Addressing Equity and Diversity with Teachers Though Informal Science Institutions and Teacher Professional Development

This study explores how activities developed by science experts in partnership with middle school teachers were employed and interpreted. The goals of this partnership were to (a) help the science teacher meet earth science content standards in new ways, (b) expose students to ‘real world’ experiences outside their school setting, and (c) positively impact teacher practice by providing a program to be used as a catalyst for future learning. Over 300 sixth graders mostly underrepresented science students attended activities at an aquarium serving an urban West Coast urban context. Science teachers, non-science teachers, scientists, and volunteers were all engaged in pre-trip instruction, professional development opportunities, and follow-up activities as this partnership effort explored ways to enhance local literacy initiatives across the curriculum. Results suggest that teacher beliefs about informal education impacted their view and participation in the program and the level of submersion of teachers in collaboration strongly affects the ability to serve underrepresented students on informal excursions. Implications for teacher education and outreach are discussed.     

A story of culture and teaching: the complexity of teacher identity formation

Research in teacher education repeatedly suggests that the background and underlying beliefs held by pre-service teachers about teaching and assessment act to shape their interpretations of ideas, powerfully influencing their praxis and their developing teacher identity. This paper explores how a young New Zealand secondary science teacher, raised and educated in Māori-medium and then English-medium New Zealand schools, develops his identity as a teacher as he navigates a range of educational contexts and experiences. His views on assessment provide a focus. The paper presents a case study drawn from a two-year longitudinal study, comprising a series of interviews with the teacher, as he transitioned from a university graduate to a qualified science teacher working in his first school. The complexity of teacher identity development is highlighted, particularly for teachers for whom cultural identity and indigenous world view is important. It suggests that beginning teachers need more time in their pre-service teacher education to reflect on the influence their formative educational experiences have on who they are becoming as a teacher.     

Forging School–Scientist Partnerships: A Case of Easier Said than Done?

Since the early 1980s, a number of initiatives have been undertaken worldwide which have involved scientists and teachers working together in projects designed to support the science learning of students. Many of these have attempted to establish school–scientist partnerships. In these, scientists, teachers, and students formed teams engaged in mutually beneficial science-based activities founded on principles such as equal recognition and input, and shared vision, responsibility and risk. This article uses two partnership programmes run by a New Zealand Science Research Institute, to illustrate the challenges faced by scientists and teachers as they attempted to forge meaningful and effective partnerships. It argues that achieving the theorised position of a shared partnership space at the intersection of the worlds of scientists and teachers is problematic, and that scientists must instead be prepared to penetrate deeply into the world of the classroom when undertaking any such interactions. Findings indicate epistemological differences, curriculum and school systems and issues, and teacher efficacy and science knowledge significantly affect the process of partnership formation. Furthermore, it is argued that a re-thinking of partnerships is needed to reflect present economic and education environments, which are very different to those in which they were originally conceived nearly 30 years ago. It suggests that technology has an important role to play in future partnership interactions.     

Teaching transformation under centralized curriculum and teacher learning community: Two Chinese chemistry teachers' experiences in developing inquiry-based instruction

The establishment of centralized curriculum standards and school-based teacher learning communities are presumably necessary to reform science teaching towards inquiry-based instruction in many countries. Drawing on interview, document, and unit plan data from two high school chemistry teachers in China, this study examines these assumptions. Findings indicated that both teachers developed different kinds of science teaching practices despite working under the centralized science curriculum and school-based teacher learning communities. Different teaching experiences of the two teachers and their school cultures of teaching interacted with the centralized curriculum and teacher teaching community to consequently shape their teaching practices in different ways.     

Mapping the landscape of writing instruction in New Zealand primary school classrooms

Writing instruction in New Zealand occurs in a context with potential for variability in curriculum and delivery. The national curriculum is broad; self governing schools are to interpret and apply as appropriate to their local context. There are no mandated tests, nor external examinations until the last three years of school. Schools report to the Ministry about achievement in Years 1–8 against national standards in writing, based on overall teacher judgements. The nature of this context supports the notion of drawing on several sources to describe the current landscape of writing instruction: policy documents, specifically the curriculum and standards; national tools and resources for professional learning; the limited existing research base relating to writing in New Zealand, and a study designed to extend this latter body of work by surveying teachers about their practices. The existing research largely concerns the practices of exemplary teachers or relates to investigating the effects of professional development interventions. The survey reported provides the most direct evidence of actual practice. Survey responses (N = 118) came from, on average, moderately experienced teachers who reported a relatively high level of confidence regarding aspects of teaching writing. Results suggest that surveyed teachers reflected the themes identified in the New Zealand teacher based and intervention research, which in turn reflected policy initiatives. The combined evidence indicates the influence of the ‘teaching as inquiry’ approach on writing pedagogy.     

Promoting alphabet knowledge and phonological awareness in low socioeconomic child care settings: a quasi experimental study in five New Zealand centers

This study examined if professional development with teachers would increase children’s literacy skills in low socioeconomic early childhood settings in New Zealand and would lead to changes in teachers’ beliefs and practices and children’s abilities over an 8 week intervention period. Research indicates that children who have alphabetic and phonological awareness on school entry are well positioned to transition from emergent to conventional literacy (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). Although most children develop requisite knowledge and skills as part of early education in New Zealand, about 25 % of children do not (Nicholson, 2005) and struggle with beginning reading. One of the challenges is how teachers can foster emergent literacy within a holistic curriculum such as Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 1996), the New Zealand early childhood curriculum. A quasi experimental design was used in which teachers’ and children’s knowledge was pre and post tested in five early childhood centers. Teachers’ (n = 32) beliefs and phonemic awareness were tested using a questionnaire. A range of literacy measures which tested alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness, ability to recognise and write their own name and the British Picture Vocabulary Test were used with children aged 3–5 years (n = 103). Professional development was offered to teachers at the beginning of the study in four centers; the fifth center was a control. In addition, teachers’ logbooks of how they promoted literacy were collected. Some changes in children’s skills were found, along with some differences in teachers’ beliefs and practices. The results suggest professional development with teachers to support children’s literacy needs to involve more intensive coaching and guiding.     

Being professional: accountability and authority in teachers’ responses to science curriculum reform

The science curriculum is a focus of repeated reform in many countries. However, the enactment of such reforms within schools rarely reflects the intended outcomes of curriculum designers. This review considers what we know about the experiences and reflections of teachers in the enactment of externally driven school science curriculum reform. ‘Externally driven’ signals a focus on studies of teachers who did not make a proactive choice to adopt a particular curriculum reform initiative. This is a very common experience for teachers in many school systems, and one likely to highlight issues of professionalism and authority that are central to the work of teachers. The review analyses 34 relevant studies. These include studies of teachers’ experiences of national curriculum reform, and also studies focusing on more regional or local curriculum reform activities. The studies examine individual teachers’ beliefs, practices and reflections associated with curriculum reform, the response of teacher communities to reform (e.g. within school departments), and teachers’ (and other stakeholders’) experiences across school systems. A wide range of factors influencing teachers’ responses are identified. These are characterised in terms of personal, internal and external contexts of teachers’ work. The review also highlights issues of authority, professionalism and the process of meaning-making in response to external curriculum reform. The discussion section identifies important areas for future research and gives recommendations for the design of curriculum policies that recognise and support the professionalism of science teachers.     

Exploring practices of multiliteracies pedagogy through digital technologies: a narrative inquiry

Digital technologies have fast become integral within literacy learning and teaching across contexts as students engage with a variety of digital and multimodal texts. While teachers in New Zealand schools have a high degree of autonomy in the design and planning of literacy programs, little is currently known about how they understand and enact multiliteracies pedagogy (MLP). Using data gathered via interviews and classroom observations in an intermediate school in New Zealand, this article adopts a narrative inquiry approach to explore one teacher's approaches to using digital technologies and texts within literacy instruction. We explore in particular the ways in which MLP may be enacted implicitly rather than explicitly, within the complex matrix of teachers' personal beliefs and learning experiences, the perceived learning needs of students, and the school curriculum. We conclude with a call for the conscious and purposeful teaching of MLP, focusing on synaesthesia and the semiotic functions of texts.     

Theoretical beliefs and instructional practices used for teaching spelling in elementary classrooms

The current study aimed to examine teachers’ reported spelling assessment and instruction practices. Analysis of the match between teachers’ theoretical beliefs about spelling and their reported pedagogy was conducted to elucidate factors that may support or impede the use of evidence-based teaching strategies in the classroom. An electronic survey was completed by 405 randomly selected (stratified by region and socioeconomic status) elementary school teachers in New Zealand. The survey examined the following areas: spelling assessment, spelling instruction, beliefs about spelling, preparing teachers to teach spelling, and teachers’ perceived strengths and weaknesses of their spelling program. There was large variability in spelling assessment and instructional practices across teachers. Most respondents reported implementing some aspects of a developmental approach to spelling instruction through analysis of children’s spelling errors (64 %) and/or individualization of the spelling program (60 %). There was a large dissociation between teachers’ beliefs about spelling and their frequency of use of specific instructional practices associated with those beliefs (e.g., phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge). The mismatch between beliefs and reported practice appeared to be due to lack of professional knowledge regarding implementing explicit spelling instruction and finding time to teach spelling within the curriculum. Increasing teachers’ knowledge about language structure, practical implementation of key assessment and instruction activities, and the links between spelling and other areas of the curriculum are important factors in improving spelling pedagogical practices.     

Expressions of agency within complex policy structures: science teachers’ experiences of education policy reforms in Sweden

We explore the experiences of school science teachers as they enact three linked national curriculum and assessment policy reforms in Sweden. Our goal is to understand teachers’ differing responses to these reforms. A sample of 13 teachers engaged in 2 interviews over a 6–9-month period. Interviews included exploration of professional background and school context, perceptions of the aims of the policy reforms and experiences of working with these reforms in the classroom. Analysis was guided by an individual-oriented sociocultural perspective on professional agency. Here teaching is conceptualised as an ongoing interplay between teachers’ knowledge, skills and personal goals, and the characteristics of the social, institutional and policy settings in which they work. Our analysis shows that navigating the ensuing continuities and contradictions results in many different expressions of teacher agency, e.g. loss of autonomy and trust, pushing back, subversion, transfer of authority, and creative tensions. Typically, an individual teacher’s enactment of these reforms involved several of these expressions of agency. We demonstrate that the sociocultural perspective provides insights into teachers’ responses to education policy reform likely to be missed by studies that focus largely on individual teacher knowledge/beliefs about reform or skills in ‘implementing’ reform practices.     

Developing School-Scientist Partnerships: Lessons for Scientists from Forests-of-Life

The concept of partnerships between schools and practicing scientists came to prominence in the United States in the mid 1980s. The call by government for greater private sector involvement in education to raise standards in science achievement saw a variety of programmes developed, ranging from short-term sponsorships through to longer-term, project-based interactions. Recently, school-scientist partnerships (SSPs) have been rekindled as a means of assisting schools to motivate and inspire students in science, improve levels of teachers’ science knowledge, and increase awareness of the type and variety of career opportunities available in the sciences (Rennie and Howitt, 2009). This article summarises research that used an interpretive case study method to examine the performance of a two-year SSP pilot between a government-owned science research institute, and 200 students from two Intermediate (years 7 and 8) schools in New Zealand. It explored the experiences of scientists involved in the partnerships, and revealed difficulties in bridging the void that existed between the outcomes-driven, commercially-focused world of research scientists, and the more process-oriented, tightly structured, and conservative world of teachers and schools. Findings highlight the pragmatic realities of establishing partnerships, from the perspective of scientists. These include acute awareness of the nature of school systems, conventions and environments; the science, technological and pedagogical knowledge of teachers; teacher workload issues and pressures, curriculum priorities and access to science resources. The article identifies areas where time and effort should be invested to ensure successful partnership outcomes.     

The Complexity of Becoming a Dialogic Teacher in an English Language Arts Classroom

Recent research in English education has emphasised dialogically organised instruction to promote learning talk; yet little is known about teachers’ perceptions of their efforts to teach dialogically. This study draws on video-cued interviews to examine how secondary preservice English teacher Emma experiences trying to teach dialogically and the conflicting demands it elicits for her. Findings indicate that she must navigate competing discourses including the curriculum, the ideas of her mentor teacher, her beliefs about dialogic teaching and her university schooling. Emma’s accounts revealed that satisfying these at once was not achievable, and that her endeavour to become a dialogic teacher was rife with conflict.     

Learning to teach science in urban schools

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. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 941–964, 2001     

Professional development in person: identity and the construction of teaching within a high school science department

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.     

Crossing cultural borders into science teaching: Early life experiences,racial and ethnic identities,and beliefs about diversity

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to explore the development of belief systems as related to racial and ethnic identities of preservice teachers as they crossed cultural borders into science teaching. Data were collected throughout a yearlong teacher preparation program to learn how early life experiences and racial and ethnic identities of preservice teachers influenced both their beliefs about diversity in science classrooms and science teaching pedagogy. Case studies of three preservice teachers from diverse racial and ethnic background are presented: Asian American, African American, and Rural Appalachian. Using Bank's ethnicity typology, findings suggest that racial and ethnic identity, developed in early life experiences of preservice teachers, provided clarity on the rigidity of their beliefs about diversity and how they view science teaching. By learning about the border crossing experiences of preservice teachers in relation to their beliefs about diversity as related to racial and ethnic identities, the researchers hoped to provide insight on preparing preservice teachers for the challenges of working in diverse classrooms. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 119–141, 2004     

Connecting university science experiences to middle school science teaching

Summary 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.     

School Teachers’ Experiences of Science Curriculum Reform

We examine teachers’ experiences of a major reform of the school science curriculum for 14–16-year olds in England. This statutory reform enhances the range of available science courses and emphasises the teaching of socio-scientific issues and the nature of science, alongside the teaching of canonical science knowledge. This paper examines teachers’ experiences of the reform and the factors that condition these experiences. A designed sample of 22 teachers discussed their experiences of the reform within a semi-structured interview. Our analysis considers how the external and internal structures within which teachers work interact with the personal characteristics of teachers to condition their experiences of the curriculum reform. In many cases, personal/internal/external contexts of teachers’ work align, resulting in an overall working context that is supportive of teacher change. However, in other cases, tensions within these contexts result in barriers to change. We also explore cases in which external curriculum reform has stimulated the development of new contexts for teachers’ work. We argue that curriculum reformers need to recognise the inevitability of multiple teaching goals within a highly differentiated department and school workplace. We also show how experiences of curriculum reform can extend beyond the learning of new knowledge and associated pedagogies to involve challenges to teachers’ professional identities. We argue for the extended use of teacher role models within local communities of practice to support such ‘identity work’.     

Knowing and learning about science in a preservice setting: A narrative study

This study employs narrative methods to give a holistic view of the experiences of five mature age preservice teachers in a semester unit of science education. The unit was designed to help teachers examine and make explicit their ideas about science and science teaching and consider ways in which they might put those ideas into practice. The pivotal theme, around which the teachers' experiences could be organised, was found to be learning science. The preservice teachers expressed a need for a supportive learning environment in which concepts were built gradually and introduced using concrete examples. Previous science experience was found to be a major influence on the attitudes the participants brought to the present course. A lack of previous experience or negative past experiences were a major cause of anxiety. Gender was also important as it had limited the science experiences available to some participants in the past and continued to influence the way they participated in classes during the semester. Specializations: primary science, science teacher education, primary school field experience. Specializations: formation of teachers' knowledge, leadership, teacher change, school reform.     

SAUDI ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHERS’ BELIEFS: TEACHING SCIENCE IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM

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 were from private schools—science teachers. The interviews were analyzed to identify and assess common themes among their beliefs as well as associations between their beliefs and self-reported classroom practices. The findings revealed perceptual differences between teaching the old and the new science curricula and also that these science teachers were challenged by available class time, the student–teacher ratio, and the lack of laboratory space, equipment, and administrative support. It appears that the more interactive and group-oriented activities that formed the instructional foundation of the new curriculum have increased enjoyment for teaching science and led students to better comprehension of scientific concepts.     

Are we building preservice Teacher self-efficacy? A large-scale study examining Teacher education experiences

Teacher education programs are under great pressure to produce highly capable teachers. Teacher self-efficacy has been shown to correlate with teacher motivation and perseverance, yet little is known about how specific teacher education experiences predict teacher self-efficacy. Four sources contributing to teacher self-efficacy beliefs during teacher education programs include mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion from teacher educators, and verbal persuasion from cooperating teachers. In this study, perceptions of these sources were examined to determine how well they correlate with and predict preservice teacher self-efficacy. Results showed all four variables were strong predictors of preservice teacher self-efficacy, but that these variables accounted for only 18% of the variance, suggesting additional sources need to be examined. Perceptions of training experiences were examined across nine programs (N = 783). Implications for teacher educators and mentor teachers are provided so as to find ways to strengthen preservice teacher self-efficacy.