When Modern Physics Meets Nature of Science

Science & Education - The social reaction to the recent detection of the Higgs boson and gravitational waves provided evidence that public interest in modern physics has reached a high point....     

Using Community Artifacts to Support Novice Math Teacher Educators in Teaching Prospective Teachers

Despite the centrality of math teacher educators (MTEs) in teacher education, we know little about the nature of professional learning opportunities for MTEs to develop and enhance the knowledge needed to teach prospective teachers. Existing models for supporting MTEs in developing their knowledge and practice do not address how to prepare novice MTEs in initially learning to teach prospective teachers. We present a professional learning model we have been pursuing for supporting novice MTEs and the generation of and role for community artifacts, namely lesson plans, in that model. We outline the process by which we implement, analyze, and collectively revise lesson plans so that they are continually improved over time to serve as artifacts that better instantiate what members of the local community are learning about how to support novice MTEs through identification of their problems of practice. Finally, we problematize the model we are investigating and propose implications of this model and questions raised by our work with the goal of inviting further discussion about supporting novice MTEs.

     

Troops to Teachers: Future Implications for Teacher Educators

Teacher educators will soon be confronted with the prospect of a relatively large number of former members of the United States Armed Forces seeking to make a transition to the profession of education. With support from the federal government in the form of the Troops-to-Teachers program as well as various state supplements, America's colleges and universities will be charged with ensuring that these aspiring teachers will be trained properly. It will soon be imperative that teacher education professionals recognize and effectively deal with the unique challenges related to this coming reality.     

Systematically Improving Lessons in Teacher Education: What's Good for Prospective Teachers is Good for Teacher Educators

Researchers have advocated building a knowledge base for teacher education based on practitioner knowledge. In this article, the authors, two teacher educators, present knowledge gained from their systematic study of two lessons to help prospective teachers learn to study teaching. They offer a detailed look at the lessons' successes and shortcomings as well as potential revisions. They also reflect on their use of a model for systematically studying lessons, sharing details about their learning during this process. This article attempts to provide a visible, tangible product for other teacher educators interested in helping prospective teachers examine evidence of student learning.     

Preparing the Next Generation of Science Teacher Educators: A Model for Developing PCK for Teaching Science Teachers

Science education doctoral programs often fail to address a critical piece—the explicit attention to the preparation of future science teacher educators. In this article, we argue that, in addition to developing skills and a knowledge base for research, doctoral students must be given the opportunity to observe, practice, and reflect on the pedagogical knowledge necessary to instruct science teachers. In particular, we contend that the construct of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) can be adapted to the context of knowledge for teaching science teachers. We use the PCK construct to propose a model for the development of knowledge for teaching science teachers, grounded in our experiences as doctoral students and faculty mentors. We end by recommending a vision for doctoral preparation and a new standard to be included in the ASTE Professional Knowledge Standards for Science Teacher Educators.     

Adivinanzas and Dichos: Preparing Prospective Educators to Teach Science by Incorporating Culturally Responsive Tools

Culturally relevant science pedagogy is seldom discussed in terms of infusion of literary resources, such as adivinanzas and dichos in the design of instruction. In this study, the authors narrate how a science methods course was infused with the use of culturally responsive tools to purposefully connect to the elementary science curriculum. Results indicate that prospective Latino teachers found multiple opportunities to address specific science objectives with adivinanzas and expressed the advantages of using these culturally responsive tools to introduce and summarize science concepts as they implemented lessons during field experience.     

Teaching the Nature of Science through Inquiry to Prospective Elementary Teachers: A Tale of Two Researchers

The teacher as researcher, Colburn, and the researcher, Bianchini, investigated Colburn's use of inquiry to teach the nature of science to prospective elementary teachers; we attempted to identify those aspects of the nature of science addressed through inquiry instruction and the varied contexts in which such insights arose. We began by videotaping small group inquiries and whole class deliberations during three units of Colburn's inquiry‐oriented general science course. We then conducted separate qualitative analyses of the resulting 20 h of videotaped data. Colburn, the teacher and informant, adopted an emic perspective and employed examples of explicit and implicit deliberations and demonstrations of the nature of science to construct his case. Bianchini also used an emic perspective, but examined only what teacher and students explicitly identified as examples of and insights into the nature of science. Taken together, our analyses highlight the difficulties in presenting a cogent and comprehensive picture of the nature of science to students, the teacher's pivotal role in initiating discussions of what science is and how scientists work, and the strengths and limitations of using classroom‐based research to investigate nature of science instruction. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 177–209, 2000     

A National Survey of Assessment Instruments Taught by Counselor Educators

This study reports results of a questionnaire of 210 counselor educators regarding assessment instruments covered in their assessment courses. Instruments are ranked on how extensively they are covered, and comparisons of coverage are made by assessment category (e.g., educational, clinical) and by instructor and program characteristic (e.g., Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs [CACREP] vs. non‐CACREP). Suggestions regarding which assessment techniques to cover in a basic counselor education testing and assessment course are made.     

教师如何迎接研究性学习的挑战

为了培养学生的创新精神和实践能力,基础教育课程改革提出了”综合实践活动’’课程,其中包括研究性学习,它作为一门全新的课程,改变了以往教师在教学中的地位和作用,也对教师提出了新的要求,为此教师要做好准备工作迎接研究性学习的挑战：首先,理解研究性学习,树立新的教育理念;其次,调整心态,重新定位;再次,创造性的使用教材,确立课程意识;最后,转变观念,由个体走向合作。     

Teacher Educators,Student Teachers and Biographical Influences: implications for teacher education

The importance of acknowledging the influence of biography in understanding teachers’ work is well established in recent literature. Drawing upon data arising from a study of teacher educators and their students, we consider the influence of biography on the work of teacher educators and student teachers. We draw comparisons between the ways in which they make connections with their demographic characteristics, their personal and educational histories and their understanding of their work. We evaluate the data against two major positions in the literature on biography and draw some implications for teacher education.     

创新教师教育,造就优秀教师和教育家

本文指出我国教育进入全面提高质量新的历史阶段,教师成为核心要素,建设高素质教师队伍将是今后教育改革发展的重点;并就学科教师教育的发展与创新问题,提出开展教师教育创新实践、探索学科教师教育改革、处理好教育理论研究与学科教育研究关系、形成合作共同体等观点。     

英语口语中外教师教学情况的调查、分析与结论

我院外语系共有13个班级计409名学生.2002-2003学年度第一学期各班级的英语口语全部由外教任教,第二学期全部由中国教师(简称"中教",下同)任教.外教和中教口语教学的情况如何呢?笔者为此进行了调查,发现外教和中教在口语教学中各有优劣势,而其优劣势有很强的互补性,由此得出结论:专业学生的口语应由中外教师合作任教,即合作教师任教.     

A Research-Informed Instructional Unit to Teach the Nature of Science to Pre-Service Science Teachers

In this paper we discuss the foundations and process of design of a research-informed instructional unit aimed for pre-service science teacher education. The unit covers some key ideas on the nature of science (around methodology, theory change, scientific inference and explanation, values, gender issues) anchoring them in a well-known episode from the history of science—the ‘discovery’ of radium by the Curies. Such episode is mainly examined as reconstructed in the 1997 French commercial film ‘Les Palmes de Monsieur Schutz’. Pre-service science teachers are required to solve three tasks, individually and in small groups; those tasks are respectively centred around: (1) the distinction between ‘discovering’ and ‘inventing’; (2) scientific modelling via abduction; and (3) the extended hagiographic treatment of the figure of Madame Curie. Plenary debates around the tasks aim at acquainting pre-service science teachers with some powerful concepts of twentieth century philosophy of science.     

Our Practice, Their Readiness: Teacher Educators Collaborate to Explore and Improve Preservice Teacher Readiness for Science and Math Instruction

Since many preservice teachers (PTs) display anxiety over teaching math and science, four PT educators collaborated to better understand the PTs’ background experiences and attitudes toward those subjects. The research project provided two avenues for professional learning: the data collected from the PTs and the opportunity for collaborative action research. The mixed method study focused on: the relationship between gender and undergraduate major (science versus non-science) with respect to previous and current engagement in science and math, understanding the processes of inquiry, and learning outside the classroom. A field trip to a science center provided the setting for the data collection. From a sample of 132 PTs, a multivariate analysis showed that the science major of PTs explained most of the gender differences with respect to the PTs’ attitudes toward science and mathematics. The process of inquiry is generally poorly interpreted by PTs, and non-science majors prefer a more social approach in their learning to teach science and math. The four educators/collaborators reflect on the impacts of the research on their individual practices, for example, the need to: include place-based learning, attend to the different learning strategies taken by non-science majors, emphasize social and environmental contexts for learning science and math, be more explicit regarding the processes of science inquiry, and provide out-of-classroom experiences for PTs. They conclude that the collaboration, though difficult at times, provided powerful opportunities for examining individual praxis.