Designing for culturally responsive science education through professional development

Educational stakeholders across the globe are demanding science education reform that attends simultaneously to culturally diverse students’ needs and promotes academic excellence. Although professional development programs can foster science teachers’ growth as culturally responsive educators, effective supports to this end are not well identified. This study examined associations between specific Science Teachers are Responsive to Students (STARTS) program activities and United States high school life science teachers’ understanding and enactment of culturally responsive science teaching. Findings suggest: (a) critically examining their practices while learning of students’ needs and experiences enabled teachers to identify responsive instructional strategies and relevant science topics for culturally responsive teaching; (b) evaluating culturally responsive exemplars while identifying classroom-based needs allowed teachers to identify contextually appropriate instruction, thereby yielding a robust understanding of the purpose and feasibility of culturally responsive science teaching; and (c) by justifying the use of responsive and reform-based instructional strategies for their classrooms, teachers made purposeful connections between students’ experiences and science instruction. We propose a set of empirically based design conjectures and theoretical conjectures to generate adaptable knowledge about preparing culturally responsive science teachers through professional development.     

Planning for Reform-Based Science: Case Studies of Two Urban Elementary Teachers

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.     

Preparing teachers as researchers in courses on methods of teaching science

The four standards for professional development of teachers of science from the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996) provided a frame for reflection upon ways in which prospective teachers engaged in research in my courses on methods of teaching science. Students learned both science content and science pedagogy by inquiry. An extended research project helped students to integrate knowledge of science, learning, pedagogy, and students, and to apply that to teaching science. Students built knowledge, skills, and attitudes for lifelong learning by participating in a research festival and presenting at conferences. I designed this science-teaching methods course in the context of a teacher education program that is attempting to implement reform approaches to instruction. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 791–809, 1998.     

Examining features of how professional development and enactment of educative curricula influences elementary science teacher learning

This research examines factors influencing elementary science teacher learning as they participate in professional development with and enactment of educative curricula in comparison with learning following limited professional development and enactment of traditional curricula. Using a randomized cluster design (125 teachers and 2,694 students in 4th—5th grades) that met the What Works Clearinghouse standards without reservations, teacher learning was conceptualized using four outcomes. Data were analyzed using standard single-level multiple regression models and possible mediation models for the teacher outcomes were considered using piecewise multiple regression and path analytic approaches. Treatment group teachers experienced greater increases in content knowledge, views of science inquiry, beliefs about reform-based teaching, and teaching self-efficacy than comparison group teachers. The findings indicate that what teachers learn from the combination of professional development and teaching with educative curriculum varies according to what their knowledge and beliefs are on entering the experience. Surprisingly, high entry-level self-efficacy was associated not only with lower learning gains for the teachers, but also for their students. Finally, teachers' space science learning and that of their students are implicated as mediators of the positive effect of the professional development and educative curriculum enactment on teacher beliefs about reform science teaching. This work refines and extends a theoretical framework of teachers' participatory relationship with curricula.     

The Role of Struggle in Pre-Service Elementary Teachers’ Experiences as Students and Approaches to Facilitating Science Learning

Science education researchers are concerned with preparing pre-service elementary teachers (PSETs) to teach in ways that support students to learn science in a meaningful way. Preparing elementary teachers to teach science is complicated given that they tend to be generalists and may not have the same experience with science as secondary teachers. During an elementary science methods course, we explored PSETs?? perspectives on the teaching and learning of science via a case study that included four PSETs. Using Frykholm??s (Journal of Curriculum and Supervision 19:125?C149, 2004) framework of ??educative?? and ??debilitating?? discomfort, we examined PSETs?? approaches to their own science learning and their approaches to science teaching. A theme apparent in PSETs?? perspectives was struggle. We described ways in which struggle was either educative or debilitating for PSETs, both in terms of their own learning and the ways in which they approached teaching. Some PSETs who struggled in their own learning developed learning experiences to engage their students in reform-based science teaching, while some PSETs developed learning experiences that prevented their students from experiencing any sort of struggle in their learning process. The ways in which these students dealt with their own learning struggles mirrored the ways in which they dealt with their struggles to become teachers of reform-based science instruction. Helping PSETs to deal with their feelings of discomfort with science content or ideas about the nature of science learning and teaching promoted by reform documents may be a key issue in developing their willingness to become facilitators of meaningful science learning.     

Science education reform in Confucian learning cultures: teachers’ perspectives on policy and practice in Taiwan

This empirical study investigates secondary science teachers’ perspectives on science education reform in Taiwan and reflects how these teachers have been negotiating constructivist and learner-centered pedagogical approaches in contemporary science education. It also explores the challenges that teachers encounter while shifting their pedagogical focus from traditional approaches to teaching science to an active engagement in students’ learning. Multiple sources of qualitative data were obtained, including individual interviews with science teachers and teachers’ reflective journals about Confucianism in relation to their educational philosophies. Thematic analysis and constant comparative method were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that Confucian traditions play a significant role in shaping educational practices in Taiwan and profoundly influence teachers’ epistemological beliefs and their actual classroom practice. Indeed, science teachers’ perspectives on Confucian learning traditions played a key role in supporting or obstructing their pedagogical commitments to inquiry-based and learner-centered approaches. This study draws on the literature concerning teachers’ professional struggles and identity construction during educational reform. Specifically, we explore the ways in which teachers respond to educational changes and negotiate their professional identities. We employed various theories of identity construction to understand teachers’ struggles and challenges while wrestling with competing traditional and reform-based pedagogical approaches. Attending to these struggles and the ways in which they inform the development of a teacher’s professional identity is vital for sustaining current and future educational reform in Taiwan as well as in other Eastern cultures. These findings have important implications for teachers’ professional development programs in East Asian cultures.     

初中生对理化课程不同教学方法喜好程度的调查研究

教师使用学生喜好的教学方法有利于培养学生对科学课程和科学积极的情感,本研究调查了1 334名(男生679名,女生655名)初中学生,在目前物理、化学课堂中23种教学活动使用的频数,以及他们希望其使用的频数。调查数据用描述性统计和非参数检验分析,结果显示:现代教学方法和传统教学法均受到学生的肯定;学生强烈希望开展参观工厂、博物馆等教学活动;学生个体差异影响其对教学方法的喜好;女学生更喜欢听教师讲解和看教师演示实验;成绩好的学生更喜欢小组课题研究、小组讨论等。调查结果对教师理解学生和选择教学方法有启示作用。     

Keeping up: A dilemma for science teachers

This paper is based on interviews with seventy-five science teachers in twelve schools across Australia. The interviews were conducted as part of a D.E.E.T. Project of National Significance. The purpose of the project was to develop a strategy for the professional development of science teachers. The main purpose of our interviews was to listen to teachers' views on what such a strategy should try to achieve. We asked them to talk about conditions affecting the quality of their work, their attitudes to teaching, their professional development, their careers, the evaluation of teaching, and Award Restructuring. Through these interviews we came to understand how many science teachers are loosely connected with potentially valuable sources of support for their professional development. In this paper we focus on one group of “loose connections”; those between science teachers and scientists in other fields, research in science education, and their colleagues within science departments in schools. Specializations: Science education, reflective practice, teaching and learning. Specializations: Professional development, educational evaluation.     

Achieving standards in urban systemic reform: An example of a sixth grade project‐based science curriculum

A challenge for urban systemic reform initiatives in science education has been to achieve local, state, and national standards for teaching and learning. We have collaborated with teachers in the Detroit Public School System to design project‐based curriculum materials that contextualize the learning of science in meaningful real‐world problems, engage students in science inquiry, and use learning technologies. We present a sixth grade project‐based science unit in which students explored the driving question “How Do Machines Help Me Build Big Things?” and address the science learning goals of balanced and unbalanced forces, simple and complex machines, and mechanical advantage. Twenty‐four teachers and over 2500 students in Detroit participated in enactments of this project over 4 years. Student learning outcomes were determined for the three learning goals and inquiry process skills using pre‐ and postachievement tests. Achievement outcomes as measured by the pre/posttest show significant and consistently high learning gains, even as participation in the project increased to include greater numbers of teachers and students in successive enactments, and leadership of the professional development support for this project transitioned from university researchers to district teacher leaders. These results illustrate that materials which contextualize learning and support student inquiry as part of an urban systemic reform effort can promote learning of important and meaningful science content aligned with standards. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 669–692, 2004     

Factors Influencing Science Content Accuracy in Elementary Inquiry Science Lessons

Elementary teachers face increasing demands to engage children in authentic science process and argument while simultaneously preparing them with knowledge of science facts, vocabulary, and concepts. This reform is particularly challenging due to concerns that elementary teachers lack adequate science background to teach science accurately. This study examined 81 in-classroom inquiry science lessons for preservice education majors and their cooperating teachers to determine the accuracy of the science content delivered in elementary classrooms. Our results showed that 74 % of experienced teachers and 50 % of student teachers presented science lessons with greater than 90 % accuracy. Eleven of the 81 lessons (9 preservice, 2 cooperating teachers) failed to deliver accurate science content to the class. Science content accuracy was highly correlated with the use of kit-based resources supported with professional development, a preference for teaching science, and grade level. There was no correlation between the accuracy of science content and some common measures of teacher content knowledge (i.e., number of college science courses, science grades, or scores on a general science content test). Our study concluded that when provided with high quality curricular materials and targeted professional development, elementary teachers learn needed science content and present it accurately to their students.     

Videobased lesson analysis: Effective science PD for teacher and student learning

The Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis (STeLLA) project is a videobased analysis‐of‐practice PD program aimed at improving teacher and student learning at the upper elementary level. The PD program developed and utilized two “lenses,” a Science Content Storyline Lens and a Student Thinking Lens, to help teachers analyze science teaching and learning and to improve teaching practices in this year‐long program. Participants included 48 teachers (n = 32 experimental, n = 16 control) and 1,490 students. The STeLLA program significantly improved teachers' science content knowledge and their ability to analyze science teaching. Notably, the STeLLA teachers further increased their classroom use of science teaching strategies associated with both lenses while their students increased their science content knowledge. Multi‐level HLM analyses linked higher average gains in student learning with teachers' science content knowledge, teachers' pedagogical content knowledge about student thinking, and teaching practices aimed at improving the coherence of the science content storyline. This paper highlights the importance of the science content storyline in the STeLLA program and discusses its potential significance in science teaching and professional development more broadly. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., J Res Sci Teach 48: 117–148, 2011     

Learning to teach literacy through collaborative discussions of student work

Despite the high numbers of students with disabilities struggling with literacy, few teachers report feeling well prepared to address it. Most students with disabilities encounter challenges in reading and professional development can help teachers learn a range of ways to address those. In this article, we discuss a professional development project in which prospective teachers work collaboratively with practicing teachers throughout their university preparation. The professional development provided builds on the idea of ‘literacy artifacts’, which are samples of students’ and teachers’ work. Using guided discussions, teachers across the career continuum construct understandings and practices in which they learn how to infuse literacy instruction into all teaching and learning. By conjoining the literacy artifact with instructional resources teachers use, participants make visible the complexity of literacy instruction and how literacy could be embedded in teaching content for students with disabilities especially in general education classrooms.     

美国实施“优秀科学教师专业标准”经验述评

美国一向把科学教育看做提高国家竞争力的重要基础,高度关注科学教师的质量。建立专业标准是提高教师质量的基础和前提。联邦政府在长期支持"国家教学专业标准委员会"建立优秀科学教学专业标准并认证优秀科学教师的基础上,近年又在教育发展战略上强调"只有优秀的教师才能培养优秀的学生,高素质的教师队伍是保证教育质量的关键",并从政策上和经费投入上提出"投资卓越教学",推广优秀科学教师实践,借以加强科学教师队伍建设,进而促进整个教育质量提高。本文旨在解读分析美国"国家教学专业标准委员会"开发的优秀科学教师专业标准的准则、内容、特点,从而为我国试行教师专业标准提供可资借鉴的经验。     

Differential Use of Elementary Science Kits

The use of kits in elementary science classes is a growing trend in some countries. Kits provide materials and inquiry lessons in a ready-to-teach format for teachers to use in their science instruction. This study examined elementary teachers' instructional strategies, classroom practices, and assessment types in relation to the frequency of science kit use. A total of 503 elementary teachers from an urban school district received professional development, implemented kits in their classrooms for a year, and then completed a survey about science kit use and teaching practices. Despite similarities in demographic characteristics (gender, ethnicity, certification/educational level), there were significant differences in teachers' use of inquiry-based teaching and assessment practices by kit use. Teachers who reported using kits the most often were significantly more likely to report that their students designed and implemented laboratory investigations as well recorded, represented, and analyzed data. In addition, the high kit users indicated that they were more likely to use student groups, require students to use evidence to support claims, and use alternative assessments of student work including portfolios, notebooks, and long-term projects than those teachers who used kits less frequently. Those teachers who reported using kits the least often were significantly more likely to report having students practice for standardized tests. The role of kits in promoting reform-based teaching practices is discussed.     

Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Beliefs About Science Teaching

In this study, a Beliefs About Teaching (BAT) scale was created to examine preservice elementary science teachers’ self-reported comfort level with both traditional and reform-based teaching methods, assessment techniques, classroom management techniques, and science content. Participants included 166 preservice teachers from three different US universities. Analyses revealed significant correlations among participants’ confidence level with assessment techniques, classroom management, teaching methods, and science content and number of science methods and science content courses taken. A significant difference was observed among the students enrolled at each university. Overall, study participants felt more comfortable teaching biology concepts than teaching chemistry concepts, physics concepts, or both.     

The Effect Teaching Experience Has on Perceived Effectiveness of Interactive Television as a Distance Education Model for Elementary School Science Teacher’s Professional Development: Another Digital Divide?

The first year of a 5 year professional development project for elementary teachers in two mid-western states integrated a bridge of two distinctly different distance education networks (T-1 and fiber optics) to provide science professional development for elementary school teachers in rural communities. Interactive television (ITV), the title given to the distance component, consisted of a series of twenty-four, 2 h presentations by scientists and content specialists. It provided expansion to the science pedagogical content knowledge of the elementary teachers involved. Eighty-five teachers in 38 school districts from the two states completed individual surveys following the final ITV session. Analysis of variance of participants post-session survey scores yielded differences (p < 0.05) on the subscales measuring perceived effectiveness of using distance education for professional development purposes and years of teaching experience. Teachers with over 20 years of classroom experience perceived the use of distance education technologies for science professional development to be more effective than teachers with 16–20 years of classroom experience. These results might suggest another digital divide.     

Professional learning as a predictor for instructional quality: a secondary analysis of TALIS

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of teachers’ professional learning opportunities on instructional quality, which represents a combined approach of behaviorist, cognitivist, and constructivist principles in teaching. We incorporated professional learning communities (PLCs), professional development (PD) days, as well as 3 PD types (traditional, reform-based, and informal) to provide a comprehensive account of teachers’ professional learning opportunities. Using the extant large-scale data, the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), from 3,213 middle-school teachers in Turkey, we found that PLCs and reform-based PD activities produced statistically significant effects on instructional quality, ranging from high to moderate effects, all other PD variables held constant. Discussion on the results was centered on the schools for being a venue for professional learning and the potential of collaborative structures to promote teachers’ development.     

高职院校学生“产、学、创”与教师“产、教、研”对接研究——以软件技术专业为例

在产教融合背景下,分析我国高职院校学生"产、学、创"与教师"产、教、研"的现状与原因,也对软件技术专业的教师与学生专业技能进行了分析,发现专业工程实践能力是教师与学生的共同专业职业技能点,并通过多年来的"产教融合、校企合作"实践证明,以专业工程实践技能为对接点,以产业驱动为对接模式,通过专业课程体系企业化、课程标准化、学习内容项目化、企业实习常态化以及职业技能竞赛项目过程化等途径,可有效地满足软件工程产业对技能人才的需求,实现软件技术专业学生"产、学、创"与教师"产、教、研"能力对接。     

以工作过程为导向系统化改革护理学基础课程教学的探索

以工作过程为导向系统化改革护理学基础课程,主线是:明确培养定位及职业能力内涵分析;编写适合教改需要的教材;探讨"院校合作"模式,打造"双师型"教学团队;按照职业岗位工作过程、提升学生职业能力来设计教学方式方法,形成新型的教学与训练项目;改革考试考核方法;建立完善评价体系。