanding other sciences and mathematics, and for developing problem solving skills which are important in our technological world. However, only 15 percent of elementary school teachers feel very well qualified to teach earth/space science, while better than 80 percent feel well qualified to teach reading; many teachers avoid teaching science; very little time is actually spent teaching science in the elementary school: 19 minutes per day in K-3 and 38 minutes per day in 4-6. While very little science is taught in elementary and middle school, earth/space science is taught at the elementary level in less than half of the states. It was pointed out that science is not generally given high priority by either teachers or school districts, and is certainly not considered on a par with language arts and mathematics. Therefore, in order to teach science to our youth, we must empower our teachers, making them familiar and comfortable with existing materials. In our earlier workshops, several of our teachers taught in classrooms where the majority of the students were Hispanic (over 90 percent). However, few space sciences materials existed in Spanish. Therefore, most of our materials could not be used effectively in the classroom. To address this issue, NASA materials were translated into Spanish and a series of workshops for bilingual classroom teachers from Tucson and surrounding cities was conducted. Our space sciences workshops and our bilingual classroom workshops and how they address the needs of elementary school teachers in Arizona are
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A storied-identity analysis approach to teacher candidates learning to teach in an urban setting
Ibourk, Amal
While many studies have investigated the relationship between teachers' identity work and their developing practices, few of these identity focused studies have honed in on teacher candidates' learning to teach in an urban setting. Drawing upon narrative inquiry methodology and a "storied identity" analytic framework, I examined how the storied identities of science learning and becoming a science teacher shape teacher candidates' developing practice. In particular, I examined the stories of three interns, Becky, David, and Ashley, and I tell about their own experiences as science learners, their transitions to science teachers, and the implications this has for the identity work they did as they navigated the challenges of learning to teach in high-needs schools. Initially, each of the interns highlighted a feeling of being an outsider, and having a difficult time becoming a fully valued member of their classroom community in their storied identities of becoming a science teacher in the beginning of their internship year. While the interns named specific challenges, such as limited lab materials and different math abilities, I present how they adapted their lesson plans to address these challenges while drawing from their storied identities of science learning. My study reveals that the storied identities of becoming a science teacher informed how they framed their initial experiences teaching in an urban context. In addition, my findings reveal that the more their storied identities of science learning and becoming a science teacher overlapped, the more they leveraged their storied identity of science learning in order to implement teaching strategies that helped them make sense of the challenges that surfaced in their classroom contexts. Both Becky and Ashley leveraged their storied identities of science learning more than David did in their lesson planning and learning to teach. David's initial storied identity of becoming a science teacher revealed how he
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Subramaniam, Karthigeyan
2013-01-01
This study explores five minority preservice teachers' conceptions of teaching science and identifies the sources of their strategies for helping students learn science. Perspectives from the literature on conceptions of teaching science and on the role constructs used to describe and distinguish minority preservice teachers from their mainstream…
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Cartwright, Tina; Smith, Suzanne; Hallar, Brittan
2014-01-01
This qualitative study examines the transition of eight elementary preservice teachers into student teaching after participating in a science methods course that included a significant amount of teaching after-school science to elementary grade students. These eight participants had a chance to practice teaching inquiry-based science and to reform…
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Huinker, DeAnn; Pearson, Gretchen
The Urban Systemic Initiatives (USI) program is an effort sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that targets large urban school systems with the goal of sustainable implementation of high-quality, standards-based teaching for the purpose of attaining system-wide increases in students' learning of challenging mathematics and science.…
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Bondima, Michelle Harris
This ethnographic in nature study explores how two middle school science teachers who have classes populated by urban African Americans teach their students and how their students perceive their teaching. Since urban African American students continue to perform lower than desired on measures of science achievement, there is an urgent need to understand what pedagogical methodologies assist and hinder urban African American students in achieving higher levels of success in science. A pedagogical methodology that theorists posit assists subordinated school populations is culturally responsive pedagogy. Culturally responsive pedagogy is defined as a teaching methodology concerned with preparing students to question inequality, racism, and injustice. Teachers who use culturally responsive pedagogy respect the culture students bring to the class, and require that the teachers willingly do whatever is necessary to educate students (Nieto, 2000). The teacher participants were two female African Americans who were identified by their school supervisors as being highly effective with urban African American students. The researcher presented the teachers in separate case studies conducted over a data collection period of nine months. Data were collected by participant observation, interviews, and artifact collection. Data were analyzed by application of grounded theory techniques. Findings of the teachers' (and the students') beliefs about pedagogy that both assisted and hindered the students' performance in science were reported in a rich and nuanced storytelling manner based on multiple perspectives (teachers', students', and the researcher's). Pedagogical methodologies that the teachers used that assisted their students were the use of cultural metaphors and images in science and applications of motivational techniques that encouraged a nurturing relationship between the teacher and her students. Pedagogical methodologies that hindered students varied by teacher
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Teachers' perceptions on primary science teaching
Kijkuakul, Sirinapa
2018-01-01
This qualitative research aimed to review what primary teachers think about how to teach science in rural school contexts. Three primary schools in Thailand were purposively chosen for this study. Eleven primary science teachers of these schools were the research participants. Questionnaires, interviews, and observations were implemented to reveal the primary school teachers' educational backgrounds, science teaching context, and need for self-driven professional development. Content and discourse analysis indicated that the non-science educational background and the science teaching context implied a need for self-driven professional development. The non-science educational background teachers were generally unfamiliar with the current national science curriculum, and that they would not be comfortable when the researcher observed their science teaching practice. They also believed that experimentation was the only one strategy for teaching science, and that the priority for their teaching support was teaching media rather than their understanding of scientific concepts or teaching strategies. As implication of this research, subsequent developments on science teacher profession in rural context, therefore, need to promote teachers' understandings of nature of science and technological and pedagogical content knowledge. In addition, they should be challenged to practice on critically participatory action research for academic growth and professional learning community.
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Mathew, Nishi Mary
Preservice elementary teachers' science teaching efficacy and attitude towards science teaching are important determinants of whether and how they will teach science in their classrooms. Preservice teachers' understanding of science and science teaching experiences have an impact on their beliefs about their ability to teach science. This study had a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design (N = 60). Preservice elementary teachers in this study were networked through the Internet (using e-mail, newsgroups, listserv, world wide web access and electronic mentoring) during their science methods class and student practicum. Electronic networking provides a social context in which to learn collaboratively, share and reflect upon science teaching experiences and practices, conduct tele-research effectively, and to meet the demands of student teaching through peer support. It was hoped that the activities over the electronic networks would provide them with positive and helpful science learning and teaching experiences. Self-efficacy was measured using a 23-item Likert scale instrument, the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument, Form-B (STEBI-B). Attitude towards science teaching was measured using the Revised Science Attitude Scale (RSAS). Analysis of covariance was used to analyze the data, with pretest scores as the covariate. Findings of this study revealed that prospective elementary teachers in the electronically networked group had better science teaching efficacy and personal science teaching efficacy as compared to the non-networked group of preservice elementary teachers. The science teaching outcome expectancy of prospective elementary teachers in the networked group was not greater than that of the prospective teachers in the non-networked group (at p < 0.05). Attitude towards science teaching was not significantly affected by networking. However, this is surmised to be related to the duration of the study. Information about the
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Deneroff, Victoria
2016-06-01
This is a narrative inquiry into the role of professional development in the construction of teaching practice by an exemplary urban high school science teacher. I collected data during 3 years of ethnographic participant observation in Marie Gonzalez's classroom. Marie told stories about her experiences in ten years of professional development focused on inquiry science teaching. I use a social practice theory lens to analyze my own stories as well as Marie's. I make the case that science teaching is best understood as mediated by socially-constructed identities rather than as the end-product of knowledge and beliefs. The cognitive paradigm for understanding teachers' professional learning fails to consistently produce transformations of teaching practice. In order to design professional development with science teachers that is generative of new knowledge, and is self-sustaining, we must understand how to build knowledge of how to problematize identities and consciously use social practice theory.
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Elementary teachers' knowledge and practices in teaching science to English language learners
Santau, Alexandra O.
Efforts to improve education---more concretely science education---by creating fundamental shifts in standards for students and teachers have been launched by educators and policy makers in recent years. The new standards for science instruction address improvements in student learning, program development, assessment, and professional development for teachers, with the goal to prepare US students for the academic demands of the 21st century. The study examined teachers' knowledge and practices in science instruction with English language learning (ELL) students. It also examined relationships among key domains of science instruction with ELL students, as well as profiles of teaching practices. The four domains included: (1) teachers' knowledge of science content, (2) teaching practices to promote scientific understanding, (3) teaching practices to promote scientific inquiry, and (4) teaching practices to support English language development during science instruction. The study was part of a larger 5-year research and development intervention aimed at promoting science and literacy achievement of ELL students in urban elementary schools. The study involved 32 third grade, 21 fourth grade, and 17 fifth grade teachers participating in the first-year implementation of the intervention. Based on teachers' questionnaire responses, classroom observation ratings, and post-observation interviews, results indicated that (1) teachers' knowledge and practices were within the bounds of the intervention, but short of reform-oriented practices and (2) relationships among the four domains existed, especially at grade 5. These findings can provide insights for professional development and future research, along with accountability policies.
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Perspectives on learning, learning to teach and teaching elementary science
Avraamidou, Lucy
The framework that characterizes this work is that of elementary teachers' learning and development. Specifically, the ways in which prospective and beginning teachers' develop pedagogical content knowledge for teaching science in light of current recommendations for reform emphasizing teaching and learning science as inquiry are explored. Within this theme, the focus is on three core areas: (a) the use of technology tools (i.e., web-based portfolios) in support of learning to teach science at the elementary level; (b) beginning teachers' specialized knowledge for giving priority to evidence in science teaching; and (c) the applications of perspectives associated with elementary teachers' learning to teach science in Cyprus, where I was born and raised. The first manuscript describes a study aimed at exploring the influence of web-based portfolios and a specific task in support of learning to teach science within the context of a Professional Development School program. The task required prospective teachers to articulate their personal philosophies about teaching and learning science in the form of claims, evidence and justifications in a web-based forum. The findings of this qualitative case study revealed the participants' developing understandings about learning and teaching science, which included emphasizing a student-centered approach, connecting physical engagement of children with conceptual aspects of learning, becoming attentive to what teachers can do to support children's learning, and focusing on teaching science as inquiry. The way the task was organized and the fact that the web-based forum provided the ability to keep multiple versions of their philosophies gave prospective teachers the advantage of examining how their philosophies were changing over time, which supported a continuous engagement in metacognition, self-reflection and self-evaluation. The purpose of the study reported in the second manuscript was to examine the nature of a first
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Flynn, Natalie P.
This study developed a survey from the existing literature in an attempt to illuminate the processes, tools, insights, and events that allow university science and mathematics content experts (Ph.D.'s) unpack their expertise in order to teach develop and teach undergraduate students. A pilot study was conducted at an urban university in order to refine the survey. The study consisted of 72 science or mathematics Ph.D. faculty members that teach at a research-based urban university. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 21 volunteer faculty to further explore their methods and tools for developing and implementing teaching within their discipline. Statistical analysis of the data revealed: faculty that taught while obtaining their Ph.D. were less confident in their ability to teach successful and faculty that received training in teaching believed that students have difficult to change misconceptions and do not commit enough time to their course. Student centered textbooks ranked the highest among tools used to gain teaching strategies followed by grading of exams and assignments for gaining insights into student knowledge and difficulties. Science and mathematics education literature and university provided education session ranked the lowest in rating scale for providing strategies for teaching. The open-ended survey questions were sub-divided and analyzed by the number of years of experience to identify the development of teaching knowledge over time and revealed that teaching became more interactive, less lecture based, and more engaging. As faculty matured and gained experience they became more aware of student misconceptions and difficulties often changing their teaching to eliminate such issues. As confidence levels increase their teaching included more technology-based tools, became more interactive, incorporated problem based activities, and became more flexible. This change occurred when and if faculty members altered their thinking about their
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Saka, Mehpare; Bayram, Hale; Kabapinar, Filiz
2016-01-01
The concept of self-efficacy, which is an important variable in the teaching process, and how it reflects on teaching have recently been the focus of attention. Therefore, this study deals with the relationship between the science-teaching self-efficacy beliefs of prospective science teachers and their teaching practices. It was conducted with…
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Avery, Leanne M.; Meyer, Daniel Z.
2012-01-01
Science teaching in elementary schools, or the lack thereof, continues to be an area of concern and criticism. Preservice elementary teachers' lack of confidence in teaching science is a major part of this problem. In this mixed-methods study, we report the impacts of an inquiry-based science course on preservice elementary teachers' self-efficacy…
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Pondell, C.; van Doorn, A.; MacAvoy, S. E.
2017-12-01
Urban environments offer students interesting opportunities to explore and examine how human modified landscapes influence biodiversity, nutrient cycling, and water quality. Students demanding applied field experiences from their undergraduate environmental science (ENVS) programs can be well served in urban settings. Here, we present strategies for integrating urban areas into the undergraduate field experience. Urban locations provide an opportunity for a different type of local "field-work" than would otherwise be available. In the intro level undergraduate ENVS class, we use our campus, the surrounding neighborhood and city as well as a nearby National Park for field exercises. Here we share lesson plans for field activities that can be completed with incoming undergraduate students, and show how these activities help students gain quantitative and investigative competency.
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Brkich, Katie Lynn
2014-03-01
Earth science education, as it is traditionally taught, involves presenting concepts such as weathering, erosion, and deposition using relatively well-known examples—the Grand Canyon, beach erosion, and others. However, these examples—which resonate well with middle- and upper-class students—ill-serve students of poverty attending urban schools who may have never traveled farther from home than the corner store. In this paper, I explore the use of a place-based educational framework in teaching earth science concepts to urban fifth graders and explore the connections they make between formal earth science content and their lived experiences using participant-driven photo elicitation techniques. I argue that students are able to gain a sounder understanding of earth science concepts when they are able to make direct observations between the content and their lived experiences and that when such direct observations are impossible they make analogies of appearance, structure, and response to make sense of the content. I discuss additionally the importance of expanding earth science instruction to include man-made materials, as these materials are excluded traditionally from the curriculum yet are most immediately available to urban students for examination.
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Ambusaidi, Abdullah; Al-Farei, Khalid
2017-01-01
A 30-item questionnaire was designed to determine Omani science teachers' attitudes toward teaching science and whether or not these attitudes differ according to gender and teaching experiences of teachers. The questionnaire items were divided into 3 domains: classroom preparation, managing hands-on science, and development appropriateness. The…
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Planning for Reform-Based Science: Case Studies of Two Urban Elementary Teachers
Mangiante, Elaine Silva
2018-02-01
The intent of national efforts to frame science education standards is to promote students' development of scientific practices and conceptual understanding for their future role as scientifically literate citizens (NRC 2012). A guiding principle of science education reform is that all students receive equitable opportunities to engage in rigorous science learning. Yet, implementation of science education reform depends on teachers' instructional decisions. In urban schools serving students primarily from poor, diverse communities, teachers typically face obstacles in providing reform-based science due to limited resources and accountability pressures, as well as a culture of teacher-directed pedagogy, and deficit views of students. The purpose of this qualitative research was to study two white, fourth grade teachers from high-poverty urban schools, who were identified as transforming their science teaching and to investigate how their beliefs, knowledge bases, and resources shaped their planning for reform-based science. Using the Shavelson and Stern's decision model for teacher planning to analyze evidence gathered from interviews, documents, planning meetings, and lesson observations, the findings indicated their planning for scientific practices was influenced by the type and extent of professional development each received, each teacher's beliefs about their students and their background, and the mission and learning environment each teacher envisioned for the reform to serve their students. The results provided specific insights into factors that impacted their planning in high-poverty urban schools and indicated considerations for those in similar contexts to promote teachers' planning for equitable science learning opportunities by all students.
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Pedagogy of Science Teaching Tests: Formative assessments of science teaching orientations
Cobern, William W.; Schuster, David; Adams, Betty; Skjold, Brandy Ann; Zeynep Muğaloğlu, Ebru; Bentz, Amy; Sparks, Kelly
2014-09-01
A critical aspect of teacher education is gaining pedagogical content knowledge of how to teach science for conceptual understanding. Given the time limitations of college methods courses, it is difficult to touch on more than a fraction of the science topics potentially taught across grades K-8, particularly in the context of relevant pedagogies. This research and development work centers on constructing a formative assessment resource to help expose pre-service teachers to a greater number of science topics within teaching episodes using various modes of instruction. To this end, 100 problem-based, science pedagogy assessment items were developed via expert group discussions and pilot testing. Each item contains a classroom vignette followed by response choices carefully crafted to include four basic pedagogies (didactic direct, active direct, guided inquiry, and open inquiry). The brief but numerous items allow a substantial increase in the number of science topics that pre-service students may consider. The intention is that students and teachers will be able to share and discuss particular responses to individual items, or else record their responses to collections of items and thereby create a snapshot profile of their teaching orientations. Subsets of items were piloted with students in pre-service science methods courses, and the quantitative results of student responses were spread sufficiently to suggest that the items can be effective for their intended purpose.
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Hechter, Richard P.
2011-01-01
This study investigated contextual changes in perceptions of science teaching self-efficacy through pre-, post- and retrospective administrations of the Science Teaching Expectancy Belief Instrument (STEBI-B) among preservice elementary teachers when exposed to a science teaching methods course. Findings revealed that the number of postsecondary…
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Teaching materials science and engineering
Indian Academy of Sciences (India)
Abstract. This paper is written with the intention of simulating discussion on teaching materials science and engineering in the universities. The article illustrates the tasks, priorities, goals and means lying ahead in the teaching of materials science and engineering for a sustainable future.
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Quality Teaching in Science: an Emergent Conceptual Framework
Jordens, J. Zoe; Zepke, Nick
2017-09-01
Achieving quality in higher education is a complex task involving the interrelationship of many factors. The influence of the teacher is well established and has led to some general principles of good teaching. However, less is known about the extent that specific disciplines influence quality teaching. The purposes of the paper are to investigate how quality teaching is perceived in the sciences and from these perceptions to develop for discussion a framework for teaching practice in the sciences. A New Zealand study explored the views of national teaching excellence award winners in science on quality teaching in undergraduate science. To capture all possible views from this expert panel, a dissensus-recognising Delphi method was used together with sensitising concepts based on complexity and wickedity. The emergent conceptual framework for quality teaching in undergraduate science highlighted areas of consensus and areas where there were a variety of views. About the purposes of science and its knowledge base, there was relative consensus, but there was more variable support for values underpinning science teaching. This highlighted the complex nature of quality teaching in science. The findings suggest that, in addition to general and discipline-specific influences, individual teacher values contribute to an understanding of quality in undergraduate science teaching.
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The ethics of smart cities and urban science.
Kitchin, Rob
2016-12-28
Software-enabled technologies and urban big data have become essential to the functioning of cities. Consequently, urban operational governance and city services are becoming highly responsive to a form of data-driven urbanism that is the key mode of production for smart cities. At the heart of data-driven urbanism is a computational understanding of city systems that reduces urban life to logic and calculative rules and procedures, which is underpinned by an instrumental rationality and realist epistemology. This rationality and epistemology are informed by and sustains urban science and urban informatics, which seek to make cities more knowable and controllable. This paper examines the forms, practices and ethics of smart cities and urban science, paying particular attention to: instrumental rationality and realist epistemology; privacy, datafication, dataveillance and geosurveillance; and data uses, such as social sorting and anticipatory governance. It argues that smart city initiatives and urban science need to be re-cast in three ways: a re-orientation in how cities are conceived; a reconfiguring of the underlying epistemology to openly recognize the contingent and relational nature of urban systems, processes and science; and the adoption of ethical principles designed to realize benefits of smart cities and urban science while reducing pernicious effects.This article is part of the themed issue 'The ethical impact of data science'. © 2016 The Author(s).
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Using cogenerative dialogue to afford the teaching and learning of biology in an urban high school
Otulaja, Femi Segun
The body of research work presented in this dissertation integrates critical ethnography with video and conversation analyses in order to provide ways to articulate and understand the complexities associated with social life enactment as it unfolds during cogenerative dialogues and in the science classroom as the teacher and her students engage in science teaching and learning. The primary goal is to improve the teaching and learning of science in an urban science classroom at a public high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In order to understand what is going on in the classroom and why, I worked with a female science teacher who identify as an African-American and her culturally diversified students in a biology class to examine teacher's and students' conscious and unconscious patterned actions, (i.e., classroom practices, that structure teaching and learning in the classroom. It is my belief that to improve science teaching and learning in the classroom, it is salient to improve science teacher's practices as a precursor to transforming students' practices. In order to ameliorate breaches in the fluency of encounters in the classroom, the teacher and her students need to establish and sustain critical, collaborative and collective conversations through cogen. I employ theoretical lenses of cultural sociology that I triangulate with sociology of emotions and critical pedagogy. I focus on culture as schemas and associated practices layered with the triple dialectics of agency, passivity and structure as new or hybridized/interstitial cultures that are produced get enacted in the science classroom to transform teacher's and her students' encounters with each other. The salient implication is that since encounters are imbued with emotions, teacher and her students learn to generate positive emotional energy during cogen that gets reproduced and transformed in the science classroom. Positive emotional energy creates resources that help to initiate and sustain
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Teaching Grade Eight Science with Reference to the Science Curriculum
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Rasel Babu
2016-08-01
Full Text Available A mixed methodological approach was used to explore to what extent the science curriculum was being reflected in science teaching-learning of grade VIII students in Bangladesh. 160 students were randomly selected and 10 science teachers were purposively selected as study respondents. Fifteen science lessons were observed. Data were collected via student questionnaires, teacher interviews, and classroom observation checklists. Grade VIII science teaching-learning activities were not conducted according to the instructions of the science curriculum. Most teachers did not adhere to the curriculum and teacher's guide. Teachers mainly depended on lecture methods for delivering lessons. Learning by doing, demonstrating experiments, scientific inquiry, rational thinking, and analysing cause-effect relationships were noticeably absent. Teachers reported huge workloads and a lack of ingredients as reasons for not practising these activities. Teachers did not use teaching aids properly. Science teaching-learning was fully classroom centred, and students were never involved in any creative activities.
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Teaching method: ‘Integrative urban design game’ for soft urban regeneration
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Mrđenović Tatjana
2014-01-01
Full Text Available Urban regeneration is challenged by contradictory process of globalization. This double-sided process can enrich local communities or leave them at margins of global society. Regarding globalization, most authorities claim that urban planning and design are in paradigm crisis. The crisis is an announcement for paradigm shift that is in contemporary theoretical and conceptual frameworks. They give hope for the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’. Their common groundings are: ‘soft and hard infrastructure’; ‘agencies and structures’; ‘power to’; ‘new rationality’, ‘common sense’; ‘communicative action’; and ‘integrative development’. The purpose of the research is to discuss possibilities of teaching method ‘Integrative urban design game’ for soft urban regeneration, elaborating it with respect to the crisis in specific context of building bridges among academia and local communities regarding various teaching approaches. The method was innovated at the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade and tested in Bač community. The hypothesis is that the method provides soft infrastructure for urban regeneration in local communities. The research will result in a form of principles the game should be grounded on, using participative mimicry model of present and future place for overcoming paradigm crisis. Methodological approach is based on theoretical comparison, case study, and questionnaires among stakeholders. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. TR 36035: Spatial, environmental, energy and social aspects of developing settlements and climate change - mutual impacts
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Social representations of science and gender in Science teaching
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Bettina Heerdt
2017-09-01
Full Text Available This paper analyzes the Social Representations (SR of teachers regarding the Nature of Science (NoS, gender issues in society, Science and in the teaching context. The theoretical approach is Moscovici’s SR associated to NoS discussions, Science feminist theories and Teaching of Science. A number of twenty-two teachers were part of this research. Data were collected through the filmic record. The lexical analysis was performed using the Alceste software. Four classes were formed: NoS, Gender and women in Science, Gender and teaching context, and Gender and society. In the areas of the teachers’ education, it was not possible to find significant differences in SR. Through empirical data, the distinct argumentation of men and women is noticed. The SR of men, naturalized, discriminatory and of gender issue denial in society and Science, is more forceful than of women. It is necessary, in the initial and continued education, the problematization of gender issues in Science.
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From learning science to teaching science: What transfers?
Harlow, Danielle Boyd
As educational researchers and teacher educators, we have the responsibility to help teachers gain the skills and knowledge necessary to provide meaningful learning activities for their students. For elementary school science, this means helping teachers create situations in which children can participate in the practices associated with scientific inquiry. Through the framework of transfer I investigated how a professional development course based on an inquiry-based physics curriculum influenced five elementary teachers teaching practices and identified the factors that led to or hindered this transfer. In this study, evidence of transfer consisted of episodes where the teachers used the ideas learned in the physics course to solve new problems such as transforming activities to be appropriate for their students and responding to unexpected students' ideas. The findings of this study highlight the many different ways that teachers use what they learn in content courses to teach science to elementary children. While some teachers transferred pedagogical practices along with the content, others transformed the content to be useful in already existing pedagogical frameworks, and still others show little or no evidence of transfer. What the teachers transferred depended upon their existing teaching context as well as their prior ideas about teaching science and physics content. Specifically, the findings of this study suggest that the teachers transferred only what they sought from the course. One implication of this study is that the sort of science training we provide teachers can affect far more than just the teachers' conceptual understanding of science and performance on written conceptual exams. Science courses have the potential to impact the sort of science education that K-5 children receive in elementary classrooms in terms of the topics taught but the way that science is represented. An additional implication is that teaching science to teachers in ways
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Facilitating Elementary Science Teachers' Implementation of Inquiry-Based Science Teaching
Qablan, Ahmad M.; DeBaz, Theodora
2015-01-01
Preservice science teachers generally feel that the implementation of inquiry-based science teaching is very difficult to manage. This research project aimed at facilitating the implementation of inquiry-based science teaching through the use of several classroom strategies. The evaluation of 15 classroom strategies from 80 preservice elementary…
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MacAvoy, S. E.; van Doorn, A.; Pondell, C.
2016-12-01
Urban environments offer students interesting opportunities to explore and examine how human modified landscapes influence biodiversity, nutrient cycling, and water quality. Students demanding applied field experiences from their undergraduate environmental science (ENVS) programs can be well served in urban settings. Here, we present strategies for integrating urban areas into the undergraduate field experience. Urban locations provide an opportunity for a different type of local "field-work" than would otherwise be available. In the intro level undergraduate ENVS class, we use our campus, the surrounding neighborhood and city as well as a nearby National Park for field exercises. Activities include: assessing water quality from multiple sites, observing species composition and ecological succession using fallen logs, assessing biodiversity using biocubes and camera traps, investigating conservation strategies through the local zoo, and walking one mile transects through local urban ecosystems to observe and collect data on the animals, buildings, roads, litter and/or light sources in the surrounding area. These labs provide inspiration and hands on skills that students apply to their own self-selected projects at the end of the semester. In the second level majors class, we make use of our urban location to contrast water quality in parks and highly channelized urban streams, monitor populations of urban wildlife, and investigate the application of urban greening methods to reduce environmental impacts. Students spend labs immersed in streams and wetlands heavily impacted by the urban runoff their city generates to better understand the extent of human impact in an urban environment. Here we share lesson plans for field activities that can be completed with incoming undergraduate students, and show how these activities help students gain quantitative and investigative competency.
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Connecting university science experiences to middle school science teaching
Johnson, Gordon; Laughran, Laura; Tamppari, Ray; Thomas, Perry
1991-06-01
Science teachers naturally rely on their university science experiences as a foundation for teaching middle school science. This foundation consists of knowledge far too complex for the middle level students to comprehend. In order for middle school science teachers to utilize their university science training they must search for ways to adapt their college experiences into appropriate middle school learning experience. The criteria set forth above provide broad-based guidelines for translating university science laboratory experiences into middle school activities. These guidelines are used by preservice teachers in our project as they identify, test, and organize a resource file of hands-on inquiry activities for use in their first year classrooms. It is anticipated that this file will provide a basis for future curriculum development as the teacher becomes more comfortable and more experienced in teaching hands-on science. The presentation of these guidelines is not meant to preclude any other criteria or considerations which a teacher or science department deems important. This is merely one example of how teachers may proceed to utilize their advanced science training as a basis for teaching middle school science.
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Peer Assessment of Elementary Science Teaching Skills
Kilic, Gulsen Bagci; Cakan, Mehtap
2007-01-01
In this study, peer assessment was applied in assessing elementary science teaching skills. Preservice teachers taught a science topic as a team to their peers in an elementary science methods course. The peers participating in the science lesson assessed teacher-groups' elementary science teaching skills on an assessment form provided by the…
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Preservice Science Teachers' Science Teaching Orientations and Beliefs about Science
Kind, Vanessa
2016-01-01
This paper offers clarification of science teacher orientations as a potential component of pedagogical content knowledge. Science teaching orientations and beliefs about science held by 237 preservice science teachers were gathered via content-specific vignettes and questionnaire, respectively, prior to participation in a UK-based teacher…
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Nadi SUPRAPTO
2017-10-01
Full Text Available This study focuses on attitudes toward (teaching science and the learning of science for primary school among pre-service teachers at the Open University of Indonesia. A three-year longitudinal survey was conducted, involving 379 students as pre-service teachers (PSTs from the Open University in Surabaya regional office. Attitudes toward (teaching science’ (ATS instrument was used to portray PSTs’ preparation for becoming primary school teachers. Data analyses were used, including descriptive analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. The model fit of the attitudes toward (teaching science can be described from seven dimensions: self-efficacy for teaching science, the relevance of teaching science, gender-stereotypical beliefs, anxiety in teaching science, the difficulty of teaching science, perceived dependency on contextual factors, and enjoyment in teaching science. The results of the research also described science learning at the Open University of Indonesia looks like. Implications for primary teacher education are discussed.
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Teaching Science through Inquiry
Wilcox, Jesse; Kruse, Jerrid W.; Clough, Michael P.
2015-01-01
Science education efforts have long emphasized inquiry, and inquiry and scientific practices are prominent in contemporary science education reform documents (NRC 1996; NGSS Lead States 2013). However, inquiry has not become commonplace in science teaching, in part because of misunderstandings regarding what it means and entails (Demir and Abell…
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Utter, Brian C.; Paulson, Scott A.; Almarode, John T.; Daniel, David B.
2018-01-01
We argue, based on a multi-year collaboration to develop a pedagogy course for physics majors by experts in physics, education, and the science of learning, that the process of teaching science majors about education and the science of learning, and evidence-based teaching methods in particular, requires conceptual change analogous to that…
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Teaching Science Fiction by Women.
Donawerth, Jane
1990-01-01
Reviews the 200-year-old tradition of women science fiction authors. Discusses the benefits of teaching science fiction written by women. Describes 5 science fiction short stories and 5 science fiction novels suitable for high school students. (RS)
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Professional development in college science teaching
Thomas, Aimee Kathryn
Graduate students earning a doctorate in the sciences historically focus their work on research and not professional development in college science teaching. However, for those who go on to a career in academia, a majority of their time will be dedicated to teaching. During the past few years, graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) have been prepared to teach by attending a daylong workshop that included logistical information, but left pedagogy largely unexplored. Since that time, a seminar has been added to provide an introduction to pedagogical theory and practices and to provide practice teaching in the biological sciences laboratory course. Yet, more pedagogical preparation is needed. This study was conducted to determine if there was a need for a teaching certificate program for doctoral students in the College of Science and Technology (CoST) at The University of Southern Mississippi. The GTA respondents studied set teaching goals that were consistent with faculty members across the country; however, this research went further by finding out how competent the GTAs perceived they were and how much support they perceived they needed with respect to teaching and professional development. The GTAs did not differ in their perceived level of competence based on experience level; however, the less experienced GTAs did perceive they needed more support than the experienced GTAs. To help GTAs develop a skill set that many CoST graduates currently lack, it is recommended that the University provide ample training and supervision. Establishing a certificate program can potentially impact the community in the following ways: (1) the training of GTAs contributes to the academic preparation of future academic professionals who will be teaching in various institutions; (2) GTA training provides professional development and awareness that teaching requires life long professional development; (3) ensuring competent academicians, not only in content but also in pedagogy; (4
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Deneroff, Victoria
2016-01-01
This is a narrative inquiry into the role of professional development in the construction of teaching practice by an exemplary urban high school science teacher. I collected data during 3 years of ethnographic participant observation in Marie Gonzalez's classroom. Marie told stories about her experiences in ten years of professional development…
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Emotions in teaching environmental science
Quigley, Cassie
2016-09-01
This op-ed article examines the emotional impact of teaching environmental science and considers how certain emotions can broaden viewpoints and other emotions narrow them. Specifically, it investigates how the topic of climate change became an emotional debate in a science classroom because of religious beliefs. Through reflective practice and examination of positionality, the author explored how certain teaching practices of pre-service science teachers created a productive space and other practices closed down the conversations. This article is framed with theories that explore both divergent and shared viewpoints.
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Teaching planning theory as planner roles in urban planning education
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Olesen, Kristian
2018-01-01
Planning theory is often portrayed as a subject that urban planning students find too abstract and fail to see the relevance of. This paper advocates the perspective that planning theory can be made more student-friendly. This requires, firstly, that academic discussions about the relevance...... of planning theory for urban planning practice are integrated into the course module. If students are to appreciate planning theory, it requires that they understand how planning theory can inspire planning practice. Secondly, it requires careful considerations to the pedagogy of planning theory. The paper...... suggests that teaching planning theory as a variety of planner roles offers a helpful pedagogical approach for helping students construct their identities as urban planners. The paper builds on the author’s own experiences of teaching planning theory in a master’s urban planning programme, and has been...
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Values of Catholic science educators: Their impact on attitudes of science teaching and learning
DeMizio, Joanne Greenwald
This quantitative study examined the associations between the values held by middle school science teachers in Catholic schools and their attitudes towards science teaching. A total of six value types were studied---theoretical, economic, aesthetic, social, political, and religious. Teachers can have negative, positive, or neutral attitudes towards their teaching that are linked to their teaching practices and student learning. These teachers' attitudes may affect their competence and have a subsequent impact on their students' attitudes and dispositions towards science. Of particular interest was the relationship between science teaching attitudes and religious values. A non-experimental research design was used to obtain responses from 54 teachers with two survey instruments, the Science Teaching Attitude Scale II and the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values. Stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that political values were negatively associated with attitudes towards science teaching. Data collected were inconsistent with the existence of any measurable association between religious values and attitudes towards science teaching. This study implies that science teacher preparation programs should adopt a more contextual perspective on science that seeks to develop the valuation of science within a cultural context, as well as programs that enable teachers to identify the influence of their beliefs on instructional actions to optimize the impact of learning new teaching practices that may enhance student learning.
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Developing Interpretive Power in Science Teaching
Rosebery, Ann S.; Warren, Beth; Tucker-Raymond, Eli
2016-01-01
Early career teachers rarely receive sustained support for addressing issues of diversity and equity in their science teaching. This paper reports on design research to create a 30 hour professional development seminar focused on cultivating the interpretive power of early career teachers who teach science to students from historically…
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Emdin, Christopher
The body of work presented in this dissertation is a response to the reported association between poor outcomes in science achievement and students of color in urban schools. By presenting counterexamples to the cultural motif that urban students of color perform poorly in science, I argue that poor achievement cannot be traced to a group of people but can be linked to institutions promoting subject delivery methods that instill distaste for science and compel students to display an illusion of disinterest in school. There are two major goals of this study. First, I plan to demonstrate how plans of action generated by coteachers and cogenerative dialogue groups can coalesce under the ethos of making science and schooling accessible to populations that are traditionally marginalized from science achievement. My second aim is to develop mechanisms for transforming science learning contexts into cosmopolitan learning communities that develop student success in science. Through a three-year ethnographic study of physics and chemistry classrooms in a high school in New York City, I present explorations of the culture and context of the urban classroom as a chief means to meet my goals. In my research, I find that obstacles to identity development around science can be tied to corporate understandings of teaching and learning that are amenable to local efforts toward change. This change is facilitated through the use of transformative tools like cogenerative dialogues, coteaching, and cosmopolitanism. Through the application of these research tools, I uncover and investigate how various misalignments that present themselves in physics and chemistry classrooms serve as signifiers of macro issues that permeate science classrooms from larger fields. By utilizing cogenerative dialogues as a tool for investigating both micro enactments within classrooms and the macro structures that generate these enactments, I show how students and teachers can work together as co
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Science That Matters: Exploring Science Learning and Teaching in Primary Schools
Fitzgerald, Angela; Smith, Kathy
2016-01-01
To help support primary school students to better understand why science matters, teachers must first be supported to teach science in ways that matter. In moving to this point, this paper identifies the dilemmas and tensions primary school teachers face in the teaching of science. The balance is then readdressed through a research-based…
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Teachers' and Students' Conceptions of Good Science Teaching
Yung, Benny Hin Wai; Zhu, Yan; Wong, Siu Ling; Cheng, Man Wai; Lo, Fei Yin
2013-01-01
Capitalizing on the comments made by teachers on videos of exemplary science teaching, a video-based survey instrument on the topic of "Density" was developed and used to investigate the conceptions of good science teaching held by 110 teachers and 4,024 year 7 students in Hong Kong. Six dimensions of good science teaching are identified…
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Newly qualified teachers' visions of science learning and teaching
Roberts, Deborah L.
2011-12-01
This study investigated newly qualified teachers' visions of science learning and teaching. The study also documented their preparation in an elementary science methods course. The research questions were: What educational and professional experiences influenced the instructor's visions of science learning and teaching? What visions of science learning and teaching were promoted in the participants' science methods course? What visions of science learning and teaching did these newly qualified teachers bring with them as they graduated from their teacher preparation program? How did these visions compare with those advocated by reform documents? Data sources included participants' assignments, weekly reflections, and multi-media portfolio finals. Semi-structured interviews provided the emic voice of participants, after graduation but before they had begun to teach. These data were interpreted via a combination of qualitative methodologies. Vignettes described class activities. Assertions supported by excerpts from participants' writings emerged from repeated review of their assignments. A case study of a typical participant characterized weekly reflections and final multi-media portfolio. Four strands of science proficiency articulated in a national reform document provided a framework for interpreting activities, assignments, and interview responses. Prior experiences that influenced design of the methods course included an inquiry-based undergraduate physics course, participation in a reform-based teacher preparation program, undergraduate and graduate inquiry-based science teaching methods courses, participation in a teacher research group, continued connection to the university as a beginning teacher, teaching in diverse Title 1 schools, service as the county and state elementary science specialist, participation in the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, service on a National Research Council committee, and experience teaching a
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The effect of site-based preservice experiences on elementary science teaching self-efficacy beliefs
Wingfield, Mary E.
Current reform in science education has focused on the need for improvement of preservice teacher training (National Science Education Standards, 1996). As a situation specific construct (Bandura, 1977), self-efficacy studies have been conducted to investigate factors that impact preservice teachers' sense of confidence as it relates to their ability to become successful science teachers. This descriptive study identified factors in the site based experiences that affected preservice elementary teachers' self-efficacy as measured by the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBL-B) (Enochs and Riggs, 1990). The sample consisted of the entire population of undergraduate elementary preservice teachers in the site based teacher education program during the fall semester of 1997 at a large south central urban university. The 131 paired, pretest posttests of the entire STEBL-B and the two constructs were analyzed for significance in mean score gains. Results of the paired t test yielded a t value of 11.52 which was significant at p Bandura identified as sources of information used to determine self-efficacy. These include performance accomplishments through authentic teaching experiences, vicarious experiences through observation of the site based teachers, and verbal persuasion and physiological states from feedback given by the university coordinators. The majority of these preservice teachers started the semester with a negative attitude toward teaching science, but ended the semester with a positive view of themselves as effective science teachers in the future.
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Monteiro, Anna Karina
Research acknowledges that if students are to be successful science, they must learn to navigate and cross cultural borders that exist between their own cultures and the subculture of science. This dissertation utilized a mixed methods approach to explore how inservice science teachers working in urban schools construct their ideas of and apply the concepts about the culture of science and cultural border crossing as relevant to the teaching and learning of science. The study used the lenses of cultural capital, social constructivism, and cultural congruency in the design and analysis of each of the three phases of data collection. Phase I identified the perspectives of six inservice science teachers on science culture, cultural border crossing, and which border crossing methods, if any, they used during science teaching. Phase II took a dialectical approach as the teachers read about science culture and cultural border crossing during three informal professional learning community meetings. This phase explored how teachers constructed their understanding of cultural border crossing and how the concept applied to the teaching and learning of science. Phase III evaluated how teachers' perspectives changed from Phase I. In addition, classroom observations were used to determine whether teachers' practices in their science classrooms changed from Phase I to Phase III. All three phases collected data through qualitative (i.e., interviews, classroom observations, and surveys) and quantitative (Likert items) means. The findings indicated that teachers found great value in learning about the culture of science and cultural border crossing as it pertained to their teaching methods. This was not only evidenced by their interviews and surveys, but also in the methods they used in their classrooms. Final conclusions included how the use of student capital resources (prior experiences, understandings and knowledge, ideas an interests, and personal beliefs), if supported by
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Changes in Urban Youths' Attitude Towards Science and Perception of a Mobile Science Lab Experience
Fox, Jared
This dissertation examined changes in urban youth's attitude towards science as well as their perception of the informal science education setting and third space opportunity provided by the BioBus, a mobile science lab. Science education researchers have often suggested that informal science education settings provide one possible way to positively influence student attitude towards science and engage marginalized urban youth within the traditional science classroom (Banks et al., 2007; Hofstein & Rosenfeld, 1996; National Research Council, 2009; Schwarz & Stolow, 2006; Stocklmayer, Rennie, & Gilbert, 2010). However, until now, this possibility has not been explored within the setting of a mobile science lab nor examined using a theoretical framework intent on analyzing how affective outcomes may occur. The merits of this analytical stance were evaluated via observation, attitudinal survey, open-response questionnaire, and interview data collected before and after a mobile science lab experience from a combination of 239 students in Grades 6, 8, 9, 11, and 12 from four different schools within a major Northeastern metropolitan area. Findings from this study suggested that urban youth's attitude towards science changed both positively and negatively in statistically significant ways after a BioBus visit and that the experience itself was highly enjoyable. Furthermore, implications for how to construct a third space within the urban science classroom and the merits of utilizing the theoretical framework developed to analyze cultural tensions between urban youth and school science are discussed. Key Words: Attitude towards science, third space, mobile science lab, urban science education.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Mohd Ali Samsudin
2015-02-01
Full Text Available This study was undertaken to identify the relationship between multiple intelligences with preferred science teaching and science process skills. The design of the study is a survey using three questionnaires reported in the literature: Multiple Intelligences Questionnaire, Preferred Science Teaching Questionnaire and Science Process Skills Questionnaire. The study selected 300 primary school students from five (5 primary schools in Penang, Malaysia. The findings showed a relationship between kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial and naturalistic intelligences with the preferred science teaching. In addition there was a correlation between kinesthetic and visual-spatial intelligences with science process skills, implying that multiple intelligences are related to science learning.
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Tran, Lynn Uyen
Museums are free-choice, non-threatening, non-evaluative learning and teaching environments. They enable learners to revisit contents, authentic objects, and experiences at their own leisure as they continually build an understanding and appreciation of the concepts. Schools in America have used museums as resources to supplement their curriculum since the 19 th century. Field trip research is predominantly from the teachers' and students' perspectives, and draws attention to the importance for classroom teachers and students to prepare prior to field trips, have tasks, goals, and objectives during their time at the museum, and follow up afterwards. Meanwhile, museum educators' contributions to field trip experiences have been scantily addressed. These educators develop and implement programs intended to help students' explore science concepts and make sense of their experiences, and despite their limited time with students, studies show they can be memorable. First, field trips are a break in the usual routine, and thus have curiosity and attention attracting power. Second, classroom science teaching literature suggests teachers' teaching knowledge and goals can affect their behaviors, and in turn influence student learning. Third, classroom teachers are novices at planning and implementing field trip planners, and museum educators can share this responsibility. But little is reported on how the educators teach, what guides their instruction, how classroom teachers use these lessons, and what is gained from these lessons. This study investigates two of these inquiries. The following research questions guided this investigation. (1) How do educators teaching one-hour, one-time lessons in museums adapt their instruction to the students that they teach? (2) How do time limitations affect instruction? (3) How does perceived variability in entering student knowledge affect instruction? Four educators from two museums took part in this participant observation study to
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Third Workshop on Teaching Computational Science (WTCS 2009)
Tirado-Ramos, A.; Shiflet, A.
2009-01-01
The Third Workshop on Teaching Computational Science, within the International Conference on Computational Science, provides a platform for discussing innovations in teaching computational sciences at all levels and contexts of higher education. This editorial provides an introduction to the work
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Second Workshop on Teaching Computational Science WTCS 2008
Tirado-Ramos, A.
2008-01-01
The Second Workshop on Teaching Computational Science, within the International Conference on Computational Science, provides a platform for discussing innovations in teaching computational sciences at all levels and contexts of higher education. This editorial provides an introduction to the work
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Urban science education: examining current issues through a historical lens
McLaughlin, Cheryl A.
2014-12-01
This paper reviews and synthesizes urban science education studies published between 2000 and 2013 with a view to identifying current challenges faced by both teachers and students in urban classrooms. Additionally, this paper considers the historical events that have shaped the conditions, bureaucracies, and interactions of urban institutions. When the findings from these urban science education studies were consolidated with the historical overview provided, it was revealed that the basic design and regulatory policies of urban schools have not substantively changed since their establishment in the nineteenth century. Teachers in urban science classrooms continue to face issues of inequality, poverty, and social injustice as they struggle to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population. Furthermore, persistent concerns of conflicting Discourses, cultural dissonance, and oppression create formidable barriers to science learning. Despite the many modifications in structure and organization, urban students are still subjugated and marginalized in systems that emphasize control and order over high-quality science education.
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Moving Towards a New Urban Systems Science
Peter M. Groffman; Mary L. Cadenasso; Jeannine Cavender-Bares; Daniel L. Childers; Nancy B. Grimm; Morgan Grove; Sarah E. Hobbie; Lucy R. Hutyra; G. Darrel Jenerette; Timon McPhearson; Diane E. Pataki; Steward T. A. Pickett; Richard V. Pouyat; Emma Rosi-Marshall; Benjamin L. Ruddell
2016-01-01
Research on urban ecosystems rapidly expanded in the 1990s and is now a central topic in ecosystem science. In this paper, we argue that there are two critical challenges for ecosystem science that are rooted in urban ecosystems: (1) predicting or explaining the assembly and function of novel communities and ecosystems under altered environmental conditions and (2)...
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Hip-Hop, the "Obama Effect," and Urban Science Education
Emdin, Christopher; Lee, Okhee
2012-01-01
Background/Context: With the ever increasing diversity of schools, and the persistent need to develop teaching strategies for the students who attend today's urban schools, hip-hop culture has been proposed to be a means through which urban youth can find success in school. As a result, studies of the role of hip-hop in urban education have grown…
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Teaching professionalism in science courses: Anatomy to zoology
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Cheryl C. Macpherson
2012-02-01
Full Text Available Medical professionalism is reflected in attitudes, behaviors, character, and standards of practice. It is embodied by physicians who fulfill their duties to patients and uphold societies’ trust in medicine. Professionalism requires familiarity with the ethical codes and standards established by international, governmental, institutional, or professional organizations. It also requires becoming aware of and responsive to societal controversies. Scientific uncertainty may be used to teach aspects of professionalism in science courses. Uncertainty about the science behind, and the health impacts of, climate change is one example explored herein that may be used to teach both professionalism and science. Many medical curricula provide students with information about professionalism and create opportunities for students to reflect upon and strengthen their individually evolving levels of professionalism. Faculties in basic sciences are rarely called upon to teach professionalism or deepen medical students understanding of professional standards, competencies, and ethical codes. However they have the knowledge and experience to develop goals, learning objectives, and topics relevant to professionalism within their own disciplines and medical curricula. Their dedication to, and passion for, science will support basic science faculties in designing innovative and effective approaches to teaching professionalism. This paper explores topics and formats that scientists may find useful in teaching professional attitudes, skills, and competencies in their medical curriculum. It highlights goals and learning objectives associated with teaching medical professionalism in the basic sciences.
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Urban Morphometrics: Towards a Science of Urban Evolution
Dibble, Jacob; Prelorendjos, Alexios; Romice, Ombretta; Zanella, Mattia; Strano, Emanuele; Pagel, Mark; Porta, Sergio
2015-01-01
Urban theorists, social reformists and philosophers have considered the city as a living organism since Plato. However, despite extraordinary advancements in evolutionary biology, now being used to explain social and cultural phenomena, a proper science of evolution in cities has never been established since Geddes' work at the dawn of the Town Planning discipline. Commencing in the tradition of Urban Morphology, this research develops and validates a statistically reliable and universally ap...
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Teaching and Learning Science for Transformative, Aesthetic Experience
Girod, Mark; Twyman, Todd; Wojcikiewicz, Steve
2010-11-01
Drawing from the Deweyan theory of experience (1934, 1938), the goal of teaching and learning for transformative, aesthetic experience is contrasted against teaching and learning from a cognitive, rational framework. A quasi-experimental design was used to investigate teaching and learning of fifth grade science from each perspective across an entire school year including three major units of instruction. Detailed comparisons of teaching are given and pre and post measures of interest in learning science, science identity affiliation, and efficacy beliefs are investigated. Tests of conceptual understanding before, after, and one month after instruction reveal teaching for transformative, aesthetic experience fosters more, and more enduring, learning of science concepts. Investigations of transfer also suggest students learning for transformative, aesthetic experiences learn to see the world differently and find more interest and excitement in the world outside of school.
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History, philosophy and science teaching new perspectives
2018-01-01
This anthology opens new perspectives in the domain of history, philosophy, and science teaching research. Its four sections are: first, science, culture and education; second, the teaching and learning of science; third, curriculum development and justification; and fourth, indoctrination. The first group of essays deal with the neglected topic of science education and the Enlightenment tradition. These essays show that many core commitments of modern science education have their roots in this tradition, and consequently all can benefit from a more informed awareness of its strengths and weaknesses. Other essays address research on leaning and teaching from the perspectives of social epistemology and educational psychology. Included here is the first ever English translation of Ernst Mach’s most influential 1890 paper on ‘The Psychological and Logical Moment in Natural Science Teaching’. This paper launched the influential Machian tradition in education. Other essays address concrete cases of the ...
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Teaching science as argument: Prospective elementary teachers' knowledge
Barreto-Espino, Reizelie
For the past two decades there has been increasing emphasis on argumentation in school science. In 2007, the National Research Council published a synthesis report that emphasizes the centrality of constructing, evaluating, and using scientific explanations. Participating in argumentation is seen as fundamental to children's science learning experiences. These new expectations increase challenges for elementary teachers since their understanding of and experiences with science are overwhelmingly inconsistent with teaching science as argument. These challenges are further amplified when dealing with prospective elementary teachers. The current study was guided by the following research questions: (1) What are the ways in which preservice elementary teachers appropriate components of "teaching science as argument" during their student teaching experience? (2) To what extent do components from prospective elementary teachers' reflections influence planning for science teaching? (3) What elements from the context influence preservice elementary teachers' attention to teaching science as argument? This study followed a multi-participant case study approach and analyses were informed by grounded theory. Three participants were selected from a larger cohort of prospective elementary teachers enrolled in an innovative Elementary Professional Development School (PDS) partnership at a large Northeast University. Cross-case analysis allowed for the development of five key assertions: (1) The presence of opportunities for interacting with phenomena and collecting first hand data helped participants increase their emphasis on evidence-based explanations. (2) Participants viewed science talks as an essential mechanism for engaging students in the construction of evidence-based explanations and as being fundamental to meaning-making. (3) Participants demonstrated attention to scientific subject matter during instruction rather than merely focusing on activities and/or inquiry
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Genel, Abdulkadir; Sami Topçu, Mustafa
2016-01-01
Background: Despite a growing body of research and curriculum reforms including socioscientific issues (SSI) across the world, how preservice science teachers (PST) or in-service science teachers can teach SSI in science classrooms needs further inquiry. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe the abilities of PSTs to teach SSI in middle school science classrooms, and the research question that guided the present study is: How can we characterize Turkish PSTs' SSI-based teaching practices in middle school science classrooms (ages 11-14)? Sample: In order to address the research question of this study, we explored 10 Turkish PSTs' SSI-based teaching practices in middle school science classrooms. A purposeful sampling strategy was used, thus, PSTs were specifically chosen because they were ideal candidates to teach SSI and to integrate SSI into the science curricula since they were seniors in the science education program who had to take the field experience courses. Design and method: The participants' SSI teaching practices were characterized in light of qualitative research approach. SSI-based teaching practices were analyzed, and the transcripts of all videotape recordings were coded by two researchers. Results: The current data analysis describes Turkish PSTs' SSI-based teaching practices under five main categories: media, argumentation, SSI selection and presentation, risk analysis, and moral perspective. Most of PSTs did not use media resources in their lesson and none of them considered moral perspective in their teaching. While the risk analyses were very simple and superficial, the arguments developed in the classrooms generally remained at a simple level. PSTs did not think SSI as a central topic and discussed these issues in a very limited time and at the end of the class period. Conclusions: The findings of this study manifest the need of the reforms in science education programs. The present study provides evidence that moral, media
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Improving Early Career Science Teachers' Ability to Teach Space Science
Schultz, G. R.; Slater, T. F.; Wierman, T.; Erickson, J. G.; Mendez, B. J.
2012-12-01
The GEMS Space Science Sequence is a high quality, hands-on curriculum for elementary and middle schools, created by a national team of astronomers and science educators with NASA funding and support. The standards-aligned curriculum includes 24 class sessions for upper elementary grades targeting the scale and nature of Earth's, shape, motion and gravity, and 36 class sessions for middle school grades focusing on the interactions between our Sun and Earth and the nature of the solar system and beyond. These materials feature extensive teacher support materials which results in pre-test to post-test content gains for students averaging 22%. Despite the materials being highly successful, there has been a less than desired uptake by teachers in using these materials, largely due to a lack of professional development training. Responding to the need to improve the quantity and quality of space science education, a collaborative of space scientists and science educators - from the University of California, Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) and Center for Science Education at the Space Sciences Laboratory (CSE@SSL), the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP), the University of Wyoming, and the CAPER Center for Astronomy & Physics Education - experimented with a unique professional development model focused on helping master teachers work closely with pre-service teachers during their student teaching internship field experience. Research on the exodus of young teachers from the teaching profession clearly demonstrates that early career teachers often leave teaching because of a lack of mentoring support and classroom ready curriculum materials. The Advancing Mentor and Novice Teachers in Space Science (AMANTISS) team first identified master teachers who supervise novice, student teachers in middle school, and trained these master teachers to use the GEMS Space Science Sequence for Grades 6-8. Then, these master teachers were mentored in how to coach their
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Teaching Science through Story
Horton, Jessica
2013-01-01
Children find comfort in stories. They are familiar, accessible and entertaining. By teaching science through narratives, we can provide that same comfort and access to scientific content to children of all ages. In this article, I will discuss how, through the use of narratives in science instruction, we can provide students with a deeper…
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Crossing borders: High school science teachers learning to teach the specialized language of science
Patrick, Jennifer Drake
The highly specialized language of science is both challenging and alienating to adolescent readers. This study investigated how secondary science teachers learn to teach the specialized language of science in their classrooms. Three research questions guided this study: (a) what do science teachers know about teaching reading in science? (b) what understanding about the unique language demands of science reading do they construct through professional development? and (c) how do they integrate what they have learned about these specialized features of science language into their teaching practices? This study investigated the experience of seven secondary science teachers as they participated in a professional development program designed to teach them about the specialized language of science. Data sources included participant interviews, audio-taped professional development sessions, field notes from classroom observations, and a prior knowledge survey. Results from this study suggest that science teachers (a) were excited to learn about disciplinary reading practices, (b) developed an emergent awareness of the specialized features of science language and the various genres of science writing, and (c) recognized that the challenges of science reading goes beyond vocabulary. These teachers' efforts to understand and address the language of science in their teaching practices were undermined by their lack of basic knowledge of grammar, availability of time and resources, their prior knowledge and experiences, existing curriculum, and school structure. This study contributes to our understanding of how secondary science teachers learn about disciplinary literacy and apply that knowledge in their classroom instruction. It has important implications for literacy educators and science educators who are interested in using language and literacy practices in the service of science teaching and learning. (Full text of this dissertation may be available via the University
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Teaching professionalism in science courses: anatomy to zoology.
Macpherson, Cheryl C
2012-02-01
Medical professionalism is reflected in attitudes, behaviors, character, and standards of practice. It is embodied by physicians who fulfill their duties to patients and uphold societies' trust in medicine. Professionalism requires familiarity with the ethical codes and standards established by international, governmental, institutional, or professional organizations. It also requires becoming aware of and responsive to societal controversies. Scientific uncertainty may be used to teach aspects of professionalism in science courses. Uncertainty about the science behind, and the health impacts of, climate change is one example explored herein that may be used to teach both professionalism and science. Many medical curricula provide students with information about professionalism and create opportunities for students to reflect upon and strengthen their individually evolving levels of professionalism. Faculties in basic sciences are rarely called upon to teach professionalism or deepen medical students understanding of professional standards, competencies, and ethical codes. However they have the knowledge and experience to develop goals, learning objectives, and topics relevant to professionalism within their own disciplines and medical curricula. Their dedication to, and passion for, science will support basic science faculties in designing innovative and effective approaches to teaching professionalism. This paper explores topics and formats that scientists may find useful in teaching professional attitudes, skills, and competencies in their medical curriculum. It highlights goals and learning objectives associated with teaching medical professionalism in the basic sciences. Copyright © 2011. Published by Elsevier B.V.
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Hot Topics in Science Teaching
Ediger, Marlow
2018-01-01
There are vital topics in science teaching and learning which are mentioned frequently in the literature. Specialists advocate their importance in the curriculum as well as science teachers stress their saliency. Inservice education might well assist new and veteran teachers in knowledge and skills. The very best science lessons and units of…
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Abeer Mohamed Elshater
2014-11-01
Full Text Available This study focuses on a relevant question, practically in urban design studios; when will specialists discuss their educational visions around urban design in teaching plans? Currently, although Egyptian architecture and urban environments follow those of postwar European cities, numerous architectural schools teach the new urban design paradigm while ignoring the declining of cities. To reverse this trend, the author proposes that architectural educational institutions in Egypt need to alter their learning programs. Therefore, this study aims to create a new urban design module depends on outcomes based-learning consistent with the present Egyptian city scene on the basis of intended learning-outcomes.
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Sangueza, Cheryl Ramirez
This mixed-method, dual-phase, embedded-case study employed the Social Cognitive Theory and the construct of self-efficacy to examine the contributors to science teaching self-efficacy and science teaching practices across different levels of efficacy in six pre-service elementary teachers during their science methods course and student teaching experiences. Data sources included the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI-B) for pre-service teachers, questionnaires, journals, reflections, student teaching lesson observations, and lesson debriefing notes. Results from the STEBI-B show that all participants measured an increase in efficacy throughout the study. The ANOVA analysis of the STEBI-B revealed a statistically significant increase in level of efficacy during methods course, student teaching, and from the beginning of the study to the end. Of interest in this study was the examination of the participants' science teaching practices across different levels of efficacy. Results of this analysis revealed how the pre-service elementary teachers in this study contextualized their experiences in learning to teach science and its influences on their science teaching practices. Key implications involves the value in exploring how pre-service teachers interpret their learning to teach experiences and how their interpretations influence the development of their science teaching practices.
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Menon, Deepika; Sadler, Troy D.
2018-01-01
Self-efficacy beliefs play a major role in determining teachers' science teaching practices and have been a topic of great interest in the area of preservice science teacher education. This qualitative study investigated factors that influenced preservice elementary teachers' science teaching self-efficacy beliefs in a physical science content…
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Shope, Richard Edwin, III
Science instruction aims to ensure that students properly construct scientific knowledge so that each individual may play a role as a science literate citizen or as part of the science workforce (National Research Council, 1996, 2000). Students enter the classroom with a wide range of personal conceptions regarding science phenomena, often at variance with prevailing scientific views (Duschl, Hamilton, & Grandy, 1992; Hewson, 1992). The extensive misconceptions research literature emphasizes the importance of diagnosing students' initial understandings in order to gauge the accuracy and depth of what each student knows prior to instruction and then to use that information to adapt the teaching to address student needs. (Ausubel, 1968; Carey, 2000; Driver et al., 1985; Karplus & Thier, 1967; Mintzes, Wandersee, & Novak, 1998; Osborne & Freyberg, 1985; Project 2061, 1993; Strike & Posner, 1982, 1992; Vygotsky, 1934/1987). To gain such insight, teachers diagnose not only the content of the students' personal conceptions but also the thinking processes that produced them (Strike and Posner, 1992). Indeed, when teachers design opportunities for students to express their understanding, there is strong evidence that such diagnostic assessment also enhances science teaching and learning (Black & William, 1998). The functional knowledge of effective science teaching practice resides in the professional practitioners at the front lines---the science teachers in the classroom. Nevertheless, how teachers actually engage in the practice of diagnosis is not well documented. To help fill this gap, the researcher conducted a study of 16 sixth grade science classrooms in four Los Angeles area middle schools. Diagnostic teaching strategies were observed in action and then followed up by interviews with each teacher. Results showed that teachers use strategies that vary by the complexity of active student involvement, including pretests, strategic questions, interactive discussion
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Turkmen, Lutfullah
2013-01-01
The purpose of this study is to reveal Turkish elementary teachers' and science teachers' attitudes toward science and science teaching. The sample of the study, 138 in-service elementary level science teachers from a province of Turkey, was selected by a clustered sampling method. The Science Teaching Attitude Scale-II was employed to measure the…
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Teacher beliefs about teaching science through Science-Technology-Society (STS)
Massenzio, Lynn
2001-07-01
Statement of the problem. As future citizens, students will have the enormous responsibility of making decisions that will require an understanding of the interaction of science and technology and its interface with society. Since many societal issues today are grounded in science and technology, learning science in its social context is vital to science education reform. Science-Technology-Society (STS) has been strongly identified with meeting this goal, but despite its benefits, putting theory into practice has been difficult. Research design and methodology. The purpose of this study was to explore teacher beliefs about teaching science through STS. The following broad research questions guided the study: (1) What are the participants' initial beliefs about teaching science through STS? (2) What beliefs emerge as participants reflect upon and share their STS instructional experiences with their peers? A social constructivist theoretical framework was developed to plan interactions and collect data. Within this framework, a qualitative methodology was used to interpret the data and answer the research questions. Three provisionally certified science teachers engaged in a series of qualitative tasks including a written essay, verbal STS unit explanation, reflective journal writings, and focus group interviews. After implementing their STS unit, the participants engaged in meaningful dialogue with their peers as they reflected upon, shared, and constructed their beliefs. Conclusions. The participants strongly believed in STS as a means for achieving scientific and technological literacy, developing cognition, enhancing scientific habits of mind and affective qualities, and fostering citizen responsibility. Four major assertions were drawn: (a) Participants' initial belief in teaching for citizen responsibility did not fully align with practice, (b) Educators at the administrative level should be made aware of the benefits of teaching science through STS, (c
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Mohd Ali Samsudin; Noor Hasyimah Haniza; Corrienna Abdul-Talib; Hayani Marlia Mhd Ibrahim
2015-01-01
This study was undertaken to identify the relationship between multiple intelligences with preferred science teaching and science process skills. The design of the study is a survey using three questionnaires reported in the literature: Multiple Intelligences Questionnaire, Preferred Science Teaching Questionnaire and Science Process Skills Questionnaire. The study selected 300 primary school students from five (5) primary schools in Penang, Malaysia. The findings showed a relationship betwee...
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Teaching secondary science constructing meaning and developing understanding
Ross, Keith; McKechnie, Janet
2010-01-01
Now fully updated in its third edition Teaching Secondary Science is a comprehensive guide to all aspects of science teaching, providing a wealth of information and ideas about different approaches. With guidance on how children understand scientific ideas and the implications this has on teaching, teachers are encouraged to construct their own meanings and become reflective in their practice. Relating science to government agendas, such as the National Strategies, Assessment for Learning and Every Child Matters, this new edition reflects and maps to changes in national standards. Ke
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Cassani, Mary Kay Kuhr
The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of two pedagogical models used in general education science on non-majors' science teaching self-efficacy. Science teaching self-efficacy can be influenced by inquiry and cooperative learning, through cognitive mechanisms described by Bandura (1997). The Student Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate Programs (SCALE-UP) model of inquiry and cooperative learning incorporates cooperative learning and inquiry-guided learning in large enrollment combined lecture-laboratory classes (Oliver-Hoyo & Beichner, 2004). SCALE-UP was adopted by a small but rapidly growing public university in the southeastern United States in three undergraduate, general education science courses for non-science majors in the Fall 2006 and Spring 2007 semesters. Students in these courses were compared with students in three other general education science courses for non-science majors taught with the standard teaching model at the host university. The standard model combines lecture and laboratory in the same course, with smaller enrollments and utilizes cooperative learning. Science teaching self-efficacy was measured using the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument - B (STEBI-B; Bleicher, 2004). A science teaching self-efficacy score was computed from the Personal Science Teaching Efficacy (PTSE) factor of the instrument. Using non-parametric statistics, no significant difference was found between teaching models, between genders, within models, among instructors, or among courses. The number of previous science courses was significantly correlated with PTSE score. Student responses to open-ended questions indicated that students felt the larger enrollment in the SCALE-UP room reduced individual teacher attention but that the large round SCALE-UP tables promoted group interaction. Students responded positively to cooperative and hands-on activities, and would encourage inclusion of more such activities in all of the
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Worsham, Heather M.; Friedrichsen, Patricia; Soucie, Marilyn; Barnett, Ellen; Akiba, Motoko
2014-01-01
Despite the importance of recruiting highly qualified individuals into the science teaching profession, little is known about the effectiveness of particular recruitment strategies. Over 3 years, 34 college science majors and undecided students were recruited into paid internships in informal science settings to consider secondary science teaching…
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Teaching the process of science: faculty perceptions and an effective methodology.
Coil, David; Wenderoth, Mary Pat; Cunningham, Matthew; Dirks, Clarissa
2010-01-01
Most scientific endeavors require science process skills such as data interpretation, problem solving, experimental design, scientific writing, oral communication, collaborative work, and critical analysis of primary literature. These are the fundamental skills upon which the conceptual framework of scientific expertise is built. Unfortunately, most college science departments lack a formalized curriculum for teaching undergraduates science process skills. However, evidence strongly suggests that explicitly teaching undergraduates skills early in their education may enhance their understanding of science content. Our research reveals that faculty overwhelming support teaching undergraduates science process skills but typically do not spend enough time teaching skills due to the perceived need to cover content. To encourage faculty to address this issue, we provide our pedagogical philosophies, methods, and materials for teaching science process skills to freshman pursuing life science majors. We build upon previous work, showing student learning gains in both reading primary literature and scientific writing, and share student perspectives about a course where teaching the process of science, not content, was the focus. We recommend a wider implementation of courses that teach undergraduates science process skills early in their studies with the goals of improving student success and retention in the sciences and enhancing general science literacy.
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Toward making the invisible visible: Studying science teaching self-efficacy beliefs
Perkins, Catherine J.
This dissertation consists of two articles to be submitted for publication. The first, a literature review, makes visible common influences on science teaching self-efficacy beliefs and also points to potentially invisible validation concerns regarding the instrument used. The second investigates the participants' invisible science teaching self-efficacy beliefs and, through the use of a more focused interview, makes those beliefs visible. Science teaching self-efficacy beliefs are science teachers' perceptions of their abilities to teach science effectively. The construct "teaching self-efficacy" originated in social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1977). The first article reviews the mixed results from teaching self-efficacy research in science contexts. The review focuses upon factors that facilitate or inhibit the development of self-efficacy beliefs among science teachers across stages of their careers. Although many studies of science teaching self-efficacy beliefs have utilized the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument - STEBI (Enochs & Riggs, 1990; Riggs & Enochs, 1990), this review also includes non-STEBI studies in order to represent diverse lines of research methodology. The review's findings indicate that antecedent factors such as science activities in and out of school, teacher preparation, science teaching experiences and supportive job contexts are significant influences on the development of science teaching self-efficacy beliefs. The review also indicates that the majority of these studies are short term and rely on a single STEBI administration with the collection of antecedent/demographic and/or interview data. The second article documents a study that responded to the above literature review findings. This study utilized multiple STEBI administrations during the preservice and beginning year of teaching for two science teachers. Rather than general questions, these participants were asked item specific, yet open-ended, questions to determine
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Marco-Bujosa, Lisa M.; Levy, Abigail Jurist
2016-01-01
Elementary schools are under increasing pressure to teach science and teach it well; yet, research documents that classroom teachers must overcome numerous personal and school-based challenges to teach science effectively at this level, such as access to materials and inadequate instructional time. The elementary science specialist model…
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The ontology of science teaching in the neoliberal era
Sharma, Ajay
2017-12-01
Because of ever stricter standards of accountability, science teachers are under an increasing and unrelenting pressure to demonstrate the effects of their teaching on student learning. Econometric perspectives of teacher quality have become normative in assessment of teachers' work for accountability purposes. These perspectives seek to normalize some key ontological assumptions about teachers and teaching, and thus play an important role in shaping our understanding of the work science teachers do as teachers in their classrooms. In this conceptual paper I examine the ontology of science teaching as embedded in econometric perspectives of teacher quality. Based on Foucault's articulation of neoliberalism as a discourse of governmentality in his `The Birth of Biopolitics' lectures, I suggest that this ontology corresponds well with the strong and substantivist ontology of work under neoliberalism, and thus could potentially be seen as reflection of the influence of neoliberal ideas in education. Implications of the mainstreaming of an ontology of teaching that is compatible with neoliberalism can be seen in increasing marketization of teaching, `teaching evangelism', and impoverished notions of learning and teaching. A shift of focus from teacher quality to quality of teaching and building conceptual models of teaching based on relational ontologies deserve to be explored as important steps in preserving critical and socially just conceptions of science teaching in neoliberal times.
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Brown, Dave F.
2004-01-01
Thirteen urban educators teaching from 1st through 12th grade selected from 7 cities across the United States were interviewed in this qualitative research study to determine if the classroom management strategies they use reflect the research on culturally responsive teaching. Participants revealed using several management strategies that reflect…
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Jordanian Preservice Primary Teachers' Perceptions of Mentoring in Science Teaching
Abed, Osama H.; Abd-El-Khalick, Fouad
2015-03-01
Quality mentoring is fundamental to preservice teacher education because of its potential to help student and novice teachers develop the academic and pedagogical knowledge and skills germane to successful induction into the profession. This study focused on Jordanian preservice primary teachers' perceptions of their mentoring experiences as these pertain to science teaching. The Mentoring for Effective Primary Science Teaching instrument was administered to 147 senior preservice primary teachers in a university in Jordan. The results indicated that the greater majority of participants did not experience effective mentoring toward creating a supportive and reflexive environment that would bolster their confidence in teaching science; further their understanding of primary science curriculum, and associated aims and school policies; help with developing their pedagogical knowledge; and/or furnish them with specific and targeted feedback and guidance to help improve their science teaching. Substantially more participants indicated that their mentors modeled what they perceived to be effective science teaching. The study argues for the need for science-specific mentoring for preservice primary teachers, and suggests a possible pathway for achieving such a model starting with those in-service primary teachers-much like those identified by participants in the present study-who are already effective in their science teaching.
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Tosa, Sachiko
Since the publication of the National Science Education Standards in 1996, learning science through inquiry has been regarded as the heart of science education. However, the TIMSS 1999 Video Study showed that inquiry-based teaching has been taking place less in the United States than in Japan. This study examined similarities and differences in how Japanese and American middle-school science teachers think and feel about inquiry-based teaching. Teachers' attitudes toward the use of inquiry in science teaching were measured through a survey instrument (N=191). Teachers' understanding of inquiry-based teaching was examined through interviews and classroom observations in the United States (N=9) and Japan (N=15). The results show that in spite of the variations in teachers' definitions of inquiry-based teaching, teachers in both countries strongly agree with the idea of inquiry-based teaching. However, little inquiry-based teaching was observed in either of the countries for different reasons. The data indicate that Japanese teachers did not generally help students construct their own understanding of scientific concepts in spite of well-planned lesson structures and activity set-ups. On the other hand, the observational data indicate that American teachers often lacked meaningful science content in spite of their high level of pedagogical knowledge. The need for addressing the importance of scientific concepts in teacher preparation programs in higher education institutions in the US is advocated. To the Japanese science education community, the need for teachers' acquisition of instructional strategies for inquiry-based teaching is strongly addressed.
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Teaching Environmental Entrepreneurship at an Urban University: Greenproofing
Foster, Kevin; Jelen, Jonathan; Scott, Anasa
2010-01-01
The authors provide a case study of their own experience teaching Environmental Entrepreneurship. For the past six years, they have been teaching about sustainability through social entrepreneurship in an interdisciplinary partnership with faculty in management, engineering, and earth science. The authors have developed a course in Environmental…
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Teaching Triple Science: GCSE Chemistry
Learning and Skills Network (NJ3), 2007
2007-01-01
The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has contracted with the Learning and Skills Network to support awareness and take-up of Triple Science GCSEs through the Triple Science Support Programme. This publication provides an introduction to teaching and learning approaches for the extension topics within GCSE Chemistry. It…
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Cann, Colette N.
2015-01-01
White teacher savior films (WTSFs) depict the teaching profession as one for which conventional credentialing is unnecessary. White teachers with little training and experience perform miracles in urban classrooms where trained, experienced teachers have failed. This same narrative is echoed in alternative credential programs such as Teach For…
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Spillane, James P.; Diamond, John B.; Walker, Lisa J.; Halverson, Rich; Jita, Loyiso
2001-10-01
This article explores school leadership for elementary school science teaching in an urban setting. We examine how school leaders bring resources together to enhance science instruction when there appear to be relatively few resources available for it. From our study of 13 Chicago elementary (K-8) schools' efforts to lead instructional change in mathematics, language arts, and science education, we show how resources for leading instruction are unequally distributed across subject areas. We also explore how over time leaders in one school successfully identified and activated resources for leading change in science education. The result has been a steady, although not always certain, development of science as an instructional area in the school. We argue that leading change in science education involves the identification and activation of material resources, the development of teachers' and school leaders' human capital, and the development and use of social capital.
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Science Specialists or Classroom Teachers: Who Should Teach Elementary Science?
Levy, Abigail Jurist; Jia, Yueming; Marco-Bujosa, Lisa; Gess-Newsome, Julie; Pasquale, Marian
2016-01-01
This study examined science programs, instruction, and student outcomes at 30 elementary schools in a large, urban district in the northeast United States in an effort to understand whether there were meaningful differences in the quality, quantity and cost of science education when provided by a science specialist or a classroom teacher. Student…
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Review. Teaching Legal and Administrative Science Nadia-Cerasela Anitei and Roxana Alina Petraru
Doina Mihaela POPA
2011-01-01
The work Didactica predarii stiintelor juridice si administrative (Teaching Legal and Administrative Science) authors Nadia- Cerasela Anitei and Roxana Alina Petraru is structured around the following 10 lessons: 1. General notions about teaching legal science, 2. Teaching legal science, 3. Learning with application in legal science, 4. Legal science teaching aims, 5. Education curriculum for teaching legal science, 6. Learning Methods 7. Educational assessment with applications for legal sci...
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Preparing perservice teachers to teach elementary school science
Lewis, Amy D.
The development of scientifically literate citizens begins in the elementary school. Yet elementary school teachers are ill prepared to teach science (Trygstad, Smith, Banilower, Nelson, & Horizon Research, Inc., 2013). The research base on teacher preparation finds that programs designed to prepare elementary teachers are inadequate in providing both the content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge necessary to teach science effectively (Baumgartner, 2010; Bodzin & Beerer, 2003; Bulunuz & Jarrett 2009). This mixed methods study examined what happened when a science methods course was interactively co-taught by an expert in elementary teaching methods and a physics expert. This study also aimed to discover what aspects of the curriculum pre-service teachers (PSTs) said helped them in developing their understanding of science content and scientific reasoning, and how to implement inquiry practices to teach science. A nested case study of three PSTs provided descriptive portraits of student experiences in the class. A whole class case analysis was used to examine what PSTs learned in terms of science, scientific reasoning skills, and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) from their experiences in the course. It was found that students often conflated science content with the experiences they had in learning the content. Although PSTs felt the interactive co-teaching model effectively created a balance between theory and practice, it was their experiences doing science--conducting physical experiments, developing and discussing scientific models, and the use of inquiry-based instruction--that they credited for their learning. Even with careful curriculum planning, and a course purposely designed to bridge the theory to practice gap, this study found one semester-long methods course to be insufficient in providing the vast content knowledge and PCK elementary school science teachers need.
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Innovative Technologies in Science Teaching
Guerra, Cecilia; Pombo, Lucia; Moreira, Antonio
2011-01-01
Technology plays a crucial role in pupils' and primary teachers' lives nowadays and its use can facilitate change towards an innovative school environment. The internet, for example, can act as a platform to foster science teaching and offers a variety of opportunities for effective science learning and engaging and motivating children. But…
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Kelley, Sybil Schantz
This mixed-methods study combined pragmatism, sociocultural perspectives, and systems thinking concepts to investigate students' engagement, thinking, and learning in science in an urban, K-8 arts, science, and technology magnet school. A grant-funded school-university partnership supported the implementation of an inquiry-based science curriculum, contextualized in the local environment through field experiences. The researcher worked as co-teacher of 3 sixth-grade science classes and was deeply involved in the daily routines of the school. The purposes of the study were to build a deeper understanding of the complex interactions that take place in an urban science classroom, including challenges related to implementing culturally-relevant instruction; and to offer insight into the role educational systems play in supporting teaching and learning. The central hypothesis was that connecting learning to meaningful experiences in the local environment can provide culturally accessible points of engagement from which to build science learning. Descriptive measures provided an assessment of students' engagement in science activities, as well as their levels of thinking and learning throughout the school year. Combined with analyses of students' work files and focus group responses, these findings provided strong evidence of engagement attributable to the inquiry-based curriculum. In some instances, degree of engagement was found to be affected by student "reluctance" and "resistance," terms defined but needing further examination. A confounding result showed marked increases in thinking levels coupled with stasis or decrease in learning. Congruent with past studies, data indicated the presence of tension between the diverse cultures of students and the mainstream cultures of school and science. Findings were synthesized with existing literature to generate the study's principal product, a grounded theory model representing the complex, interacting factors involved in
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Teaching with Moodle in Soil Science
Roca, Núria
2014-05-01
Soil is a 3-dimensional body with properties that reflect the impact of climate, vegetation, fauna, man and topography on the soil's parent material over a variable time span. Therefore, soil is integral to many ecological and social systems and it holds potential solutions for many of the world's economic and scientific problems as climate change or scarcity of food and water. The teaching of Soil Science, as a natural science in its own right, requires principles that reflect the unique features and behaviour of soil and the practices of soil scientists. It could be argued that a unique set of teaching practices applies to Soil Science; however specific teaching practices are scarce in literature. The present work was triggered by the need to develop new techniques of teaching to speed up the learning process and to experiment with new methods of teaching. For such, it is necessary to adopt virtual learning environment to new learning requirements regarding Soil Science. This paper proposes a set of e-teaching techniques (as questionnaires, chats as well as forums) introduced in Moodle virtual learning Environment in order to increase student motivation and interest in Soil Science. Such technologies can be used to: a)Increase the amount of time a teacher allots for student reflection after asking a question and before a student responds (wait-time). This practice increases the quantity and quality of students' answers. The students give longer responses, students give more evidence for their ideas and conclusions, students speculate and hypothesize more and more students participated in responding. Furthermore, students ask more questions and talk more to other students. b)Improve active learning, an essential paradigm in education. In contrast to learning-before-doing, we propose to focus on learning-in-doing, a model where learners are increasingly involved in the authentic practices of communities through learning conversations and activities involving expert
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Genel, Abdulkadir; Topçu, Mustafa Sami
2016-01-01
Background: Despite a growing body of research and curriculum reforms including socioscientific issues (SSI) across the world, how preservice science teachers (PST) or in-service science teachers can teach SSI in science classrooms needs further inquiry. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe the abilities of PSTs to teach SSI in middle…
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New Pedagogies on Teaching Science with Computer Simulations
Khan, Samia
2011-01-01
Teaching science with computer simulations is a complex undertaking. This case study examines how an experienced science teacher taught chemistry using computer simulations and the impact of his teaching on his students. Classroom observations over 3 semesters, teacher interviews, and student surveys were collected. The data was analyzed for (1)…
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
A. Arifin
2016-01-01
Full Text Available The purposes of this study are to develop, to test the feasibility, to describe the characteristic, and to test the students understanding about integrated science teaching material about air using Four Steps Teaching Material Development (4S TMD. The Research and Development method was use to develop integrated science teaching materials which is involving all science perspectives that are not presented in junior high school science book. The air theme was chosen in this study since it can be explained using biology, chemistry, physics, and earth and space science perspectives. Development the teaching materials was consists of selection, structuring, characterization, and reduction didactic steps. Based on the of feasibility test results, the teaching material is qualified in content, presentation, language, and graphic feasibility aspects. The characteristic of this teaching material expose the closeness theme with student daily lifes and its compatibility with National Books Standard. Based on the understanding test results, the teaching material is qualified in understanding aspect with high category. It can be concluded that the teaching material qualified to be used as supplement teaching material of science learning.Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengembangkan, menguji kelayakan, memaparkan karakteristik, dan menguji keterpahaman bahan ajar IPA terpadu pada tema udara untuk siswa SMP kelas VII melalui Four Steps Teaching Material Development (4S TMD. Penelitian dengan metode Research and Development (R&D ini dilatar belakangi oleh tidak tersedianya bahan ajar IPA SMP yang disajikan secara terpadu melalui tema udara. Pengembangan bahan ajar IPA terpadu tema udara terdiri dari tahap seleksi, strukturisasi, karakterisasi dan reduksi didaktik. Berdasarkan uji kelayakan, bahan ajar telah memenuhi aspek kelayakan isi, kelayakan penyajian, kelayakan bahasa dan kelayakan kegrafikan. Karakteristik bahan ajar meliputi kedekatan tema bahan ajar
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The integration of creative drama into science teaching
Arieli, Bracha (Bari)
This study explored the inclusion of creative drama into science teaching as an instructional strategy for enhancing elementary school students' understanding of scientific concepts. A treatment group of sixth grade students was taught a Full Option Science System (FOSS) science unit on Mixtures and Solutions with the addition of creative drama while a control group was taught using only the FOSS teaching protocol. Quantitative and qualitative data analyses demonstrated that students who studied science through creative drama exhibited a greater understanding of scientific content of the lessons and preferred learning science through creative drama. Treatment group students stated that they enjoyed participating in the activities with their friends and that the creative drama helped them to better understand abstract scientific concepts. Teachers involved with the creative drama activities were positively impressed and believed creative drama is a good tool for teaching science. Observations revealed that creative drama created a positive classroom environment, improved social interactions and self-esteem, that all students enjoyed creative drama, and that teachers' teaching style affected students' use of creative drama. The researcher concluded that the inclusion of creative drama with the FOSS unit enhanced students' scientific knowledge and understanding beyond that of the FOSS unit alone, that both teachers and students reacted positively to creative drama in science and that creative drama requires more time.
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How Constructivist-Based Teaching Influences Students Learning Science
Seimears, C. Matt; Graves, Emily; Schroyer, M. Gail; Staver, John
2012-01-01
The purpose of this article is to provide details about the beneficial processes the constructivist pedagogy has in the area of teaching science. No Child Left Behind could possibly cause detrimental effects to the science classroom and the constructivist teacher, so this essay tells how constructivist-based teaching influences students and their…
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Iconic Gestures as Undervalued Representations during Science Teaching
Chue, Shien; Lee, Yew-Jin; Tan, Kim Chwee Daniel
2015-01-01
Iconic gestures that are ubiquitous in speech are integral to human meaning-making. However, few studies have attempted to map out the role of these gestures in science teaching. This paper provides a review of existing literature in everyday communication and education to articulate potential contributions of iconic gestures for science teaching.…
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Drinkwater, Michael J.; Matthews, Kelly E.; Seiler, Jacob
2017-01-01
While there is a wealth of research evidencing the benefits of active-learning approaches, the extent to which these teaching practices are adopted in the sciences is not well known. The aim of this study is to establish an evidential baseline of teaching practices across a bachelor of science degree program at a large research-intensive Australian university. Our purpose is to contribute to knowledge on the adoption levels of evidence-based teaching practices by faculty within a science degree program and inform our science curriculum review in practical terms. We used the Teaching Practices Inventory (TPI) to measure the use of evidence-based teaching approaches in 129 courses (units of study) across 13 departments. We compared the results with those from a Canadian institution to identify areas in need of improvement at our institution. We applied a regression analysis to the data and found that the adoption of evidence-based teaching practices differs by discipline and is higher in first-year classes at our institution. The study demonstrates that the TPI can be used in different institutional contexts and provides data that can inform practice and policy. PMID:28232589
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Science Understanding through Playground Physics: Organized Recess Teaching (SUPPORT)
Kincaid, Russell
2010-03-01
From 1995-2007, U.S. science students in grade four scored higher than the scaled TIMSS average, but their scores did not improve over this time. Moreover, in the area of physical science, the U.S. scored significantly lower than several Asian countries, as well as Russia, England, and Latvia (TIMSS). Methods to enhance student achievement in science are still being sought. An approach to utilizing playground equipment as a teaching tool for a variety of physics concepts was developed as a physical science teaching method. This program established an appropriate set of experiments, coordinated the effort with local school districts, and implemented a brief pilot study to test the teaching methodology. The program assigned undergraduate middle school science education majors to teach small groups of fourth grade students. The experimental group used the newly developed ``Playground Physics'' methodology while the control group used traditional approaches. Follow up activities will include an expansion of the duration and the scope of the program.
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Understanding Teaching or Teaching for Understanding: Alternative Frameworks for Science Classrooms.
Wildy, Helen; Wallace, John
1995-01-01
Describes the findings of a study that involved exploring the classroom practices of an experienced physics teacher to enable researchers to reexamine assumptions about good teaching. Asserts that a broader view of good science teaching is needed than that proposed by the constructivist literature. (ZWH)
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Dechenne, Sue Ellen
Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are important in the teaching of undergraduate students (Golde & Dore, 2001). However, they are often poorly prepared for teaching (Luft, Kurdziel, Roehrig, & Turner, 2004). This dissertation addresses teaching effectiveness in three related manuscripts: (1) A position paper that summarizes the current research on and develops a model of GTA teaching effectiveness. (2) An adaptation and validation of two instruments; GTA perception of teaching training and STEM GTA teaching self-efficacy. (3) A model test of factors that predict STEM GTA teaching self-efficacy. Together these three papers address key questions in the understanding of teaching effectiveness in STEM GTAs including: (a) What is our current knowledge of factors that affect the teaching effectiveness of GTAs? (b) Given that teaching self-efficacy is strongly linked to teaching performance, how can we measure STEM GTAs teaching self-efficacy? (c) Is there a better way to measure GTA teaching training than currently exists? (d) What factors predict STEM GTA teaching self-efficacy? An original model for GTA teaching effectiveness was developed from a thorough search of the GTA teaching literature. The two instruments---perception of training and teaching self-efficacy---were tested through self-report surveys using STEM GTAs from six different universities including Oregon State University (OSU). The data was analyzed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Using GTAs from the OSU colleges of science and engineering, the model of sources of STEM GTA teaching self-efficacy was tested by administering self-report surveys and analyzed by using OLS regression analysis. Language and cultural proficiency, departmental teaching climate, teaching self-efficacy, GTA training, and teaching experience affect GTA teaching effectiveness. GTA teaching self-efficacy is a second-order factor combined from self
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Uzoff, Phuong Pham
The purpose of this study was to examine how much K-12 science teachers working in a virtual school experience a community of practice and how that experience affects personal science-teaching efficacy and science-teaching outcome expectancy. The study was rooted in theoretical frameworks from Lave and Wenger's (1991) community of practice and Bandura's (1977) self-efficacy beliefs. The researcher used three surveys to examine schoolteachers' experiences of a community of practice and science-teaching efficacy beliefs. The instrument combined Mangieri's (2008) virtual teacher demographic survey, Riggs and Enochs (1990) Science-teaching efficacy Beliefs Instrument-A (STEBI-A), and Cadiz, Sawyer, and Griffith's (2009) Experienced Community of Practice (eCoP) instrument. The results showed a significant linear statistical relationship between the science teachers' experiences of community of practice and personal science-teaching efficacy. In addition, the study found that there was also a significant linear statistical relationship between teachers' community of practice experiences and science-teaching outcome expectancy. The results from this study were in line with numerous studies that have found teachers who are involved in a community of practice report higher science-teaching efficacy beliefs (Akerson, Cullen, & Hanson, 2009; Fazio, 2009; Lakshmanan, Heath, Perlmutter, & Elder, 2011; Liu, Lee, & Lin, 2010; Sinclair, Naizer, & Ledbetter, 2010). The researcher concluded that school leaders, policymakers, and researchers should increase professional learning opportunities that are grounded in social constructivist theoretical frameworks in order to increase teachers' science efficacy.
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Voices of successful science teachers in an urban diverse single gender girls' school
Malhan, Jyoti
This research study was conducted as a qualitative case study of four successful science teachers of female students in a diverse, title 1, urban, public girls' school. The study was designed to hear the 'muted' voices of successful science teachers concerning their beliefs and practices when they effectively provide learning opportunities for female students of color in their classrooms. Ethic of Care, equity pedagogy and culturally responsive pedagogy, created the theoretical framework for interpretation of the powerful narratives and storytelling that influenced this group of successful teachers. Data were collected by conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Constant comparative method and narrative analysis were used to code and categorize the data. Analysis was conducted after each interview to discover emergent themes. Teachers conducted member checks throughout the process. The findings from the study yielded the following: (1) teachers had a passion for science and incorporated ongoing scientific developments and real-life examples and applications in their teaching, (2) teachers adopted a caring, concerned, and student-centered approach to teaching, (3) teachers acknowledged certain benefits to a single-sex girls education which included fewer distractions, increased confidence and comfort level of students, (5) teachers built relationships with students that encouraged students to engage with rigorous course content and meet higher expectations for performance. Themes that emerged included: care, culturally responsive pedagogy and culturally relevant curriculum.
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2012 International Conference on Teaching and Computational Science (ICTCS 2012)
Advanced Technology in Teaching
2013-01-01
2012 International Conference on Teaching and Computational Science (ICTCS 2012) is held on April 1-2, 2012, Macao. This volume contains 120 selected papers presented at 2012 International Conference on Teaching and Computational Science (ICTCS 2012), which is to bring together researchers working in many different areas of teaching and computational Science to foster international collaborations and exchange of new ideas. This volume book can be divided into two sections on the basis of the classification of manuscripts considered. The first section deals with teaching. The second section of this volume consists of computational Science. We hope that all the papers here published can benefit you in the related researching fields.
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Science teachers teaching socioscientific issues (SSI): Four case studies
Lee, Hyunju
Socioscientific issues (SSI) are a class of issues that represent the social, ethical, and moral aspects of science in society. The need for the inclusion of SSI into science curricula has been generally accepted, but relatively few science teachers have incorporated SSI into their courses. Most science teachers feel that their most important task by far is to teach the principles of science, and any substantive pedagogical changes represent a burden. However, there are some teachers who address SSI out of personal initiatives. This dissertation study investigates four high school science teachers who address SSI out of their own initiative and explores their deeper inspirations, values, philosophies, and personal ideals that lead them to teach SSI. The overall approach is based on essentialist methodology (Witz, Goodwin, Hart, & Thomas, 2001; Witz, 2006a) with its focus on "the participant as ally" and "essentialist portraiture." The primary data source is four to six in-depth interviews with individual teachers (about 40-90 minutes for each interview). The interviews are complemented by extensive classroom observations of individual teachers' teaching SSI and by document analysis (including teaching materials, rubrics, student group projects and journals, etc.). There are two major findings. First, the teachers' deeper values and ideals are a source of larger inspiration that plays a significant role in changing their teaching practice. This inspiration may involve higher aspects (e.g., deep concern for students' development, unselfishness, caring, etc.) and commitment. Their teaching represents an integration of their personal experiences, values, concerns, and worldviews, which forms a larger inspiration for teaching. Teaching SSI is a part of this larger process. Second, the current curriculum reforms (STS, SSI, and NOS) only suggest theoretical ideals and do not effectively touch teachers' deeper values and ideals. Basically, the teachers are doing what they
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Science teachers' knowledge, beliefs, values, and concerns of teaching through inquiry
Assiri, Yahya Ibrahim
This study investigated elementary science teachers' knowledge, beliefs, values, and concerns of teaching through inquiry. A mixed-methods research design was utilized to address the research questions. Since this study was designed as a mixed-methods research approach, the researcher gathered two type of data: quantitative and qualitative. The study was conducted in Mohayel School District, Saudi Arabia. The information was collected from 51 participants using a questionnaire with multiple choice questions; also, 11 participants were interviewed. After collecting the data, descriptive and comparative approaches were used. In addition, themes and codes were used to obtain the results. The results indicated that the mean of elementary science teachers' knowledge was 51.23%, which was less than 60% which was the acceptable score. Also, the qualitative results showed that science teachers had a limited background of teaching through inquiry. In addition, the elementary science teachers had a high level of belief to teach science through inquiry since the mean was 3.99 out of 5.00. These quantitative results were confirmed by the qualitative data. Moreover, the overall mean of elementary science teachers was 4.01, which indicated that they believed in the importance of teaching science through inquiry which was also confirmed by the responses of teachers in the interviews. Also, the findings indicated that elementary school science teachers had concerns about teaching science through inquiry since the overall mean was 3.53. In addition, the interviewees mentioned that they faced some obstacles when they teach by inquiry, such as time, resources, class size, and the teachers' background. Generally, the results did not show any significant differences among elementary science teachers' knowledge, beliefs, values, and concerns depending on gender, level of education, and teaching experience. However, the findings indicated there was one significant difference which was
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Science Teaching Methods: A Rationale for Practices
Osborne, Jonathan
2011-01-01
This article is a version of the talk given by Jonathan Osborne as the Association for Science Education (ASE) invited lecturer at the National Science Teachers' Association Annual Convention in San Francisco, USA, in April 2011. The article provides an explanatory justification for teaching about the practices of science in school science that…
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Spector, Barbara S.; Burkett, Ruth; Leard, Cyndy
2012-01-01
This paper introduces a model for using informal science education venues as contexts within which to teach the nature of science. The model was initially developed to enable university education students to teach science in elementary schools so as to be consistent with "National Science Education Standards" (NSES) (1996) and "A Framework for…
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Urban Mining as a Driver for Teaching Architectural Design
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Vestergaard, Inge; Martin Jiménez, Guillermo
2016-01-01
To teach sustainable architecture is an ongoing process of establishing a frame where the student’s creativity can be challenged by dealing with actual demands on the anthropogenic scene. To use Urban Mining as a driver has been one of the most challenging teaching approaches since many years....... This approach involves a complex journey from investigating and harvesting local resources to gaining insight into metabolism and finally to design a project of diversity. The methodology used was based on industrial ecology. By realizing local resources and their potentials the students acquired knowledge...
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Saudi Science Teachers' Views and Teaching Strategies of Socioscientific Issues
Alamri, Aziz S.
Scientific developments such as cloning and nuclear energy have generated many controversial issues pertain to many political, social, environmental, ethical and cultural values in different societies around the globe. These controversies delimited and encircled the potential of including and teaching some important aspects of science in schools and therefore caused less consideration to the influence of these issues on enhancing the scientific literacy of people in general. The purpose of this study was to investigate how Saudi science teachers in the city of Tabuk in Saudi Arabia view and teach SSI in Saudi Arabia. This study employed semi-structured interviews with Saudi science teachers. Methodologically, this study used a constructivist grounded theory as a method for analysis to generate in-depth descriptive data about Saudi science teachers' views and teaching strategies of socio-scientific issues. Some direct and indirect benefits pertain to teaching science, understanding the relationship between science, religion, and society and some other topics are discussed in this study.
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Teachers' Perception of Team Teaching Middle School Mathematics in Urban Schools
Serrano, Vanessa
2012-01-01
The purpose of this study was to examine teachers' perceptions of team teaching middle school mathematics in urban schools. The research questions focused on student academic performance and the impact that team teaching may have from the perspective of teachers. The theories of Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner formed the theoretical foundation…
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McLaury, Ralph L.
2011-01-01
This study investigates beliefs about teaching held by preservice science teachers and their influences on self-perceived microteaching outcomes within interactive secondary science teaching methods courses. Hermeneutic methodology was used in cooperation with seven preservice science teachers (N = 7) to infer participant beliefs about teaching…
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Pre-Service Teachers Methods of Teaching Science
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Dr. Raquel C. Pambid
2015-02-01
Full Text Available The study described the teaching methods used by pre-service teachers in Science. It focused on the strategies, techniques, materials, innovative methods and pattern of teaching science used by the pre-service teachers as described in their lesson plans. The qualitative and quantitative design was used in the study. The books, teacher hand-outs from classroom lectures were the sources of methods, strategies and techniques. The chalkboard and self-made drawings and charts were the materials often used. Conventional methods like lecture, open class discussion and demonstration were commonly employed. The strategies included group discussion, use of motivating questions and stories to arouse the interest of students. The direct eye contact, body expressions, jokes and news/trivia were frequent techniques. Integration of values in the lesson became less as the year level increases. The pattern of teaching drawn followed the formal style: I Objectives, II Subject matter, III Learning Tasks, IV Synthesis of the lesson, V Assessment and VI Enrichment. The conventional method and pattern of teaching by the pre-service teachers of PSU suggest that students in the College of Teacher Education should be trained to be more innovative and open in trying out more advanced teaching methods. Furthermore, PSU science pre-service teachers should use methods which can develop higher order thinking skills among high school students.
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On teaching the nature of science: perspectives and resources
Radloff, Jeffrey
2016-06-01
In this paper, I present a critical review of the recent book, On Teaching the Nature of Science: Perspectives and Resources, written by Douglas Allchin (2013). This publication presents an in-depth examination of the nature of science construct, as well as instruction for educators about how to teach it effectively utilizing historical case studies as vehicles for knowledge. Although several themes in the book merit further attention, a central issue present across all chapters is the largely masculine, monocultural nature of science presented, which is common to a multitude of scientific publications. In this review, I illustrate how culture and gender in science is not addressed throughout the book. I also discuss where we can build on the work of the author to integrate more aspects of gender and culture in teaching the nature of science.
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Investigating Your School's Science Teaching and Learning Culture
Sato, Mistilina; Bartiromo, Margo; Elko, Susan
2016-01-01
The authors report on their work with the Academy for Leadership in Science Instruction, a program targeted to help science teachers promote a science teaching and learning culture in their own schools.
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Teaching for Conceptual Change in Elementary and Secondary Science Methods Courses.
Marion, Robin; Hewson, Peter W.; Tabachnick, B. Robert; Blomker, Kathryn B.
1999-01-01
Describes and analyzes two science methods courses at the elementary and secondary levels for how they addressed four ideas: (1) how students learn science; (2) how teachers teach science to students; (3) how prospective science teachers learn about the first two ideas; and (4) how methods instructors teach prospective science teachers about the…
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Teaching Primary Science: How Research Helps
Harlen, Wynne
2010-01-01
The very first edition of "Primary Science Review" included an article entitled "Teaching primary science--how research can help" (Harlen, 1986), which announced that a section of the journal would be for reports of research and particularly for teachers reporting their classroom research. The intervening 24 years have seen…
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"It's a Lot of Hectic in Middle School": Student-Teaching in an Urban Classroom.
Meyer, Jim
1999-01-01
Relates the experience of a college professor who spent two months as a student teacher in an eighth-grade language arts classroom in an urban public school. Discusses middle school teaching verses college teaching, coming to know the students, discipline, student testing, accountability, teaching writing, the failure of teacher-training programs,…
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Oyelekan, Oloyede Solomon; Igbokwe, Emoyoke Faith; Olorundare, Adekunle Solomon
2017-01-01
Efforts have been made to improve science teaching in secondary schools in Nigeria, yet, students continue to perform poorly in science subjects. Many innovative teaching strategies have been developed by educators and found to impact significantly on students' academic performance when utilised. Hence, this study was aimed at examining science…
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The use of simulation in teaching the basic sciences.
Eason, Martin P
2013-12-01
To assess the current use of simulation in medical education, specifically, the teaching of the basic sciences to accomplish the goal of improved integration. Simulation is increasingly being used by the institutions to teach the basic sciences. Preliminary data suggest that it is an effective tool with increased retention and learner satisfaction. Medical education is undergoing tremendous change. One of the directions of that change is increasing integration of the basic and clinical sciences to improve the efficiency and quality of medical education, and ultimately to improve the patient care. Integration is thought to improve the understanding of basic science conceptual knowledge and to better prepare the learners for clinical practice. Simulation because of its unique effects on learning is currently being successfully used by many institutions as a means to produce that integration through its use in the teaching of the basic sciences. Preliminary data indicate that simulation is an effective tool for basic science education and garners high learner satisfaction.
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Cook, J.
2016-12-01
MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are a powerful tool, making educational content available to a large and diverse audience. The MOOC "Making Sense of Climate Science Denial" applied science communication principles derived from cognitive psychology and misconception-based learning in the design of video lectures covering many aspects of climate change. As well as teaching fundamental climate science, the course also presented psychological research into climate science denial, teaching students the most effective techniques for responding to misinformation. A number of enrolled students were secondary and tertiary educators, who adopted the course content in their own classes as well as adapted their teaching techniques based on the science communication principles presented in the lectures. I will outline how we integrated cognitive psychology, educational research and climate science in an interdisciplinary online course that has had over 25,000 enrolments from over 160 countries.
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Stanier, C. O.; Spak, S.; Neal, T. A.; Herder, S.; Malek, A.; Miller, Z.
2017-12-01
The Iowa Board of Education voted unanimously in 2015 to adopt NGSS performance standards. The CGRER - College of Education Iowa K-12 Climate Science Education Initiative was established in 2016 to work directly with Iowa inservice teachers to provide what teachers need most to teach climate literacy and climate science content through investigational learning aligned with NGSS. Here we present teachers' requests for teaching climate with NGSS, and an approach to provide resources for place-based authentic inquiry on climate, developed, tested, and refined in partnership with inservice and preservice teachers. A survey of inservice middle school and high school science teachers was conducted at the 2016 Iowa Council of Teachers of Mathematics/Iowa Academy of Sciences - Iowa Science Teaching Section Fall Conference and online in fall 2016. Participants (n=383) were asked about their prior experience and education, the resources they use and need, their level of comfort in teaching climate science, perceived barriers, and how they address potential controversy. Teachers indicated preference for professional development on climate content and complete curricula packaged with lessons and interactive models aligned to Iowa standards, as well as training on instructional strategies to enhance students' ability to interpret scientific evidence. We identify trends in responses by teaching experience, climate content knowledge and its source, grade level, and urban and rural districts. Less than 20% of respondents reported controversy or negativity in teaching climate to date, and a majority were comfortable teaching climate science and climate change, with equal confidence in teaching climate and other STEM content through investigational activities. We present an approach and materials to meet these stated needs, created and tested in collaboration with Iowa teachers. We combine professional development and modular curricula with bundled standards, concepts, models, data
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Drinkwater, Michael J; Matthews, Kelly E; Seiler, Jacob
2017-01-01
While there is a wealth of research evidencing the benefits of active-learning approaches, the extent to which these teaching practices are adopted in the sciences is not well known. The aim of this study is to establish an evidential baseline of teaching practices across a bachelor of science degree program at a large research-intensive Australian university. Our purpose is to contribute to knowledge on the adoption levels of evidence-based teaching practices by faculty within a science degree program and inform our science curriculum review in practical terms. We used the Teaching Practices Inventory (TPI) to measure the use of evidence-based teaching approaches in 129 courses (units of study) across 13 departments. We compared the results with those from a Canadian institution to identify areas in need of improvement at our institution. We applied a regression analysis to the data and found that the adoption of evidence-based teaching practices differs by discipline and is higher in first-year classes at our institution. The study demonstrates that the TPI can be used in different institutional contexts and provides data that can inform practice and policy. © 2017 M. J. Drinkwater et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2017 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).
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Parmin; Savitri, E. N.; Amalia, A. V.; Pratama, M. R.
2018-04-01
This study aims to measure the performance of graduates in implementing conservation-based science teaching. The study employed a qualitative method by collecting the self-assessment data from alumni and the performance assessment from the headmasters of schools where the graduates are currently teaching. There are nine indicators of conservation insight examined in this study. The study concluded that the 78 alumni, who have become teachers when the study was conducted, perform well in implementing conservative science lessons.
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An exploration of equitable science teaching practices for students with learning disabilities
Morales, Marlene
In this study, a mixed methods approach was used to gather descriptive exploratory information regarding the teaching of science to middle grades students with learning disabilities within a general education classroom. The purpose of this study was to examine teachers' beliefs and their practices concerning providing equitable opportunities for students with learning disabilities in a general education science classroom. Equitable science teaching practices take into account each student's differences and uses those differences to inform instructional decisions and tailor teaching practices based on the student's individualized learning needs. Students with learning disabilities are similar to their non-disabled peers; however, they need some differentiation in instruction to perform to their highest potential achievement levels (Finson, Ormsbee, & Jensen, 2011). In the quantitative phase, the purpose of the study was to identify patterns in the beliefs of middle grades science teachers about the inclusion of students with learning disabilities in the general education classroom. In the qualitative phase, the purpose of the study was to present examples of instruction in the classrooms of science education reform-oriented middle grades science teachers. The quantitative phase of the study collected data from 274 sixth through eighth grade teachers in the State of Florida during the 2007--2008 school year using The Teaching Science to Students with Learning Disabilities Inventory. Overall, the quantitative findings revealed that middle grades science teachers held positive beliefs about the inclusion of students with learning disabilities in the general education science classroom. The qualitative phase collected data from multiple sources (interviews, classroom observations, and artifacts) to develop two case studies of reform-oriented middle grades science teachers who were expected to provide equitable science teaching practices. Based on their responses to The
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Pitts, Wesley
2011-03-01
The major focus of this ethnographic study is devoted to exploring the confluence of global and local referents of science education in the context of an urban chemistry laboratory classroom taught by a first-generation Filipino-American male teacher. This study investigates encounters between the teacher and four second-generation immigrant female students of color, as well as encounters among the four students. The pervasive spread of neoliberal ideology of accountability and sanctions both globally and locally, particularly in public high schools in the Bronx, New York City fuel situations for teaching and learning science that are encoded with the referents of top-down control. In the face of theses challenges, classroom participants must become aware of productive ways to build solidarity and interstitial culture across salient social boundaries, such as age, gender, ethnicity and role, to create and sustain successful teaching and learning of chemistry. Empirical evidence for solidarity was guided by physical and verbal displays of synchrony, mutual focus, entrainment, and emotional energy, body gestures, and prosody markers. This study shows that classroom participants used a combination of prosody markers to appropriate resources to decrease breaches in face-to-face encounters and, at the same time, create and sustain participation and solidarity to successfully complete an acid-base experiment.
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Teaching and Learning Science for Transformative, Aesthetic Experience
Girod, Mark; Twyman, Todd; Wojcikiewicz, Steve
2010-01-01
Drawing from the Deweyan theory of experience (1934, 1938), the goal of teaching and learning for transformative, aesthetic experience is contrasted against teaching and learning from a cognitive, rational framework. A quasi-experimental design was used to investigate teaching and learning of fifth grade science from each perspective across an…
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On Teaching the Nature of Science: Perspectives and Resources
Radloff, Jeffrey
2016-01-01
In this paper, I present a critical review of the recent book, "On Teaching the Nature of Science: Perspectives and Resources," written by Douglas Allchin (2013). This publication presents an in-depth examination of the nature of science construct, as well as instruction for educators about how to teach it effectively utilizing…
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Preparing Elementary Mathematics-Science Teaching Specialists.
Miller, L. Diane
1992-01-01
Describes a professional development program to train math/science specialists for the upper elementary school grades. Using results from an interest survey, 30 teachers were chosen to participate in a 3-year program to become math/science specialists. Presents the teaching model used and the advantages for teachers and students in having subject…
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Citizen Science and the Urban Ecology of Birds and Butterflies - A Systematic Review.
Wang Wei, James; Lee, Benjamin P Y-H; Bing Wen, Low
2016-01-01
Citizen science has gained widespread currency as a tool for ecological research over the past decade. However, in the discipline of urban ecology, the existing contributions and future potential of citizen science engagement, specifically in terms of knowledge gain, have not yet been comprehensively explored. Here, we present a systematic review of published work on the urban ecology of birds and butterflies in relation to their use of citizen science data between 2005 and 2014. We compared the number of studies that used citizen science data to the number of studies that could potentially have employed data derived from citizen science. The take-up rates of citizen science data were 21% and 26% for birds and butterflies respectively. Most studies that employed citizen science used volunteer-derived data as primary data, and adopted Collegial, Collaborative and Contributional engagement modes to the exclusion of Contractual and Co-created arrangements. There was no evidence that citizen science studies investigated a different organismal scale (community vs. species) compared to the urban ecology literature. For both taxa, citizen science contributions were lower than expected compared to their representation in the urban ecology literature for studies on species-environment relationships at landscape and micro-environment scales, as well as behavioural ecology in general. Other research topics that could benefit from further citizen science involvement include breeding studies and guild analyses for birds, and multi-taxa studies for butterflies. Promising models of citizen science engagement for urban ecology are highlighted in relation to their thematic foci and methodological detail, and a number of research questions that could be productively addressed using citizen science are identified. The dynamics of contemporary engagement between citizen science and urban ecology described by this review could inform the design and refinement of urban ecology
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Emotions and elementary school science teaching: Postmodernism in practice
Zembylas, Michalinos
This is an ethnographic study about an elementary school teacher's emotions in her science teaching and pedagogy. This study is an interdisciplinary account of emotions in teaching and draws both methodologically and theoretically from a variety of disciplines: philosophy, sociology, psychology, anthropology, cultural studies and feminist studies. The account developed here is based on my understanding of the role of one teacher's (Catherine) emotions in her classroom life for three years. I describe my approach in terms of what I call emotional genealogies of teaching; referring to an account of the events, objects, persons and their relationships that are present or absent in the realization of emotions, and the ways that these emotions are experienced in relation to the self (individual reality), the others (social interactions) and the world in general (sociopolitical context). Applied to my study, an emotional genealogy of Catherine's science teaching seeks not to trace the gradual evolution of her emotions but to record the singularity of various events that make some emotions present and others absent. My study shows how certain emotions are constructed in the science classroom and how they are transformed over the years (as mediated by values, philosophies, beliefs and so on). Catherine's emotions in science teaching is a "history of the present," a history of her emotions' "presences and absences" in her daffy interactions with her students, parents and administrators in the context of the science classroom. This work raises important questions that go beyond the meaning and interpretation of teachers' emotions: How can teachers' emotions become a legitimate topic in (science) education as well as in efforts for science curricular reform? Further, how can educational institutions (universities and schools) and elementary school science teachers themselves support their personal and professional emotional growth?
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Conceptions of Teaching Science Held by Novice Teachers in an Alternative Certification Program
Koballa, Thomas R.; Glynn, Shawn M.; Upson, Leslie
2005-01-01
Case studies to investigate the conceptions of teaching science held by three novice teachers participating in an alternative secondary science teacher certification program were conducted, along with the relationships between their conceptions of science teaching and their science teaching practice. Data used to build the cases included the…
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Science student teacher's perceptions of good teaching | Setlalentoa ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Science student teacher's perceptions of good teaching. ... of 50 senior students enrolled in the Bachelor of Education (Further Education and Training ... and teaching strategies employed are perceived to influence what students perceived as ...
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Johnson, Joseph A.
2011-12-01
This study involved an intervention in which I explored how the multimodal, inquiry-based teaching strategies from a professional development model could be used to meet the educational needs of a group of middle school students, who were refugees, newly arrived in the United States, now residing in a large urban school district in the northeastern United States, and learning English as a second language. This group remains unmentioned throughout the research literature despite the fact that English Language Learners (ELLs) represent the fastest growing group of K-12 students in the United States. The specific needs of this particular group were explored as I attempted daily to confront a variety of obstacles to their science achievement and help to facilitate the development of a scientific discourse. This research was done in an effort to better address the needs of ELLs in general and to inform best practices for teachers to apply across a variety of different cultural and linguistic subgroups. This study is an autoethnographic case study analysis of the practices of the researcher, working in a science classroom, teaching the described group of students.
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Elementary Teachers' Perceptions of Teaching Science to Improve Student Content Knowledge
Stephenson, Robert L.
The majority of Grade 5 students demonstrate limited science knowledge on state assessments. This trend has been documented since 2010 with no evidence of improvement. Because state accountability formulas include proficiency scores and carry sanctions against districts that fail to meet proficiency thresholds, improved student performance in science is an important issue to school districts. The purpose of this study was to explore elementary teachers' perceptions about their students' science knowledge, the strategies used to teach science, the barriers affecting science teaching, and the self-efficacy beliefs teachers maintain for teaching science. This study, guided by Vygotsky's social constructivist theory and Bandura's concept of self-efficacy, was a bounded instrumental case study in which 15 participants, required to be teaching K-5 elementary science in the county, were interviewed. An analytic technique was used to review the qualitative interview data through open coding, clustering, and analytical coding resulting in identified categorical themes that addressed the research questions. Key findings reflect students' limited content knowledge in earth and physical science. Teachers identified barriers including limited science instructional time, poor curricular resources, few professional learning opportunities, concern about new state standards, and a lack of teaching confidence. To improve student content knowledge, teachers identified the need for professional development. The project is a professional development series provided by a regional education service agency for K-5 teachers to experience science and engineering 3-dimensional learning. Area students will demonstrate deeper science content knowledge and benefit from improved science instructional practice and learning opportunities to become science problem solvers and innovative contributors to society.
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van Aalderen-Smeets, Sandra; Walma van der Molen, Julie Henriëtte
2013-01-01
In this article, we present a valid and reliable instrument which measures the attitude of in-service and pre-service primary teachers toward teaching science, called the Dimensions of Attitude Toward Science (DAS) Instrument. Attention to the attitudes of primary teachers toward teaching science is
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Arnold, J.; Wider-Lewis, F.; Miller-Jenkins, A.
2017-12-01
This poster is a description of the challenges and success of implementing climate studies lessons for pre-service teachers to engage student teaching pedagogy and content skill based learning. Edward Waters College is a historical black college with an elementary education teacher program focused on urban elementary school teaching and learning. Pre-Service Elementary Educator Students often have difficulty with science and mathematics content and pedagogy. This poster will highlight the barriers and successes of using climate studies lessons to develop and enhance pre-service teachers' knowledge of elementary science principles particularly related to climate studies, physical and earth space science.
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Americans aim to overhaul science teaching by 2061
1990-01-01
Project 2061 is a long-term initiative by the AAAS to reform classroom science. Deputy director Walter Gillespie claims that the aim is for schools to teach less content but teach it better (1/2 page).
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Novak, Elena; Wisdom, Sonya
2018-05-01
3D printing technology is a powerful educational tool that can promote integrative STEM education by connecting engineering, technology, and applications of science concepts. Yet, research on the integration of 3D printing technology in formal educational contexts is extremely limited. This study engaged preservice elementary teachers (N = 42) in a 3D Printing Science Project that modeled a science experiment in the elementary classroom on why things float or sink using 3D printed boats. The goal was to explore how collaborative 3D printing inquiry-based learning experiences affected preservice teachers' science teaching self-efficacy beliefs, anxiety toward teaching science, interest in science, perceived competence in K-3 technology and engineering science standards, and science content knowledge. The 3D printing project intervention significantly decreased participants' science teaching anxiety and improved their science teaching efficacy, science interest, and perceived competence in K-3 technological and engineering design science standards. Moreover, an analysis of students' project reflections and boat designs provided an insight into their collaborative 3D modeling design experiences. The study makes a contribution to the scarce body of knowledge on how teacher preparation programs can utilize 3D printing technology as a means of preparing prospective teachers to implement the recently adopted engineering and technology standards in K-12 science education.
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Grinell, Smith; Rabin, Colette
2017-11-01
The goal of this project was to motivate pre-service elementary teachers to commit to spending significant instructional time on science in their future classrooms despite their self-assessed lack of confidence about teaching science and other impediments (e.g., high-stakes testing practices that value other subjects over science). Pre-service teachers in science methods courses explored connections between science and ethics, specifically around issues of ecological sustainability, and grappled with their ethical responsibilities as teachers to provide science instruction. Survey responses, student "quick-writes," interview transcripts, and field notes were analyzed. Findings suggest that helping pre-service teachers see these connections may shape their beliefs and dispositions in ways that may motivate them to embark on the long road toward improving their science pedagogical content knowledge and ultimately to teach science to their students more often and better than they otherwise might. The approach may also offer a way for teachers to attend to the moral work of teaching.
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Chun, Sajin
Scholars in science education advocate curriculum and instruction practices that reflect an understanding of the nature of science. This aspect of school science is an important component of scientific literacy, a primary goal of science education. Considering teaching as a thoughtful profession, there has been a growing research interest on the issue of the consistency between teacher beliefs and actions. Yet, the self-evident assumption that teachers' beliefs about the nature of science will impact on their classroom teaching actions has not been justified. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between science teaching actions and beliefs about the nature of science. Defining teacher beliefs as a broad construct, the researcher tried to examine not only teacher's cognitive understanding about the nature of science but also teachers' affect as well as actions with regard to the nature of science. Guiding research questions were as follows: (a) what are the teachers' beliefs about the nature of science; (b) how do the teachers, pedagogical actions reflect their beliefs about the nature of science; and (c) what are the other referent beliefs that mediate the teachers, pedagogical actions within a local school culture. The methodology of this study was an interpretive, qualitative approach that included multiple sources of data, interviews, classroom observations, and instructional materials. Six science teachers from a secondary school located in a rural area of the southeastern US were chosen by convenience. The cross-case study and the grounded theory study designs were adopted as the data analysis process. The constant comparative analysis method was used to generate the emerging themes for this study. This study revealed a gap between these teachers' personal beliefs of the nature of science and the concepts of the nature of science suggested by many researchers. These teachers' personal beliefs about the nature of science have been
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Carpenter, Stacey L.
2015-01-01
This study examined what undergraduate students gain and the ideas about science teaching and learning they develop from participating in K-12 science education outreach programs. Eleven undergraduates from seven outreach programs were interviewed individually about their experiences with outreach and what they learned about science teaching and…
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Pre-Service Elementary Teachers’ Scientific Literacy and Self-Efficacy in Teaching Science
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Adam Al Sultan
2018-02-01
Full Text Available Many educators and educational institutions worldwide have agreed that the main goal of science education is to produce a scientifically literate community. Science teachers are key to the achievement of scientific literacy at all levels of education because of the essential role they play in preparing scientifically literate individuals. Studies show that pre-service elementary teachers need to build more confidence in teaching science and scientific literacy during their teacher education programs in order for them to successfully teach science knowledge to their students. Therefore, the purpose of this study is threefold. First, pre-service elementary teachers' scientific literacy levels were examined. Second, pre-service teachers' self-efficacy beliefs were measured by distinguishing between their personal and subject-specific self-efficacy beliefs. Third, the extent to which pre-service elementary teachers' scientific literacy levels and self-efficacy levels are related was investigated. Participants were 49 pre-service elementary teachers registered in two science methods courses (introductory and advanced at a mid-sized university in the United States. Quantitative data were collected using the Test of Basic Scientific Literacy, the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument-Preservice, and Beliefs about Teaching. Results showed that participants had a satisfactory level of scientific literacy. However, pre-service teachers had borderline scores on the Nature of Science scale. Regarding self-efficacy, findings showed that both groups had the highest self-efficacy in teaching biology and the lowest in teaching physics. Participants in the advanced science methods course exhibited a moderate preexisting positive relationship between scientific literacy and subject-specific self-efficacy in teaching science.
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Exploring Science Teaching Efficacy of CASE Curriculum Teachers: A Post-Then-Pre Assessment
Ulmer, Jonathan D.; Velez, Jonathan J.; Lambert, Misty D.; Thompson, Greg W.; Burris, Scott; Witt, Phillip A.
2013-01-01
This descriptive-correlational study sought to investigate teachers' levels of Personal Science Teaching Efficacy (PSTE) and Science Teaching Outcome Expectancy (STOE) using the Science Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Instrument (STEBI). The population included all teachers completing a CASE Institute training session during summer 2010. Assessments…
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Teaching children the structure of science
Börner, Katy; Palmer, Fileve; Davis, Julie M.; Hardy, Elisha; Uzzo, Stephen M.; Hook, Bryan J.
2009-01-01
Maps of the world are common in classroom settings. They are used to teach the juxtaposition of natural and political functions, mineral resources, political, cultural and geographical boundaries; occurrences of processes such as tectonic drift; spreading of epidemics; and weather forecasts, among others. Recent work in scientometrics aims to create a map of science encompassing our collective scholarly knowledge. Maps of science can be used to see disciplinary boundaries; the origin of ideas, expertise, techniques, or tools; the birth, evolution, merging, splitting, and death of scientific disciplines; the spreading of ideas and technology; emerging research frontiers and bursts of activity; etc. Just like the first maps of our planet, the first maps of science are neither perfect nor correct. Today's science maps are predominantly generated based on English scholarly data: Techniques and procedures to achieve local and global accuracy of these maps are still being refined, and a visual language to communicate something as abstract and complex as science is still being developed. Yet, the maps are successfully used by institutions or individuals who can afford them to guide science policy decision making, economic decision making, or as visual interfaces to digital libraries. This paper presents the process and results of creating hands-on science maps for kids that teaches children ages 4-14 about the structure of scientific disciplines. The maps were tested in both formal and informal science education environments. The results show that children can easily transfer their (world) map and concept map reading skills to utilize maps of science in interesting ways.
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An Exploratory Analysis of Student-Community Interactions in Urban Agriculture
Grossman, Julie; Sherard, Maximilian; Prohn, Seb M.; Bradley, Lucy; Goodell, L. Suzanne; Andrew, Katherine
2012-01-01
Urban agriculture initiatives are on the rise, providing healthy food while teaching a land ethic to youth. In parallel, increasing numbers of university graduates are obtaining Extension work requiring the effective communication of science in a diverse, urban, low-income setting. This study evaluates a pilot service-learning program, the…
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Toward using games to teach fundamental computer science concepts
Edgington, Jeffrey Michael
Video and computer games have become an important area of study in the field of education. Games have been designed to teach mathematics, physics, raise social awareness, teach history and geography, and train soldiers in the military. Recent work has created computer games for teaching computer programming and understanding basic algorithms. We present an investigation where computer games are used to teach two fundamental computer science concepts: boolean expressions and recursion. The games are intended to teach the concepts and not how to implement them in a programming language. For this investigation, two computer games were created. One is designed to teach basic boolean expressions and operators and the other to teach fundamental concepts of recursion. We describe the design and implementation of both games. We evaluate the effectiveness of these games using before and after surveys. The surveys were designed to ascertain basic understanding, attitudes and beliefs regarding the concepts. The boolean game was evaluated with local high school students and students in a college level introductory computer science course. The recursion game was evaluated with students in a college level introductory computer science course. We present the analysis of the collected survey information for both games. This analysis shows a significant positive change in student attitude towards recursion and modest gains in student learning outcomes for both topics.
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Faculty Perceptions of Multicultural Teaching in a Large Urban University
Bigatti, Sylvia M.; Gibau, Gina Sanchez; Boys, Stephanie; Grove, Kathy; Ashburn-Nardo, Leslie; Khaja, Khadiji; Springer, Jennifer Thorington
2012-01-01
As college graduates face an increasingly globalized world, it is imperative to consider issues of multicultural instruction in higher education. This study presents qualitative and quantitative findings from a survey of faculty at a large, urban, midwestern university regarding perceptions of multicultural teaching. Faculty were asked how they…
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Saudi Elementary School Science Teachers' Beliefs: Teaching Science in the New Millennium
Alghamdi, Amani K. Hamdan; Al-Salouli, Misfer Saud
2013-01-01
This study explored Saudi elementary school science teachers' beliefs about the process of teaching and learning science. This involved the exploration of their views about the new Saudi science curriculum, which emphasizes critical thinking and problem solving. Comprehensive interviews were held in 8 schools with 4 male and 6 female--2 of whom…
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van Aalderen-Smeets, Sandra; Walma van der Molen, Juliette
2013-01-01
In this article, we present a valid and reliable instrument which measures the attitude of in-service and pre-service primary teachers toward teaching science, called the Dimensions of Attitude Toward Science (DAS) Instrument. Attention to the attitudes of primary teachers toward teaching science is of fundamental importance to the…
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Science in the city: Urban trees, forests, and people
Kathleen L. Wolf
2016-01-01
The article, intended for professional and manager audiences, is an overview of current research in urban forestry. Topics include tree science, forest risks, forest management and assessment, ecosystem services, and urban socio-ecological systems (including governance and stewardship).
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Cone, Christina Schull
Elementary education has become increasingly divided into subjects and focused on the demand for high math and reading scores. Consequently, teachers spend less time devoted to science and art instruction. However, teaching art and science is crucial to developing creative and rational thinking, especially for observation and questioning skills. In this study, third grade students attending an urban school in Portland, Oregon received instruction of an art strategy using observational and quantifying drawing techniques. This study examines, "Will an art strategy observing the local environment help students make observations and ask questions?" and "In what ways are student learning and perspectives of science affected by the art strategy?" The independent variable is the art strategy developed for this study. There are three dependent variables: quality of student observations, quality of questions, and themes on student learning and perspectives of science. I predicted students would develop strong observation and questioning skills and that students would find the strategy useful or have an increased interest in science. The art scores were high for relevance and detail, but not for text. There were significant correlations between art scores and questions. Interviews revealed three themes: observations create questions, drawing is helpful and challenging, and students connected to science. By examining science through art, students were engaged and created strong observations and questions. Teachers need to balance unstructured drawing time with scaffolding for optimal results. This study provides an integrated science and art strategy that teachers can use outdoors or adapt for the classroom.
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(The Ethics of) Teaching Science and Ethics: A Collaborative Proposal.
Kabasenche, William P
2014-12-01
I offer a normative argument for a collaborative approach to teaching ethical issues in the sciences. Teaching science ethics requires expertise in at least two knowledge domains-the relevant science(s) and philosophical ethics. Accomplishing the aims of ethics education, while ensuring that science ethics discussions remain grounded in the best empirical science, can generally best be done through collaboration between a scientist and an ethicist. Ethics as a discipline is in danger of being misrepresented or distorted if presented by someone who lacks appropriate disciplinary training and experience. While there are exceptions, I take philosophy to be the most appropriate disciplinary domain in which to gain training in ethics teaching. Science students, who must be prepared to engage with many science ethics issues, are poorly served if their education includes a misrepresentation of ethics or specific issues. Students are less well prepared to engage specific issues in science ethics if they lack an appreciation of the resources the discipline of ethics provides. My collaborative proposal looks at a variety of ways scientists and ethicists might collaborate in the classroom to foster good science ethics education.
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(The Ethics of Teaching Science and Ethics: A Collaborative Proposal
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
William P. Kabasenche
2014-10-01
Full Text Available I offer a normative argument for a collaborative approach to teaching ethical issues in the sciences. Teaching science ethics requires expertise in at least two knowledge domains—the relevant science(s and philosophical ethics. Accomplishing the aims of ethics education, while ensuring that science ethics discussions remain grounded in the best empirical science, can generally best be done through collaboration between a scientist and an ethicist. Ethics as a discipline is in danger of being misrepresented or distorted if presented by someone who lacks appropriate disciplinary training and experience. While there are exceptions, I take philosophy to be the most appropriate disciplinary domain in which to gain training in ethics teaching. Science students, who must be prepared to engage with many science ethics issues, are poorly served if their education includes a misrepresentation of ethics or specific issues. Students are less well prepared to engage specific issues in science ethics if they lack an appreciation of the resources the discipline of ethics provides. My collaborative proposal looks at a variety of ways scientists and ethicists might collaborate in the classroom to foster good science ethics education.
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The Science of Human Interaction and Teaching
Yano, Kazuo
2013-01-01
There is a missing link between our understanding of teaching as high-level social phenomenon and teaching as a physiological phenomenon of brain activity. We suggest that the science of human interaction is the missing link. Using over one-million days of human-behavior data, we have discovered that "collective activenes" (CA), which indicates…
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Teaching Science through the Science Technology and Society ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
... the teaching methods course of all teacher training Programmes and that the science syllabus be reviewed regularly so that it responds to current needs. Relevant authorities need inject more resources towards in-service programmes and come up with legislation on in-service programmes e.g. promotion or salary hikes ...
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Action-research and the elaboration of teaching knowledge in sciences
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Maria Nizete de Azevedo
Full Text Available In this paper we analyze the way in which a training process, in which the methodological option approaches an action-research in teacher education, contributes with the elaboration of teaching knowledge in sciences by a group of teachers of the initial school years. In colaborative situations of teaching knowledge, those teachers elect education problems, for which they seek for solutions through planned, developed and reflected actions. We explored data obtained from a wide research, realized in a public school which took as basis this formative process. The results analysed under a qualitative approach show that the action-research contributes with the elaboration of the teaching knowledge, creating situations of learning necessary to the organization and development of education. We identified important knowledge related to indicating elements of learning about teaching, such as self-organization and formation, the disposition to study and to research, a way to teach sciences through investigative activities, the construction of cooperative practice at school, the articulation of science teaching with the alphabetization process in the native language, the consideration of the school's social and cultural context in its teaching plans, among others. Those results take us to reinforce the potential of action-research on teacher’s formation and on the improvement of the practiced teaching.
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Linking Teaching in Mathematics and the Subjects of Natural Science
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Michelsen, Claus
2017-01-01
teaching programs. This is partly due to the lack of a framework for integrating productive ideas across the disciplines. This paper focus on how to grasp the challenges of an interdisciplinary approach to teaching in mathematics and the subjects of natural science. Based on contemporary mathematics...... and science education we design a didactical framework for interdisciplinary teaching centered on modeling activities across mathematics and the disciplines of natural science. To exemplify the potential of the framework we present a case study of an intensive in-service teacher-training program...... for mathematics and biology teachers. The teachers were presented to the didactical framework and in pairs of two, one mathematics teacher and one biology teacher; they designed and implemented interdisciplinary mathematicsbiology teaching sequences. The teachers’ reports on their development and implementation...
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Teaching students ideas-about-science: Five dimensions of effective practice
Bartholomew, Hannah; Osborne, Jonathan; Ratcliffe, Mary
2004-09-01
In this paper, we report work undertaken with a group of 11 UK teachers over a period of a year to teach aspects of the nature of science, its process, and its practices. The teachers, who taught science in a mix of elementary, junior high, and high schools, were asked to teach a set of ideas-about-scienc for which consensual support had been established using a Delphi study in the first phase of the project. Data were collected through field notes, videos of the teachers' lessons, teachers' reflective diaries, and instruments that measured their understanding of the nature of science and their views on the role and value of discussion in the classroom. In this paper, drawing on a sample of the data we explore the factors that afforded or inhibited the teachers' pedagogic performance in this domain. Using these data, we argue that there are five critical dimensions that distinguish and determine a teacher's ability to teach effectively about science. Whilst these dimensions are neither mutually independent nor equally important, they serve as a valuable analytical tool for evaluating and explaining the success, or otherwise, that individual teachers of science have when confronted with teaching aspects about science. In addition, we argue that they are an important means of identifying salient aspects of pedagogy for initial and in-service training of science teachers for curricula that incorporate elements of ideas-about-science
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A case of learning to teach elementary science: Investigating beliefs, experiences, and tensions
Bryan, Lynn Ann
This study examines how preservice elementary teacher beliefs and experiences within the context of reflective science teacher education influence the development of professional knowledge. From a cognitive constructivist theoretical perspective, I conducted a case analysis to investigate the beliefs about science teaching and learning held by a preservice teacher (Barbara), identify the tensions she encountered in learning to teach elementary science, understand the frames from which she identified problems of practice, and discern how her experiences influenced the process of reflecting on her own science teaching. From an analysis of interviews, observation, and written documents, I constructed a profile of Barbara's beliefs that consisted of three foundational and three dualistic beliefs about science teaching and learning. Her foundational beliefs concerned: (a) the value of science and science teaching, (b) the nature of scientific concepts and goals of science instruction, and (c) control in the science classroom. Barbara held dualistic beliefs about: (a) how children learn science, (b) the science students' role, and (c) the science teacher's role. The dualistic beliefs formed two contradictory nests of beliefs. One nest, grounded in life-long science learner experiences, reflected a didactic teaching orientation and predominantly guided her practice. The second nest, not well-grounded in experience, embraced a hands-on approach and predominantly guided her vision of practice. Barbara encountered tensions in thinking about science teaching and learning as a result of inconsistencies between her vision of science teaching and her actual practice. Confronting these tensions prompted Barbara to rethink the connections between her classroom actions and students' learning, create new perspectives for viewing her practice, and consider alternative practices more resonant with her visionary beliefs. However, the self-reinforcing belief system created by her
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Kao, Huey-Lien
Improving the quality of science teaching is one of the greatest concerns in recent science education reform efforts. Many science educators suggest that case studies of exemplary science teachers may provide guidance for these reform efforts. For this reason, the characteristics of exemplary science teaching practices have been identified in recent years. However, the literature lacks research exploring exemplary teacher beliefs about the nature of science and science pedagogy, the relationships between their beliefs and practices, or how outstanding teachers overcome difficulties in order to facilitate their students' science learning. In this study, Sam-Yu, an identified exemplary science teacher who teaches in an elementary school in Pintung, Taiwan, was the subject. An interpretative research design (Erickson, 1986) based on principles of naturalistic inquiry (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) was used. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed in this case study. The qualitative method involved conducting interviews with the teacher and students, observing classroom activities and analyzing the structure of the learning materials. The quantitative methods involved using the Learning Climate Inventory (LCI) (Lin, 1997) instrument to assess the learning environment of the exemplary science classroom. This study found that Sam-Yu had a blend of views on the nature of science and a varied knowledge about science pedagogy. Personal preferences, past experiences, and the national science curriculum all played important roles in the development and refinement of Sam-Yu's beliefs about science and pedagogy. Regarding his teaching practices, Sam-Yu provided the best learning experiences, as evidenced in both classroom observations and the survey results, for his students by using a variety of strategies. In addition, his classroom behaviors were highly associated with his beliefs about science and pedagogy. However, due to school-based and socio-cultural constraints
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Aydin, Sevgi
2015-01-01
This is an interpretive case study to examine the teaching of an experienced science faculty who had a strong interest in teaching undergraduate and graduate science courses and nature of science specifically. It was interested in how he transformed knowledge from his experience as a scientist and his ideas about nature of science into forms…
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Resilience of Science Teaching Philosophies and Practice in Early Career Primary Teaching Graduates
Bartholomew, Rex; Anderson, Dayle; Moeed, Azra
2012-01-01
There has been recent concern over the variable quality of science teaching in New Zealand primary schools. One reason suggested has been the relatively low levels of science education components in initial teacher education (ITE) programmes. This paper follows a cohort of recent teacher graduates from a science education course in their ITE…
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Danielsson, Anna T.; Warwick, Paul
2014-04-01
In the broadest sense, the goal for primary science teacher education could be described as preparing these teachers to teach for scientific literacy. Our starting point is that making such science teaching accessible and desirable for future primary science teachers is dependent not only on their science knowledge and self-confidence, but also on a whole range of interrelated sociocultural factors. This paper aims to explore how intersections between different Discourses about primary teaching and about science teaching are evidenced in primary school student teachers' talk about becoming teachers. The study is founded in a conceptualisation of learning as a process of social participation. The conceptual framework is crafted around two key concepts: Discourse (Gee 2005) and identity (Paechter, Women's Studies International Forum, 26(1):69-77, 2007). Empirically, the paper utilises semi-structured interviews with 11 primary student teachers enrolled in a 1-year Postgraduate Certificate of Education course. The analysis draws on five previously identified teacher Discourses: `Teaching science through inquiry', `Traditional science teacher', `Traditional primary teacher', `Teacher as classroom authority', and `Primary teacher as a role model' (Danielsson and Warwick, International Journal of Science Education, 2013). It explores how the student teachers, at an early stage in their course, are starting to intersect these Discourses to negotiate their emerging identities as primary science teachers.
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Agustin, R. R.; Liliasari; Sinaga, P.; Rochintaniawati, D.
2018-05-01
The use of technology into science learning encounters problems. One of the problem is teachers’ less technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) on the implementation of technology itself. The purpose of this study was to investigate science teachers’ experience in using digital technology into science classroom. Through this study science teachers’ technological knowledge (TK) and technological content knowledge (TCK) can be unpacked. Descriptive method was used to depict science teachers’ TK and TCK through questionnaire that consisted of 20 questions. Subjects of this study were 25 science teachers in Bandung, Indonesia. The study was conducted in the context of teacher professional training. Result shows that science teachers still have less TK, yet they have high TCK. The teachers consider characteristics of concepts as main aspect for implementing technology into science teaching. This finding describes teachers’ high technological content knowledge. Meanwhile, science teachers’ technological knowledge was found to be still low since only few of them who can exemplify digital technology that can be implemented into several science concept. Therefore, training about technology implementation into science teaching and learning is necessary as a means to improve teachers’ technological knowledge.
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"Look at what I am saying": Multimodal science teaching
Pozzer-Ardenghi, Lilian
Language constitutes the dominant representational mode in science teaching, and lectures are still the most prevalent of the teaching methods in school science. In this dissertation, I investigate lectures from a multimodal and communicative perspective to better understand how teaching as a cultural-historical and social activity unfolds; that is, I am concerned with teaching as a communicative event, where a variety of signs (or semiotic resources), expressed in diverse modalities (or modes of communication) are produced and reproduced while the teacher articulates very specific conceptual meanings for the students. Within a trans-disciplinary approach that merges theoretical and methodical frameworks of social and cultural studies of human activity and interaction, communicative and gestures studies, linguistics, semiotics, pragmatics, and studies on teaching and learning science, I investigate teaching as a communicative, dynamic, multimodal, and social activity. My research questions include: What are the resources produced and reproduced in the classroom when the teacher is lecturing? How do these resources interact with each other? What meanings do they carry and how are these associated to achieve the coherence necessary to accomplish the communication of complex and abstract scientific concepts, not only within one lecture, but also within an entire unit of the curricula encompassing various lectures? My results show that, when lecturing, the communication of scientific concepts occur along trajectories driven by the dialectical relation among the various semiotic resources a lecturer makes available that together constitute a unit---the idea. Speech, gestures, and other nonverbal resources are but one-sided expressions of a higher order communicative meaning unit. The iterable nature of the signs produced and reproduced during science lectures permits, supports, and encourages the repetition, variation, and translation of ideas, themes, and languages and
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Citizen Science and the Urban Ecology of Birds and Butterflies — A Systematic Review
Wang Wei, James; Lee, Benjamin P. Y-H.; Bing Wen, Low
2016-01-01
Citizen science has gained widespread currency as a tool for ecological research over the past decade. However, in the discipline of urban ecology, the existing contributions and future potential of citizen science engagement, specifically in terms of knowledge gain, have not yet been comprehensively explored. Here, we present a systematic review of published work on the urban ecology of birds and butterflies in relation to their use of citizen science data between 2005 and 2014. We compared the number of studies that used citizen science data to the number of studies that could potentially have employed data derived from citizen science. The take-up rates of citizen science data were 21% and 26% for birds and butterflies respectively. Most studies that employed citizen science used volunteer-derived data as primary data, and adopted Collegial, Collaborative and Contributional engagement modes to the exclusion of Contractual and Co-created arrangements. There was no evidence that citizen science studies investigated a different organismal scale (community vs. species) compared to the urban ecology literature. For both taxa, citizen science contributions were lower than expected compared to their representation in the urban ecology literature for studies on species-environment relationships at landscape and micro-environment scales, as well as behavioural ecology in general. Other research topics that could benefit from further citizen science involvement include breeding studies and guild analyses for birds, and multi-taxa studies for butterflies. Promising models of citizen science engagement for urban ecology are highlighted in relation to their thematic foci and methodological detail, and a number of research questions that could be productively addressed using citizen science are identified. The dynamics of contemporary engagement between citizen science and urban ecology described by this review could inform the design and refinement of urban ecology
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Pre- and In-Service Preschool Teachers' Science Teaching Efficacy Beliefs
Aslan, Durmus; Tas, Isil; Ogul, Irem Gürgah
2016-01-01
In this study, pre- and in-service preschool teachers' science teaching efficacy beliefs were investigated. The sample included 100 pre-service (50 first grades and 50 last grades) and 73 in-service preschool teachers. As a data collection tool "Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument" was used. Findings indicated that in-service…
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Science and mathematics teaching through local games in preschools of Botswana
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Kabita Bose
2016-11-01
Full Text Available This article presents a study regarding preschool teachers’ skills and competencies in teaching science and mathematics. The aim of the project was twofold; one to find out the preschool teachers’ knowledge about mathematics and science concepts and then to develop support material to empower them with skills and competencies to teach these concepts in preschools. A qualitative approach was adopted, and a case study method was used. Data were collected through two workshops and focus group discussions with preschool teachers. The study revealed that the preschool teachers had content knowledge, but lacked pedagogical knowledge that is crucial in teaching of preschool children, and they provided science and mathematics experiences in preschools scarcely. A resource book of 33 local games and rhymes thus was developed as a support material to empower the teachers with skills and competencies to use play to teach science and mathematics in preschools. The resource book developed consists of 33 local games/rhymes and is packaged with the games’ illustrations, steps and rules followed in the games, science and mathematics concepts and competencies that could be taught to children, along with probing questions that would help in teaching of science and mathematics concepts to children.
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Creative Science Teaching Labs: New Dimensions in CPD
Chappell, Kerry; Craft, Anna
2009-01-01
This paper offers analysis and evaluation of "Creative Science Teaching (CST) Labs III", a unique and immersive approach to science teachers' continuing professional development (CPD) designed and run by a London-based organisation, Performing Arts Labs (PAL), involving specialists from the arts, science and technology as integral. Articulating…
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Dispositions Supporting Elementary Interns in the Teaching of Reform-Based Science Materials
Eick, Charles J.; Stewart, Bethany
2010-01-01
Dispositions supporting the teaching of science as structured inquiry by four elementary candidates are presented. Candidates were studied during student teaching based on their positive attitudes toward teaching science with reform-based materials in their methods course. Personal learning histories informed their attitudes, values, and beliefs…
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Teaching for competence in science education in Denmark
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Chaiklin, Seth
2016-01-01
teaching situations. Nonetheless, the idea of competence is viewed as an important and valuable way for engaging with the more general goals for science education in Denmark (and elsewhere). In service of that interest, we introduce the ideas of germcell and theoretical thinking from the developmental...... teaching tradition as a way to operationalise a meaning of competence that can be realised in concrete teaching situations....
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Teaching Science from Cultural Points of Intersection
Grimberg, Bruna Irene; Gummer, Edith
2013-01-01
This study focuses on a professional development program for science teachers near or on American Indian reservations in Montana. This program was framed by culturally relevant pedagogy premises and was characterized by instructional strategies and content foci resulting from the intersection between three cultures: tribal, science teaching, and…
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Urban Science Education: Examining Current Issues through a Historical Lens
McLaughlin, Cheryl A.
2014-01-01
This paper reviews and synthesizes urban science education studies published between 2000 and 2013 with a view to identifying current challenges faced by both teachers and students in urban classrooms. Additionally, this paper considers the historical events that have shaped the conditions, bureaucracies, and interactions of urban institutions.…
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Towards a Competency Model for Teaching Computer Science
Bender, Elena; Hubwieser, Peter; Schaper, Niclas; Margaritis, Melanie; Berges, Marc; Ohrndorf, Laura; Magenheim, Johannes; Schubert, Sigrid
2015-01-01
To address the special challenges of teaching computer science, adequate development of teachers' competencies during their education is extremely important. In particular, pedagogical content knowledge and teachers' beliefs and motivational orientations play an important role in effective teaching. This research field has been sparsely…
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Chowdhury, Mohammad
2016-01-01
This article presents the rationale and arguments for the presence of morals, values, ethics and character education in science curriculum and science teaching. The author examines how rapid science and technological advancements and globalization are contributing to the complexities of social life and underpinning the importance of morals, values…
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Halai, Nelofer
In this study I have described and tried to comprehend how a female science teacher understands her practice. Additionally, I have developed some understanding of her understanding of the nature of science. While teaching science, a teacher projects messages about the nature of science that can be captured by observations and interviews. Furthermore, the manner is which a teacher conceptualizes science for teaching, at least in part, depends on personal life experiences. Hence, I have used the life history method to understand Munazza's practice. Munazza is a young female science teacher working in a private, co-educational school for children from middle income families in Karachi, Pakistan. Her stories are central to the study, and I have represented them using a number of narrative devices. I have woven in my own stories too, to illustrate my perspective as a researcher. The data includes 13 life history interviews and many informal conversations with Munazza, observations of science teaching in classes seven and eight, and interviews with other science teachers and administrative staff of the school. Munazza's personal biography and experiences of school and undergraduate courses has influenced the way she teaches. It has also influenced the way she does not teach. She was not inspired by her science teachers, so she has tried not to teach the way she was taught science. Contextual factors, her conception of preparation for teaching as preparation for subject content and the tension that she faces in balancing care and control in her classroom are some factors that influence her teaching. Munazza believes that science is a stable, superior and value-free way of knowing. In trying to understand the natural world, observations come first, which give reliable information about the world leading inductively to a "theory". Hence, she relies a great deal on demonstrations in the class where students "see" for themselves and abstract the scientific concept from the
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Alshalaan, Nasser A.
Studies indicate that many teachers have negative beliefs about science, which translates into low teacher efficacy, resulting in avoidance of science teaching or in ineffective science teaching behaviors. Highly efficacious teachers have been found to be more likely to use inquiry and student-centered teaching strategies, while teachers with a low sense of science-teaching efficacy are more likely to use teacher-directed strategies, such as didactic lectures and reading from the textbook (Czemiak, 1990). The purpose of this study was to investigate preservice science teachers' science-teaching self-efficacy changes and their correlation to teaching environment factors during the student teaching semester. Moreover, it explains how teaching environment factors and preservice teachers' science-teaching self-efficacy beliefs may relate to their use of teaching strategies in the science classroom during their student teacher training at teachers' colleges in Saudi Arabia. The population of this study is consisted of 184 middle and elementary preservice science teachers who were doing their student teaching at nine teachers' colleges (i.e., teachers' colleges of Riyadh, Dammam, Alrras, Almadinah, Alihsa, Jeddah, Makah, Altaief, and Abha) in Saudi Arabia during the spring semester of 2005. Three instruments were used to collect data for this study: (1) to measure science teaching self-efficacy, the researcher adapted the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument form B designed specifically for preservice teachers (STEBI-B); (2) to measure the school environment, the researcher adapted the Organizational Health Inventory (OHI), developed by Hoy, Tarter & Kottkamp (1991); and (3) to measure the type and frequency of instructional strategies that preservice science teachers use in the classroom, the researcher adapted the teaching practice subscale from The Local Systemic Change through Teacher Enhancement Science K-8 Teacher Questionnaire (Horizon Research, Inc., 2000
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Mansfield, Caroline F.; Woods-McConney, Amanda
2012-01-01
Teacher efficacy has become an important field of research especially in subjects teachers may find challenging, such as science. This study investigates the sources of teachers' efficacy for teaching science in primary schools in the context of authentic teaching situations with a view to better understanding sources of teachers' efficacy…
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A Graduate Teaching Assistant Workshop in a Faculty of Science
Harris, Dik; McEwen, Laura April
2009-01-01
This article describes the design and implementation of a workshop on teaching and learning for graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in a Faculty of Science at a major Canadian research-intensive university. The approach borrows heavily from an existing successful workshop for faculty but is tailored specifically to the needs of GTAs in science in…
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Danielsson, Anna T.; Warwick, Paul
2014-01-01
In the broadest sense, the goal for primary science teacher education could be described as preparing these teachers to teach for scientific literacy. Our starting point is that making such science teaching accessible and desirable for future primary science teachers is dependent not only on their science knowledge and self-confidence, but also on…
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DeChenne, Sue Ellen; Koziol, Natalie; Needham, Mark; Enochs, Larry
2015-01-01
Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have a large impact on undergraduate instruction but are often poorly prepared to teach. Teaching self-efficacy, an instructor's belief in his or her ability to teach specific student populations a specific subject, is an important predictor of teaching skill and student achievement. A model of sources of teaching self-efficacy is developed from the GTA literature. This model indicates that teaching experience, departmental teaching climate (including peer and supervisor relationships), and GTA professional development (PD) can act as sources of teaching self-efficacy. The model is pilot tested with 128 GTAs from nine different STEM departments at a midsized research university. Structural equation modeling reveals that K-12 teaching experience, hours and perceived quality of GTA PD, and perception of the departmental facilitating environment are significant factors that explain 32% of the variance in the teaching self-efficacy of STEM GTAs. This model highlights the important contributions of the departmental environment and GTA PD in the development of teaching self-efficacy for STEM GTAs. © 2015 S. E. DeChenne et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2015 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).
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Keske, Kristina Palmer
The purpose of this interpretive case study was to elucidate the conceptions of the nature of science held by seven elementary science teachers. The constructivist paradigm provided the philosophical and methodological foundation for the study. Interviews were employed to collect data from the participants about their formal and informal experiences with science. In addition, the participants contributed their perspectives on four aspects of the nature of science: what is science; who is a scientist; what are the methods of science; and how is scientific knowledge constructed. Data analysis not only revealed these teachers' views of science, but also provided insights into how they viewed science teaching. Four themes emerged from the data. The first theme developed around the participants' portrayals of the content of science, with participant views falling on a continuum of limited to universal application of science as procedure. The second theme dealt with the participants' views of the absolute nature of scientific knowledge. Participants' perceptions of the tentative nature of science teaching provided the basis for the third theme concerning the need for absolutes in practice. The fourth theme drew parallels between participants' views of science and science teaching, with two participants demonstrating a consistency in beliefs about knowledge construction across contexts. This study revealed both personal and contextual factors which impacted how the participants saw science and science teaching. Many of the participants' memories of formal science revolved around the memorization of content and were viewed negatively. All the participants had limited formal training in science. Of the seven participants, only two had chosen to be science teachers at the beginning of their careers. The participants' limited formal experiences with science provided little time for exploration into historical, philosophical, and sociological studies of science, a necessary
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What Science Teaching Looks Like: An International Perspective
Roth, Kathleen; Garnier, Helen
2007-01-01
Using the Trends in International Mathematics and Science (TIMSS) video study, the authors compare science teaching practices in the United States and in four other countries that outperformed the United States: Australia, the Czech Republic, Japan, and the Netherlands. Their observations of videotapes from 100 8th-grade science lessons in each…
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Perceptions and Practices of Culturally Relevant Science Teaching in American Indian Classrooms
Nam, Younkyeong; Roehrig, Gillian; Kern, Anne; Reynolds, Bree
2013-01-01
This study explores the perceptions of culturally relevant science teaching of 35 teachers of American Indian students. These teachers participated in professional development designed to help them better understand climate change science content and teaching climate change using both Western science and traditional and cultural knowledge. Teacher…
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Recent Research in Science Teaching and Learning
Allen, Deborah
2012-01-01
This article features recent research in science teaching and learning. It presents three current articles of interest in life sciences education, as well as more general and noteworthy publications in education research. URLs are provided for the abstracts or full text of articles. For articles listed as "Abstract available," full text may be…
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In Brief: Science teaching certificate
Showstack, Randy
2008-11-01
More than 200 educators will receive fellowships over the next 5 years to participate in NASA's Endeavor Science Teaching Certificate Project, the agency announced on 14 November. Through workshops, online and on-site graduate courses, and NASA educational materials, the project will expose educators to NASA science and engineering and support them in translating the information for use in classrooms. ``Through the program, educators will learn to deliver cutting-edge science into the classroom, promoting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education,'' according to Joyce Winterton, assistant administrator for education at NASA Headquarters, in Washington, D. C. Project fellows will earn a certificate from Teachers College Innovations at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, and graduate credit from other institutional partners. For more information, visit http://education.nasa.gov/home/index.html.
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Milner, Andrea R.; Sondergeld, Toni A.; Demir, Abdulkadir; Johnson, Carla C.; Czerniak, Charlene M.
2012-01-01
The impact of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandated state science assessment on elementary teachers' beliefs about teaching science and their classroom practice is relatively unknown. For many years, the teaching of science has been minimized in elementary schools in favor of more emphasis on reading and mathematics. This study examines the…
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Hoover, Barbara Grambo
Many factors influence teacher choices concerning the frequency, instructional methods, and content of science teaching. Although the role of gender in science learning has been studied extensively, the gender of elementary teachers as it intersects their teaching of science has not been investigated. In this ethnographic study, I focused on five male preservice elementary teachers as they experienced their student teaching internship, aiming to understand their underlying beliefs about science and science teaching and how those beliefs influenced their practice. In an attempt to illuminate the complex interplay of personality, experience, interests, and gender in the professional lives of these men, this study emphasized the importance of context in the formation and expression of their science beliefs and pedagogy. For this reason, I collected data from a number of sources. From September, 2001 to May, 2002, I observed my participants in their science methods courses and on multiple occasions as they taught science in elementary classrooms in a suburban school district. I reviewed journal entries required for the science methods class and examined documents such as handouts, readings and teacher guides from their elementary teaching experience. I conducted semi-structured and informal interviews. I analyzed data from these sources using grounded theory methodology. Although these five men had many similarities, they differed in their love of science, their exposure to science, their avocational interests, and their views of science pedagogy. This study, however, revealed a unifying theme: each participant had his own set of personal and academic resources that he carried into the classroom and used to construct a distinctive science learning environment. Some of these resources intersect with gender. For example, several men had science-related avocational interests. There was a common emphasis on creating a relaxed, enjoyable, hands-on teaching environment as
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Amanda L. Glaze
2018-01-01
Full Text Available It is widely agreed upon that the goal of science education is building a scientifically literate society. Although there are a range of definitions for science literacy, most involve an ability to problem solve, make evidence-based decisions, and evaluate information in a manner that is logical. Unfortunately, science literacy appears to be an area where we struggle across levels of study, including with students who are majoring in the sciences in university settings. One reason for this problem is that we have opted to continue to approach teaching science in a way that fails to consider the critical assumptions that faculties in the sciences bring into the classroom. These assumptions include expectations of what students should know before entering given courses, whose responsibility it is to ensure that students entering courses understand basic scientific concepts, the roles of researchers and teachers, and approaches to teaching at the university level. Acknowledging these assumptions and the potential for action to shift our teaching and thinking about post-secondary education represents a transformative area in science literacy and preparation for the future of science as a field.
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Reflection after teaching a lesson: Experiences of secondary school science teachers
Halstead, Melissa A.
Secondary science teachers spend most of their time planning, collaborating, and teaching, but spend little time reflecting after teaching a single lesson. The theoretical framework of the adult learning theory and the transformative learning theory was the basis of this study. This qualitative research study was conducted to understand the reflective experiences of secondary science educators after teaching a single or several lessons. The collection of data consisted of interviews from a group of purposefully selected secondary science teachers who met the criteria set forth by the researcher. Through a qualitative analysis of interviews and field notes, the researcher determined that the secondary science teachers in this study shared similar as well as different experiences regarding collaborative and individual reflection after teaching a single or several lessons. The findings from this study also suggested that secondary science educators prefer to collaboratively reflect and then reflect alone to allow for further thought. Additionally, a supportive school culture increases the secondary science teacher’s desire to engage in collaborative as well as individual reflection. The information from this study could be used to close the gaps that exist in the teacher professional development programs.
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Chamnanwong, Pornpaka; Thathong, Kongsak
2018-01-01
In preparing a science lesson plan, teachers may deal with numerous difficulties. Having a deep understanding of their problems and their demands is extremely essential for the teachers in preparing themselves for the job. Moreover, it is also crucial for the stakeholders in planning suitable and in-need teachers' professional development programs, in school management, and in teaching aid. This study aimed to investigate the primary school science teachers' opinion toward practice of teaching and learning activities in science learning area. Target group was 292 primary science teachers who teach Grade 4 - 6 students in Khon Kaen Province, Thailand in the academic year of 2014. Data were collected using Questionnaire about Investigation the opinions of the primary science teachers toward practice of teaching and learning activities in science learning area. The questionnaires were consisted of closed questions scored on Likert scale and open-ended questions that invite a sentence response to cover from LS Process Ideas. Research findings were as follow. The primary science teachers' level of opinion toward teaching and learning science subject ranged from 3.19 - 3.93 (mean = 3.43) as "Moderate" level of practice. The primary school science teachers' needs to participate in a training workshop based on LS ranged from 3.66 - 4.22 (mean = 3.90) as "High" level. The result indicated that they were interested in attending a training course under the guidance of the Lesson Study by training on planning of management of science learning to solve teaching problems in science contents with the highest mean score 4.22. Open-ended questions questionnaire showed the needs of the implementation of the lesson plans to be actual classrooms, and supporting for learning Medias, innovations, and equipment for science experimentation.
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Grimes, Nicole K.
2013-06-01
A growing body of teacher identity-based research has begun to embrace that the development of self-understanding about being a teacher is critical to learning how to teach. Construction of a professional teacher identity requires much more beyond mere content, skills and a foundational pedagogy. It also includes an intersection of the personal and professional self, which gives way to the emergence of multiple identities in the classroom. An educator's gender, nationality, language and interests among other tenets all permeate the classroom field and coexist alongside the professional role identity. This paper aims to use narrative as a way to discuss how science educators can mediate holding several identities in the classroom in order to create an environment characterized by successful teaching and learning. Drawing from an array of sociocultural theoretical perspectives, complementary constructs of identity by Jonathan Turner (Face to face: toward a sociological theory of interpersonal behavior. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2002) and Amartya Sen (Identity and violence: the illusion of destiny. W. W. Norton, New York, 2006), George Lakoff's (Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1980) work on metonymy, and David Bloome's (2005) theorization of the power of caring relationships, I explore the ways in which my Black female Caribbean identity has transformed the science classroom field and created positive resonance for some of my privileged White students who have Caribbean caretakers at home. To begin, I unpack how Afro-Caribbean immigration to urban centers in the United States continues to produce childcare occupational opportunities in places like New York City. Being a first generation Trinidadian immigrant, my many identities have structured my science teaching praxis and consequently transformed the way my students learn science. A significant part of this paper is a reflexive account of experiences (primarily dialogue
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Oey, Esther Ruth
The purpose of this study was to examine if and in what ways white, urban middle school science teachers use experiences of being marginalized or feeling different to connect to students coming from backgrounds unlike their own---especially students who are racially, culturally, linguistically and otherwise different from them, the school culture and the dominant society. Personal biography was used to frame this study. Data consisted of structured and semi-structured interviews and classroom observations of one female and two male science teachers gathered over one academic year. Results indicated that experiences with difference may be used to inform teachers' practices, but personal biography alone was insufficient to enable the teachers to reflect on their experiences with race, class, gender, and difference. Also, attending to emotions appeared to be an important factor in helping students develop cognitive skills in science classrooms.
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Teaching Building Science with Simulations
Hatherly, Amanda
2017-01-01
Teaching building science to community college students can be challenging given both the macro (houses change subject to varying seasons) and the micro (heat transfer, moisture movement) level of the topics taught. Simulations and games can provide a way of learning material that can otherwise be difficult for students to understand. In this…
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Student questions in urban middle school science communities of practice
Groome, Meghan
This dissertation examines student questions within three Communities of Practice (CoP), all urban middle school science environments. The study analyzed student questions from a sociocultural perspective and used ethnographic research techniques to detail how the CoP's shaped questions in the classroom. In the first study, two case study girls attempted to navigate questioning events that required them to negotiation participation. Their access to participation was blocked by participation frameworks that elevated some students as "gatekeepers" while suppressing the participation of others. The next two studies detail the introduction of written questioning opportunities, one into a public middle school classroom and the other into an informal classroom. In both studies, students responded to the interventions differently, most notable the adoption of the opportunity by female students who do not participate orally. Dissertation-wide findings indicate all students were able to ask questions, but varied in level of cognitive complexity, and the diagnostic interventions were able to identify students who were not known to be "target students", students who asked a high number of questions and were considered "interested in science". Some students' roles were as "gatekeepers" to participation of their peers. Two out of three teachers in the studies reported major shifts in their teaching practice due to the focus on questions and the methods used here have been found to be effective in producing educational research as well as supporting high-need classrooms in prior research. In conclusion, these studies indicate that social factors, including participation frameworks, gender dynamics, and the availability of alternative participation methods, play an important role in how students ask science-related questions. It is recommended that researchers continue to examine social factors that reduce student questions and modify their teaching strategies to facilitate
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Popular Science Articles for Chemistry Teaching
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ketevan Kupatadze
2017-07-01
Full Text Available The presented paper reviews popular science articles (these articles are published in online magazine “The Teacher” as one of the methods of chemistry teaching. It describes which didactic principles they are in line with and how this type of articles can be used in order to kindle the interest of pupils, students and generally, the readers of other specialties, in chemistry. The articles review the main topics of inorganic/organic chemistry, biochemistry and ecological chemistry in a simple and entertaining manner. A part of the articles is about "household" chemistry. Chemical topics are related to poetry, literature, history of chemistry or simply, to fun news. The paper delineates the structure of popular science articles and the features of engaging students. It also reviews the teachers' and students' interview results about the usage of popular science articles in chemistry teaching process. The aforementioned pedagogical study revealed that the popular science articles contain useful information not only for the students of other specialties, but also for future biologists and ecologists (having chemistry as a mandatory subject at their universities. The articles are effectively used by teachers on chemistry lessons to kindle students' interest in this subject. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17807/orbital.v9i3.960
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Cultivation of science identity through authentic science in an urban high school classroom
Chapman, Angela; Feldman, Allan
2017-06-01
This study examined how a contextually based authentic science experience affected the science identities of urban high school students who have been marginalized during their K-12 science education. We examined students' perceptions of the intervention as an authentic science experience, how the experience influenced their science identity, as well as their perceptions about who can do science. We found that the students believed the experience to be one of authentic science, that their science identity was positively influenced by participation in the experience, and that they demonstrated a shift in perceptions from stereotypical to more diverse views of scientists. Implications for science education are discussed.
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Ward, Peggy
Although hailed as a powerful form of instruction, in most teaching and learning contexts, inquiry-based instruction is fraught with ambiguous and conflicting definitions and descriptions. Yet little has been written about the experiences preservice science teacher have regarding their learning to teach science through inquiry. This project sought to understand how select preservice secondary science teachers enrolled in three UTeach programs in Arkansas conceptualize inquiry instruction and how they rationalize its value in a teaching and learning context. The three teacher education programs investigated in this study are adoption sites aligned with the UTeach Program in Austin, TX that distinguishes itself in part by its inquiry emphasis. Using a mixed method investigation design, this study utilized two sources of data to explore the preservice science teachers' thinking. In the first phase, a modified version of the Pedagogy of Science teaching Tests (POSTT) was used to identify select program participants who indicated preferences for inquiry instruction over other instructional strategies. Secondly, the study used an open-ended questionnaire to explore the selected subjects' beliefs and conceptions of teaching and learning science in an inquiry context. The study also focused on identifying particular junctures in the prospective science teachers' education preparation that might impact their understanding about inquiry. Using a constant comparative approach, this study explored 19 preservice science teachers' conceptions about inquiry. The results indicate that across all levels of instruction, the prospective teachers tended to have strong student-centered teaching orientations. Except subjects in for the earliest courses, subjects' definitions and descriptions of inquiry tended toward a few of the science practices. More advanced subjects, however, expressed more in-depth descriptions. Excluding the subjects who have completed the program, multiple
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Artful Teaching and Science Investigations: A Perfect Match
McGee, Christy
2018-01-01
Tomlinson's explanation of Artful Teaching and her 2017 expansion of this concept The Five Key Elements of Differentiation provide the theoretical framework of this examination of the need for science investigations in elementary schools. The Artful Teaching framework uses an equilateral triangle with vertices labeled The Teacher, The Student, and…
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McKinnon, Merryn; Lamberts, Rod
2014-01-01
The science teaching self-efficacy beliefs of primary school teachers influence teaching practice. The purpose of this research was to determine if informal education institutions, such as science centres, could provide professional development that influences the science teaching self-efficacy beliefs of pre-service and in-service primary school…
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Taking a Scientific Approach to Science Teaching
Pollock, S.
2011-09-01
It is now well-documented that traditionally taught, large-scale introductory science courses often fail to teach our students the basics. In fact, these same courses have been found to teach students things we don't intend. Building on a tradition of research, the physics and astronomy education research communities have been investigating the effects of educational reforms at the undergraduate level for decades. Both within these scientific communities and in the fields of education, cognitive science, psychology, and other social sciences, we have learned a great deal about student learning and environments that support learning for an increasingly diverse population of students. This presentation will discuss a variety of effective classroom practices, (with an emphasis on peer instruction, "clickers," and small group activities), the surrounding educational structures, and examine assessments which indicate when and why these do (and sometimes do not) work. After a broad survey of education research, we will look at some of the exciting theoretical and experimental developments within this field that are being conducted at the University of Colorado. Throughout, we will consider research and practices that can be of value in both physics and astronomy classes, as well as applications to teaching in a variety of environments.
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Science &Language Teaching in Hands-on Education
Gehlert, Sylvia
2002-01-01
As announced in the paper presented in Toulouse, a trinational teacher training program addressing school teachers from France, Germany and Italy on teaching foreign languages together with science and history through Space related projects has been implemented and launched successfully. Supported by the French Ministry of Education (Académie de Nice), the bigovernmental French-German Youth Office (Office franco- allemand pour la Jeunesse) and the European Space Agency the first session was held in Cannes in October 2001 and brought together 36 language, science and history teachers, 12 from each country. Through different workshops, presentations and visits this five-day training encounter initiated the participants with Space activities and exploration as well as offering them back-up information on astronomy. It gave them furthermore the opportunity of improving their linguistic skills and of exchanging their teaching experience. The program was highly welcomed by all the participants who will meet this year in Germany for the second session devoted to establishing together bi- or trinational projects for future class encounters based on the same subjects. My paper will deal with the results of the program which have been beyond expectation and will encourage us to continue this pluridisciplinary approach of language &science teaching and extend it to other language combinations.
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Murphy, Clíona; Smith, Greg
2012-01-01
Many primary school teachers have insufficient content and pedagogical knowledge of science. This lack of knowledge can often lead to a lack of confidence and competence in teaching science. This article explores the impact of a year-long science methodology (curriculum science) course on second year Bachelor of Education (BEd) students' conceptual and pedagogical knowledge of science and on their attitudes towards teaching science in the primary classroom. A questionnaire, containing closed ...
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Navigating emotions and identity: Learning to teach science in a high needs school
Rose, Karen J.
As student populations in the United States become more diverse, teacher education programs are challenged to find innovative and effective ways to prepare teachers for the twenty-first century. However, the goal of "science for all" continues to elude many students in urban and high needs settings where science achievement gaps persist, teacher turnover is high, and novice teachers are often hired to fill those vacancies. Researchers have examined teachers' beliefs, attitudes, practices, as well as content and pedagogical knowledge and made progressive strides in illuminating the complexities of urban classrooms and how we can better prepare teachers for these settings. However, only recently have we begun to venture into the affective areas of teaching to investigate how these areas of human nature interact to influence instruction. This research follows three preservice teachers placed in a high needs school during their student teaching semester. In this case, a high need is described as a school with more than 30% of the students who meet the poverty criteria under section 1113(a)(f) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. This case study explored the connections between preservice teachers' emotions, identity and the implementation of student-centered science instruction during the participants' student teaching experience. Data collection included observations, interviews, and physical artifacts. The interviews included the Teachers' Pedagogical Philosophy Interview (Richardson & Simmons, 1994) and the Meta-Emotions Interview (Gottman, Katz & Hooven, 1997) as well as general interview questions that illuminated the participants' views on teaching, their emotions, life history and identity. Multiple naturalistic observations were used to describe the interactions between the preservice teachers and the students during the implementation of student-centered lessons. Physical artifacts included weekly journals and lesson plans. These artifacts
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Teaching Science to Dyslexic Children
Ward, Linda
2010-01-01
Working in a school with a high proportion of dyslexic children has helped this author to discover and improve her teaching of science. Officially, dyslexia is seen as "a specific learning difficulty that hinders the learning of literacy skills. This problem of managing verbal codes in memory is neurologically based." Many children come to the…
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On teaching computer ethics within a computer science department.
Quinn, Michael J
2006-04-01
The author has surveyed a quarter of the accredited undergraduate computer science programs in the United States. More than half of these programs offer a 'social and ethical implications of computing' course taught by a computer science faculty member, and there appears to be a trend toward teaching ethics classes within computer science departments. Although the decision to create an 'in house' computer ethics course may sometimes be a pragmatic response to pressure from the accreditation agency, this paper argues that teaching ethics within a computer science department can provide students and faculty members with numerous benefits. The paper lists topics that can be covered in a computer ethics course and offers some practical suggestions for making the course successful.
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The Role of Research on Science Teaching and Learning
National Science Teachers Association (NJ1), 2010
2010-01-01
Research on science teaching and learning plays an important role in improving science literacy, a goal called for in the National Science Education Standards (NRC 1996) and supported by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA 2003). NSTA promotes a research agenda that is focused on the goal of enhancing student learning through effective…
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Physics Teachers' Challenges in Using History and Philosophy of Science in Teaching
Henke, Andreas; Höttecke, Dietmar
2015-01-01
The inclusion of the history and philosophy of science (HPS) in science teaching is widely accepted, but the actual state of implementation in schools is still poor. This article investigates possible reasons for this discrepancy. The demands science teachers associate with HPS-based teaching play an important role, since these determine teachers'…
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Teacher Training and Pre-Service Primary Teachers' Self-Efficacy for Science Teaching
Velthuis, Chantal; Fisser, Petra; Pieters, Jules
2014-01-01
This study focuses on the improvement of pre-service teachers' self-efficacy for teaching science by including science courses within the teacher training program. Knowing how efficacy beliefs change over time and what factors influence the development by pre-service primary teachers of positive science teaching efficacy beliefs may be useful for…
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Grubbs, Michael E.; Love, Tyler S.; Long, David E.; Kittrell, Danielle
2016-01-01
Although the currently employed STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) acronym is of recent origin, dating to the early 2000s (Chute, 2009), the United States has long emphasized the importance of teaching STEM in its public schools. Early efforts, such as "Science, the Endless Frontier" (Bush, 1945) and the…
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Upadhyay, Bhaskar; Maruyama, Geoffrey; Albrecht, Nancy
2017-12-01
In this interpretive case study, we draw from sociocultural theory of learning and culturally relevant pedagogy to understand how urban students from nondominant groups leverage their sociocultural experiences. These experiences allow them to gain an empowering voice in influencing science content and activities and to work towards self-determining the sciences that are personally meaningful. Furthermore, tying sociocultural experiences with science learning helps generate sociopolitical awareness among students. We collected interview and observation data in an urban elementary classroom over one academic year to understand the value of urban students' sociocultural experiences in learning science and choosing science activities.
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Changing Science Teaching Practice in Early Career Secondary Teaching Graduates
Bartholomew, Rex; Moeed, Azra; Anderson, Dayle
2011-01-01
Initial teacher education (ITE) is being challenged internationally to prepare teachers with the understandings needed to teach an increasingly diverse student population. Science teachers need to prepare students with both conceptual and procedural understanding. The challenge is to prioritise a balance in ITE courses between theoretical…
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Deehan, James; Danaia, Lena; McKinnon, David H.
2018-03-01
The science achievement of primary students, both in Australia and abroad, has been the subject of intensive research in recent decades. Consequently, much research has been conducted to investigate primary science education. Within this literature, there is a striking juxtaposition between tertiary science teaching preparation programs and the experiences and outcomes of both teachers and students alike. Whilst many tertiary science teaching programs covary with positive outcomes for preservice teachers, reports of science at the primary school level continue to be problematic. This paper begins to explore this apparent contradiction by investigating the science teaching efficacy beliefs and experiences of a cohort of graduate primary teachers who had recently transitioned from preservice to inservice status. An opportunity sample of 82 primary teachers responded to the science teaching efficacy belief instrument A (STEBI-A), and 10 graduate teachers provided semi-structured interview data. The results showed that participants' prior science teaching efficacy belief growth, which occurred during their tertiary science education, had remained durable after they had completed their teaching degrees and began their careers. Qualitative data showed that their undergraduate science education had had a positive influence on their science teaching experiences. The participants' school science culture, however, had mixed influences on their science teaching. The findings presented within this paper have implications for the direction of research in primary science education, the design and assessment of preservice primary science curriculum subjects and the role of school contexts in the development of primary science teachers.
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Teaching computer science at school: some ideas
Bodei, Chiara; Grossi, Roberto; Lagan?, Maria Rita; Righi, Marco
2010-01-01
As a young discipline, Computer Science does not rely on longly tested didactic procedures. This allows the experimentation of innovative teaching methods at schools, especially in early childhood education. Our approach is based on the idea that abstracts notions should be gained as the final result of a learning path made of concrete and touchable steps. To illustrate our methodology, we present some of the teaching projects we proposed.
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Pongsanon, Khemmawadee
Although teacher educators have successfully helped K-12 teachers' develop adequate views of NOS, their views have not been transferred to their students. It is evident that K-12 students' understanding of NOS still does not align with the recommendation of the reforms document, indicating that holding an adequate view of NOS is insufficient for teaching NOS effectively. Instead, to teach NOS, teachers must develop the knowledge for translating their understanding of NOS into the forms accessible to students. The current study investigated the influence of four contexts of reflective practice on prospective elementary teachers' learning of how and intention to teach NOS. The participants were 18 pre-service teachers enrolled in a science methods course that was tied to a field experience course. To understand the development of the participants' intentions, knowledge of instructional strategies, and knowledge of assessment for teaching NOS, multiple data were collected throughout the science methods course and the field experience. Data sources included different versions of participants' lesson plans, video recordings of their teaching and teaching debriefings, online weekly teaching reflections, final semester reflection and other artifacts from the methods course. Content analysis was conducted with all data. The data revealed that the participants' knowledge of how and intentions to teach NOS were developed throughout the science methods course. Toward the conclusion of the semester, the participants showed intention to include NOS in their science instruction. With regard to strategies, participants planned to apply explicit reflective NOS instruction in the context of inquiry-based activities and stories from children's literature. They also planned to use age-appropriate language to refer to the targeted NOS aspects. In terms of assessment, by the conclusion of the semester the participants tended to use more formal assessment strategies. They reported
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Teaching Tomorrow: A Handbook of Science Fiction for Teachers.
Calkins, Elizabeth; McGhan, Barry
Science Fiction appeals to young people and is suited for use in a wide range of classrooms. This handbook of Science Fiction for Teachers suggests ways of using Science Fiction to teach literature and English skills. Study guides based on two Science Fiction stories are presented, with activities such as individual papers and small group…
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Is Teaching Neoclassical Economics as "the" Science of Economics Moral?
Parvin, Manoucher
1992-01-01
Discusses the morality of teaching neoclassical theory as the only science of economics. Argues that the teaching of neoclassical theory violates moral principles unless each and every attribute of neoclassical theory is proven superior to corresponding attributes of competing theories. Criticizes neoclassical economics for teaching what rather…
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Teaching Creativity through Inquiry Science
Thompson, Taylor
2017-01-01
The experience that students gain through creative thinking contributes to their readiness for the 21st century. For this and other reasons, educators have always considered creative thinking as a desirable part of any curriculum. The focus of this article is on teaching creative thinking in K-12 science as a way to serve all students and,…
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
A.N. Md Zain
2011-12-01
Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of incorporating students’ funds of knowledge in the teaching of science in sustaining Indonesian students’ interest in science. The researchers employed mixed method approach in this study. This study took place within two suburban secondary schools in Indonesia. Two teachers and a total of 173 students (94 males and 79 females participated in this study. The findings revealed that initially, most students expected that the teaching process would mainly include science experiments or other hands-on activities. Their preferences revealed a critical problem related to science learning: a lack of meaningful science-related activities in the classroom. The findings showed that incorporating students’ funds of knowledge into science learning processes -and thus establishing students’ culture as an important and valued aspect of science learning was effective in not only sustaining but also improving students’ attitudes and increasing their interest in science.
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Determination of Factors Affecting Preschool Teacher Candidates' Attitudes towards Science Teaching
Timur, Betul
2012-01-01
The purpose of this study was to determine preschool teacher candidates' attitudes towards science teaching and to examine the reasons behind their attitudes in depth. In this study, mixed methods were used including quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data gained by attitudes towards science teaching scale, qualitative data gained by…
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Macro photography with a tablet: applications on Science Teaching
Vieira, Leonardo Pereira; Lara, Vitor de Oliveira Moraes
2013-01-01
In this work we present a simple way to get Macro photography (enlarged photographs) using a tablet or phone. We initially discuss the technique, which is essentially the accommodation of a drop of water on the camera lens. Next, we explore some applications to science teaching in primary and secondary levels. As discussed in the text, the simplicity and power of the technique may make it a good teaching tool for use in various disciplines such as Science, Biology and Physics.
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A Thai pre-service teacher's understanding of nature of science in biology teaching
Srisawat, Akkarawat; Aiemsum-ang, Napapan; Yuenyong, Chokchai
2018-01-01
This study was conducted on the effect of understanding and instruction of the nature of science of Ms. Wanida, a pre-service student under science education program in biology, Faculty of Education, Khon Kaen University. Wanida was a teaching practicum student majoring in biology at Khon Kaen University Demonstration School (Modindaeng). She was teaching biology for 38 Grade 10 students. Methodology regarded interpretive paradigm. The study aimed to examine 1) Wanida's understanding of the nature of science, 2) Wanida's instruction of the nature of science, 3 students' understanding of the nature of science from Wanida's instruction, and 4) the effects of Wanida's understanding and instruction of the nature of science on students' understanding of the nature of science from Wanida's instruction. Tools of interpretation included teaching observation, a semi-structured interview, open-ended questionnaire, and an observation record form for the instruction of the nature of science. The data obtained was interpreted, encoded, and classified, using the descriptive statistics. The findings indicated that Wanida held good understanding of the nature of science. She could apply the deficient nature of science approach mostly, followed by the implicit nature of science approach. Unfortunately, she could not show her teaching as explicit nature of science. However, her students' the understanding of the nature of science was good.
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Gilmore, Joanna; Maher, Michelle A.; Feldon, David F.; Timmerman, Briana
2014-01-01
Research indicates that modifying teachers' beliefs about learning and teaching (i.e. teaching orientation) may be a prerequisite to changing their teaching practices. This mixed methods study quantitized data from interviews with 65 graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields to assess…
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Nadi SUPRAPTO; Ali MURSID
2017-01-01
This study focuses on attitudes toward (teaching) science and the learning of science for primary school among pre-service teachers at the Open University of Indonesia. A three-year longitudinal survey was conducted, involving 379 students as pre-service teachers (PSTs) from the Open University in Surabaya regional office. Attitudes toward (teaching) science’ (ATS) instrument was used to portray PSTs’ preparation for becoming primary school teachers. Data analyses were used, including descrip...
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Deacon, Christopher; Hajek, Allyson; Schulz, Henry
2017-11-01
Many post-secondary institutions provide training and resources to help GTAs fulfil their teaching roles. However, few programmes focus specifically on the teaching competencies required by GTAs who work with undergraduate students in laboratory settings where learning tends to be more active and inquiry based than in classroom settings. From a review of 8 GTA manuals, we identified 20 competencies and then surveyed faculty and lab coordinators (FIS) and GTAs from a Faculty of Science at a comprehensive Canadian university to identify which of those competencies are required of GTAs who work in undergraduate science labs. GTAs and FIS did not significantly differ in the competencies they view as required for GTAs to work effectively in undergraduate labs. But, when comparing the responses of GTAs and FIS to TA manuals, 'Clearly and effectively communicates ideas and information with students' was the only competency for which there was agreement on the level of requirement. We also examined GTAs' self-efficacy for each of the identified competencies and found no overall relationship between self-efficacy and demographic characteristics, including experience and training. Our results can be used to inform the design of training programmes specifically for GTAs who work in undergraduate science labs, for example, programmes should provide strategies for GTAs to obtain feedback which they can use to enhance their teaching skills. The goal of this study is to improve undergraduate lab instruction in faculties of science and to enhance the teaching experience of GTAs by better preparing them for their role.
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Alpha, Tau Rho; Diggles, Michael F.
1998-01-01
This CD-ROM contains 17 teaching tools: 16 interactive HyperCard 'stacks' and a printable model. They are separated into the following categories: Geologic Processes, Earthquakes and Faulting, and Map Projections and Globes. A 'navigation' stack, Earth Science, is provided as a 'launching' place from which to access all of the other stacks. You can also open the HyperCard Stacks folder and launch any of the 16 stacks yourself. In addition, a 17th tool, Earth and Tectonic Globes, is provided as a printable document. Each of the tools can be copied onto a 1.4-MB floppy disk and distributed freely.
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The Art of Teaching Science in Secondary Schools: A Meta Analysis
Hassan, Sharifah Sariah Syed; Ibrahim, Ahmad Abdullahi
2018-01-01
This study attempted to highlight the trend of research in science related subjects specifically in schools. Articles and journals were retrieved from Google scholar under peer reviewed with the aim to highlight the trend of research methods, findings and teaching strategies. The themes were based on pedagogical approaches of teaching science,…
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Investigating the Self-Perceived Science Teaching Needs of Local Elementary Educators
Carver, Cynthia G.
2012-01-01
Elementary teachers in one school system have expressed low self-efficacy teaching science and desire more support teaching science. However, little research has been conducted on how best to meet these teachers' needs. The theories of perceived self-efficacy, social cognition, and behaviorism make up the conceptual framework of this study. The…
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Models in Science Education: Applications of Models in Learning and Teaching Science
Ornek, Funda
2008-01-01
In this paper, I discuss different types of models in science education and applications of them in learning and teaching science, in particular physics. Based on the literature, I categorize models as conceptual and mental models according to their characteristics. In addition to these models, there is another model called "physics model" by the…
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Wee, Bryan
2012-03-01
Children's everyday ideas form critical foundations for science learning yet little research has been conducted to understand and legitimize these ideas, particularly from an international perspective. This paper explores children's everyday ideas about the environment across the US, Singapore and China to understand what they reveal about children's relationship to the environment and discuss its implications for science teaching and learning. A social constructivist lens guides research, and a visual methodology is used to frame children's realities. Participants' ages range from elementary to middle school, and a total of 210 children comprized mainly of Asians and Asian Americans were sampled from urban settings. Drawings are used to elicit children's everyday ideas and analyzed inductively using open coding and categorizing of data. Several categories support existing literature about how children view the environment; however, novel categories such as affect also emerged and lend new insight into the role that language, socio-cultural norms and perhaps ethnicity play in shaping children's everyday ideas. The findings imply the need for (a) a change in the role of science teachers from knowledge providers to social developers, (b) a science curriculum that is specific to learners' experiences in different socio-cultural settings, and (c) a shift away from inter-country comparisons using international science test scores.
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Chordnork, Boonliang; Yuenyong, Chokchai
2018-01-01
This aim of this research was to investigate primary school science teachers understanding and teaching practice as well as the influence on teaching and learning a topic like global warming. The participants were four primary science teachers, who were not graduated in science education. Methodology was the case study method, which was under the qualitative research regarded from interpretive paradigm. Data were collected by openended questionnaire, semi-structure interview, and document colleting. The questionnaire examined teachers' background, teachers' understanding of problems and threats of science teaching, desiring of development their PCK, sharing the teaching approaches, and their ideas of strength and weakness. a semi-structured interview was conducted based on the approach for capturing PCK of Loughran [23] content representation (CoRe). And, the document was collected to clarify what evidence which was invented to effect on students' learning. These document included lesson plan, students' task, and painting about global warming, science projects, the picture of activities of science learning, the exercise and test. Data analysis employed multiple approach of evidence looking an issue from each primary science teachers and used triangulation method to analyze the data with aiming to make meaning of teachers' representation of teaching practice. These included descriptive statistics, CoRe interpretation, and document analysis. The results show that teachers had misunderstanding of science teaching practice and they has articulated the pedagogical content knowledge in terms of assessment, goal of teaching and linking to the context of socio cultural. In contrast, knowledge and belief of curriculum, students' understanding of content global warming, and strategies of teaching were articulated indistinct by non-graduate science teacher. Constructing opportunities for personal development, the curiosity of the student learning center, and linking context
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Teaching Writing in the Social Sciences: A Comparison and Critique of Three Models
Hansen, Kristine; Adams, Joyce
2010-01-01
This article describes and evaluates three approaches to teaching writing in the social sciences, particularly psychology: an English department-based course for all social science majors; a team-teaching model that embeds writing in core courses in psychology; and a stand-alone course dedicated to teaching writing in psychology, often taken…
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Gilbert, Sarah
2014-01-01
We have created an inventory to characterize the teaching practices used in science and mathematics courses. This inventory can aid instructors and departments in reflecting on their teaching. It has been tested with several hundred university instructors and courses from mathematics and four science disciplines. Most instructors complete the inventory in 10 min or less, and the results allow meaningful comparisons of the teaching used for the different courses and instructors within a department and across different departments. We also show how the inventory results can be used to gauge the extent of use of research-based teaching practices, and we illustrate this with the inventory results for five departments. These results show the high degree of discrimination provided by the inventory, as well as its effectiveness in tracking the increase in the use of research-based teaching practices. PMID:25185237
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STENCIL: Science Teaching European Network for Creativity and Innovation in Learning
Cattadori, M.; Magrefi, F.
2013-12-01
STENCIL is an european educational project funded with support of the European Commission within the framework of LLP7 (Lifelong Learning Programme) for a period of 3 years (2011 - 2013). STENCIL includes 21 members from 9 European countries (Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, France, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, Turkey.) working together to contribute to the general objective of improving science teaching, by promoting innovative methodologies and creative solutions. Among the innovative methods adept a particolar interest is a joint partnership between a wide spectrum of type of institutions such as schools, school authorities, research centres, universities, science museums, and other organizations, representing differing perspectives on science education. STENCIL offers to practitioners in science education from all over Europe, a platform; the web portal - www.stencil-science.eu - that provides high visibility to schools and institutions involved in Comenius and other similar European funded projects in science education. STENCIL takes advantage of the positive results achieved by the former European projects STELLA - Science Teaching in a Lifelong Learning Approach (2007 - 2009) and GRID - Growing interest in the development of teaching science (2004-2006). The specific objectives of the project are : 1) to identify and promote innovative practices in science teaching through the publication of Annual Reports on Science Education; 2) to bring together science education practitioners to share different experiences and learn from each other through the organisation of periodical study visits and workshops; 3) to disseminate materials and outcomes coming from previous EU funded projects and from isolated science education initiatives through the STENCIL web portal, as well as through international conferences and national events. This contribution aims at explaining the main features of the project together with the achieved results during the project's 3 year
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New Pathways for Teaching Chemistry: Reflective Judgment in Science.
Finster, David C.
1992-01-01
The reflective judgment model offers a rich context for analysis of science and science teaching. It provides deeper understanding of the scientific process and its critical thinking and reveals fundamental connections between science and the other liberal arts. Classroom techniques from a college chemistry course illustrate the utility of the…
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Kötter, Mario; Hammann, Marcus
2017-07-01
In this article, the argument is put forth that controversies about the scope and limits of science should be considered in Nature of Science (NOS) teaching. Reference disciplines for teaching NOS are disciplines, which reflect upon science, like philosophy of science, history of science, and sociology of science. The culture of these disciplines is characterized by controversy rather than unified textbook knowledge. There is common agreement among educators of the arts and humanities that controversies in the reference disciplines should be represented in education. To teach NOS means to adopt a reflexive perspective on science. Therefore, we suggest that controversies within and between the reference disciplines are relevant for NOS teaching and not only the NOS but about NOS should be taught, too. We address the objections that teaching about NOS is irrelevant for real life and too demanding for students. First, we argue that science-reflexive meta-discourses are relevant for students as future citizens because the discourses occur publicly in the context of sociopolitical disputes. Second, we argue that it is in fact necessary to reduce the complexity of the above-mentioned discourses and that this is indeed possible, as it has been done with other reflexive elements in science education. In analogy to the German construct Bewertungskompetenz (which means the competency to make informed ethical decisions in scientific contexts), we suggest epistemic competency as a goal for NOS teaching. In order to do so, science-reflexive controversies must be simplified and attitudes toward science must be considered. Discourse on the scientific status of potential pseudoscience may serve as an authentic and relevant context for teaching the controversial nature of reflexion on science.
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Restructuring Post-School Science Teaching Programmes
Indian Academy of Sciences (India)
OFFICE USER
system available to those passing out of the +2 level in Science stream. II) The first .... University Grants Commission, whole-heartedly supported the ... interdisciplinary curricula and stimulating teaching methods that evoke ... water or electricity supply. .... share with you for inclusiveness, there are several decisions taken by.
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Gray, Kyle
2017-01-01
Preservice elementary teachers are often required to take an Earth Science content course as part of their teacher education program but typically enter the course with little knowledge of key Earth Science concepts and are uncertain in their ability to teach science. This study investigated whether completing an inquiry-based Earth Science course…
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Chung, Duk Ho; Park, Kyeong-Jin; Cho, Kyu Seong
2016-04-01
We investigated the cognitive frame of high school students and inservice high school science teachers about effective teaching method, and we also explored how they understood about the teaching methods suggested by the 2009 revised Science Curriculum. Data were collected from 275 high school science teachers and 275 high school students. We analyzed data in terms of the words and the cognitive frame using the Semantic Network Analysis. The results were as follows. First, the teachers perceived that an activity oriented class was the effective science class that helped improve students'' problem-solving abilities and their inquiry skills. The students had the cognitive frame that their teacher had to present relevant and enough teaching materials to students, and that they should also receive assistance from teachers in science class to better prepare for college entrance exam. Second, both students and teachers retained the cognitive frame about the efficient science class that was not reflected 2009 revised Science Curriculum exactly. Especially, neither groups connected the elements of ''convergence'' as well as ''integration'' embedded across science subject areas to their cognitive frame nor cognized the fact that many science learning contents were closed related to one another. Therefore, various professional development opportunities should be offered so that teachers succinctly comprehend the essential features and the intents of the 2009 revised Science Curriculum and thereby implement it in their science lessons effectively. Keywords : semantic network analysis, cognitive frame, teaching method, science lesson
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Fieldwork, Co-Teaching and Co-Generative Dialogue in Lower Secondary School Environmental Science
Rahmawati, Yuli; Koul, Rekha
2016-01-01
This article reports one of the case studies in a 3-year longitudinal study in environmental science education. This case explores the process of teaching about ecosystems through co-teaching and co-generative dialogue in a Year-9 science classroom in Western Australia. Combining with co-teaching and co-generative dialogue aimed at transforming…
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Kötter, Mario; Hammann, Marcus
2017-01-01
In this article, the argument is put forth that controversies about the scope and limits of science should be considered in Nature of Science (NOS) teaching. Reference disciplines for teaching NOS are disciplines, which reflect upon science, like philosophy of science, history of science, and sociology of science. The culture of these disciplines…
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Dimensions of Communication in Urban Science Education: Interactions and Transactions
Emdin, Christopher
2011-01-01
This paper is birthed from my lifelong experiences as student, teacher, administrator, and researcher in urban science classrooms. This includes my years as a minority student in biology, chemistry, and physics classrooms, 10 tears as science teacher and high school science department chair, 5-years conducting research on youth experiences in…
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Dominguez, Margaret Z.; Vorndran, Shelby
2014-09-01
The Office of Instruction and Assessment at the University of Arizona currently offers a Certificate in College Teaching Program. The objective of this program is to develop the competencies necessary to teach effectively in higher education today, with an emphasis on learner-centered teaching. This type of teaching methodology has repeatedly shown to have superior effects compared to traditional teacher-centered approaches. The success of this approach has been proven in both short term and long term teaching scenarios. Students must actively participate in class, which allows for the development of depth of understanding, acquisition of critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. As optical science graduate students completing the teaching program certificate, we taught a recitation class for OPTI 370: Photonics and Lasers for two consecutive years. The recitation was an optional 1-hour long session to supplement the course lectures. This recitation received positive feedback and learner-centered teaching was shown to be a successful method for engaging students in science, specifically in optical sciences following an inquiry driven format. This paper is intended as a guide for interactive, multifaceted teaching, due to the fact that there are a variety of learning styles found in every classroom. The techniques outlined can be implemented in many formats: a full course, recitation session, office hours and tutoring. This guide is practical and includes only the most effective and efficient strategies learned while also addressing the challenges faced, such as formulating engaging questions, using wait time and encouraging shy students.
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How do science centers perceive their role in science teaching?
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Nielsen, Jan Alexis; Stougaard, Birgitte; Andersen, Beth Wehner
This poster presents the data of a survey of 11 science centres in the Region of Southern Denmark. The survey is the initial step in a project which aims, on the one hand, to identify the factors which conditions successful learning outcomes of visits to science centres, and, on the other hand...... and teachers. In the present survey we have approached the topic from the perspective of science centres. Needless to say, the science centres’ own perception of their role in science teaching plays a vital role with respect to the successfulness of such visits. The data of our survey suggest that, also from......, to apply this identification so as to guide the interaction of science teachers and science centres. Recent literature on this topic (Rennie et. al. 2003; Falk & Dierking 2000) suggest that stable learning outcomes of such visits require that such visits are (1) prepared in the sense that the teacher has...
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Using Environmental Science as a Motivational Tool to Teach Physics to Non-Science Majors
Busch, Hauke C.
2010-01-01
A traditional physical science course was transformed into an environmental physical science course to teach physics to non-science majors. The objective of the new course was to improve the learning of basic physics principles by applying them to current issues of interest. A new curriculum was developed with new labs, homework assignments,…
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Girls on Ice: Using Immersion to Teach Fluency in Science
Pettit, E. C.; Mortenson, C.; Stiles, K.; Coryell-Martin, M.; Long, L.
2010-12-01
Young women choose not to pursue science careers for several reasons; two important ones are that they more often lack the confidence in their own ability to succeed or they perceive many science jobs as isolated (working alone in a lab) or lacking in altruistic values of helping other people or communities. We developed an immersion-science program, Girls on Ice, to provide young women with strong, female role models; with an opportunity to see what a career in the Earth sciences is like; with one-on-one interactions with scientists; with facilitated discussions on the value of Earth science in societal issues such as climate change; and with challenges that will build their self-confidence in multiple ways. Girls on Ice is field-based program for teenage young women with the theme of Glaciers, Climate, and the Alpine Landscape. The concepts we cover range from glacier dynamics to alpine plant ecology to mountain weather. The educational goals are 1. to increase young women's self-efficacy and interest in pursuing science as a career, 2. to create life-long advocates for the scientific process and its role in public policy 3. to teach critical thinking skills which will be important for all of their future pursuits 4. to enhance their leadership self-confidence so that they have a higher likelihood of becoming community leaders in the future. The educational philosophy of Girls on Ice consists of three core values: that teaching the whole process of science gives students ownership of the science; that teaching to the whole student puts the science in context; and that diversity inspires new ideas, new approaches, and better science in the end. We use a field-based immersion format -- the science equivalent of language-immersion course - in order to achieve the goals listed above in a setting that emphasizes this educational philosophy. The immersion-style course creates a deep connection between science and daily life for these young women. Combined with climate
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Han, Alyson Kim
According to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (2001), one in three students speaks a language other than English. Additionally, the Commission stated that a student is considered to be an English learner if the second language acquisition is English. In California more than 1.4 million English learners enter school speaking a variety of languages, and this number continues to rise. There is an imminent need to promote instructional strategies that support this group of diverse learners. Although this was not a California study, the results derived from the nationwide participants' responses provided a congruent assessment of the basic need to provide effective science teaching strategies to all English learners. The purpose of this study was to examine the status of elementary science teaching practices used with English learners in kindergarten through fifth grade in public mathematics, science, and technology-centered elementary magnet schools throughout the country. This descriptive research was designed to provide current information and to identify trends in the areas of curriculum and instruction for English learners in science themed magnet schools. This report described the status of elementary (grades K-5) school science instruction for English learners based on the responses of 116 elementary school teachers: 59 grade K-2, and 57 grade 3-5 teachers. Current research-based approaches support incorporating self-directed learning strategy, expository teaching strategy, active listening strategies, questioning strategies, wait time strategy, small group strategy, peer tutoring strategy, large group learning strategy, demonstrations strategy, formal debates strategy, review sessions strategy, mediated conversation strategy, cooperative learning strategy, and theme-based instruction into the curriculum to assist English learners in science education. Science Technology Society (STS) strategy, problem-based learning strategy, discovery learning
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Smith, Deborah C.; Jang, Shinho
2011-01-01
This case study of a fifth-year elementary intern's pathway in learning to teach science focused on her science methods course, placement science teaching, and reflections as a first-year teacher. We studied the sociocultural contexts within which the intern learned, their affordances and constraints, and participants' perspectives on their roles…
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Citizen Science as a Tool for Augmenting Museum Collection Data from Urban Areas
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Dakota M. Spear
2017-07-01
Full Text Available Museum collections are critical to contemporary biological research, but museum acquisitions have declined in recent decades, hampering researchers' ability to use collections to assess species responses to habitat modification, urbanization, and global climate change. Citizen science may be a key method to bolster museum collections data, particularly from urban regions, where ongoing data collection is critical to our understanding of ecosystem dynamics in a highly modified and variable landscape. In this study, we compare data collected as part of the citizen-science project Reptiles and Amphibians of Southern California (RASCals, hosted on the platform iNaturalist (www.inaturalist.org, to data in the VertNet database (www.vertnet.org, which houses millions of museum collection records from over 250 natural-history collections, for four focal species, including a native lizard of conservation concern that has declined with urbanization, a native lizard that is widespread in urban areas, and two invasive aquatic species. We compared numbers of VertNet records over time to modern RASCals records, and the number of records collected from urban, suburban, and protected areas from both databases. For all species, citizen-science records were generated much more rapidly than museum records. For three of our four focal species, RASCals participants over 27 months documented from 70 to 750% more records than were added to the VertNet database after 1990. For the urban-tolerant southern alligator lizard, RASCals participants collected nearly 45 times more modern urban records than are contained in the VertNet database. For all other species, the majority of RASCals records were collected within suburban or other highly modified landscapes, demonstrating the value of citizen science for collecting data within urban and suburban ecosystems. As new museum acquisitions decline, citizen-science projects like RASCals may become critical to the maintenance
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Mercer-Mapstone, Lucy; Kuchel, Louise
2017-01-01
Science communication is a diverse and transdisciplinary field and is taught most effectively when the skills involved are tailored to specific educational contexts. Few academic resources exist to guide the teaching of communication with non-scientific audiences for an undergraduate science context. This mixed methods study aimed to explore what…
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Teaching and Learning Science through Song: Exploring the Experiences of Students and Teachers
Governor, Donna; Hall, Jori; Jackson, David
2013-01-01
This qualitative, multi-case study explored the use of science-content music for teaching and learning in six middle school science classrooms. The researcher sought to understand how teachers made use of content-rich songs for teaching science, how they impacted student engagement and learning, and what the experiences of these teachers and…
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Tensions Teaching Science for Equity: Lessons Learned from the Case of Ms. Dawson
Braaten, Melissa; Sheth, Manali
2017-01-01
When teachers engage in forms of science teaching that disrupt the status quo of typical school science practices, they often experience dilemmas as problems of practice that are difficult--or even impossible--to solve. This instrumental case study examines one teacher's efforts to teach science for equity across two contexts: a public middle…
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Investigating the Self-Perceived Science Teaching Needs of Local Elementary Educators
Carver, Cynthia G.
Elementary teachers in one school system have expressed low self-efficacy teaching science and desire more support teaching science. However, little research has been conducted on how best to meet these teachers' needs. The theories of perceived self-efficacy, social cognition, and behaviorism make up the conceptual framework of this study. The focus of this qualitative project study was on the needs of local elementary educators. These teachers were asked what they felt they needed most to be more effective science educators. The methodology of phenomenology was used in this study in which local elementary teachers were questioned in focus groups regarding their own science teaching efficacy and perceived needs. Using inductive analysis, data were coded for links to discussion questions as well as any additional patterns that emerged. Findings indicated that local elementary teachers desire improved communication among administrators and teachers as well as better science content support and training. Focus group participants agreed that teacher self-efficacy affects the time spent, effort toward, and quality of elementary science education. Using the results of the study, a science mentor program was developed to support the needs of elementary teachers and increase teacher self-efficacy, thus improving local elementary science education. Implications for positive social change include the development and support of elementary science programs in other school systems with the goal of improving science education for elementary students.
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Wang, Ya-Ling; Tsai, Chin-Chung; Wei, Shih-Hsuan
2015-09-01
This study aimed to investigate the factors accounting for science teaching self-efficacy and to examine the relationships among Taiwanese teachers' science teaching self-efficacy, teaching and learning conceptions, technological-pedagogical content knowledge for the Internet (TPACK-I), and attitudes toward Internet-based instruction (Attitudes) using a mediational model approach. A total of 233 science teachers from 41 elementary schools in Taiwan were invited to take part in the study. After ensuring the validity and reliability of each questionnaire, the results indicated that each measure had satisfactory validity and reliability. Furthermore, through mediational models, the results revealed that TPACK-I and Attitudes mediated the relationship between teaching and learning conceptions and science teaching self-efficacy, suggesting that (1) knowledge of and attitudes toward Internet-based instruction (KATII) mediated the positive relationship between constructivist conceptions of teaching and learning and outcome expectancy, and that (2) KATII mediated the negative correlations between traditional conceptions of teaching and learning and teaching efficacy.
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"But I Grew Up Here!" Science Inquiry, Pedagogy and Technology Through a Sociocultural Lens
Meyer, Brian R.
The majority of students in the urban setting are considered underrepresented. These students frequently perform below their proficiency level on standardized tests locally and nationally. If we treat education as the ticket out of the culture of poverty that underrepresented students find themselves, it is incumbent upon us to find pedagogical, content, and cultural methods that allow for these students to achieve at a high level. The purpose behind this case study was to determine the pedagogical, content and cultural knowledge of two urban junior high school science teachers with the specific intention of drawing on the mitigating factors in the use, or non-use, of technology by these respective classroom teachers. Participants in this case study included two teachers both of whom teach 7th and 8th grade science in the urban setting. Their students are deemed to be underachieving by local and state measures of assessment, and the schools in which they teach are both considered low on measures of socioeconomic status. Data were collected over an academic year and included: teacher and student interviews, classroom video recordings, student work, teacher plans, and researcher field notes. These data were analyzed using an inductive approach and a constant-comparative method. The teachers shared their beliefs about the schools and district in which they teach, about the students they teach, and about their own upbringing. These female teachers had many demographics in common, including the duration of their teaching careers, their age, their content area, their time teaching in the district, and their professed caring for their students and their students' success. Where they contrasted, however, was in their own educational background at the grade school level - one teacher grew up in a middle class suburban home while the other was raised in the urban setting. Another difference was in their early choice of career, as the suburban teacher knew she wanted to teach
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山根, 嵩史; 中條, 和光
2016-01-01
We examined the teaching skills for reading scientific materials needed by science teachers. We compared the views of teaching skills for reading scientific materials of science teachers both in service and in training. The result of text mining for free description of the teaching skills of both groups showed that, whereas trainee teachers emphasized language ability as a teaching skill (for example, the ability to image the contents of a text), current teachers emphasized teaching the curri...
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An analysis of the concept of teaching in elementary school science education
Seatter, Carol Eunice Scarff
The problem for this thesis arises directly from several years of observation of science classrooms in British Columbia. The troubling phenomenon seen within numerous classrooms, taught by teachers claiming to be constructivist teachers, involved teachers fostering the idea that children can think about science in terms of their own ideas, that is, that children can think about science in common-sense terms. In the many cases I have observed, teachers justify this practice on the grounds of constructivist theory. However, this kind of "constructivist teaching" does not, in my opinion, lead to scientific reasoning. My argument begins with the premise that the development of scientific reasoning in children is necessary for science education. I will argue that the currently popular "constructivist" movement has significant potential to fail in producing scientific reasoning in children, as did its predecessor, the "discovery learning" movement of the 1960s. The incommensurable differences between scientific and common-sense reasoning are presented and discussed. This thesis examines constructivist theory in terms of its potential to hinder the development of scientific reasoning in children. Two features of the constructivist writings are examined: those which pertain to the nature of science, and those relating to the concept of teaching. A chapter on the logic of scientific inquiry is central to the thesis, as it describes and explains the concepts, forms of explanation and truth criteria unique to the discipline of science. The epistemological foundations of science education are discussed in terms of the realist/instrumentalist debate. The thesis argues in favor of a sophisticated realist view of knowledge, such as those offered by Hacking and Matthews who take into account Hanson's "theory-laden" observation without falling prey to a naive realist view. Reasoning in science is compared with children's common-sense reasoning in an attempt to further understand
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Teaching of anatomical sciences: A blended learning approach.
Khalil, Mohammed K; Abdel Meguid, Eiman M; Elkhider, Ihsan A
2018-04-01
Blended learning is the integration of different learning approaches, new technologies, and activities that combine traditional face-to-face teaching methods with authentic online methodologies. Although advances in educational technology have helped to expand the selection of different pedagogies, the teaching of anatomical sciences has been challenged by implementation difficulties and other limitations. These challenges are reported to include lack of time, costs, and lack of qualified teachers. Easy access to online information and advances in technology make it possible to resolve these limitations by adopting blended learning approaches. Blended learning strategies have been shown to improve students' academic performance, motivation, attitude, and satisfaction, and to provide convenient and flexible learning. Implementation of blended learning strategies has also proved cost effective. This article provides a theoretical foundation for blended learning and proposes a validated framework for the design of blended learning activities in the teaching and learning of anatomical sciences. Clin. Anat. 31:323-329, 2018. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Thai in-service teacher understanding of nature of science in biology teaching: Case of Mali
Aiemsum-ang, Napapan; Yuenyong, Chokchai
2018-01-01
This paper aimed to investigate the existing ideas of nature of science (NOS) teaching in Thailand biology classroom. The study reported the existing ideas of nature of science (NOS) teaching of one biology teacher Mrs. Mali who had been teaching for 6 years at in a school in Khon Kaen city. Methodology regarded interpretive paradigm. Tools of interpretation included 2 months of classroom observation, interviewing, and questionnaire of NOS. The findings revealed Mali held good understanding of the nature of science in the aspect of the use of evidence, the aspect of knowledge inquiry through different observation and deduction, the aspect of creativity and imagination influencing science knowledge inquiry, and the aspect of changeable scientific knowledge. Her biology teaching indicated that she used both the deficient nature of science approach and the implicit nature of science approach. The implicit nature of science approach was applied mostly in 7 periods and only 2 periods were arranged using the deficient nature of science approach. The paper has implication for professional development and pre-service program on NOS teaching in Thailand.
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Teaching Critical Thinking? New Directions in Science Education
Osborne, Jonathan
2014-01-01
Critique and questioning are central to the practice of science; without argument and evaluation, the construction of reliable knowledge would be impossible. The challenge is to incorporate an understanding of the role of critique and, more importantly, the ability to engage in critique, within the teaching of science. The emphasis in both the US…
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An Analysis of Pre-Service Elementary Teachers' Understanding of Inquiry-Based Science Teaching
Lee, Carole K.; Shea, Marilyn
2016-01-01
This study examines how pre-service elementary teachers (PSETs) view inquiry-based science learning and teaching, and how the science methods course builds their confidence to teach inquiry science. Most PSETs think that inquiry is asking students questions rather than a formal set of pedagogical tools. In the present study, three groups of PSETs…
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Teaching Science in the Primary School: Surveying Teacher Wellbeing and Planning for Survival
Morgan, Anne-Marie
2012-01-01
A teacher-researcher in a primary school setting surveyed the middle years' teachers of her school and those in the local science hub group, to determine their confidence and satisfaction levels in relation to teaching science. Her results confirm feelings of inadequacy and reluctance to teach Science, but also indicate ways that schools can…
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The Rationale for a Teaching Innovation about the Interrelationship between Science and Technology
Hadjilouca, R.; Constantinou, C. P.; Papadouris, N.
2011-01-01
This paper refers to the development of a teaching innovation for the nature of science (NOS), for students aged 11-15, which specifically focuses on the interrelationship between science and technology. The development of the teaching and learning materials relied on inputs from three sources: the history and philosophy of science and technology,…
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Buldur, Serkan
2017-01-01
The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate the changes in preservice science teachers' beliefs about science teaching during a science teacher training programme. The study was designed as a panel study, and the data were collected from the same participants at the end of each academic year during a four-year period. The participants…
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Teaching science with a multicultural agenda: The challenges and conflicts for preservice teachers
Yang, Kimberley
This dissertation examines the challenges and conflicts that preservice teachers have when teaching science with a multicultural agenda. This study is based on the experience of three preservice teachers who have participated in a one or two semester(s) volunteered commitment teaching science to pre-kindergarten students at a homeless shelter in the South Bronx of New York City. Findings derived from in-depth interviews, observations, lesson planning and debriefing sessions, journals, questionnaires and extracurricular interaction of the researcher and participants, indicate that preservice teachers were initially uncertain about the philosophy and actual practice of teaching science with a multicultural agenda. Their experience at the homeless shelter brings up issues of social class and family background as determinants of access and success in science education, multicultural science as exclusive from the accepted science canon, and the value of practicing science education with a multicultural agenda. The philosophical framework for teaching science from a multicultural framework is based on ideas that stem from feminist theories of valuing the lived social and educational experiences of children, and critical theory that examines the role of school and science as culture. The intention of multicultural science education is to create a science education that is inclusive for students regardless of cultural background. This includes students who have been traditionally marginalized from school science. In many instances, children from severe inner-city economically impoverished environments have been overlooked as science-able within school culture.
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Effective Use of the Internet in Science Teaching.
Pickersgill, Dave
2003-01-01
Explores effective ways of utilizing the Internet to teach science. Discusses classroom layout, searching techniques, downloading, copyright issues, accessibility, web-page design, and site creation. (Author/NB)
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Wieman, Carl; Gilbert, Sarah
2014-01-01
We have created an inventory to characterize the teaching practices used in science and mathematics courses. This inventory can aid instructors and departments in reflecting on their teaching. It has been tested with several hundred university instructors and courses from mathematics and four science disciplines. Most instructors complete the inventory in 10 min or less, and the results allow meaningful comparisons of the teaching used for the different courses and instructors within a department and across different departments. We also show how the inventory results can be used to gauge the extent of use of research-based teaching practices, and we illustrate this with the inventory results for five departments. These results show the high degree of discrimination provided by the inventory, as well as its effectiveness in tracking the increase in the use of research-based teaching practices. © 2014 C. Wieman and S. Gilbert. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2014 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).
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Dias, Michael James
Traditional, teacher-centered pedagogies dominate current teaching practice in science education despite numerous research-based assertions that promote more progressive, student-centered teaching methods. Best-practice research emerging from science education reform efforts promotes experiential, collaborative learning environments in line with the constructivist referent. Thus there is a need to identify specific teacher education program designs that will promote the utilization of constructivist theory among new teachers. This study explored the learning-to-teach process of four first-year high school teachers, all graduates of a constructivist-based science education program known as Teacher Education Environments in Mathematics and Science (TEEMS). Pedagogical perspectives and implicit theories were explored to identify common themes and their relation to the pre-service program and the teaching context. Qualitative methods were employed to gather and analyze the data. In depth, semi-structured interviews (Seidman, 1998) formed the primary data for probing the context and details of the teachers' experience as well as the personal meaning derived from first year practice. Teacher journals and teaching artifacts were utilized to validate and challenge the primary data. Through an open-coding technique (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) codes, and themes were generated from which assertions were made. The pedagogical perspectives apparent among the participants in this study emerged as six patterns in teaching method: (1) utilization of grouping strategies, (2) utilization of techniques that allow the students to help teach, (3) similar format of daily instructional strategy, (4) utilization of techniques intended to promote engagement, (5) utilization of review strategies, (6) assessment by daily monitoring and traditional tests, (7) restructuring content knowledge. Assertions from implicit theory data include: (1) Time constraints and lack of teaching experience made
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Kinghorn, Brian Edward
2013-01-01
Subject-specific content knowledge is crucial for effective science teaching, yet many teachers are entering the field not fully equipped with all the science content knowledge they need to effectively teach the subject. Learning from practice is one approach to bridging the gap between what practicing teachers know and what they need to know.…
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Reflecting on Teaching of the "Appliance of Science"
Linfield, Rachel
2016-01-01
As a primary school teacher, Rachel Linfield has always been insistent that her students were taught and understood the use behind a particular science fact or process. These days, however, she finds very few students who can recall a single useful science fact that they learned in primary school. Linfield wonders if teaching of the National…
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DeChenne, Sue Ellen; Koziol, Natalie; Needham, Mark; Enochs, Larry
2015-01-01
Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have a large impact on undergraduate instruction but are often poorly prepared to teach. Teaching self-efficacy, an instructor’s belief in his or her ability to teach specific student populations a specific subject, is an important predictor of teaching skill and student achievement. A model of sources of teaching self-efficacy is developed from the GTA literature. This model indicates that teaching experience, departmental teaching climate (including peer and supervisor relationships), and GTA professional development (PD) can act as sources of teaching self-efficacy. The model is pilot tested with 128 GTAs from nine different STEM departments at a midsized research university. Structural equation modeling reveals that K–12 teaching experience, hours and perceived quality of GTA PD, and perception of the departmental facilitating environment are significant factors that explain 32% of the variance in the teaching self-efficacy of STEM GTAs. This model highlights the important contributions of the departmental environment and GTA PD in the development of teaching self-efficacy for STEM GTAs. PMID:26250562
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Pre-service Science Teachers’ Self-efficacy Beliefs to Teach Socio-scientific Issues
Muğaloğlu, Ebru Z.; Küçük, Zerrin Doğança; Güven, Devrim
2016-01-01
This study aims to examine self-efficacy of pre-service science teachers to teach socio-scientific issues (SSI). Twenty-three senior pre-service science teachers participated in the study. Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI) was modified with an emphasis on SSI rather than scientific issues. The modified STEBI was applied to the participants before and after the intervention. As for the six-week intervention, three modules, which focused on understanding nature of SSI, teachin...
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Charlton, Bruce G
2006-01-01
Educational expansion in western countries has been achieved mainly by adding years to full-time education; however, this process has probably reduced efficiency. Sooner or later, efficiency must improve, with a greater educational attainment per year. Future societies will probably wish more people to study science throughout high school (aged c. 11-19 years) and the first college degree. 'Science' may be defined as any abstract, systematic and research-based discipline: including mathematics, statistics and the natural sciences, economics, music theory, linguistics, and the conceptual or quantitative social sciences. Since formal teaching is usually necessary to learn science, science education should be regarded as the core function of high schools. One standard way to improve efficiency is the 'division of labour', with increased specialization of function. Modern schools are already specialized: teachers are specialized according to age-group taught, subject matter expertise, and administrative responsibilities. School students are stratified by age and academic aptitude. I propose a further institutional division of school function between science education, and cultural education (including education in arts, sports, ethics, social interaction and good citizenship). Existing schools might split into 'science school' and 'culture school', reflected in distinct buildings and zones, separate administrative structures, and the recruitment of differently-specialized teaching personnel. Science school would be distinguished by its focus on education in disciplines which promote abstract systematic cognition. All students would spend some part of each day (how much would depend on their aptitude and motivation) in the 'science school'; experiencing a traditional-style, didactic, disciplined and rigorous academic education. The remainder of the students' time at school would be spent in the cultural division, which would focus on broader aspects, and aim to generate
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Approaches To Teaching Science in the Jordanian Primary School.
Qualter, Anne; Abu-Hola, I. R. A.
2000-01-01
Reports on a study of the influence of different approaches to teaching units from the Jordanian science curriculum on over 600 students from grades 6, 9, and 10. Trains a small sample of male and female teachers in the use of cooperative learning and lecture-demonstration approaches to teaching. (Contains 17 references.) (Author/YDS)
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2005-11-01
EIROforum presents the very best of European science teaching How can you weigh the Earth with a straw, a paperclip and a piece of thread? Why don't we really know what we see? How can a juggling act explain mathematics? These are but a few of the on-stage activities that will be shown at the EIROforum [1] Science on Stage Festival, to be held from 21 to 25 November at CERN in Geneva (Switzerland). With support from the European Commission, this international festival brings together around 500 science educators from 29 European countries to show how fascinating and entertaining science can be. "Science is fun! This is what this week-long event will show by presenting innovative methods of teaching science and demonstrations", says Helen Wilson from the European Space Agency and co-ordinator of the event. "At the festival, teachers have the chance to view things from a new perspective, to be entertained and enchanted by science", says Rolf Landua, Head of Education at CERN and Chairman of the event. "As well as taking to the stage, they set up stalls in fair-like surroundings to share their most successful teaching tricks." Workshops on themes as varied as "flying on stage", "the theatre of science", or "stem cell research" and "gamma-ray bursts", will give the attendees - teachers and other science educators - the chance to discuss and come up with solutions to the problem of growing disinterest for science in Europe. "A key element of the Science on Stage concept is to give teachers an up-to-date 'insider's view' of what is happening in big science, to tell them about new, highly diverse and interesting career opportunities for their pupils, and to create a European atmosphere where bright young people can meet and interact", says Colin Carlile, Director General of the Institut Laue-Langevin and current chairman of the EIROforum. At the end of the festival, the European Science Teaching Awards will be presented. The names of the winners will be made public on the
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Zirakparvar, N. A.; Sessa, J.; Ustunisik, G. K.; Nadeau, P. A.; Flores, K. E.; Ebel, D. S.
2013-12-01
It is estimated that by the year 2020 relative to 2009, there will be 28% more Earth Science jobs paying ≥ $75,000/year1 in the U.S.A. These jobs will require advanced degrees, but compared to all arts and science advanced degrees, the number of physical science M.S. and Ph.D. awarded per year decreased from 2.5% in 1980 to 1.5% in 20092. This decline is reflected on a smaller scale and at a younger age: in the New York City school system only 36% of all 8th graders have basic proficiency in science 3. These figures indicate that the lack achievement in science starts at a young age and then extends into higher education. Research has shown that students in grades 7 - 12 4,5 and in university level courses 6 both respond positively to high quality science teaching. However, much attention is focused on improving science teaching in grades 7- 12, whereas at many universities lower level science courses are taught by junior research and contingent faculty who typically lack formal training, and sometimes interest, in effective teaching. The danger here is that students might enter university intending to pursue geoscience degrees, but then encounter ineffective instructors, causing them to lose interest in geoscience and thus pursue other disciplines. The crux of the matter becomes how to improve the quality of university-level geoscience teaching, without losing sight of the major benchmark of success for research faculty - scholarly publications reporting innovative research results. In most cases, it would not be feasible to sidetrack the research goals of early career scientists by placing them into a formal teacher preparation program. But what happens when postdoctoral research scientists take an active role in clinical teacher preparation as part of their research appointments? The American Museum of Natural History's Masters of Arts in Teaching (AMNH-MAT) urban residency pilot program utilizes a unique approach to grade 7 - 12 Earth Science teacher
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Susantini, E.; Kurniasari, I.; Fauziah, A. N. M.; Prastowo, T.; Kholiq, A.; Rosdiana, L.
2018-01-01
Contextual teaching and learning/CTL presents new concepts in real-life experiences and situations where students can find out the meaningful relationship between abstract ideas and practical applications. Implementing contextual teaching by using scientific approach will foster teachers to find the constructive ways of delivering and organizing science content. This research developed an instructional video that represented a modeling of using a scientific approach in CTL. The aim of this research are to engage pre-service teachers in learning how to teach CTL and to show how pre-service teachers’ responses about learning how to teach CTL using an instructional video. The subjects of this research were ten pre-service teachers in Department of Natural Sciences, Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Indonesia. All subjects observed the instructional video which demonstrated contextual teaching and learning combined with the scientific approach as they completed a worksheet to analyze the video content. The results showed that pre-service teachers could learn to teach contextually as well as applying the scientific approach in science classroom through a modeling in the instructional video. They also responded that the instructional video could help them to learn to teach each component contextual teaching as well as scientific approach.
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Development of Socioscientific Issues-Based Teaching for Preservice Science Teachers
Prasart Nuangchalerm
2009-01-01
Problem statement: In the context of science education reform in Thailand, we need to prepare science teachers who can face science and social issues controversial; teachers can response the question socioscientific issues and let their students to meet the goal of science education. This study investigated the conception leading preservice science teachers approaching socioscientific issues-based teaching. The activities in classroom emphasized on peer discussion about science and social ref...
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The Multicultural Science Framework: Research on Innovative Two-Way Immersion Science Classrooms.
Hadi-Tabassum, Samina
2000-01-01
Reviews the different approaches to multicultural science teaching that have emerged in the past decade, focusing on the Spanish-English two-way immersion classroom, which meets the needs of Spanish speakers learning English and introduces students to the idea of collaboration across languages and cultures. Two urban two-way immersion classrooms…
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Science Teaching Methods Preferred by Grade 9 Students in Finland
Juuti, Kalle; Lavonen, Jari; Uitto, Anna; Byman, Reijo; Meisalo, Veijo
2010-01-01
Students find science relevant to society, but they do not find school science interesting. This survey study analyzes Finnish grade 9 students' actual experiences with science teaching methods and their preferences for how they would like to study science. The survey data were collected from 3,626 grade 9 students (1,772 girls and 1,832 boys)…
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Teaching Political Science through Memory Work
Jansson, Maria; Wendt, Maria; Ase, Cecilia
2009-01-01
In this article, we present the results of a research project where we have tried to elaborate more socially inclusive ways of teaching and learning political science by making use of a specific feminist method of analyzing social relations--memory work. As a method, memory work involves writing and interpreting stories of personal experience,…
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Addy, Tracie Marcella
2011-12-01
Across the United States institutions of higher education address educational reform by valuing scholarship that focuses on teaching and learning, especially in STEM fields. University science departments can encourage teaching scholarship by hiring science faculty with education specialties (SFES), individuals who have expertise in both science and science education. The goal of this study was to understand how the epistemological beliefs and teaching practices of SFES relate to national reform efforts in science teaching promoting student-centered instruction. The research questions guiding this investigation were: (1) What epistemological belief systems do science faculty with education specialties espouse concerning the teaching and learning of science?; and (2) What are the classroom practices of science faculty with education specialties? How are these practices congruent with the reform efforts described by the National Research Council (1996, 2001, 2003)? The theoretical framework guiding the study was interdisciplinarity, the integration of knowledge between two or more disciplines (science and science pedagogy). The research design employed mixed (qualitative and quantitative) approaches and focused on 25 volunteer SFES participants. The TBI, ATI, and RTOP were used to triangulate self-report and videotaped teaching vignettes, and develop profiles of SFES. Of the 25 SFES participants, 82 percent of their beliefs were transitional or student-centered beliefs. Seventy-two percent of the 25 SFES espoused more student-focused than teacher focused approaches. The classroom practices of 10 SFES were on average transitional in nature (at the boundary of student-focused and teacher-focused). The beliefs of SFES appeared to be influenced by the sizes of their courses, and were positive correlated with reform-based teaching practices. There was a relationship between the degree to which they implemented reform-based practice and their perceived level of
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Teaching science students to identify entrepreneurial opportunities
Nab, J.
2015-01-01
This dissertation describes a research project on teaching science students to identify entrepreneurial opportunities, which is a core competence for entrepreneurs that should be emphasized in education. This research consists of four studies. The first case study aims at finding design strategies
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Teaching science for public understanding: Developing decision-making abilities
Siegel, Marcelle A.
One of the most important challenges educators have is teaching students how to make decisions about complex issues. In this study, methods designed to enhance students' decision-making skills and attitudes were investigated. An issue-oriented science curriculum was partly replaced with activities designed by the experimenter. The first objective of the study was to examine the effects of an instructional method to increase students' use of relevant scientific evidence in their decisions. The second goal of the research was to test whether the instructional activities could promote students' beliefs that science is relevant to them, because attitudes have been shown to affect students' performance and persistence (Schommer, 1994). Third, the study was designed to determine whether the instructional activities would affect students' beliefs that their intelligence is not fixed but can grow; this question is based on Dweck and Leggett's (1988) definition of two orientations toward intelligence---entity theorists and incremental theorists (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Dweck & Henderson, 1989). Two urban high-school classrooms participated in this study. Tenth graders examined scientific materials about current issues involving technology and society. Instructional materials on decision making were prepared for one class of students to enhance their regular issue-oriented course, Science and Sustainability. A computer program, called Convince Me (Schank, Ranney & Hoadley, 1996), provided scaffolding for making an evidence-based decision. The experimental group's activities also included pen-and-paper lessons on decision making and the effect of experience on the structure of the brain. The control class continued to engage in Science and Sustainability decision-making activities during the time the experimental class completed the treatment. The control group did not show significant improvement on decision-making tasks, and the experimental group showed marginally
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Baron, Alex; Chen, Hsiao-Lan Sharon
2012-03-01
Worldwide proliferation of pedagogical innovations creates expanding potential in the field of science education. While some teachers effectively improve students' scientific learning, others struggle to achieve desirable student outcomes. This study explores a Taiwanese science teacher's ability to effectively enhance her students' science learning. The authors visited a Taipei city primary school class taught by an experienced science teacher during a 4-week unit on astronomy, with a total of eight, 90-minute periods. Research methods employed in this study included video capture of each class as well as reflective interviews with the instructor, eliciting the teacher's reflection upon both her pedagogical choices and the perceived results of these choices. We report that the teacher successfully teaches science by creatively diverging from culturally generated educational expectations. Although the pedagogical techniques and ideas enumerated in the study are relevant specifically to Taiwan, creative cultural divergence might be replicated to improve science teaching worldwide.
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Arur, Aditi Ashok
This dissertation is an ethnographic case study of a community-based teaching program (CBTP) in public health at a medical college in South India that explored how the CBTP produced particular ways of seeing and understanding rural and urban poor communities. Drawing from critical, feminist, and postcolonial scholars, I suggest that the knowledge produced in the CBTP can be understood as "science/fictions", that is, as cultural texts shaped by transnational development discourses as well as medical teachers' and students' sociospatial imaginations of the rural and urban poor. I explored how these science/fictions mediated medical students' performative actions and interactions with a rural and an urban poor community in the context of the CBTP. At the same time, I also examined how knowledge produced in students' encounters with these communities disrupted their naturalized understandings about these communities, and how it was taken up to renarrativize science/fictions anew. Data collection and analyses procedures were informed by critical ethnographic and critical discourse analysis approaches. Data sources includes field notes constructed from observations of the CBTP, interviews with medical teachers and students, and curricular texts including the standardized national textbook of public health. The findings of this study illustrate how the CBTP staged the government and technology as central actors in the production of healthy bodies, communities, and environments, and implicitly positioned medical teachers and students as productive citizens of a modern nation while rural and urban poor communities were characterized sometimes as empowered, and at other times as not-yet-modern and in need of reform. However, the community also constituted an alternate pedagogical site of engagement in that students' encounters with community members disrupted students' assumptions about these communities to an extent. Nevertheless, institutionalized practices of assessment
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Interaction between Science Teaching Orientation and Pedagogical Content Knowledge Components
Demirdögen, Betül
2016-01-01
The purpose of this case study is to delve into the complexities of how preservice science teachers' science teaching orientations, viewed as an interrelated set of beliefs, interact with the other components of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Eight preservice science teachers participated in the study. Qualitative data were collected in the…
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Shahzadi, Uzma; Shaheen, Gulnaz; Shah, Ashfaque Ahmed
2012-01-01
The study was intended to compare the quality of teaching learning process in the faculty of social science and science at University of Sargodha. This study was descriptive and quantitative in nature. The objectives of the study were to compare the quality of teaching learning process in the faculty of social science and science at University of…
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Fleshman, Robin Earle
This case study seeks to explore three research questions: (1) What science teaching and learning processes, perspectives, and cultures exist within the science classroom of an urban portfolio community high school? (2) In what ways does the portfolio-based approach prepare high school students of color for college level science coursework, laboratory work, and assessment? (3) Are portfolio community high school students of color college ready? Is there a relationship between students' science and mathematics performance and college readiness? The overarching objectives of the study are to learn, understand, and describe an urban portfolio community high school as it relates to science assessment and college readiness; to understand how the administration, teachers, and alumni perceive the use of portfolios in science learning and assessment; and to understand how alumni view their preparation and readiness for college and college science coursework, laboratory work, and assessments. The theoretical framework of this study encompasses four theories: critical theory, contextual assessment, self-regulated learning, and ethic of care. Because the urban high school studied partnered with a community-based organization (CBO), it identifies as a community school. Therefore, I provide context regarding the concept, culture, and services of community schools. Case study is the research design I used to explore in-depth this urban portfolio community high school, which involved mixed methods for data collection and analysis. In total, six alumni/current college students, five school members (administrators and teachers), and three CBO members (administrators, including myself) participated in the study. In addition to school artefacts and student portfolios collected, classroom and portfolio panel presentation observations and 13 semi-structured interviews were conducted to understand the portfolio-based approach as it pertains to science learning and assessment and college
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Cairns, Dean; Areepattamannil, Shaljan
2017-06-01
This study, drawing on data from the third cycle of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and employing three-level hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) as an analytic strategy, examined the relations of inquiry-based science teaching to science achievement and dispositions toward science among 170,474 15-year-old students from 4780 schools in 54 countries across the globe. The results of the HLM analyses, after accounting for student-, school-, and country-level demographic characteristics and students' dispositions toward science, revealed that inquiry-based science teaching was significantly negatively related to science achievement. In contrast, inquiry-based science teaching was significantly positively associated with dispositions toward science, such as interest in and enjoyment of science learning, instrumental and future-oriented science motivation, and science self-concept and self-efficacy. Implications of the findings for policy and practice are discussed.
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Bulunuz, Mizrap
2012-01-01
This research studied the development of preservice teachers' understandings and attitudes about teaching science through playful experiences. Subjects were 94 senior preservice teachers in two sections of a science methods class on teaching preschool children. Data sources were semi-structured interviews and open-ended questionnaire at the…
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Science of Materials: A Case Study of Intentional Teaching in the Early Years
Hackling, Mark; Barratt-Pugh, Caroline
2012-01-01
Australia's Early Years Learning Framework and leading international researchers argue for more intentional and purposeful teaching of science in the early years. This case study of exemplary practice illustrates intentional teaching of science materials which opened-up learning opportunities in literacy and number. Student-led hands-on…
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Laidlaw, Kristy-Rebecca; Taylor, Neil; Fletcher, Peter
2009-01-01
The teaching of science has long been viewed as problematic within primary classrooms across Australia. This study explores the teaching of primary science in an area of rural and regional Australia (the New England Region of New South Wales) where small populations, remote settings and isolation can make the teaching of science and other Key…
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The Role of Technology in Science Teaching Activities: Web Based Teaching Applications
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Fatma ALKAN
2016-12-01
Full Text Available 2015 Abstract In this research the attitudes of pre-service teachers studying at Hacettepe University, Division of Science Education towards the importance of technological equipment in chemistry education activities and how effective they find technology in teaching different skills and applications have been examined. Pre-test/post-test control group design has been used in the research. In the experimental group Titrimetric Analysis has been conducted with simulations supported web based instruction and in the control group with teacher-centered instruction. In general, it has been found out that the attitudes of pre-service teachers in experiment group towards the importance of technological equipment as a teaching tool in chemistry are more positive than those in control group. In other words, statistically significant differences have occurred in attitudes of pre-service teachers in both experiment and control group towards the role of technology in chemistry teaching activities after web based teaching.
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Hsu, Pei-Ling
2016-01-01
The high attrition rate of new science teachers demonstrates the urgent need to incorporate effective practices in teacher preparation programs to better equip preservice science teachers. The purpose of the study is to demonstrate a way to enrich preservice science teachers' preparation by incorporating informal science teaching practice into…
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Changes in Science Teaching Self-Efficacy among Primary Teacher Education Students
Palmer, David; Dixon, Jeanette; Archer, Jennifer
2015-01-01
Many preservice primary teachers have low self-efficacy for science teaching. Although science methods courses have often been shown to enhance self-efficacy, science content courses have been relatively ineffective in this respect. This study investigated whether a tailored science content course would enhance self-efficacy. The participants were…
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The College Science Learning Cycle: An Instructional Model for Reformed Teaching.
Withers, Michelle
2016-01-01
Finding the time for developing or locating new class materials is one of the biggest barriers for instructors reforming their teaching approaches. Even instructors who have taken part in training workshops may feel overwhelmed by the task of transforming passive lecture content to engaging learning activities. Learning cycles have been instrumental in helping K-12 science teachers design effective instruction for decades. This paper introduces the College Science Learning Cycle adapted from the popular Biological Sciences Curriculum Study 5E to help science, technology, engineering, and mathematics faculty develop course materials to support active, student-centered teaching approaches in their classrooms. The learning cycle is embedded in backward design, a learning outcomes-oriented instructional design approach, and is accompanied by resources and examples to help faculty transform their teaching in a time-efficient manner. © 2016 M. Withers. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2016 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).
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Shahali, Edy H. M.; Halim, Lilia; Treagust, David F.; Won, Mihye; Chandrasegaran, A. L.
2017-04-01
This study investigated the understanding of science process skills (SPS) of 329 science teachers from 52 primary schools selected by random sampling. The understanding of SPS was measured in terms of conceptual and operational aspects of SPS using an instrument called the Science Process Skills Questionnaire (SPSQ) with a Cronbach's alpha reliability of 0.88. The findings showed that the teachers' conceptual understanding of SPS was much weaker than their practical application of SPS. The teachers' understanding of SPS differed by their teaching qualifications but not so much by their teaching experience. Emphasis needs to be given to both conceptual and operational understanding of SPS during pre-service and in-service teacher education to enable science teachers to use the skills and implement inquiry-based lessons in schools.
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Preparing prospective physics teachers to teach integrated science in junior high school
Wiyanto; Hartono; Nugroho, S. E.
2018-03-01
The physics education study program especially prepares its students to teach physics in senior high school, however in reality many its graduates have become science teachers in junior high school. Therefore introducing integrated science to prospective physics teachers is important, because based on the curriculum, science in the junior high school should be taught integratedly. This study analyzed integrated science teaching materials that developed by prospective physics teachers. Results from this study showed that majority of the integration materials that developed by the prospective physics teachers focused on topic with an overlapping concept or theme as connecting between two or three subjects.
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Jetty, Lauren E.
The purpose of this two-phase, sequential explanatory mixed-methods study was to understand and explain the variation seen in secondary science teachers' enactment of reform-based instructional practices. Utilizing teacher socialization theory, this mixed-methods analysis was conducted to determine the relative influence of secondary science teachers' characteristics, backgrounds and experiences across their teacher development to explain the range of teaching practices exhibited by graduates from three reform-oriented teacher preparation programs. Data for this study were obtained from the Investigating the Meaningfulness of Preservice Programs Across the Continuum of Teaching (IMPPACT) Project, a multi-university, longitudinal study funded by NSF. In the first quantitative phase of the study, data for the sample (N=120) were collected from three surveys from the IMPPACT Project database. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to examine the separate as well as the combined influence of factors such as teachers' personal and professional background characteristics, beliefs about reform-based science teaching, feelings of preparedness to teach science, school context, school culture and climate of professional learning, and influences of the policy environment on the teachers' use of reform-based instructional practices. Findings indicate three blocks of variables, professional background, beliefs/efficacy, and local school context added significant contribution to explaining nearly 38% of the variation in secondary science teachers' use of reform-based instructional practices. The five variables that significantly contributed to explaining variation in teachers' use of reform-based instructional practices in the full model were, university of teacher preparation, sense of preparation for teaching science, the quality of professional development, science content focused professional, and the perceived level of professional autonomy. Using the results
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Tastan Kirik, Özgecan
2013-01-01
This study explores the science teaching efficacy beliefs of preservice elementary teachers and the relationship between efficacy beliefs and multiple factors such as antecedent factors (participation in extracurricular activities and number of science and science teaching methods courses taken), conceptual understanding, classroom management…
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Tips and Tools for Teaching Planetary Science
Schneider, N. M.
2011-10-01
The poster will describe handson exercises with demonstrations, clicker questions and discussion to demonstrate how to help students understand planets on a deeper conceptual level. We'll also discuss ways to take the latest discoveries beyond "wow" and turn them into teachable moments. The goal is to give modern strategies for teaching planetary science, emphasizing physical concepts and comparative principles. All will be given digital copies of video clips, demonstration descriptions, clicker questions, web links and powerpoint slidesets on recent planetary science discoveries.
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Teaching 5th grade science for aesthetic understanding
Girod, Mark A.
Many scientists speak with great zeal about the role of aesthetics and beauty in their science and inquiry. Few systematic efforts have been made to teach science in ways that appeal directly to aesthetics and this research is designed to do just that. Drawing from the aesthetic theory of Dewey, I describe an analytic lens called learning for aesthetic understanding that finds power in the degree to which our perceptions of the world are transformed, our interests and enthusiasm piqued, and our actions changed as we seek further experiences in the world. This learning theory is contrasted against two other current and popular theories of science learning, that of learning for conceptual understanding via conceptual change theory and learning for a language-oriented or discourse-based understanding. After a lengthy articulation of the pedagogical strategies used to teach for aesthetic understanding the research is described in which comparisons are drawn between students in two 5th grade classrooms---one taught for the goal of conceptual understanding and the other taught for the goal of aesthetic understanding. Results of this comparison show that more students in the treatment classroom had aesthetic experiences with science ideas and came to an aesthetic understanding when studying weather, erosion, and structure of matter than students in the control group. Also statistically significant effects are shown on measures of interest, affect, and efficacy for students in the treatment class. On measures of conceptual understanding it appears that treatment class students learned more and forgot less over time than control class students. The effect of the treatment does not generally depend on gender, ethnicity, or prior achievement except in students' identity beliefs about themselves as science learners. In this case, a significant interaction for treatment class females on science identity beliefs did occur. A discussion of these results as well as elaboration and
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Bahcivan, Eralp; Cobern, William W.
2016-01-01
This study investigated comprehensive science teaching belief systems and their relation to science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and teaching practices. Rokeach's (1968) belief system was used as a framework for representing the hierarchy among in-service teachers' teaching beliefs. This study employed a multiple case study design with…
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Grace, Shamarion Gladys
This is a three-article five chapter doctoral dissertation. The overall purpose of this three-pronged study is to engage a middle school science teacher and students in formal-informal science education within the context of a science standards-based curriculum and Urban Science Center. The goals of the study were: (1) to characterize the conversations of formal and informal science educators as they attempted to implement a standards-based curriculum augmented with science center exhibits; (2) to study the classroom discourse between the teacher and students that foster the development of common knowledge in science and student understanding of the concept of energy before observing science center exhibits on energy; (3) to investigate whether or not a standards-driven, project-based Investigating and Questioning our World through Science and Technology (IQWST) curriculum unit on forms and transformation of energy augmented with science center exhibits had a significant effect on urban African-American seventh grade students' achievement and learning. Overall, the study consisted of a mixed-method approach. Article one consists of a case study featuring semi-structured interviews and field notes. Article two consists of documenting and interpreting teacher-students' classroom discourse. Article three consists of qualitative methods (classroom discussion, focus group interviews, student video creation) and quantitative methods (multiple choice and open-ended questions). Oral discourses in all three studies were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. In article one, the community of educators' conversations were critically analyzed to discern the challenges educators encountered when they attempted to connect school curriculum to energy exhibits at the Urban Science Center. The five challenges that characterize the emergence of a third space were as follows: (a) science terminology for lesson focus, (b) "dumb-down" of science exhibits, (c) exploration distracts
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The Use of Didactic Resources as a Strategy in Sciences and Biology Teaching
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Mario Marcos Lopes
2013-06-01
Full Text Available The teaching of Science and Biology at school is recent, and has been practiced according to the different educational proposals, that have been developed along the last decades. The LDB (Lei nº 9.394, December, 20, 1996 proposes a pedagogical project that goes beyond the blackboard, chalk and teacher's talk in order to better prepare the students for the challenges of the labor market. Thus, this paper aims at contributing to the discussion on the teaching practice and teaching resources that can help the teaching and learning process, especially in the disciplines of Science and Biology. Based on a qualitative approach, this research aims at contributing to the construction of new knowledge that can be generated from a careful and critical look at the documentary sources. Finally, the great challenge of the educator is to make the teaching of Science and Biology pleasurable and exciting, being able to develop in students the scientific knowledge and the taste for these school subjects.
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Teaching science and ethics to undergraduates: a multidisciplinary approach.
McGowan, Alan H
2013-06-01
The teaching of the ethical implications of scientific advances in science courses for undergraduates has significant advantages for both science and non-science majors. The article describes three courses taught by the author as examples of the concept, and examines the disadvantages as well as the advantages. A significant advantage of this approach is that many students take the courses primarily because of the ethical component who would not otherwise take science. A disadvantage is less time in the course for the science; arguably, this is outweighed by the greater retention of the science when it is put into context.
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Markic, Silvija; Eilks, Ingo
2012-03-01
The study presented in this paper integrates data from four combined research studies, which are both qualitative and quantitative in nature. The studies describe freshman science student teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning. These freshmen intend to become teachers in Germany in one of four science teaching domains (secondary biology, chemistry, and physics, respectively, as well as primary school science). The qualitative data from the first study are based on student teachers' drawings of themselves in teaching situations. It was formulated using Grounded Theory to test three scales: Beliefs about Classroom Organisation, Beliefs about Teaching Objectives, and Epistemological Beliefs. Three further quantitative studies give insight into student teachers' curricular beliefs, their beliefs about the nature of science itself, and about the student- and/or teacher-centredness of science teaching. This paper describes a design to integrate all these data within a mixed methods framework. The aim of the current study is to describe a broad, triangulated picture of freshman science student teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning within their respective science teaching domain. The study reveals clear tendencies between the sub-groups. The results suggest that freshman chemistry and-even more pronouncedly-freshman physics student teachers profess quite traditional beliefs about science teaching and learning. Biology and primary school student teachers express beliefs about their subjects which are more in line with modern educational theory. The mixed methods approach towards the student teachers' beliefs is reflected upon and implications for science education and science teacher education are discussed.
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Zhou, George; Xu, Judy
2017-01-01
Inquiry-based teaching has become the most recommended approach in science education for a few decades; however, it is not a common practice yet in k-12 school classrooms. In order to prepare future teachers to teach science through inquiry, a Microteaching Lesson Study (MLS) approach was employed in our science methods courses. Instead of asking…
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Stateless Programming as a Motif for Teaching Computer Science
Cohen, Avi
2004-01-01
With the development of XML Web Services, the Internet could become an integral part of and the basis for teaching computer science and software engineering. The approach has been applied to a university course for students studying introduction to computer science from the point of view of software development in a stateless, Internet…
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Roden, Julie A; Jakob, Susanne; Roehrig, Casey; Brenner, Tamara J
2018-03-12
In the past ten years, increasing evidence has demonstrated that scientific teaching and active learning improve student retention and learning gains in the sciences. Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), who play an important role in undergraduate education at many universities, require training in these methods to encourage implementation, long-term adoption, and advocacy. Here, we describe the design and evaluation of a two-day training workshop for first-year GTAs in the life sciences. This workshop combines instruction in current research and theory supporting teaching science through active learning as well as opportunities for participants to practice teaching and receive feedback from peers and mentors. Postworkshop assessments indicated that GTA participants' knowledge of key topics increased during the workshop. In follow-up evaluations, participants reported that the workshop helped them prepare for teaching. This workshop design can easily be adapted to a wide range of science disciplines. Overall, the workshop prepares graduate students to engage, include, and support undergraduates from a variety of backgrounds when teaching in the sciences. © 2018 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 2018. © 2018 The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
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Katz, Phyllis; Randy McGinnis, J.; Riedinger, Kelly; Marbach-Ad, Gili; Dai, Amy
2013-12-01
In case studies of two first-year elementary classroom teachers, we explored the influence of informal science education (ISE) they experienced in their teacher education program. Our theoretical lens was identity development, delimited to classroom science teaching. We used complementary data collection methods and analysis, including interviews, electronic communications, and drawing prompts. We found that our two participants referenced as important the ISE experiences in their development of classroom science identities that included resilience, excitement and engagement in science teaching and learning-qualities that are emphasized in ISE contexts. The data support our conclusion that the ISE experiences proved especially memorable to teacher education interns during the implementation of the No Child Left Behind policy which concentrated on school-tested subjects other than science.
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Grinell, Smith; Rabin, Colette
2017-01-01
The goal of this project was to motivate pre-service elementary teachers to commit to spending significant instructional time on science in their future classrooms despite their self-assessed lack of confidence about teaching science and other impediments (e.g., high-stakes testing practices that value other subjects over science). Pre-service…
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Bergman, Daniel J.; Morphew, Jason
2015-01-01
The preparation of elementary teachers to successfully teach science in their classrooms is a central issue in science education. The teacher preparation program at a large Midwestern university was modified to include a new science content course aimed at this need. A pre-/postassessment research model involved participants (N = 154) completing a…
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Learning and Teaching about the Nature of Science through Process Skills
Mulvey, Bridget K.
2012-01-01
This dissertation, a three-paper set, explored whether the process skills-based approach to nature of science instruction improves teachers' understandings, intentions to teach, and instructional practice related to the nature of science. The first paper examined the nature of science views of 53 preservice science teachers before and after a…
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Cataract surgery audit at an Australian urban teaching hospital.
Kahawita, Shyalle K; Goggin, Michael
2015-08-01
To provide local data on visual acuity and surgical outcomes for cataract surgery performed in an Australian teaching hospital. Continuous audit over 7 years in a public teaching hospital. A total of 3740 eyes had cataract surgery performed at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, South Australia, from May 2006 to September 2013. Visual acuity and complication rates were recorded for cataract surgery cases operated on between May 2006 and September 2013 on a digital database with data entry contemporaneous with final follow-up. Visual acuity and surgical complications. Of the patients, 91.4% achieved postoperative best-measured vision better than preoperative best-measured vision. The rate of posterior capsular tear was 2.59%, endophthalmitis was 0.11% and the overall complication rate was 11.7%. This audit is the first to document modern cataract surgery, overwhelmingly dominated by phacoemulsification in an Australian population and can be used to benchmark cataract surgery outcome in an urban Australian population. © 2015 Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists.
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Teaching for Creativity by Science Teachers in Grades 5-10
Al-Abdali, Nasser S.; Al-Balushi, Sulaiman M.
2016-01-01
This classroom observation study explored how science teachers (N = 22) teach for creativity in grades 5-10 in Oman. We designed an observation form with 4 main categories that targeted the instructional practices related to teaching for creativity: questioning strategy, teacher's responses to students' ideas, classroom activities to support…
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Culturally Responsive Physics Teaching: Content or Conveyance?
Stewart, Taquan Seth
2011-12-01
This study, in response to the achievement gap in science and the lack of significant numbers of ethnic minorities in science fields, examined the effects of a Cultural Responsiveness Workshop and intervention on teacher practice, teacher discourse, and student perceptions and connectedness to physics. The sample was comprised of three high school physics teachers---2 teaching five 12th grade sections and one teaching five 9th grade sections of physics---in two separate urban schools in the same section of South Los Angeles. My research design was qualitative and examined eight culturally responsive indicators that, when applied, may increase student engagement and level of connectedness in urban high school physics classrooms: (1) proximity to students, (2) the ways in which they encouraged students, (3) positive reinforcement techniques, (4) modifications for individual learning types, (5) use of children's strengths, (6) scaffolding, (7) displaying an understanding of diverse cultures, and (8) displaying a personal regard for students of diverse cultures. When the study was completed and data was collected, I identified trends in the change in teacher discourse, behaviors, instructional practice, and perceptions of student engagement. My findings, discovered through classroom observations and focus groups, indicated a positive shift in each. Accompanying these shifts were positive shifts in level of student engagement and level of connectedness. There were also the unexpected findings of the need for teachers to receive feedback in a safe collaborative space and the use of culturally responsive teaching as a tool for behavioral management. My study found that there is a definite relationship between the use of the culturally responsive indicators observed, student engagement and student level of connectedness to physics when implemented in urban high school science classrooms.
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Al-Balushi, Sulaiman M.; Al-Abdali, Nasser S.
2015-08-01
This study describes a distance learning professional development program that we designed for the purpose of training science teachers to teach for creativity. The Moodle platform was used to host the training. To ensure that trainees would benefit from this distance learning program, we designed the instructional activities according to the Community of Inquiry framework, which consists of three main elements: cognitive presence, teaching presence and social presence. Nineteen science teachers in Oman engaged in the training, which lasted for 36 working days. To measure the effectiveness of the training program on science teachers' instructional practices related to teaching for creativity, we used a pre-post one-group quasi-experimental design. An observation form was used to assess and document participants' practices. Paired t test results showed that there was a statistically significant improvement in science teachers' practices related to teaching for creativity. During the implementation of the training program, we observed that cognitive presence and teaching presence were the two most successful elements of the program. The training program involved participants in different instructional activities which were designed to help them understand the role of creativity in science; a wide range of instructional techniques designed to nurture students' creativity was discussed. The program also provided participants with opportunities to relate their practices to teaching for creativity and to design and implement lesson plans geared toward teaching for creativity. However, the social presence element was not satisfying. Participants' virtual interactions with each other and their engagement in online discussion forums were limited. This paper provides some recommendations to overcome such pitfalls.
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Keen-Rhinehart, E.; Eisen, A.; Eaton, D.; McCormack, K.
2009-01-01
Acquiring a faculty position in academia is extremely competitive and now typically requires more than just solid research skills and knowledge of one’s field. Recruiting institutions currently desire new faculty that can teach effectively, but few postdoctoral positions provide any training in teaching methods. Fellowships in Research and Science Teaching (FIRST) is a successful postdoctoral training program funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) providing training in both research and teaching methodology. The FIRST program provides fellows with outstanding interdisciplinary biomedical research training in fields such as neuroscience. The postdoctoral research experience is integrated with a teaching program which includes a How to Teach course, instruction in classroom technology and course development and mentored teaching. During their mentored teaching experiences, fellows are encouraged to explore innovative teaching methodologies and to perform science teaching research to improve classroom learning. FIRST fellows teaching neuroscience to undergraduates have observed that many of these students have difficulty with the topic of neuroscience. Therefore, we investigated the effects of interactive teaching methods for this topic. We tested two interactive teaching methodologies to determine if they would improve learning and retention of this information when compared with standard lectures. The interactive methods for teaching action potentials increased understanding and retention. Therefore, FIRST provides excellent teaching training, partly by enhancing the ability of fellows to integrate innovative teaching methods into their instruction. This training in turn provides fellows that matriculate from this program more of the characteristics that hiring institutions desire in their new faculty. PMID:23493377
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Teacher students' dilemmas when teaching science through inquiry
Krämer, Philipp; Nessler, Stefan H.; Schlüter, Kirsten
2015-09-01
Background: Inquiry-based science education (IBSE) is suitable to teach scientific contents as well as to foster scientific skills. Similar conclusions are drawn by studies with respect to scientific literacy, motivational aspects, vocabulary knowledge, conceptual understandings, critical thinking, and attitudes toward science. Nevertheless, IBSE is rarely adopted in schools. Often barriers for teachers account for this lack, with the result that even good teachers struggle to teach science as inquiry. More importantly, studies indicate that several barriers and constraints could be ascribed to problems teacher students have at the university stage. Purpose: The purpose of this explorative investigation is to examine the problems teacher students have when teaching science through inquiry. In order to draw a holistic picture of these problems, we identified problems from three different points of view leading to the research question: What problems regarding IBSE do teacher students have from an objective, a subjective, and a self-reflective perspective? Design & method: Using video analysis and observation tools as well as qualitative content analysis and open questionnaires we identified problems from each perspective. Results: The objectively stated problems comprise the lack of essential features of IBSE especially concerning 'Supporting pupils' own investigations' and 'Guiding analysis and conclusions.' The subjectively perceived problems comprise concerns about 'Teachers' abilities' and 'Pupils' abilities,' 'Differentiated instruction' and institutional frame 'Conditions' while the self-reflectively noticed problems mainly comprise concerns about 'Allowing inquiry,' 'Instructional Aspects,' and 'Pupils' behavior.' Conclusions: Each of the three different perspectives provides plenty of problems, partially overlapping, partially complementing one another, and partially revealing completely new problems. Consequently, teacher educators have to consider these
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The distinctiveness and effectiveness of science teaching in the Malaysian `Smart school'
Tek Ong, Eng; Ruthven, Kenneth
2010-04-01
A recent reform initiative in the Malaysian educational system has sought to develop 'Smart schools', intended to better prepare students for adult life in a developing economy and to increase the flow of young people prepared for scientific and technological careers. The study reported in this paper examined lower-secondary science teaching, comparing two Smart schools officially judged to be successfully implementing the reform, with two neighbouring mainstream schools. Through analysis of classroom observation, supported by teacher interview and student report, the distinctive features of science teaching in the Smart schools were found to be use of ICT-based resources and of student-centred approaches, often intertwined to provide extended support for learning; accompanied by a near absence of the note giving and copying prevalent in the mainstream schools. Through analysis of measures of student attitude to science, science process skills and general science attainment, science teaching in Smart schools was found to be relatively effective overall. However, while the positive attitude effect was general, both academic effects were much weaker amongst students who had been of lower attainment on entry to secondary school.
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Leon Cooper's Perspective on Teaching Science: An Interview Study
Niaz, Mansoor; Klassen, Stephen; McMillan, Barbara; Metz, Don
2010-01-01
The authors of this paper portray the perspective of Professor Leon Cooper, a theoretical physicist, Nobel laureate, active researcher, and physics textbook author, on teaching science and on the nature of science (NOS). The views presented emerged from an interview prepared by the authors and responded to in writing by Professor Cooper. Based on…
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Animated movies and cartoons in teaching science topics
Jeraj, Tina; Susman, Katarina
2016-01-01
Children meet cartoons in their early childhood in their home environment and afterwards also in their school environment. Cartoons and animated movies in teaching process strongly motivates and evoke good learning processes through watching, discussing and active participation in accompanying classroom activities. In this contribution, the survey about the presence of science topics and science sli-ups (errors, in contrary with reality) in selected cartoons is presented. In the research, ten...
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Sloan, H.; Drantch, K.; Steenhuis, J.
2006-12-01
We present an NSF-funded collaborative formal-informal partnership for urban Earth science teacher preparation and professional development. This model brings together The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and Brooklyn and Lehman College of the City University of New York (CUNY) to address science-impoverished classrooms that lack highly qualified teachers by focusing on Earth science teacher certification. Project design was based on identified needs in the local communities and schools, careful analysis of content knowledge mastery required for Earth science teacher certification, and existing impediments to certification. The problem-based approach required partners to push policy envelopes and to invent new ways of articulating content and pedagogy at both intra- and inter-institutional levels. One key element of the project is involvement of the local board of education, teachers, and administrators in initial design and ongoing assessment. Project components include formal Earth systems science courses, a summer institute primarily led and delivered by AMNH scientists through an informal series of lectures coupled to workshops led by AMNH educators, a mechanism for assigning course credit for informal experiences, development of new teaching approaches that include teacher action plans and an external program of evaluation. The principal research strand of this project focuses on the resulting model for formal-informal teacher education partnership, the project's impact on participating teachers, policy issues surrounding the model and the changes required for its development and implementation, and its potential for Earth science education reform. As the grant funded portion of the project draws to a close we begin to analyze data collected over the past 3 years. Third-year findings of the project's external evaluation indicate that the problem-based approach has been highly successful, particularly its impact on participating teachers. In addition
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McInerney, Patricia A; Green-Thompson, Lionel P
2017-04-01
The objective of this scoping review is to determine the theories of teaching and learning, and/or models and/or methods used in teaching in postgraduate education in the health sciences. The longer term objective is to use the information gathered to design a workshop for teachers of postgraduate students.The question that this review seeks to answer is: what theories of teaching and learning, and/or models and/or methods of teaching are used in postgraduate teaching?
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Teaching science content in nursing programs in Australia: a cross-sectional survey of academics.
Birks, Melanie; Ralph, Nicholas; Cant, Robyn; Hillman, Elspeth; Chun Tie, Ylona
2015-01-01
Professional nursing practice is informed by biological, social and behavioural sciences. In undergraduate pre-registration nursing programs, biological sciences typically include anatomy, physiology, microbiology, chemistry, physics and pharmacology. The current gap in the literature results in a lack of information about the content and depth of biological sciences being taught in nursing curricula. The aim of this study was to establish what priority is given to the teaching of science topics in these programs in order to inform an understanding of the relative importance placed on this subject area in contemporary nursing education. This study employed a cross-sectional survey method. This paper reports on the first phase of a larger project examining science content in nursing programs. An existing questionnaire was modified and delivered online for completion by academics who teach science to nurses in these programs. This paper reports on the relative priority given by respondents to the teaching of 177 topics contained in the questionnaire. Of the relatively small population of academics who teach science to nursing students, thirty (n = 30) completed the survey. Findings indicate strong support for the teaching of science in these programs, with particular priority given to the basic concepts of bioscience and gross system anatomy. Of concern, most science subject areas outside of these domains were ranked as being of moderate or low priority. While the small sample size limited the conclusions able to be drawn from this study, the findings supported previous studies that indicated inadequacies in the teaching of science content in nursing curricula. Nevertheless, these findings have raised questions about the current philosophy that underpins nursing education in Australia and whether existing practices are clearly focused on preparing students for the demands of contemporary nursing practice. Academics responsible for the design and implementation of
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Approaches to Teaching Plant Nutrition. Children's Learning in Science Project.
Leeds Univ. (England). Centre for Studies in Science and Mathematics Education.
During the period 1984-1986, over 30 teachers from the Yorkshire (England) region have worked in collaboration with the Children's Learning in Science Project (CLIS) developing and testing teaching schemes in the areas of energy, particle theory, and plant nutrition. The project is based upon the constructivist approach to teaching. This document…
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Daily practical activities and science teaching at EJA: Teacher and students' perception
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Denise Westphal Merazzi
2007-06-01
Full Text Available The main theme of this paper is the science teaching in Adults and Youth Education. It was investigated the students' perceptions of adult and youth education (elementary school and their teachers, from science content's development through the works involving practical activities of everyday life. In this context, the methodology used in the research process was based on a survey of qualitative and quantitative approach, with hermeneutic content analysis' methodology and technique. In quantitative terms, we used the average ranking and statistical tests of Wilcoxon. Analyzing the data obtained, it was observed that the use of practical activities in science teaching in adult education is a satisfactory strategy for teaching and learning process and that there is a need to instill these practices in young and adults' education
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Ways to prepare future teachers to teach science in multicultural classrooms
Billingsley, Berry
2016-06-01
Roussel De Carvalho uses the notion of superdiversity to draw attention to some of the pedagogical implications of teaching science in multicultural schools in cosmopolitan cities such as London. De Carvalho makes the case that if superdiverse classrooms exist then Science Initial Teacher Education has a role to play in helping future science teachers to become more knowledgeable and reflective about how to teach school students with a range of worldviews and religious beliefs. The aim of this paper is to take that proposition a step further by considering what the aims and content of a session in teacher education might be. The focus is on helping future teachers develop strategies to teach school students to think critically about the nature of science and what it means to have a scientific worldview. The paper draws on data gathered during an interview study with 28 students at five secondary schools in England. The data was analysed to discover students' perceptions of science and their perceptions of the way that science responds to big questions about being human. The findings are used to inform a set of three strategies that teachers could use to help young people progress in their understanding of the nature of science. These strategies together with the conceptual framework that underpins them are used to develop a perspective on what kinds of pedagogical content knowledge teacher education might usefully provide.
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Utilization of Smartphones in Science Teaching and Learning in Selected Universities in Ghana
Twum, Rosemary
2017-01-01
This study was designed to examine the use of mobile phone, a widespread technology, and determined how this technology influences science students' learning. The study intended to examine the use of smartphones in science teaching and learning and propose of model in the use of smartphones for teaching and learning. The research design employed…
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The Effectiveness of Traditional and 21st Century Teaching Tools on Students' Science Learning
Bellflower, Julie V.
Any student seeking a high school diploma from the public school system in one U.S. state must pass the state's high school graduation test. In 2009, only 88% of students at one high school in the state met the basic proficiency requirements on the science portion of the test. Because improved science education has been identified as an explicit national goal, the purpose of this mixed methods study was to determine whether traditional teaching tools (notes, lecture, and textbook) or 21st century teaching tools (online tutorials, video games, YouTube, and virtual labs) lead to greater gains in students' science learning. Bruner's constructivist and Bandura's social cognitive theories served as the foundations for the study. Quantitative research questions were used to investigate the relationship between the type of teaching tools used and student learning gains. Quantitative data from students' pre and posttests were collected and analyzed using a dependent samples t-test. Qualitative data were collected through a focus group interview and participant journals. Analysis of the qualitative data included coding the data and writing a descriptive narrative to convey the findings. Results showed no statistically significant differences in students' science achievement: both types of teaching tools led to student learning gains. As a result, an action plan was developed to assist science educators in the implementation of traditional and 21st century teaching tools that can be used to improve students' science learning. Implications for positive social change included providing science educators with a specific plan of action that will enhance students' science learning, thereby increasing science scores on the state and other high stakes tests.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Michael P. Clough
2015-07-01
Full Text Available Effectively teaching about science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM is far more complex than policymakers, the public, and even many teachers realize. Leinhardt and Greeno (1986, p. 75 write that “teaching occurs in a relatively ill-structured, dynamic environment”, and this is even more so the case when attempting to teach STEM through inquiry (activities that require significant student decision-making and sense-making, and the necessary pedagogical practices that support student learning in those experiences and as inquiry (helping students understand how knowledge in STEM disciplines is developed and comes to be accepted.
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Kim, Mijung
This study began with questions about how science education can bring forth humanity and ethics to reflect increasing concerns about controversial issues of science and technology in contemporary society. Discussing and highlighting binary epistemological assumptions in science education, the study suggests embodied science learning with human subjectivity and integrity between knowledge and practice. The study questions (a) students' understandings of the relationships between STSE and their everyday lifeworld and (b) the challenges of cultivating scientific literacy through STSE teaching. In seeking to understand something about the pedagogical enactment of embodied scientific literacy that emphasizes the harmony of children's knowledges and their lifeworlds, this study employs a mindful pedagogy of hermeneutics. The intro- and intra-dialogical modes of hermeneutic understanding investigate the pedagogical relationship of parts (research texts of students, curriculum, and social milieu) and the whole (STSE teaching in contemporary time and place). The research was conducted with 86 Korean 6 graders at a public school in Seoul, Korea in 2003. Mixed methods were utilized for data collection including a survey questionnaire, a drawing activity, interviews, children's reflective writing, and classroom teaching and observation. The research findings suggest the challenges and possibilities of STSE teaching as follows: (a) children's separated knowledge from everyday practice and living, (b) children's conflicting ideas between ecological/ethical aspects and modernist values, (c) possibilities of embodied knowing in children's practice, and (d) teachers' pedagogical dilemmas in STSE teaching based on the researcher's experiences and reflection throughout teaching practice. As further discussion, this study suggests an ecological paradigm for science curriculum and teaching as a potential framework to cultivate participatory scientific literacy for citizenship in
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Kenny, John Daniel
2012-01-01
This paper reports on a partnership approach preparing pre-service primary teachers to teach science. Partnerships involving pre-service teachers and volunteer in-service colleagues were formed to teach science in the classroom of the colleague, with support from the science education lecturer. Each pre-service teacher collaboratively planned and…
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Ulukök, Seyma; Sari, Ugur
2016-01-01
In this study, the effects of computer-assisted laboratory applications on pre-service science teachers' attitudes towards science teaching were investigated and the opinions of the pre-service teachers about the application were also determined. The study sample consisted of 46 students studying science teaching Faculty of Education. The study…
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Art: ally or tool in science teaching?
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Fernando Cesar Ferreira
2012-10-01
Full Text Available We know that art and science have influenced one another over the centuries. As an example, in the nineteenth century, the poets of the Romantic movement portrayed in some of their most beautiful poems the anguish they felt facing the development of thermodynamics and the possibility of heat death of the universe. In recent years different methodological possibilities have been put in evidence in science education: experimenting with low cost materials, history of science, virtual environments, among others. We believe that the art in this process has played an important role, but still marginal, because, as well as science, it also produces knowledge about reality. However, their potential is perceived more as a tool for teaching rather than as an active participant in building relationships and about the nature of humankind.
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Using Inquiry-Based Instruction to Teach Research Methods to 4th-Grade Students in an Urban Setting
Hamm, Ellen M.; Cullen, Rebecca; Ciaravino, Melissa
2013-01-01
When a college professor who teaches research methods to graduate education students was approached by a local public urban elementary school to help them teach research skills to 4th-graders, it was thought that the process would be simple--take what we did at the college level and differentiate it for the childhood classroom. This article will…
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Teaching Science with Technology
Gornostaeva, Svetlana
2015-04-01
This is a short introduction about me, description of different teaching methods, which is used in my teaching practice of Geography, biology and GIS systems education. The main part is tell about practical lesson with lab Vernier. My name is Svetlana Gornostaeva. I am a geography, biology and GIS systems teacher in Tallinn Mustjõe Gymnasium (www.mjg.ee) and private school Garant (http://www.erakoolgarant.ee/). In my teaching practice I do all to show that science courses are very important, interesting, and do not difficult. I use differentiated instruction methods also consider individual needs. At lessons is used different active teaching methods such as individual work of various levels of difficulty, team works, creative tasks, interactive exercises, excursions, role-playing games, meeting with experts. On my lessons I use visual aids (maps, a collection of rocks and minerals, herbarium, posters, Vernier data logger). My favorite teaching methods are excursions, meeting with experts and practical lesson with lab Vernier. A small part of my job demonstrate my poster. In the next abstract I want to bring a one practical work with Vernier which I do with my students, when we teach a theme "Atmosphere and climate". OUTDOOR LEARNING. SUBJECT "ATMOSPHERE AND CLIMATE". WEATHER OBSERVATIONS WITH VERNIER DATA LOGGER. The aim: students teach to use Vernier data logger and measure climatic parameters such as: temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, solar radiation, ultraviolet light radiation, wind speed. In working process pupils also teach work together, observe natural processes, analyze. Children are working by small groups, 4-5 in each group. Every one should personally measure all parameters and put numbers into the table. After it group observe cloudiness, analyze table and give conclusion "Is at this moment dominates cyclone or anticyclone ?". Children really like this kind of job. Vernier data logger it is really fantastic tool. It is mobile lab. This
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Teaching Science for Social Justice: An Examination of Elementary Preservice Teachers' Beliefs
Eslinger, James C.
This qualitative study examines the beliefs and belief changes of eleven elementary preservice teachers about teaching science for social justice. Using constructivist grounded theory, it forwards a new theory of belief change about teaching science for social justice. The theory posits that three teaching and learning conditions may facilitate belief change: preservice teachers need to recognize (1) the relationship between science and society; (2) the relationship between individuals and society; and (3) the importance of taking action on socioscientific issues. This research responds to calls by critical scholars of teacher education who contend that beliefs in relation to equity, diversity, and multiculturalism need to be explored. They have found that many preservice teachers hold beliefs that are antithetical to social justice tenets. Since beliefs are generally considered to be precursors to actions, identifying and promoting change in beliefs are important to teaching science for social justice. Such a move may lead to the advancement of curricular and pedagogical efforts to promote the academic participation and success in elementary science of Aboriginal and racialized minority students. The study was undertaken in a year-long science methods course taught by the researcher. It was centered on the preservice teachers -- their beliefs, their belief changes, and the course pedagogies that they identified as crucial to their changes. However, the course was based on the researcher-instructor's review of the scholarly literature on science education, teacher education, and social justice. It utilized a critical -- cultural theoretical framework, and was aligned to the three dimensions of critical nature of science, critical knowledge and pedagogy, and sociopolitical action. Findings indicate that, at the beginning of the year, preservice teachers held two types of beliefs (liberal and critical) and, by the end of the course, they experienced three kinds of
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Donovan, Deborah A.; Borda, Emily J.; Hanley, Daniel M.; Landel, Carolyn C.
2015-01-01
Despite significant pressure to reform science teaching and learning in K12 schools, and a concurrent call to reform undergraduate courses, higher education science content courses have remained relatively static. Higher education science faculty have few opportunities to explore research on how people learn, examine state or national science…
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Brunsell, Eric Steven
An achievement gap exists between White and Hispanic students in the United States. Research has shown that improving the quality of instruction for minority students is an effective way to narrow this gap. Science education reform movements emphasize that science should be taught using a science inquiry approach. Extensive research in teaching and learning science also shows that a conceptual change model of teaching is effective in helping students learn science. Finally, research into how Hispanic students learn best has provided a number of suggestions for science instruction. The Inquiry for Conceptual Change model merges these three research strands into a comprehensive yet accessible model for instruction. This study investigates two questions. First, what are teachers' perceptions of science inquiry and its implementation in the classroom? Second, how does the use of the Inquiry for Conceptual Change model affect the learning of students in a predominantly Hispanic, urban neighborhood. Five teachers participated in a professional development project where they developed and implemented a science unit based on the Inquiry for Conceptual Change model. Three units were developed and implemented for this study. This is a qualitative study that included data from interviews, participant reflections and journals, student pre- and post-assessments, and researcher observations. This study provides an in-depth description of the role of professional development in helping teachers understand how science inquiry can be used to improve instructional quality for students in a predominantly Hispanic, urban neighborhood. These teachers demonstrated that it is important for professional development to be collaborative and provide opportunities for teachers to enact and reflect on new teaching paradigms. This study also shows promising results for the ability of the Inquiry for Conceptual Change model to improve student learning.
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Yangin, Selami; Sidekli, Sabri
2016-01-01
The measurement of teacher self-efficacy has a history of more than 30 years. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the development and validation of a new scale to measure the science teaching self-efficacy of elementary school teachers. Therefore, a scale has been created to measure elementary teachers' science teaching self-efficacy and…
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Many Paths toward Discovery: A Module for Teaching How Science Works
Price, Rebecca M.; Perez, Kathryn E.
2018-01-01
Improving students' understanding of how science works requires explicit instruction. Here, we test the efficacy of a module based on two previously published activities (the "Cube Puzzle" and the case study "Asteroids and Dinosaurs") that teach how science works to college science majors. Students also use the How Science…
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Cite, Suleyman; Lee, Eun; Menon, Deepika; Hanuscin, Deborah L.
2017-01-01
While there is a growing literature focused on doctoral preparation for teaching about science teaching, rarely have recommendations extended to preparation for teaching science content to teachers. We three doctoral students employ self-study as a research methodology to investigate our developing pedagogical content knowledge for teaching…
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Bayraktar, Sule
2011-01-01
The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a primary teacher education program in improving science teaching efficacy beliefs (personal science teaching efficacy beliefs and outcome expectancy beliefs) of preservice primary school teachers. The study also investigated whether the program has an effect on student…
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Teaching the TEMI way how using mysteries supports science learning
Olivotto, Cristina
2015-01-01
In this booklet, you will be introduced to an exciting new way to teach science in your classroom. The TEMI project (Teaching Enquiry with Mysteries Incorporated) is an EU-funded project that brings together experts in teacher training from across Europe to help you introduce enquiry-based learning successfully in the classroom and improve student engagement and skills.
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Taber, Keith S.
2017-03-01
Lisa Borgerding's work highlights how students can understand evolution without necessarily committing to it, and how learners may come to see it as one available way of thinking amongst others. This is presented as something that should be considered a successful outcome when teaching about material that many students may find incompatible with their personal worldviews. These findings derive from work exploring a cause célèbre of the science education community—the teaching of natural selection in cultural contexts where learners feel they have strong reasons for rejecting evolutionary ideas. Accepting that students may understand but not commit to scientific ideas that are (from some cultural perspectives) controversial may easily be considered as a form of compromise position when teaching canonical science prescribed in curriculum but resisted by learners. Yet if we take scholarship on the nature of science seriously, and wish to reflect the nature of scientific knowledge in science teaching, then the aim of science education should always be to facilitate understanding of, yet to avoid belief in, the ideas taught in science lessons. The philosophy of science suggests that scientific knowledge needs to be understood as theoretical in nature, as conjectural and provisional; and the history of science warns of the risks of strongly committing to any particular conceptualisation as a final account of some feature of nature. Research into student thinking and learning in science suggests that learning science is often a matter of coming to understand a new viable way of thinking about a topic to complement established ways of thinking. Science teaching should then seek to have students appreciate scientific ideas as viable ways of making sense of the currently available empirical evidence, but should not be about persuading students of the truth of any particular scientific account.
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Go, Youngmi; Kang, Jinju
2015-01-01
The purpose of this study is two-fold. First, it investigates the self-images of science teaching held by early childhood pre-service teachers who took constructivism early childhood science education courses. Second, it analyzes what aspects of those courses influenced these images. The participants were eight pre-service teachers who took these…
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Can the Faculty Development Door Swing Both Ways? Science and Clinical Teaching in the 1990s.
Tedesco, Lisa A.
1988-01-01
The relationship between clinical teaching and research in the basic sciences is discussed. The same energy expended to enhance clinical research will also efficiently build new curricula; ease the strains associated with assigning a priority to teaching or research; and serve to further science, teaching, and technology transfer. (MLW)
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Martin-Dunlop, Catherine; Fraser, Barry J.
2008-01-01
This study assessed the effectiveness of an innovative science course for improving prospective elementary teachers' perceptions of laboratory learning environments and attitudes towards science. The sample consisted of 27 classes with 525 female students in a large urban university. Changing students' ideas about science laboratory teaching and…
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Pair Programming as a Modern Method of Teaching Computer Science
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Irena Nančovska Šerbec
2008-10-01
Full Text Available At the Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana we educate future computer science teachers. Beside didactical, pedagogical, mathematical and other interdisciplinary knowledge, students gain knowledge and skills of programming that are crucial for computer science teachers. For all courses, the main emphasis is the absorption of professional competences, related to the teaching profession and the programming profile. The latter are selected according to the well-known document, the ACM Computing Curricula. The professional knowledge is therefore associated and combined with the teaching knowledge and skills. In the paper we present how to achieve competences related to programming by using different didactical models (semiotic ladder, cognitive objectives taxonomy, problem solving and modern teaching method “pair programming”. Pair programming differs from standard methods (individual work, seminars, projects etc.. It belongs to the extreme programming as a discipline of software development and is known to have positive effects on teaching first programming language. We have experimentally observed pair programming in the introductory programming course. The paper presents and analyzes the results of using this method: the aspects of satisfaction during programming and the level of gained knowledge. The results are in general positive and demonstrate the promising usage of this teaching method.
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Teaching science, technology, and society to engineering students: a sixteen year journey.
Ozaktas, Haldun M
2013-12-01
The course Science, Technology, and Society is taken by about 500 engineering students each year at Bilkent University, Ankara. Aiming to complement the highly technical engineering programs, it deals with the ethical, social, cultural, political, economic, legal, environment and sustainability, health and safety, reliability dimensions of science, technology, and engineering in a multidisciplinary fashion. The teaching philosophy and experiences of the instructor are reviewed. Community research projects have been an important feature of the course. Analysis of teaching style based on a multi-dimensional model is given. Results of outcome measurements performed for ABET assessment are provided. Challenges and solutions related to teaching a large class are discussed.
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Pitts, Wesley
The research presented in this dissertation uses authentic ethnography, augmented by video and conversational analysis, to investigate the teaching and learning of chemistry across boundaries of difference in an urban high school. A coordinated set of theoretical lenses from cultural sociology and sociology of emotion is used to deploy and analyze these methods. All four students highlighted in this study are Black and/or Latino females from working class income families. They identify as second-generation Americans either of African American of Caribbean heritage or Latina of Latin American or Caribbean heritage. The students achieved mild to moderate success in a tenth-grade level chemistry class. Their chemistry teacher is a first-generation immigrant middle-aged male who would ethnically be considered Filipino-American. The focal fields of this research occur in Regents chemistry laboratory classes in a small secondary inner city high school in the Bronx, New York City, and associated cogenerative dialogues. One of the major premises of this study is that learning is a form of cultural enactment (i.e., production, reproduction, and transformation). Culture (schema and practices) enacted by students and teachers in one field can be enacted successfully in another field because fields are surrounded by porous boundaries. Accordingly, participants use resources to meet their goals (e.g., learn chemistry), in so doing, create interstitial culture that becomes part of the structure of the field and resources for learning. A priority was to examine how learning and teaching of science is enacted when students and their teachers are able to coparticipate in culturally adaptive ways and use their capital successfully. A key implication is the need for teachers and students to be aware of cultural encounters that afford positive emotional energy and solidarity. The important point here is to minimize encounters that create negative emotional energy. What we learned from
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Colon, Erica L.
Online learning is becoming more prevalent in today's education and is changing the way students learn and instructors teach. This study proposed using an informative case study design within a multilevel conceptual framework as teacher candidates were learning to teach and use science inquiry while in an online post-baccalaureate science methods course. The purposes were to (a) explore whether the teacher candidates had a thorough understanding of scientific inquiry and how to implement higher-order thinking skills, (b) examine whether or not the teacher candidates used a variety of computer-based instructional technologies when choosing instructional objectives, and (c) identify barriers that impede teacher candidates from using science inquiry or technology singly, or the ability to incorporate technology into learning science inquiry. The findings indicate that an online approach in preparing science teachers holds great potential for using innovative technology to teach science inquiry. First, the teacher candidates did incorporate essential features of classroom inquiry, however it was limited and varied in the type of inquiry used. Second, of the 86 lesson plans submitted by the teacher candidates, less than twelve percent of the learning objectives involved higher-order skills that promoted science inquiry. Third, results supported that when using technology in their lesson planning, participants had widely varying backgrounds in reference to their familiarity with technology. However, even though each participant used some form or another, the technology used was fairly low level. Finally, when discussing implementing inquiry-based science in the lesson plans, this study identified time as a reason that participants may not be pushing for more inquiry-based lessons. The researcher also identifies that school placements were a huge factor in the amount of inquiry-based skills coded in the lesson plans. The study concludes that online teacher preparation
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FEATURES OF TEACHING COMPUTER SCIENCE FOR FOREIGN STUDENTS OF HUMANITARIAN SPHERE OF TRAINING
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Н А Савченко
2015-12-01
Full Text Available In the current socio-economic conditions of modern society it is impossible without the introducing information technologies into all spheres of life. The importance of teaching natural Sciences for Humanities is of no doubt. This article addresses the main problems of teaching computer science for foreign students studying in the field of training 41.03.01 “Foreign area studies”.
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Data quality in citizen science urban tree inventories
Lara A. Roman; Bryant C. Scharenbroch; Johan P.A. Ostberg; Lee S. Mueller; Jason G. Henning; Andrew K. Koeser; Jessica R. Sanders; Daniel R. Betz; Rebecca C. Jordan
2017-01-01
Citizen science has been gaining popularity in ecological research and resource management in general and in urban forestry specifically. As municipalities and nonprofits engage volunteers in tree data collection, it is critical to understand data quality. We investigated observation error by comparing street tree data collected by experts to data collected by less...
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Teaching at the interface of dance science and somatics.
Geber, Pamela; Wilson, Margaret
2010-01-01
This article introduces a combined scientific and somatic approach to teaching and learning about the body, and explains how it can be of benefit to dancers and dance educators. The study of the science of movement (kinesiology) and a somatic approach to teaching are initially defined and described as distinct entities; following this, a model for integration of the two is presented. The authors advocate for such a combination in order to enhance dancing.
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Competences for science teaching at the 21st century
Sá, Patrícia; Paixão, Fátima
2016-01-01
This study presents a contribution to the conceptual and terminological clarification of the concept of teaching competence, as well as for the identification of a competencial framework of competences for science teaching at a primary education level, having in mind educating citizens for the 21st century as scientific literates. The proposed framework was developed based on an intensive literature review and on the contributions emerging from a shared reflection between researchers in scien...
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Marty, Laurence; Venturini, Patrice; Almqvist, Jonas
2018-01-01
Classroom actions rely, among other things, on teaching habits and traditions. Previous research has clarified three different teaching traditions in science education: the academic tradition builds on the idea that simply the products and methods of science are worth teaching; the applied tradition focuses on students' ability to use scientific…
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Gillies, Robyn M.; Nichols, Kim
2015-01-01
Many primary teachers face challenges in teaching inquiry science, often because they believe that they do not have the content knowledge or pedagogical skills to do so. This is a concern given the emphasis attached to teaching science through inquiry where students do not simply learn about science but also do science. This study reports on the…
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Beam, Margery Elizabeth
The combination of increasing enrollment and the importance of providing transfer students a solid foundation in science calls for science faculty to evaluate teaching methods in rural community colleges. The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the effectiveness of two teaching methods, inquiry teaching methods and didactic teaching methods, applied in a rural community college earth science course. Two groups of students were taught the same content via inquiry and didactic teaching methods. Analysis of quantitative data included a non-parametric ranking statistical testing method in which the difference between the rankings and the median of the post-test scores was analyzed for significance. Results indicated there was not a significant statistical difference between the teaching methods for the group of students participating in the research. The practical and educational significance of this study provides valuable perspectives on teaching methods and student learning styles in rural community colleges.
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Developing Teachers' Pedagogical Practice in Teaching Science Lessons with Mobile Phones
Ekanayake, T. M. S. S. K. Y.; Wishart, J. M.
2014-01-01
This paper presents the findings of an investigation carried out in Sri Lanka to explore how mobile phones can support science teachers' pedagogical practices throughout the teaching cycle of planning, teaching and evaluation. Data were collected using observation supported by audio and video recordings from both continuing professional…
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Primary Science Teaching--Is It Integral and Deep Experience for Students?
Timoštšuk, Inge
2016-01-01
Integral and deep pedagogical content knowledge can support future primary teachers' ability to follow ideas of education for sustainability in science class. Initial teacher education provides opportunity to learn what and how to teach but still the practical experiences of teaching can reveal uneven development of student teachers'…
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The Impact of Science Teachers' Beliefs on Teaching Science: The Case of Saudi Science Teachers
Alabdulkareem, Saleh Abdullah
2016-01-01
The researcher aims to investigate Saudi science teachers' beliefs about learning and teaching issues. The sample consisted of 247 middle school teachers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The study conducted in the academic school year 2014/2015, and utilized a questionnaire and an interview that included 10% of the sample. The questionnaire targeted the…
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Teaching the science of learning.
Weinstein, Yana; Madan, Christopher R; Sumeracki, Megan A
2018-01-01
The science of learning has made a considerable contribution to our understanding of effective teaching and learning strategies. However, few instructors outside of the field are privy to this research. In this tutorial review, we focus on six specific cognitive strategies that have received robust support from decades of research: spaced practice, interleaving, retrieval practice, elaboration, concrete examples, and dual coding. We describe the basic research behind each strategy and relevant applied research, present examples of existing and suggested implementation, and make recommendations for further research that would broaden the reach of these strategies.
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Graney, Christopher M.
2012-01-01
What can physics students learn about science from those scientists who got the answers wrong? Your students probably have encountered little science history. What they have encountered probably has portrayed scientists as "The People with the Right Answers." But those who got the wrong answers can teach students that in science, answers are often…
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Teaching and Learning Methodologies Supported by ICT Applied in Computer Science
Capacho, Jose
2016-01-01
The main objective of this paper is to show a set of new methodologies applied in the teaching of Computer Science using ICT. The methodologies are framed in the conceptual basis of the following sciences: Psychology, Education and Computer Science. The theoretical framework of the research is supported by Behavioral Theory, Gestalt Theory.…
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Song, Peng
2017-08-01
The existing problems of the experiment education in colleges and universities are analyzed. Take the science and engineering specialty as example, the idea of the combination with teaching and scientific research is discussed. The key problems are how the scientific research and scientific research achievements are used effectively in the experiment education, how to effectively use scientific research laboratories and scientific researchers. Then, a specialty experiment education system is established which is good for the teaching in accordance of all students' aptitude. The research in this paper can give the construction of the experiment teaching methods and the experiment system reform for the science and engineering specialties in colleges and universities.
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Roberts, Sara Hayes
The primary purpose of this action research study was to explore an elementary science program and find ways to support science education as an administrator of an elementary school. The study took place in a large suburban school system in the southeastern United States. Seven teachers at a small rural school volunteered to participate in the study. Each participant became an active member of the research by determining what changes needed to take place and implementing the lessons in science. The study was also focused on teacher collaboration and how it influenced the science instruction. The data collected included two interviews, ten observations of science lessons, the implementation of four science units, and informal notes from planning sessions over a five month period. The questions that guided this study focused on how teachers prepare to teach science through active learning and how instruction shifts due to teacher collaboration. Teachers were interviewed at the beginning of the study to gain the perceptions of the participants in the areas of (a) planning, (b) active learning, (c) collaboration, and (d) teaching science lessons. The teachers and principal then formed a research team that determined the barriers to teaching science according to the Standards, designed units of study using active learning strategies, and worked collaboratively to implement the units of study. The action research project reviewed the National Science Education Standards, the theory of constructivism, active learning and teacher collaboration as they relate to the actions taken by a group of teachers in an elementary school. The evidence from this study showed that by working together collaboratively and overcoming the barriers to teaching science actively, teachers feel more confident and knowledgeable about teaching the concepts.
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Kelani, Raphael R.; Gado, Issaou
2018-01-01
Following the calls of international conferences related to the teaching of science and technology, technology education (TE) was integrated as a component of physical sciences programmes in Benin, West Africa. This study investigates physical science teachers' attitudes towards the integration of TE topics in secondary school science curricula in…
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Improvement of Students’ Environmental Literacy by Using Integrated Science Teaching Materials
Suryanti, D.; Sinaga, P.; Surakusumah, W.
2018-02-01
This study aims to determine the improvement of student environmental literacy through the use of integrated science teaching materials on pollution topics. The research is used weak experiment method with the one group pre-test post-test design. The sample of the study were junior high school students in Bandung amounted to 32 people of 7th grade. Data collection in the form of environmental literacy test instrument consist of four components of environmental literacy that is (1) Knowledge, (2) Competencies (Cognitive Skill), (3) Affective and (4) Environmentally Responsible Behavior. The results show that the student’s environmental literacy ability is improved after using integrated science teaching materials. An increase in the medium category is occurring in the knowledge (N-gain=46%) and cognitive skill (N-gain=31%), while the increase in the low category occurs in the affective component (N-gain=25%) and behaviour (N-gain=24%). The conclusions of this study as a whole the improvement of students’ environmental literacy by using integrated science teaching material is in the medium category (N-gain=34%).
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Teaching Introductory Life Science Courses in Colleges of Agriculture: Faculty Experiences
Balschweid, Mark; Knobloch, Neil A.; Hains, Bryan J.
2014-01-01
Insignificant numbers of college students declaring STEM majors creates concern for the future of the U.S. economy within the global marketplace. This study highlights the educational development and teaching strategies employed by STEM faculty in teaching first-year students in contextualized life science courses, such as animal, plant, and food…
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Ambusaidi, Abdullah
2014-01-01
The aim of this study was to investigate the attitudes of prospective science teachers at Sultan Qaboos University towards and their views about using journal writing in the Methods of Teaching Science course. Twenty-six prospective science teachers were asked to write about each topic in the course in their journal to show their understanding of…
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Hong, Ji; Greene, Barbara
2011-01-01
Given the high attrition rate of beginning science teachers, it is imperative to better prepare science preservice teachers, so that they can be successful during the early years of their teaching. The purpose of this study was to explore science preservice teachers' views of themselves as a future teacher, in particular their hopes and fears for…
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Mkumbo, Kitila Alexander
2012-01-01
Teachers? attitudes towards sexuality education are among the important predictors of their willingness to teach sexuality education programmes in schools. While there is a plethora of studies on teachers? attitudes towards sexuality in developed countries, there is a paucity of such studies in sub-Saharan Africa in general and Tanzania in particular. This study examined teachers? attitudes towards and comfort in teaching sexuality education in rural and urban Tanzania. The results show that ...
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Middle School Science Teachers' Perceptions of Social Justice: A Study of Two Female Teachers
Upadhyay, Bhaskar
2010-01-01
The focus of this qualitative study is to document two middle school science teachers' perceptions of social justice and how these teachers implement various aspects of social justice in their science instruction. The two teachers teach science in an urban school that serves students from low-income, immigrant, and ethnic minority families. The…
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Rahmi YAĞBASAN; Murat DEMİRBAŞ
2005-01-01
In this study, curriculum development studies for effective science teaching were analyzed in Turkey, solution suggestions were made by determining the confronted problems. The studies for curriculum analysis toward science teaching were done by covering applications of modern science teaching started in 1970s, curriculum of science teaching made in 1990s and applications of science teaching curriculum put into practice in 2000. It was determined that new science teaching studies that will be...
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Determining discourses: Constraints and resources influencing early career science teachers
Grindstaff, Kelly E.
This study explores the thinking and practices of five early-career teachers of grades eight to ten science, in relation to their histories, schools, students, and larger cultural and political forces. All the teachers are young women, two in their fourth year of teaching, who teach together in an affluent suburb, along with one first-year teacher. The other two are first-year teachers who teach in an urban setting. All of these teachers most closely associated good science teaching with forming relationships with students. They filtered science content through a lens of relevance (mostly to everyday life) and interest for students. Thus they filtered science content through a commitment to serving students, which makes sense since I argue that the primary motivations for teaching had more to do with working with students and helping people than the disciplines of science. Thus, within the discourse of the supremacy of curriculum and the prevalence of testing, these teachers enact hybrid practices which focus on covering content -- to help ensure the success of students -- and on relevance and interest, which has more to do with teaching styles and personality than disciplines of science. Ideas of good teaching are not very focused on science, which contradicts the type of support they seek and utilize around science content. This presents a challenge to pre- and in-service education and support to question what student success means, what concern for students entails and how to connect caring and concern for students with science.
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Zandvoort, Henk; Bird, Stephanie J.; Børsen, Tom
2013-01-01
. If the social responsibility of scientists and engineers implies a duty to safeguard or promote a peaceful, just and sustainable world society, then science and engineering education should empower students to fulfil this responsibility. The contributions to this special issue present European examples...... of teaching social responsibility to students in science and engineering, and provide examples and discussion of how this teaching can be promoted, and of obstacles that are encountered. Speaking generally, education aimed at preparing future scientists and engineers for social responsibility is presently...... very limited and seemingly insufficient in view of the enormous ethical and social problems that are associated with current science and technology. Although many social, political and professional organisations have expressed the need for the provision of teaching for social responsibility, important...
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Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science GEMS: Teaching Robotics to High School Students
2013-01-01
find amusing but that we find of less educational value, like having the robots say comical things. Those who have more teaching time would doubtless...Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science GEMS: Teaching Robotics to High School Students by Edward M. Measure and Edward Creegan...TR-6220 January 2013 Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science (GEMS): Teaching Robotics to High School Students Edward M
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TEACHING AND LEARNING METHODOLOGIES SUPPORTED BY ICT APPLIED IN COMPUTER SCIENCE
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Jose CAPACHO
2016-04-01
Full Text Available The main objective of this paper is to show a set of new methodologies applied in the teaching of Computer Science using ICT. The methodologies are framed in the conceptual basis of the following sciences: Psychology, Education and Computer Science. The theoretical framework of the research is supported by Behavioral Theory, Gestalt Theory. Genetic-Cognitive Psychology Theory and Dialectics Psychology. Based on the theoretical framework the following methodologies were developed: Game Theory, Constructivist Approach, Personalized Teaching, Problem Solving, Cooperative Collaborative learning, Learning projects using ICT. These methodologies were applied to the teaching learning process during the Algorithms and Complexity – A&C course, which belongs to the area of Computer Science. The course develops the concepts of Computers, Complexity and Intractability, Recurrence Equations, Divide and Conquer, Greedy Algorithms, Dynamic Programming, Shortest Path Problem and Graph Theory. The main value of the research is the theoretical support of the methodologies and their application supported by ICT using learning objects. The course aforementioned was built on the Blackboard platform evaluating the operation of methodologies. The results of the evaluation are presented for each of them, showing the learning outcomes achieved by students, which verifies that methodologies are functional.
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Improving Science Teacher Preparation through the APS PhysTEC and NSF Noyce Programs
Williams, Tasha; Tyler, Micheal; van Duzor, Andrea; Sabella, Mel
2013-03-01
Central to the recruitment of students into science teaching at a school like CSU, is a focus on the professional nature of teaching. The purpose of this focus is twofold: it serves to change student perceptions about teaching and it prepares students to become teachers who value continued professional development and value the science education research literature. The Noyce and PhysTEC programs at CSU place the professional nature of teaching front and center by involving students in education research projects, paid internships, attendance at conferences, and participation in a new Teacher Immersion Institute and a Science Education Journal Reading Class. This poster will focus on specific components of our teacher preparation program that were developed through these two programs. In addition we will describe how these new components provide students with diverse experiences in the teaching of science to students in the urban school district. Supported by the NSF Noyce Program (0833251) and the APS PhysTEC Program.
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Suprapto, Nadi; Mursid, Ali
2017-01-01
This study focuses on attitudes toward (teaching) science and the learning of science for primary school among pre-service teachers at the Open University of Indonesia. A three-year longitudinal survey was conducted, involving 379 students as pre-service teachers (PSTs) from the Open University in Surabaya regional office. Attitudes toward…
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Teaching science vs. the apprentice model--do we really have the choice?
Marckmann, G
2001-01-01
The debate about the appropriate methodology of medical education has been (and still is) dominated by the opposing poles of teaching science versus teaching practical skills. I will argue that this conflict between scientific education and practical training has its roots in the underlying, more systematic question about the conceptual foundation of medicine: how far or in what respects can medicine be considered to be a science? By analyzing the epistemological status of medicine I will show that the internal aim of medicine ("promoting health through the prevention and treatment of disease") differs from the internal aim of science ("the methodological and systematic acquisition of knowledge"). Therefore, medicine as a whole discipline should not be considered as a science. However, medicine can be conceptually and methodologically scientific in so much as it is based on scientific knowledge. There is evidence from cognitive science research that diagnostic reasoning not only relies on the application of scientific knowledge but also--especially in routine cases--on a process of pattern recognition, a reasoning strategy based on the memory of previously encountered patients. Hence, medical education must contain both: the imparting of scientific knowledge and the rich exposure to concrete cases during practical training. Hence, the question of teaching science vs. the apprentice model will not be "either-or" but rather "both--but in which proportion?"
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Aljabber, Jabber M.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of Saudi Arabian secondary preservice science teachers (SPSTs) toward a variety of science teaching practices. An ultimate, essential goal of this study was to use generated information and findings to improve the current secondary science education programs in Saudi Arabia and to develop better science teacher practices. The selected practices were posted by the National Research Council in 1999. These indicated that students learn science best through understanding of science rather than memorization of scientific facts and concepts, building new knowledge and understanding on what is already known and believed, formulating new knowledge by modifying and refining current concepts and by adding new concepts to what is already known, taking care of their own learning, social learning environments and interactions, and application of knowledge to novel situations. The study's sample consisted of all (147) SPSTs enrolled in the spring semester of 2003 in four Teachers' Colleges: Riyadh, Makkah, Taif, and Dammam. All participants were performing student teaching in secondary schools. This study used quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. Only three SPSTs were purposefully selected from each college for seven semi-structured interview questions, lasting an hour per interview. They were asked to complete a 58-item questionnaire survey and respond to four open-ended survey questions. To assess their attitudes toward the above science teaching practices, data was analyzed using the Rasch analysis model, other parametric tests (e.g., a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and independent-samples t-test), and non-parametric tests (e.g., a chi-square of independent test). Furthermore, qualitative procedures were also used to assess SPSTs' views of some specific aspects about science teaching and the current secondary science education programs in Saudi Arabia. This was achieved through a careful
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Supporting new science teachers in pursuing socially just science education
Ruggirello, Rachel; Flohr, Linda
2017-10-01
This forum explores contradictions that arose within the partnership between Teach for America (TFA) and a university teacher education program. TFA is an alternate route teacher preparation program that places individuals into K-12 classrooms in low-income school districts after participating in an intense summer training program and provides them with ongoing support. This forum is a conversation about the challenges we faced as new science teachers in the TFA program and in the Peace Corps program. We both entered the teaching field with science degrees and very little formal education in science education. In these programs we worked in a community very different from the one we had experienced as students. These experiences allow us to address many of the issues that were discussed in the original paper, namely teaching in an unfamiliar community amid challenges that many teachers face in the first few years of teaching. We consider how these challenges may be amplified for teachers who come to teaching through an alternate route and may not have as much pedagogical training as a more traditional teacher education program provides. The forum expands on the ideas presented in the original paper to consider the importance of perspectives on socially just science education. There is often a disconnect between what is taught in teacher education programs and what teachers actually experience in urban classrooms and this can be amplified when the training received through alternate route provides a different framework as well. This forum urges universities and alternate route programs to continue to find ways to authentically partner using practical strategies that bring together the philosophies and goals of all stakeholders in order to better prepare teachers to partner with their students to achieve their science learning goals.
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Using Primary Literature to Teach Science Literacy to Introductory Biology Students
Johanna Krontiris-Litowitz
2013-01-01
Undergraduate students struggle to read the scientific literature and educators have suggested that this may reflect deficiencies in their science literacy skills. In this two-year study we develop and test a strategy for using the scientific literature to teach science literacy skills to novice life science majors. The first year of the project served as a preliminary investigation in which we evaluated student science literacy skills, created a set of science literacy learning objectives al...
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Critical Debates in Teaching Research Methods in the Social Sciences
Gunn, Andrew
2017-01-01
This paper explores some of the critical debates in social science research methods education and is set out in three parts. The first section introduces the importance and relevance of research methods to the social sciences. It then outlines the problems and challenges experienced in the teaching and learning of research methods, which are…
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Zandvoort, Henk; Børsen, Tom; Deneke, Michael; Bird, Stephanie J
2013-12-01
Global society is facing formidable current and future problems that threaten the prospects for justice and peace, sustainability, and the well-being of humanity both now and in the future. Many of these problems are related to science and technology and to how they function in the world. If the social responsibility of scientists and engineers implies a duty to safeguard or promote a peaceful, just and sustainable world society, then science and engineering education should empower students to fulfil this responsibility. The contributions to this special issue present European examples of teaching social responsibility to students in science and engineering, and provide examples and discussion of how this teaching can be promoted, and of obstacles that are encountered. Speaking generally, education aimed at preparing future scientists and engineers for social responsibility is presently very limited and seemingly insufficient in view of the enormous ethical and social problems that are associated with current science and technology. Although many social, political and professional organisations have expressed the need for the provision of teaching for social responsibility, important and persistent barriers stand in the way of its sustained development. What is needed are both bottom-up teaching initiatives from individuals or groups of academic teachers, and top-down support to secure appropriate embedding in the university. Often the latter is lacking or inadequate. Educational policies at the national or international level, such as the Bologna agreements in Europe, can be an opportunity for introducing teaching for social responsibility. However, frequently no or only limited positive effect of such policies can be discerned. Existing accreditation and evaluation mechanisms do not guarantee appropriate attention to teaching for social responsibility, because, in their current form, they provide no guarantee that the curricula pay sufficient attention to
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Project TIMS (Teaching Integrated Math/Science)
Edwards, Leo, Jr.
1993-01-01
The goal of this project is to increase the scientific knowledge and appreciation bases and skills of pre-service and in-service middle school teachers, so as to impact positively on teaching, learning, and student retention. This report lists the objectives and summarizes the progress thus far. Included is the working draft of the TIMS (Teaching Integrated Math/Science) curriculum outline. Seven of the eight instructional subject-oriented modules are also included. The modules include informative materials and corresponding questions and educational activities in a textbook format. The subjects included here are the universe and stars; the sun and its place in the universe; our solar system; astronomical instruments and scientific measurements; the moon and eclipses; the earth's atmosphere: its nature and composition; and the earth: directions, time, and seasons. The module not included regards winds and circulation.
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The Role of Informal Support Networks in Teaching the Nature of Science
Herman, Benjamin C.; Olson, Joanne K.; Clough, Michael P.
2017-06-01
This study reports the participation of 13 secondary science teachers in informal support networks and how that participation was associated with their nature of science (NOS) teaching practices 2 to 5 years after having graduated from the same science teacher education program. The nine teachers who participated in informal support networks taught the NOS at high/medium levels, while the four non-participating teachers taught the NOS at low levels. The nine high/medium NOS implementation teachers credited the informal support networks for maintaining/heightening their sense of responsibility for teaching NOS and for helping them navigate institutional constraints that impede effective NOS instruction. Several high/medium NOS instruction implementers initially struggled to autonomously frame and resolve the complexities experienced in schools and thus drew from the support networks to engage in more sophisticated forms of teacher decision-making. In contrast, the NOS pedagogical decisions of the four teachers not participating in support networks were governed primarily by the expectations and constraints experienced in their schools. Implications of this study include the need for reconsidering the structure of teacher mentorship programs to ensure they do not promote archaic science teaching practices that are at odds with reform efforts in science education.
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Brancaccio-Taras, Loretta; Gull, Kelly A.; Ratti, Claudia
2016-01-01
The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) has a history of providing a wide range of faculty development opportunities. Recently, ASM developed the Science Teaching Fellows Program (STF) for early career biologists and postdoctoral students to explore student-centered teaching and develop the skills needed to succeed in positions that have a significant teaching component. Participants were selected to STF through a competitive application process. The STF program consisted of a series of s...
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The effects of professional development on science teaching practices and classroom culture
Supovitz, Jonathan A.; Turner, Herbert M.
2000-11-01
The current science education reform movement emphasizes the importance of professional development as a means of improving student science achievement. Reformers have developed a vision for professional development based upon intensive and sustained training around concrete tasks that is focused on subject-matter knowledge, connected to specific standards for student performance, and embedded in a systemic context. Using data from a National Science Foundation Teacher Enhancement program called the Local Systemic Change initiative, this study employs hierarchical linear modeling to examine the relationship between professional development and the reformers' vision of teaching practice. The findings indicate that the quantity of professional development in which teachers participate is strongly linked with both inquiry-based teaching practice and investigative classroom culture. At the individual level, teachers' content preparation also has a powerful influence on teaching practice and classroom culture. At the school level, school socioeconomic status was found to influence practice more substantially than either principal supportiveness or available resources.
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Murphy, Cliona; Smith, Greg
2012-01-01
Many primary school teachers have insufficient content and pedagogical knowledge of science. This lack of knowledge can often lead to a lack of confidence and competence in teaching science. This article explores the impact of a year-long science methodology (curriculum science) course on second year Bachelor of Education (BEd) students'…
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Stuart, A. L.
2012-12-01
Enrollments in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curricula currently lag workforce needs. Participation of women and minorities in STEM careers also remains low despite efforts to improve their representation in these fields. We discuss the development and evaluation of a science museum exhibit aimed at stimulating interest of middle school children (particularly girls) in STEM careers. The exhibit was designed to teach science, while addressing two factors identified as limiting the interest of girls in STEM fields — perceived lack of social relevance and lack of female role models. Further, it was designed to apply best practices in science education, including inquiry-based learning and interdisciplinary content. The exhibit was developed through collaboration between students and faculty researchers at the University of South Florida and science education and evaluation specialists at the Museum of Science and Industry of Tampa. A few stages of formative and summative assessment, including focus group discussions, visitor observation, and surveys were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the exhibit to educational project goals. The installed exhibit is focused on teaching content related to interactions between air pollution, urban design, and human health. The approximately 25 square foot exhibit space involves four different types of components. A three-dimensional model of a city, with underlying dynamic computer simulations, allows visitors to interactively explore relationships between city design, air pollution and exposures. A computer game, with quiz questions requiring user decisions on personal to community behavior, provides visual feedback regarding impacts on air pollution. Traditional panels with graphics and text, including results of current research, display integrative scientific content with open-ended questions to stimulate discussion. Finally, personal profiles highlight the diverse family, work, and social lives
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Science and Mathematics Teaching Efficacy Beliefs of Pre-School Teachers
Aydogdu, Bülent; Peker, Murat
2016-01-01
The aim of this research was to examine science and mathematics teaching efficacy beliefs of pre-school teachers in terms of some variables. The sample of the study was comprised of 191 pre-school teachers working in a city in Aegean Region of Turkey. Since it attempted to define self-efficacy beliefs of pre-school teachers toward science and…
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Teaching of Mathematics and Science in English: The Teachers' Voices
Yahaya, Mohamad Fadhili Bin; Noor, Mohd Asri Bin Mohd; Mokhtar, Ahmad Azman Bin; Rawian, Rafizah Binti Mohd; Othman, Mahmod Bin; Jusoff, Kamaruzaman
2009-01-01
The policy to change the medium of instruction in the teaching of Mathematics and Science from Bahasa Melayu (Malay Language) to English in 2003 is an important innovation affecting not only the students but also teachers of Mathematics and Science. However, how far the changes affect the teachers is the issue addressed in the paper. In fact the…
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Uyanik, Gökhan
2016-01-01
The aim of this study is to investigate the attitudes of the primary school teacher candidates towards teaching profession and self-efficacy beliefs in teaching science. The research was conducted with a survey model. The sample of the study consisted of 182 teacher candidates who were studying at the 2015-2016 spring term from Kastamonu…
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Teaching and Learning Psychology through an Analysis of Social Science Fiction
Herman, William E.
2009-01-01
This paper is designed to accompany an appearance by the author as a panelist during a session on science fiction and teaching methods at the I-CON 28 Science Fiction Convention held April 3-5, 2009, on Long Island (near New York City). The author describes how he employs social science fiction in an honors course at the university level to…
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Fischer, Caleb Nathaniel
2011-09-01
Dr. Jo Handelsman, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale University, is a long-time devotee of scientific teaching, receiving this year's Presidential Award for Science Mentoring. She gave a seminar entitled "What is Scientific Teaching? The Changing Landscape of Science Education" as a part of the Scientific Education Colloquia Series in spring 2011. After dissecting what is wrong with the status quo of American scientific education, several ideological and practical changes are proposed, including active learning, regular assessment, diversity, and mentorship. Copyright © 2011.
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Boesdorfer, Sarah; Lorsbach, Anthony
2014-01-01
A teacher's orientation toward science teaching has been proposed as very influential to a teacher's pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and teaching practice. Experienced teachers' orientation toward science teaching and its connections to their practice has not been well explored. Focusing on a unit about the periodic table, this study provides…
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Keen-Rhinehart, E.; Eisen, A.; Eaton, D.; McCormack, K.
2009-01-01
Acquiring a faculty position in academia is extremely competitive and now typically requires more than just solid research skills and knowledge of one?s field. Recruiting institutions currently desire new faculty that can teach effectively, but few postdoctoral positions provide any training in teaching methods. Fellowships in Research and Science Teaching (FIRST) is a successful postdoctoral training program funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) providing training in both researc...
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Root and Branch Reform: Teaching City Kids about Urban Trees
Walker, Mark
2017-01-01
In today's electronic age, suburban and city children are increasingly disconnected with the natural world. Studying trees allows children to learn about the world they live in and can teach a variety of useful topics contained within the National Curriculum in England. Knowledge of trees is specifically required in the science curriculum at key…
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Implementation of small group discussion as a teaching method in earth and space science subject
Aryani, N. P.; Supriyadi
2018-03-01
In Physics Department Universitas Negeri Semarang, Earth and Space Science subject is included in the curriculum of the third year of physics education students. There are various models of teaching earth and space science subject such as textbook method, lecturer, demonstrations, study tours, problem-solving method, etc. Lectures method is the most commonly used of teaching earth and space science subject. The disadvantage of this method is the lack of two ways interaction between lecturers and students. This research used small group discussion as a teaching method in Earth and Space science. The purpose of this study is to identify the conditions under which an efficient discussion may be initiated and maintained while students are investigating properties of earth and space science subjects. The results of this research show that there is an increase in student’s understanding of earth and space science subject proven through the evaluation results. In addition, during the learning process, student’s activeness also increase.
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The effects of national cash awards for science teaching on recipients and their peers
Weld, Jeffrey Donn
Cash teaching awards available to science teachers in the U.S. have goals to improve science teaching. This study assessed the effectiveness of five national cash award programs at identifying exemplars and inspiring better science teaching. Award winning secondary science teachers provided their perceptions of the effects of an award on their own teaching and on the profession as a whole. Randomly selected secondary science teachers across the U.S. reported their perceptions of the effects of the existence of awards on their own teaching and on the profession. Program directors for the five national cash awards were interviewed to determine the intentions and strategies of their award programs. The criteria that guide the selection of award winners were found to align with research-supported exemplar characteristics, but the methods used for identifying outstanding teachers were found to be inadequate for that purpose. Award winning science teachers perceive awards to result from, rather than to inspire, good teaching. Their motivation derives from student achievement and a job well done. The valued effects of winning an award are the recognition and increased respect that follow. Award winners perceive awards as difficult to win, minimally motivating, and frequently causing of dissension among peers. In most respects award winners perceive increased intrinsic rewards to accompany recognition through cash awards. Randomly selected U.S. science teachers who have not won cash awards perceive them as poor motivational incentives because too few awards exist, the basis for recognition is unclear, and the award itself is not a valued outcome. Most science teachers consider themselves good teachers and would apply for an award despite doubts that they would win. Direct comparisons reveal that winners and nonwinners have widely divergent opinions of awards. Winners of lesser cash amounts have the same perceptions of awards as winners of greater cash amounts. Effective
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Haefner, Leigh Ann; Zembal-Saul, Carla
This study examined prospective elementary teachers' learning about scientific inquiry in the context of an innovative life science course. Research questions included: (1) What do prospective elementary teachers learn about scientific inquiry within the context of the course? and (2) In what ways do their experiences engaging in science investigations and teaching inquiry-oriented science influence prospective elementary teachers' understanding of science and science learning and teaching? Eleven prospective elementary teachers participated in this qualitative, multi-participant case study. Constant comparative analysis strategies attempted to build abstractions and explanations across participants around the constructs of the study. Findings suggest that engaging in scientific inquiry supported the development more appropriate understandings of science and scientific inquiry, and that prospective teachers became more accepting of approaches to teaching science that encourage children's questions about science phenomena. Implications include careful consideration of learning experiences crafted for prospective elementary teachers to support the development of robust subject matter knowledge.
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Naugah, Jayantee; Watts, Mike
2013-11-01
Background: The population of Mauritius consists of 52% females and scientific literacy is seen to be of vital importance for all young people if they are to be sufficiently equipped to meet the challenges of a fast changing world. Previous research shows, however, that science is not popular among girls. This paper explores one of many reasons why few girls opt for science subjects after compulsory schooling. Purpose: This study investigated the approaches to teaching in four science classrooms in Mauritius, with particular emphases on the preferences of girls as they learn science. Sample: A total of 20 student interviews and 16 teacher interviews were conducted in four schools in Mauritius. The four mixed-faith schools comprised two all-girl schools (one state, one fee-paying), and two mixed-sex schools (one state, one fee-paying), within urban, suburban and rural situations. Design and method: 80 non-participant lessons were observed, of which 60 were science lessons while the remaining 20 non-science lessons were in economics, accounts and commerce. Group interviews with five pupils in each of the four schools were conducted and 16 individual interviews with teachers in the four schools gave an insight into the pedagogic approaches used for the teaching and learning of science. Results: Transmissive approaches to teaching, giving little opportunity for collaborative or activity-based learning, were found to be the most important factors in alienating the girls from science. Conclusions: There need to be radical changes in approaches to teaching to retain young girls' interest in the sciences.
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Scientific Analogies and Their Use in Teaching Science
Kipnis, Nahum
Analogy in science knew its successes and failures, as illustrated by examples from the eighteenth-century physics. At times, some scientists abstained from using a certain analogy on the ground that it had not yet been demonstrated. Several false discoveries in the 18th and early 19th centuries appeared to support their caution. It is now clear that such a position reflected a methodological confusion that resulted from a failure to distinguish between particular and general analogies. Considering analogy as a hierarchical structure provides a new insight into "testing an analogy". While warning science teachers of dangers associated with use of analogy, historical cases and their analysis provided here may encourage them to use analogy more extensively while avoiding misconceptions. An argument is made that the history of science may be a better guide than philosophy of science and cognitive psychology when it concerns the role of analogy in science and in teaching science for understanding.
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Ustunisik, G. K.; Zirakparvar, N. A.
2015-12-01
Channeling better prepared Earth Science teachers into secondary schools with low achievement rates in STEM subjects is essential to ensuring that the students attending these schools are ultimately afforded the opportunity to take advantage of projected growth in the global geoscience workforce. Here, a museum-based urban teacher residency (UTR) program's approach to building subject specific content knowledge and research experience in Earth Science teacher candidates is described. In the museum-based program, graduate-level science courses and research experiences are designed and implemented specifically for the UTR by active Earth and Space research scientists that account for almost half of the program's faculty. Because these courses and research experiences are designed specifically for the teacher candidates, they are different than many science courses and research experiences available to pre-service teachers in a university setting. At the same time, the museum-based program is the only UTR to incorporate such a rigorous science curriculum, and some possible advantages and disadvantages of the program's approach are also considered here. While the impact of the program's approach on student achievement rates has yet to be evaluated, there is promise in the well documented links between a teacher's own experience with the practice of science and that teacher's ability to leverage effective pedagogical content knowledge in the teaching of science. Because the museum-based program's science curriculum is balanced against the educational coursework and teaching residencies that necessarily form the program's backbone, the museum's approach to strengthening the teacher candidate's science background may also inform the faculty and administration of other UTRs in cases where one of their program goals is to further expand their teacher candidate's content knowledge and practical subject matter experience.
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Faculty Development Program Models to Advance Teaching and Learning Within Health Science Programs
Lancaster, Jason W.; Stein, Susan M.; MacLean, Linda Garrelts; Van Amburgh, Jenny
2014-01-01
Within health science programs there has been a call for more faculty development, particularly for teaching and learning. The primary objectives of this review were to describe the current landscape for faculty development programs for teaching and learning and make recommendations for the implementation of new faculty development programs. A thorough search of the pertinent health science databases was conducted, including the Education Resource Information Center (ERIC), MEDLINE, and EMBASE, and faculty development books and relevant information found were reviewed in order to provide recommendations for best practices. Faculty development for teaching and learning comes in a variety of forms, from individuals charged to initiate activities to committees and centers. Faculty development has been effective in improving faculty perceptions on the value of teaching, increasing motivation and enthusiasm for teaching, increasing knowledge and behaviors, and disseminating skills. Several models exist that can be implemented to support faculty teaching development. Institutions need to make informed decisions about which plan could be most successfully implemented in their college or school. PMID:24954939
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Faculty development program models to advance teaching and learning within health science programs.
Lancaster, Jason W; Stein, Susan M; MacLean, Linda Garrelts; Van Amburgh, Jenny; Persky, Adam M
2014-06-17
Within health science programs there has been a call for more faculty development, particularly for teaching and learning. The primary objectives of this review were to describe the current landscape for faculty development programs for teaching and learning and make recommendations for the implementation of new faculty development programs. A thorough search of the pertinent health science databases was conducted, including the Education Resource Information Center (ERIC), MEDLINE, and EMBASE, and faculty development books and relevant information found were reviewed in order to provide recommendations for best practices. Faculty development for teaching and learning comes in a variety of forms, from individuals charged to initiate activities to committees and centers. Faculty development has been effective in improving faculty perceptions on the value of teaching, increasing motivation and enthusiasm for teaching, increasing knowledge and behaviors, and disseminating skills. Several models exist that can be implemented to support faculty teaching development. Institutions need to make informed decisions about which plan could be most successfully implemented in their college or school.
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Yenni, Rita; Hernani, Widodo, Ari
2017-05-01
The study aims to determine the increasing of students' science literacy skills on content aspects and competency of science by using Integrated Science teaching materials based Socio-scientific Issues (SSI) for environmental pollution theme. The method used in the study is quasi-experiment with nonequivalent pretest and posttest control group design. The students of experimental class used teaching materials based SSI, whereas the students of control class were still using the usual textbooks. The result of this study showed a significant difference between the value of N-gain of experimental class and control class, whichalso occurred in every indicator of content aspects and competency of science. This result indicates that using of Integrated Science teaching materials based SSI can improve content aspect and competency of science and can be used as teaching materials alternative in teaching of Integrated Science.
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Research and teaching nuclear sciences at universities in developing countries
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
1981-11-01
A formulation is given for a set of ground rules to be applied when introducing or improving nuclear science training at the university level in developing countries. Comments are made on the general requirements needed for the teaching of nuclear science at the university and particular suggestions made for the areas of nuclear physics radiochemistry and radiation chemistry and electronics
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The CSI Academy: Encouraging Diverse Students to Consider Science Careers and Science Teaching
Kaye, Karen; Turner, John F.; Emigh, James
2011-01-01
The CSI academies employed a multi-layered, collaborative approach to encourage diverse students to consider STEM careers, including science teaching. The academies recruited a diverse group of high school students. This was due, in large part, to the creation of a unique selection process that identified students with unrealized potential. The…
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CDM: Teaching Discrete Mathematics to Computer Science Majors
Sutner, Klaus
2005-01-01
CDM, for computational discrete mathematics, is a course that attempts to teach a number of topics in discrete mathematics to computer science majors. The course abandons the classical definition-theorem-proof model, and instead relies heavily on computation as a source of motivation and also for experimentation and illustration. The emphasis on…
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Equitable science education in urban middle schools: Do reform efforts make a difference?
Hewson, Peter W.; Butler Kahle, Jane; Scantlebury, Kathryn; Davies, Darleen
2001-12-01
A central commitment of current reforms in science education is that all students, regardless of culture, gender, race, and/ or socioeconomic status, are capable of understanding and doing science. The study Bridging the Gap: Equity in Systemic Reform assessed equity in systemic reform using a nested research design that drew on both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. As part of the study, case studies were conducted in two urban middle schools in large Ohio cities. The purpose of the case studies was to identify factors affecting equity in urban science education reform. Data were analyzed using Kahle's (1998) equity metric. That model allowed us to assess progress toward equity using a range of research-based indicators grouped into three categories critical for equitable education: access to, retention in, and achievement in quality science education. In addition, a fourth category was defined for systemic indicators of equity. Analyses indicated that the culture and climate of the case study schools differentially affected their progress toward equitable reform in science education.
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Meyer, Helen; Tabachnick, B. Robert; Hewson, Peter W.; Lemberger, John; Park, Hyun-Ju
1999-01-01
Discusses three prospective elementary teachers' conceptions of teaching science and selected portions of their knowledge base in life science. Explores how these teachers' conceptions, along with their teaching actions, developed during the course of a teacher-education program. Contains 21 references. (Author/WRM)
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Discussion of Science and Math Teaching Methods: criticism and possibilities in teaching practices
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Elizabeth Gerhardt Manfredo
2005-06-01
Full Text Available This paper presents a discussion of practices among Science and Math teachers in Brazilian Basic Education. Analysis focuses on criticism over teaching practices throughout Basic Education which includes Children, Primary and Medium levels. Discussion highlights the interdisciplinary and educational projects as the most chosen tool for reflective practices. Most educational problems must be solved by the use of shared theoretical choices and investigative methodological approach. Such choices ought to be made during teachers' continuing trainning based on a researcher-teacher action as it provides ways for methodological changes in Sciences and Math Education in the Country
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Mayfield, K. K.
2017-12-01
BackgroundTo minority adolescents in urban centers science inquiry seems like an engagement completed by others with specialized skills (Alkon & Agyeman, 2012). When scientists teach science classes those spaces and pedagogy are underwritten by the science teachers' beliefs about how science happens (Southerland, Gess-Newsome & Johnston, 2002). Further, scientific inquiry is often presented as the realm of upperclass whiteness (Alkon & Agyeman, 2012; Mayfield, 2014). When science educators talk about the achievement gaps between raced and classed learners, accompanying that gap is also a gap in science experience. My high school students in a postindustrial school district: attend a school under state takeover (the lowest 5/5 rating (MA Executive Office of Education, 2017)); have a student body that is 70% Latinx; and 96% of whom receive Free and Reduced Lunch (a Federal marker of a family below the poverty line). Annual Yearly Progress is a goal set by state and federal governments for school populations by race, ability, and language. In 2016, the site has failed to make its goals for special education, black, hispanic, white, and English as a Second Language populations. As a high poverty district there is a paucity of extracurricular science experiences. This lack of science extensions make closing standardized test gaps difficult. Geoscience Skills & FindingsThis after school program does not replicate deficit narratives that keep certain bodies of students away from science inquiry (Mayfield, 2015; Ogbu, 1987). Instead, Science Club uses an array of student-centered science (physics, math, arts, chemistry, biology) projects to help students see themselves as citizen scientists who lead explorations of their world. We meet 1.5 hours a week in a 30 week school year. Science club helps students feel like powerful and capable science inquirers with 80% girls in attendance, and uses science experiments to cultivate essential inquiry skills like: Observation
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Teaching urbanism : the Delft approach
Nijhuis, S.; Stolk, E.H.; Hoekstra, M.J.
2016-01-01
The Department of Urbanism at the Faculty of Architecture and Built Environment at the Delft University of Technology has a long tradition in educating generations of internationally oriented designers, planners and researchers in urbanism. Here the domain of urbanism is defined as an
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Miranda Martins, Dominique
This study sought to understand how a group of pre-service teachers in a combined secondary science and mathematics teaching methods course conceptualized and experienced interdisciplinary approaches to teaching. Although knowing how to plan interdisciplinary activities is an essential teaching practice in Quebec, these pre-service teachers faced many challenges during the process of learning to teach with this approach. By using two interdisciplinary frameworks (Nikitina, 2005; Boix Mansilla & Duraising, 2007), I qualitatively analyzed the development of the pre-service teachers' prior and emerging ideas about interdisciplinarity and their ability to plan interdisciplinary teaching activities. The provincial curriculum and issues related to time greatly shaped students' conceptions about interdisciplinarity in the classroom and constrained their ability to plan for and envision the enactment of interdisciplinary lessons in secondary science and mathematics classes. In addition, images of themselves as content-specialists, self-efficacy beliefs in relation to interdisciplinary teaching, and student learning as a source of teacher motivation emerged as key factors promoting or interrupting the development of interdisciplinary teaching approaches. Examination of these factors highlights the need for teacher-education programs to provide opportunities for pre-service teachers to explore how they see themselves as educators, increase their instructional self-efficacy beliefs, and motivate them to teach in an interdisciplinary fashion. Keywords: interdisciplinary teaching, student-teachers, curriculum, teacher-education program, self-efficacy, motivation.
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Educational Technologies in Health Science Libraries: Teaching Technology Skills
Hurst, Emily J.
2014-01-01
As technology rapidly changes, libraries remain go-to points for education and technology skill development. In academic health sciences libraries, trends suggest librarians provide more training on technology topics than ever before. While education and training have always been roles for librarians, providing technology training on new mobile devices and emerging systems requires class creation and training capabilities that are new to many. To appeal to their users, many health sciences librarians are interested in developing technology-based classes. This column explores the question: what skills are necessary for developing and teaching technology in an academic health sciences library setting? PMID:24528269
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Educational technologies in health sciences libraries: teaching technology skills.
Hurst, Emily J
2014-01-01
As technology rapidly changes, libraries remain go-to points for education and technology skill development. In academic health sciences libraries, trends suggest librarians provide more training on technology topics than ever before. While education and training have always been roles for librarians, providing technology training on new mobile devices and emerging systems requires class creation and training capabilities that are new to many librarians. To appeal to their users, many health sciences librarians are interested in developing technology-based classes. This column explores the question: what skills are necessary for developing and teaching technology in an academic health sciences library setting?
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Three-Dimensional Soil Landscape Modeling: A Potential Earth Science Teaching Tool
Schmid, Brian M.; Manu, Andrew; Norton, Amy E.
2009-01-01
Three-dimensional visualization is helpful in understanding soils, and three dimensional (3-D) tools are gaining popularity in teaching earth sciences. Those tools are still somewhat underused in soil science, yet soil properties such as texture, color, and organic carbon content vary both vertically and horizontally across the landscape. These…
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Deehan, James; Danaia, Lena; McKinnon, David H.
2017-01-01
This paper assesses the relationship between participation in two tertiary science courses and the science teaching efficacy beliefs (STEBs) of one cohort of preservice elementary teachers over a four-year period. Two Type II case studies were conducted within the courses. Data were collected through 26 administrations of the Science Teaching…
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DLESE Teaching Boxes: Earth System Science Resources And Strategies For Using Data In The Classroom
Olds, S. E.; Weingroff, M.
2005-12-01
The DLESE Teaching Box project is both a professional development opportunity and an educational resource development project providing a pedagogic context that support teachers' use of data in the classroom. As a professional development opportunity, it is designed to augment teachers' science content knowledge, enhance their use of inquiry teaching strategies, and increase their confidence and facility with using digital libraries and online learning resources. Teams of educators, scientists, and instructional designers work together during a three part Teaching Box Development Workshop series to create Teaching Boxes on Earth system science topics. The resulting Teaching Boxes use Earth system science conceptual frameworks as their core and contain inquiry-based lessons which model scientific inquiry and process by focusing on the gathering and analysis of evidence. These lines of evidence employ an Earth systems approach to show how processes across multiple spheres, for example, how the biosphere, atmosphere, and geosphere interact in a complex Earth process. Each Teaching Box has interconnected lessons that provide 3-6 weeks of instruction, incorporate National and California science standards, and offer guidance on teaching pathways through the materials. They contain up-to-date digital materials including archived and real-time data sets, simulations, images, lesson plans, and other resources available through DLESE, NSDL, and the participating scientific institutions. Background information provided within the Box supports teacher learning and guides them to facilitate student access to the tools and techniques of authentic, modern science. In developing Teaching Boxes, DLESE adds value to existing educational resources by helping teachers more effectively interpret their use in a variety of standards-based classroom settings. In the past twelve months we have had over 100 requests for Teaching Box products from teachers and curriculum developers from
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Yapici, Hakki
2016-01-01
The aim of this study is to apply the jigsaw technique in Social Sciences teaching and to unroll the effects of this technique on learning. The unit "Science within Time" in the secondary 7th grade Social Sciences text book was chosen for the research. It is aimed to compare the jigsaw technique with the traditional teaching method in…
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Adopting Just-in-Time Teaching in the Context of an Elementary Science Education Methodology Course
Osmond, Pamela; Goodnough, Karen
2011-01-01
In this self-study, Pamela, a new science teacher educator, adopted Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) in the context of an elementary science education methodology course. JiTT is a teaching and learning strategy involving interaction between web-based study assignments and face-to-face class sessions. Students respond electronically to web-based…
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The Role of Technology in Science Teaching Activities: Web Based Teaching Applications
Fatma ALKAN; Canan KOÇAK ALTUNDAĞ
2016-01-01
2015 Abstract In this research the attitudes of pre-service teachers studying at Hacettepe University, Division of Science Education towards the importance of technological equipment in chemistry education activities and how effective they find technology in teaching different skills and applications have been examined. Pre-test/post-test control group design has been used in the research. In the experimental group Titrimetric Analysis has been conducted with simulations ...
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Pitiporntapin, Sasithep; Lankford, Deanna Marie
2015-01-01
This paper addresses using social media to promote pre-service science teachers' practices of Socio-Scientific Issue (SSI) based teaching in a science classroom setting. We designed our research in two phases. The first phase examined pre-service science teachers' perceptions about using social media to promote their SSI-based teaching. The…
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Sublime science: Teaching for scientific sublime experiences in middle school classrooms
Cavanaugh, Shane
Due to a historical separation of cognition and emotion, the affective aspects of learning are often seen as trivial in comparison to the more 'essential' cognitive qualities - particularly in the domain of science. As a result of this disconnect, feelings of awe, wonder, and astonishment as well as appreciation have been largely ignored in the working lives of scientists. In turn, I believe that science education has not accurately portrayed the world of science to our students. In an effort to bring the affective qualities of science into the science classroom, I have drawn on past research in the field of aesthetic science teaching and learning as well as works by, Burke, Kant, and Dewey to explore a new construct I have called the "scientific sublime". Scientific sublime experiences represent a sophisticated treatment of the cognitive as well as affective qualities of science learning. The scientific sublime represents feelings of awe, wonder, and appreciation that come from a deep understanding. It is only through this understanding of a phenomenon that we can appreciate its true complexity and intricacies, and these understandings when mixed with the emotions of awe and reverence, are sublime. Scientific sublime experiences are an attempt at the re-integration of cognition and feeling. The goal of this research was twofold: to create and teach a curriculum that fosters scientific sublime experiences in middle school science classes, and to better understand how these experiences are manifested in students. In order to create an approach to teaching for scientific sublime experiences, it was first necessary for me to identify key characteristics of such an experience and a then to create a pedagogical approach, both of which are described in detail in the dissertation. This research was conducted as two studies in two different middle schools. My pedagogical approach was used to create and teach two five-week 7 th grade science units---one on weather
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Preparing clinical laboratory science students with teaching skills.
Isabel, Jeanne M
2010-01-01
Training clinical laboratory science (CLS) students in techniques of preparation and delivery of an instructional unit is an important component of all CLS education programs and required by the national accrediting agency. Participants of this study included students admitted to the CLS program at Northern Illinois University and enrolled in the teaching course offered once a year between the years of 1997 and 2009. Courses on the topic of "teaching" may be regarded by CLS students as unnecessary. However, entry level practitioners are being recruited to serve as clinical instructors soon after entering the workforce. Evaluation of the data collected indicates that students are better prepared to complete tasks related to instruction of a topic after having an opportunity to study and practice skills of teaching. Mentoring CLS students toward the career role of clinical instructor or professor is important to maintaining the workforce.
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Tracing a Beginning Elementary Teacher’s Development of Identity for Science Teaching
Avraamidou, Lucy
2014-01-01
The purpose of this case study was to examine a beginning elementary teacher’s development of identity for science teaching from her first year at university, her field experience, and through her first year of teaching. Several kinds of data were collected over a period of 5 years through different
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Siew, Nyet Moi; Amir, Nazir; Chong, Chin Lu
2015-01-01
Whilst much attention has focused on project-based approaches to teaching Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects, little has been reported on the views of South-East Asian science teachers on project-based STEM approaches. Such knowledge could provide relevant information for education training institutions on how to influence innovative teaching of STEM subjects in schools. This article reports on a study that investigated the perceptions of 25 pre-service and 21 in-service Malaysian science teachers in adopting an interdisciplinary project-based STEM approach to teaching science. The teachers undertook an eight hour workshop which exposed them to different science-based STEM projects suitable for presenting science content in the Malaysian high school science syllabus. Data on teachers' perceptions were captured through surveys, interviews, open-ended questions and classroom discussion before and at the end of the workshop. Study findings showed that STEM professional development workshops can provide insights into the support required for teachers to adopt innovative, effective, project-based STEM approaches to teaching science in their schools.
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Demonstrating Inquiry-Based Teaching Competencies in the Life Sciences--Part 2
Thompson, Stephen
2007-01-01
This set of botany demonstrations is a continuation of the inquiry-based lecture activities that provide realistic connections to the history and nature of science and employ technology in data collection. The demonstrations also provide examples of inquiry-based teaching practices in the life sciences. (Contains 5 figures.) [For Part 1, see…
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Let's Turn Things on Their Head--Teaching Counterintuitive Science
Kumar, David
2017-01-01
Teaching science through counterintuitive events is an effective way of engaging students in exploring science; such events motivate and involve students in solving problems with a high degree of creativity and critical thinking. This can push students into a seeking explanation mode, setting the stage for discovery. In this article, the author…
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Ways to Prepare Future Teachers to Teach Science in Multicultural Classrooms
Billingsley, Berry
2016-01-01
Roussel De Carvalho uses the notion of superdiversity to draw attention to some of the pedagogical implications of teaching science in multicultural schools in cosmopolitan cities such as London. De Carvalho makes the case that if superdiverse classrooms exist then Science Initial Teacher Education has a role to play in helping future science…
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Abed, Osama H.
2016-01-01
This study investigated the effect of drama-based science teaching on students' understanding of scientific concepts and their attitudes towards science learning. The study also aimed to examine if there is an interaction between students' achievement level in science and drama-based instruction. The sample consisted of (87) of 7th grade students…
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Treagust, David F.; Won, Mihye; Petersen, Jacinta; Wynne, Georgie
2015-02-01
In this article, we describe how teachers in the Australian school system are educated to teach science and the different qualifications that teachers need to enter the profession. The latest comparisons of Australian students in international science assessments have brought about various accountability measures to improve the quality of science teachers at all levels. We discuss the issues and implications of government initiatives in preservice and early career teacher education programs, such as the implementation of national science curriculum, the stricter entry requirements to teacher education programs, an alternative pathway to teaching and the measure of effectiveness of teacher education programs. The politicized discussion and initiatives to improve the quality of science teacher education in Australia are still unfolding as we write in 2014.
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The Ontology of Science Teaching in the Neoliberal Era
Sharma, Ajay
2017-01-01
Because of ever stricter standards of accountability, science teachers are under an increasing and unrelenting pressure to demonstrate the effects of their teaching on student learning. Econometric perspectives of "teacher quality" have become normative in assessment of teachers' work for accountability purposes. These perspectives seek…
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Preservice teachers' use of lesson study in teaching nature of science
McDowell, Amy Virginia
The purpose of this study was to explore preservice teachers' lived experiences in a lesson study focused on teaching and learning nature of science (NOS). The body of knowledge about shifting pre- and in-service novice NOS understandings is substantial. The focus of science education research is now exploring ways to move these informed NOS understandings into classroom practice (Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000b). The research questions guiding the study were (a) how do preservice teachers' understandings of NOS shift as a result of the lesson study experience?, and (b) how does the reflective practice that occurs in lesson study influence preservice teachers' transition of NOS tenets into classroom practice? The participants in this study represented a sample of graduate preservice teachers, who were part of a middle and secondary science teaching alternative certification program in a southeastern university. In the first summer semester of this certification program, the participants were immersed in reform based science instruction; a section of which included NOS teachings (INTASC, 2002). In the following semester, participants were placed in a practicum setting; where the exploration of the preservice teachers' teaching of NOS was supported through the modified lesson study framework. Data sources included the Views on Nature of Science-Form B (VNOS-b), interviews, and lesson study portfolios. Analysis of NOS understandings was guided by instruments found in literature associated with the VNOS-b (Lederman et al., 2002) and reflection (Ward & McCotter, 2004). Results showed successful transfer of NOS into classroom practice using the modified lesson study framework, with less success in the deepening of participants' NOS understandings. Of particular significance was that results indicated a deepening of NOS pedagogical content knowledge for those participants functioning at higher levels of reflection. The study's results contributes to two knowledge bases
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Science Teaching as Educational Interrogation of Scientific Research
Ginev, Dimitri
2013-01-01
The main argument of this article is that science teaching based on a pedagogy of questions is to be modeled on a hermeneutic conception of scientific research as a process of the constitution of texts. This process is spelled out in terms of hermeneutic phenomenology. A text constituted by scientific practices is at once united by a hermeneutic…
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Faculty development to improve teaching at a health sciences center: a needs assessment.
Scarbecz, Mark; Russell, Cynthia K; Shreve, Robert G; Robinson, Melissa M; Scheid, Cheryl R
2011-02-01
There has been increasing interest at health science centers in improving the education of health professionals by offering faculty development activities. In 2007-08, as part of an effort to expand education-related faculty development offerings on campus, the University of Tennessee Health Science Center surveyed faculty members in an effort to identify faculty development activities that would be of interest. Factor analysis of survey data indicated that faculty interests in the areas of teaching and learning can be grouped into six dimensions: development of educational goals and objectives, the use of innovative teaching techniques, clinical teaching, improving traditional teaching skills, addressing teaching challenges, and facilitating participation. There were significant differences in the level of interest in education-related faculty development activities by academic rank and by the college of appointment. Full professors expressed somewhat less interest in faculty development activities than faculty members of lower ranks. Faculty members in the Colleges of Medicine and Dentistry expressed somewhat greater interest in faculty development to improve traditional teaching skills. The policy implications of the survey results are discussed, including the need for faculty development activities that target the needs of specific faculty groups.
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Koliopoulos, Dimitris; Dossis, Sotiris; Stamoulis, Efthymios
2007-01-01
This study proposes an empirical classification of ways to introduce elements of the history of science into science teaching, as well as describing a special way to do so characterized by the introduction of short extracts from historical texts. The aim is to motivate students to participate in problem-solving activities and to transform their…
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Effects of Lesson Study on Science Teacher Candidates' Teaching Efficacies
Pektas, Murat
2014-01-01
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the lesson study process on science teacher candidates' teaching in terms of lesson plan content, pedagogy and classroom management based on expert, peer and self-evaluations. The participants of this case study consisted of 16 teacher candidates in elementary science education in their…
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Teaching Primary Science: Emotions, Identity and the Use of Practical Activities
Cripps Clark, John; Groves, Susie
2012-01-01
This paper uses cultural historical activity theory to examine the interactions between the choices primary teachers make in the use of practical activities in their teaching of science and the purposes they attribute to these; their emotions, background and beliefs; and the construction of their identities as teachers of science. It draws on four…
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Baldwin, Kathryn A.
2014-01-01
This study examined prospective elementary education majors' science teaching self-efficacy while they were enrolled in an introductory geology lab course for elementary education majors. The Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument Form B (STEBI-B) was administered during the first and last lab class sessions. Additionally, students were…
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Physics in Films: A New Approach to Teaching Science
Efthimiou, Costas J.; Llewellyn, Ralph
2004-01-01
Over the past year and a half we have developed an innovative approach to the teaching of `Physical Science', a general education course typically found in the curricula of nearly every college and university. The new approach uses popular movies to illustrate the principles of physical science, analyzing individual scenes against the background of the fundamental physical laws. The impact of being able to understand why, in reality, the scene could or could not have occurred as depicted in t...
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McGregor Petgrave, Dahlia M.
Many teachers are not adequately prepared to help urban students who have trouble understanding conceptual ideas in biology because these students have little connection to the natural world. This study explored potential professional development strategies to help urban biology teachers use concept maps effectively with various topics in the biology curriculum. A grounded theory approach was used to develop a substantive professional development model for urban biology teachers. Qualitative data were collected through 16 semi-structured interviews of professional developers experienced in working with concept maps in the urban context. An anonymous online survey was used to collect quantitative data from 56 professional developers and teachers to support the qualitative data. The participants were from New York City, recruited through the NY Biology-Chemistry Professional Development Mentor Network and the NY Biology Teachers' Association. According to the participants, map construction, classroom applications, lesson planning, action research, follow-up workshops, and the creation of learning communities are the most effective professional development strategies. The interviewees also proposed English language learning strategies such as picture maps, native word maps, and content reading materials with underlined words. This study contributes to social change by providing a professional development model to use in planning workshops for urban teachers. Urban teachers improve their own conceptual understanding of biology while learning how to implement concept mapping strategies in the classroom. Students whose teachers are better prepared to teach biology in a conceptual manner have the potential of growing into more scientifically literate citizens.
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Attitudes and Beliefs of Prekindergarten Teachers toward Teaching Science to Young Children
Pendergast, Evelaine; Lieberman-Betz, Rebecca G.; Vail, Cynthia O.
2017-01-01
This study explored infield prekindergarten teachers' attitudes and beliefs toward teaching science to young children. In addition, prekindergarten teachers' previous and future interests in science-related professional development were assessed. Data were collected through a self-report measure, the preschool teacher attitudes and beliefs toward…
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Teacher Training and Pre-service Primary Teachers’ Self-Efficacy for Science Teaching
Velthuis, C.H.; Fisser, Petra; Pieters, Julius Marie
2014-01-01
This study focuses on the improvement of pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching science by including science courses within the teacher training program. Knowing how efficacy beliefs change over time and what factors influence the development by pre-service primary teachers of positive
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Rak, Rosemary C.
The turnover of high school science teachers is an especially troubling problem in urban schools with economically disadvantaged students. Because high teacher turnover rates impede effective instruction, the persistence of teacher attrition is a serious concern. Using an online survey and interviews in a sequential mixed-methods approach, this study investigates the perceptions of high school science teachers regarding factors that contribute to their employment decisions. The study also compares first-career and second-career science teachers' perceptions of retention and attrition factors and identifies conditions that urban school leaders can establish to support the retention of their science teachers. A purposeful sample of 138 science teachers from urban area New England public high schools with 50% or more Free and Reduced Price Lunch-eligible students participated in the survey. Twelve survey respondents were subsequently interviewed. In accord with extant research, this study's results suggest that school leadership is essential to fostering teacher retention. The findings also reveal the importance of autonomy, professional community, and adequate resources to support science instruction. Although mentoring and induction programs receive low importance ratings in this study, career-changers view these programs as more important to their retention than do first-career science teachers. Second-career interviewees, in particular, voice the importance of being treated as professionals by school leaders. Future research may examine the characteristics of mentoring and induction programs that make them most responsive to the needs of first-career and second-career science teachers. Future studies may also investigate the aspects of school leadership and professional autonomy that are most effective in promoting science teacher retention. Keywords: career-changers; school leaders; science teachers; second-career teachers; teacher retention; teacher turnover
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Teaching science problem solving: an overview of experimental work
Taconis, R.; Ferguson-Hessler, M.G.M.; Broekkamp, H.
2001-01-01
The traditional approach to teaching science problem solving is having the students work individually on a large number of problems. This approach has long been overtaken by research suggesting and testing other methods, which are expected to be more effective. To get an overview of the
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Dolin, Jens; Evans, Robert Harry; Quistgaard, Nana
2010-01-01
The purpose of this paper is to bring together research on learning and teaching in science – especially for scientific literacy and citizenship – with new insights into museum didactics in order to inform innovative ways of creating museum exhibits and visits and develop new ways of linking formal...... and informal learning environments. Knowledge from different domains that have evolved substantially over the past few decades is brought together with the intention of setting up some relatively concrete guidelines for arranging visits to science museums. First we examine new understandings of science...... learning in relation to the questions of why young people should learn science and what kind of science they should learn. We touch upon issues of scientific literacy and citizenship, dialogical processes, the nature of science, and inquiry-based teaching among others. Secondly, we relate our reflections...
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Katz, Phyllis; McGinnis, J. Randy; Riedinger, Kelly; Marbach-Ad, Gili; Dai, Amy
2013-01-01
In case studies of two first-year elementary classroom teachers, we explored the influence of informal science education (ISE) they experienced in their teacher education program. Our theoretical lens was identity development, delimited to classroom science teaching. We used complementary data collection methods and analysis, including interviews,…
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Norman, Lashaunda Renea
This qualitative case study investigated the teaching strategies that improve science learning of African American students. This research study further sought the extent the identified teaching strategies that are used to improve African American science learning reflect culturally responsive teaching. Best teaching strategies and culturally responsive teaching have been researched, but there has been minimal research on the impact that both have on science learning, with an emphasis on the African American population. Consequently, the Black-White achievement gap in science persists. The findings revealed the following teaching strategies have a positive impact on African American science learning: (a) lecture-discussion, (b) notetaking, (c) reading strategies, (d) graphic organizers, (e) hands-on activities, (f) laboratory experiences, and (g) cooperative learning. Culturally responsive teaching strategies were evident in the seventh-grade science classrooms observed. Seven themes emerged from this research data: (1) The participating teachers based their research-based teaching strategies used in the classroom on all of the students' learning styles, abilities, attitudes towards science, and motivational levels about learning science, with no emphasis on the African American student population; (2) The participating teachers taught the state content standards simultaneously using the same instructional model daily, incorporating other content areas when possible; (3) The participating African American students believed their seventh-grade science teachers used a variety of teaching strategies to ensure science learning took place, that science learning was fun, and that science learning was engaging; (4) The participating African American students genuinely liked their teacher; (5) The participating African American students revealed high self-efficacy; (6) The African American student participants' parents value education and moved to Success Middle School
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"Urban, but Not Too Urban": Unpacking Teachers' Desires to Teach Urban Students
Watson, Dyan
2011-01-01
This study explores 16 novice, urban-trained teachers' evaluations of their current schools. Findings suggest that teachers used the perceived behaviors, values, and beliefs of students to measure how urban a student was and, therefore, to guide their expectations and satisfaction of their placements. The less urban the students were perceived to…
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Teaching and Assessing Ethics and Social Responsibility in Undergraduate Science: A Position Paper
Schultz, Madeleine
2014-01-01
Institutional graduate capabilities and discipline threshold learning outcomes require science students to demonstrate ethical conduct and social responsibility. However, the teaching and assessment of these concepts are not straightforward. Australian chemistry academics participated in a workshop in 2013 to discuss and develop teaching and…
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Pair Programming as a Modern Method of Teaching Computer Science
Irena Nančovska Šerbec; Branko Kaučič; Jože Rugelj
2008-01-01
At the Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana we educate future computer science teachers. Beside didactical, pedagogical, mathematical and other interdisciplinary knowledge, students gain knowledge and skills of programming that are crucial for computer science teachers. For all courses, the main emphasis is the absorption of professional competences, related to the teaching profession and the programming profile. The latter are selected according to the well-known document, the ACM C...
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Teaching about Nature of Science in Secondary Education: A View from Multicultural Classrooms
Gandolfi, Haira Emanuela
2017-01-01
Teaching about nature of science (NOS) within a science curriculum that is primarily concerned with developing scientific content continues to provide a challenge for teachers. This study of science lessons focuses on whether NOS is being incorporated implicitly or explicitly, and whether epistemic aspects (e.g. models, theories) and social…
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Naidoo, Kara
Elementary teachers are criticized for failing to incorporate meaningful science instruction in their classrooms or avoiding science instruction altogether. The lack of adequate science instruction in elementary schools is partially attributed to teacher candidates' anxiety, poor content and pedagogical preparation, and low science teaching self-efficacy. The central premise of this study was that many of these issues could be alleviated through course modifications designed to address these issues. The design tested and presented here provided prospective elementary educators' authentic science teaching experiences with elementary students in a low-stakes environment with the collaboration of peers and science teacher educators. The process of comprehensive reflection was developed for and tested in this study. Comprehensive reflection is individual and collective, written and set in dialogic discourse, focused on past and future behavior, and utilizes video recordings from shared teaching experiences. To test the central premise, an innovative science methods course was designed, implemented and evaluated using a one-group mixed-method design. The focus of the analysis was on changes in self-efficacy, identity and teaching practices as a function of authentic science teaching experiences and comprehensive reflection. The quantitative tools for analysis were t-tests and repeated-measures ANOVA on the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument-B (STEBI-B) and weekly self-rating on confidence as a learner and a teacher of science, respectively. The tools used to analyze qualitative data included thematic analysis and interpretative phenomenological analysis. In addition, theoretically grounded tools were developed and used in a case study to determine the ways one prospective educator's science teaching identity was influenced by experiences in the course. The innovative course structure led the development of teacher candidates' science teaching identity
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Hartmeyer, Rikke; Bolling, Mads; Bentsen, Peter
2017-01-01
knowledge dimensions is important, especially in science teaching outside the classroom, where “hands-on” approaches and experiments are often part of teaching and require procedural knowledge, among other things. Therefore, this study investigates PMM as a method for exploring specific knowledge dimensions......Current research points to Personal Meaning Mapping (PMM) as a method useful in investigating students’ prior and current science knowledge. However, studies investigating PMM as a method for exploring specific knowledge dimensions are lacking. Ensuring that students are able to access specific...... in formal science education integrating teaching outside the classroom. We applied a case study design involving two schools and four sixth-grade classes. Data were collected from six students in each class who constructed personal meaning maps and were interviewed immediately after natural science...
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Principles of Gestalt Psychology and Their Application to Teaching Junior High School Science
Blosser, Patricia E.
1973-01-01
Discusses insightful learning, trace system,'' and laws of perception and Pragnanz in connection with problem solving and critical thinking in science teaching. Suggests 19 guidelines for sequencing curriculum and identifying activities for use in science classes. (CC)
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Science learning and teaching in a Creole-speaking environment
Lodge, Wilton
2017-09-01
The focus of this response to Charity Hudley and Christine Mallinson's article, `"Its worth our time": A model of culturally and linguistically responsive professional development for K-12 STEM educators', is to underpin a pedagogy that encourages and provides opportunities for the use of non-standard language in the description and practice of science. I discuss this within the context of Jamaica and provide an alternative way of science teaching, one which promotes Jamaican Creole as a mode of instruction for classroom talk and printed material.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Mohammad Abuei Ardakan
2010-04-01
Full Text Available The present paper offers a basic introduction to data clustering and demonstrates the application of clustering methods in drawing maps of science. All approaches towards classification and clustering of information are briefly discussed. Their application to the process of visualization of conceptual information and drawing of science maps are illustrated by reviewing similar researches in this field. By implementing aggregated hierarchical clustering algorithm, which is an algorithm based on complete-link method, the map for urban management science as an emerging, interdisciplinary scientific field is analyzed and reviewed.
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Seeing a World in a Grain of Sand: Science Teaching in Multicultural Context.
Chambers, David Wade
1999-01-01
Describes the Imagining Nature Project at Deakin University in Australia, and the Native Eyes Project at the Institute of American Indian Art in New Mexico. Both projects entail the teaching of science and technology to non-science majors of highly diverse cultural origin. They also incorporate innovative strategies to make science and technology…
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Ciencia en "Nepantla": The Journey of "Nepantler@s" in Science Learning and Teaching
Aguilar-Valdez, Jean R.; LópezLeiva, Carlos A.; Roberts-Harris, Deborah; Torres-Velásquez, Diane; Lobo, Gilberto; Westby, Carol
2013-01-01
This paper presents a new approach to science education that takes a path through sociocultural theory and into the ideas of Gloria Anzaldúa. We apply Anzaldúan theory to science education by illustrating it in action through various examples which explore the multidimensionality of teaching science with Latin@ students in various contexts…
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Emotions in prospective secondary teachers when teaching science content, distinguishing by gender
Belén Borrachero, Ana; Brígido, María; Mellado, Lucía; Costillo, Emilio; Mellado, Vicente
2014-05-01
Background:Until recently, the affective components of education had long been undervalued. Today, one finds ever more studies on cognitive and affective interrelationships that are lending support to the idea that affect and cognition are best understood when viewed as independent and complementary mental functions. Purpose:The present work analyses the emotions of prospective secondary education teachers, distinguishing them by gender, in relation to the teaching of Biology, Geology, Physics and Chemistry in order to contribute to designing subsequent interventions targeted at improving science teachers' occupational health. Sample:The total sample consisted of 178 students (53 male and 125 female) of the post-graduate teaching certificate course at the University of Extremadura, all of whom were prospective secondary school teachers. We also worked with a sub-sample of 66 Science and Engineering graduates (33 male and 33 female). Design and methods:A questionnaire was prepared that includes items on each of the emotions that the prospective teacher might feel when teaching the science content of the proposed courses. The chi-squared test was used to determine whether a relationship exists between emotions and the variable gender when it came to their teaching Biology, Geology, Physics and Chemistry at the compulsory secondary education level. Results:The results showed that the male teachers more frequently report positive emotions than the female. The latter manifested an increase in negative emotions in teaching Geology, Physics and Chemistry content. And the study of the sub-sample showed positive emotions are more frequently reported than negative ones in all four subjects, with this being particularly so in Biology. Conclusions:The study of emotions is vital in the educational formation of prospective secondary teachers. These students will soon face day-to-day life in the classroom, and many of them, especially the women, declare themselves to be
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Teaching Journalistic Texts in Science Classes: the Importance of Media Literacy
Ginosar, Avshalom; Tal, Tali
2017-11-01
This study employs a single framework for investigating both environmental journalistic texts published on news websites, and science teachers' choices of such texts for their teaching. We analyzed 188 environmental items published during 2 months in seven news websites to determine popularity of topics. Then, 64 science junior high school teachers responded to a closed questionnaire to identify their preferred topics for using in the classroom and patterns of using environmental news items. In a second, open-ended questionnaire, responded by 50 teachers, we investigated the teachers' media literacy in terms of identifying text types and writers of environmental news items. Good alignment was found between the published topics on the websites and teachers' choices, with somewhat different distribution of topics, which could be explained by curriculum requirements. Teachers' identification of text types and writer types was inaccurate, which implied that their media literacy is inadequate. We argue that media literacy is required for effective use of journalistic texts in science teaching.