Science teacher orientations and PCK across science topics in grade 9 earth science

ABSTRACT

While the literature is replete with studies examining teacher knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), few studies have investigated how science teacher orientations (STOs) shape classroom instruction. Therefore, this research explores the interplay between a STOs and the topic specificity of PCK across two science topics within a grade 9 earth science course. Through interviews and observations of one teacher’s classroom across two sequentially taught, this research contests the notion that teachers hold a single way of conceptualising science teaching and learning. In this, we consider if multiple ontologies can provide potential explanatory power for characterising instructional enactments. In earlier work with the teacher in this study, using generic interview prompts and general discussions about science teaching and learning, we accepted the existence of a unitary STO and its promise of consistent reformed instruction in the classroom. However, upon close examination of instruction focused on different science topics, evidence was found to demonstrate the explanatory power of multiple ontologies for shaping characteristically different epistemological constructions across science topics. This research points to the need for care in generalising about teacher practice, as it reveals that a teacher’s practice, and orientation, can vary, dependent on the context and science topics taught.     

Student leadership in small group science inquiry

Background: Science educators have sought to structure collaborative inquiry learning through the assignment of static group roles. This structural approach to student grouping oversimplifies the complexities of peer collaboration and overlooks the highly dynamic nature of group activity.

Purpose: This study addresses this issue of oversimplification of group dynamics by examining the social leadership structures that emerge in small student groups during science inquiry.

Sample: Two small student groups investigating the burning of a candle under a jar participated in this study.

Design and method: We used a mixed-method research approach that combined computational discourse analysis (computational quantification of social aspects of small group discussions) with microethnography (qualitative, in-depth examination of group discussions).

Results: While in one group social leadership was decentralized (i.e., students shared control over topics and tasks), the second group was dominated by a male student (centralized social leadership). Further, decentralized social leadership was found to be paralleled by higher levels of student cognitive engagement.

Conclusions: It is argued that computational discourse analysis can provide science educators with a powerful means of developing pedagogical models of collaborative science learning that take into account the emergent nature of group structures and highly fluid nature of student collaboration.     

Beyond space and across time: non-finalized dialogue about science and religion discourse

This commentary dialogues with three articles that analyze the same database about science and religion discourse produced 17 years ago. Dialogues in these three articles and this commentary across space and time allow us to develop new and different understandings of the same database and situation. As part of this commentary, I discuss topics approached in the three articles including the collective nature of discourses, emotion, and constructivist view on learning. I draw on three essential concepts of the dialogical nature of utterance, the emotional-volitional tone and internally persuasive discourse informed by Bakhtin’s dialogism. In particular, I conclude that Bakhtin’s dialogism not only invites us to understand science learning discourse in a more holistic way but also encourages us to open up dialogues between science and religion that often are considered to be two hostile opponents.     

English for Scientific Purposes (EScP): Technology,Trends, and Future Challenges for Science Education

To date, the concept of English for Specific Purposes has brought about a great impact on English language learning across various disciplines, including those in science education. Hence, this review paper aimed to address current English language learning in the science disciplines through the practice of computer-assisted language learning to identify the use of learning technologies in science-based literacy. In the literature review, the researchers found that science-based literacy instruction shares many pedagogical aims with English language teaching in terms of reading, writing, listening and speaking, allowing it to be classified as English for Scientific Purposes (EScP). To answer the research questions, the researchers conducted the survey by extracting related articles and teaching examples from the Web of Science. In the search procedure, the researchers used the keywords science OR scientific AND technolog* OR comput* in ten selected journals of social science citation index. Only articles which are specified as journal articles rather than other document types were included. After compiling the corpora, the researchers compared the trends, methodologies and results of EScP instruction in science education. The implications of this study include the opportunities, advantages and challenges for EScP instruction in science education to further develop better educational approaches, adopt new technologies, as well as offer some directions for researchers to conduct future studies.     

The Procedurally Directive Approach to Teaching Controversial Issues

Recent articles on teaching controversial topics in schools have employed Michael Hand's distinction between “directive teaching,” in which teachers attempt to persuade students of correct positions on topics that are not rationally controversial, and “nondirective teaching,” in which teachers avoid persuading students on topics that are rationally controversial. However, the four methods of directive teaching discussed in the literature — explicit directive teaching, “steering,” “soft‐directive teaching,” and “school ethos endorsement” — make rational persuasion problematic, if not self‐defeating. In this essay, Maughn Rollins Gregory argues that “procedurally directive teaching” offers an alternative to such approaches because it derives from the intention to guide inquiry rather than to persuade. He demonstrates that the conceptual frameworks of perfectionism and antiperfectionism, which have been proposed for directive teaching on same‐sex marriage, can instead be used to generate open questions for student inquiry, as can a third, civil rights framework. Given these considerations, Gregory maintains that pedagogical guidance on this topic should be procedurally directive rather than substantively directive. Further, the fact that legal, political, and ethics scholars disagree about which framework is more appropriate to the issue of same‐sex marriage indicates that such arguments cannot be dispositive of the pedagogical issue of how to frame classroom discussions about it. Rather, students should inquire into this meta‐level framing dispute for themselves.     

Research on Children’s Play: Analysis of Developmental and Early Education Journals from 2005 to 2007

Our review examined four early childhood journals (Early Child Development and Care, Early Childhood Education Journal, Journal of Research in Childhood Education, and Early Childhood Research Quarterly) and four developmental science journals (Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, and Merrill Palmer Quarterly) from 2005 to 2007. Only 57 articles out of over 1,000 (conservative estimate) included the term ‘play’ in the title, abstract or as a key word. Of these 57 articles, only 19 were primarily focused on play, 16 from ECE journals and only three from developmental science journals (Z = 2.43, p < .05). While the ECE journals drew implications for practice, the developmental science journals did not. Seven ECE journal articles dealt with the concept of play in education and four other ECE journal articles covered play and literacy. The findings suggest the need for more careful use of the term play in early education and child development studies and a reevaluation of rationales and methods for its study.     

Revisiting the Translation of Nature of Science Understandings into Instructional Practice: Teachers' nature of science pedagogical content knowledge

This study (a) assessed the influence of an integrated nature of science (NOS) instructional intervention on inservice secondary science teachers' understandings, retention of those understandings, and their NOS instructional planning and practices; and (b) examined factors that mediated the translation of teachers' NOS understandings into practice. Nineteen teachers participated in an intensive, 6-week NOS course, which concluded with teachers developing plans to address NOS in their classrooms. Next, 6 participants were observed as they implemented their instructional plans. Data sources included pretest, posttest, and delayed-test NOS assessments, classroom observations, and several teacher-generated artifacts. The NOS course was effective in helping teachers develop informed NOS conceptions and retain those understandings 5 months after its conclusion. Teachers met with challenges and successes as they attempted to address NOS instructionally. The translation of NOS conceptions into practice was primarily mediated by the very nature of teachers' newly acquired NOS understandings, which were situated within the science contents, contexts, and experiences in which they were developed (i.e. the NOS course); thus, limiting participants' abilities to transfer their understandings into novel contexts and contents. The results helped build a model of the sources of science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge for teaching about NOS in content-rich contexts.     

Strategies for counterresistance: Toward sociotransformative constructivism and learning to teach science for diversity and for understanding

This article reports on two types of resistance by preservice science teachers: resistance to ideological change and resistance to pedagogical change. The former has to do with the feelings of disbelief, defensiveness, guilt, and shame that Anglo-European preservice teachers experience when they are asked to confront racism and other oppressive social norms in class discussions. Resistance to pedagogical change has to do with the roles that preservice teachers feel they need to play to manage conflicting messages about what they are expected to do from their cooperating teachers (cover the curriculum and maintain class control) and from their university supervisors (implement student-centered, constructivist class activities), and about what they desire to do as emerging teachers. Although these two forms of resistance are closely linked, in the literature they are extensively reported separately. This study suggests a sociotransformative constructivist orientation as a vehicle to link multicultural education and social constructivist theoretical frameworks. By using this orientation, specific pedagogical strategies for counterresistance were found effective in helping preservice teachers learn to teach for diversity and understanding. These strategies for counterresistance were primarily drawn from the qualitative analysis of a yearlong project with secondary science preservice teachers. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 589–622, 1998.     

Science education journal/periodical reading patterns of senior level undergraduate education students at the university of Oklahoma, 1973-1982

This study analyzed 103 articles from journals/periodicals related to science education submitted to the author over a period often years. This study sought to determine which journals/ periodicals were most popular, as indicated by frequency of reportings. It, secondarily, attempted to verify or refute the paucity of research data currently available related to journal/ periodical reading patterns on the part of teachers, specifically those in secondary schools. Finally, it attempted to study reading patterns within specific secondary school teaching areas, about which this author was unable to find any research. The findings indicated that there were several popular science education-related journals/periodicals. American Biology Teacher, the Journal of Research in Science Teaching and Science Education were the top three journals/ periodicals reported. Most of the findings of earlier research were confirmed.     

Recapitulating the History of Sickle-Cell Anemia Research

This paper provides an argument in favor of a specific pedagogical method of using the history of science to help students develop more informed views about nature of science (NOS) issues. The paper describes a series of lesson plans devoted to encouraging students to engage, unbeknownst to them, in similar reasoning that led scientists to understand sickle-cell anemia from the perspective of multiple subdisciplines in biology. Students pursue their understanding of a ‘mystery disease’ by means of a series of open-ended problems that invite them to discuss it from the perspective of anatomy, physiology, ecology, evolution, and molecular and cell biology. Throughout this unit, instructors incorporate techniques that invite students to explicitly and reflectively discuss various NOS issues with reference to this example and more generally. It is argued on the grounds of constructivist tenets that this pedagogy has substantial advantages over more implicit approaches. The findings of an empirical study using an open-ended survey and follow-up, semi-structured interviews to assess students’ pre- and post-instruction NOS conceptions support the efficacy of this approach.     

The politics of educational policy studies: a preliminary analysis of leading educational policy journal publications

This paper argues that the content, analytical approaches and institutional affiliations of authors of articles published in the latest issues of two leading educational policy studies journals provide useful insights into the contested nature of educational policy studies. The paper draws upon a selection of articles published in 2007/08 issues of two flag-ship policy journals, the UK-based Journal of Education Policy, and the US-based Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. At the same time, the article is also suggestive of how Pierre Bourdieu's analytical resources of field, habitus and capital might be used to understand the academic journal publication practices which contribute to this contestation. The paper suggests that these journals and the articles within them may be construed as valued capitals and ‘traces’ of a broader conflict over what is considered valid research within the field of educational policy studies.     

Trends of Science Education Research: An Automatic Content Analysis

This study used scientometric methods to conduct an automatic content analysis on the development trends of science education research from the published articles in the four journals of International Journal of Science Education, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Research in Science Education, and Science Education from 1990 to 2007. The multi-stage clustering technique was employed to investigate with what topics, to what development trends, and from whose contribution that the journal publications constructed as a science education research field. This study found that the research topic of Conceptual Change & Concept Mapping was the most studied topic, although the number of publications has slightly declined in the 2000’s. The studies in the themes of Professional Development, Nature of Science and Socio-Scientific Issues, and Conceptual Chang and Analogy were found to be gaining attention over the years. This study also found that, embedded in the most cited references, the supporting disciplines and theories of science education research are constructivist learning, cognitive psychology, pedagogy, and philosophy of science.     

Writing in Mathematics: An Alternative Form of Communication for Academically Low‐Achieving Students

Abstract. Classroom communication figures prominently in current math reform efforts. In this study, we analyze how one teacher used writing to support communication in a seventh‐grade, low‐track mathematics class. For one school year, we studied four low‐achieving students in the class. Students wrote in journals on a weekly basis. Using classroom observations and interviews with the teacher, we developed profiles of the four students, capturing their participation in class discussions. The profiles highlighted an important similarity among the four students: marginal participation in both small‐group and whole‐class discussions. However, our analysis of the students' journals identified multiple instances where the students were able to explain their mathematical reasoning, revealing their conceptual understanding, ability to explain, and skill at representing a problem. In this respect, journals potentially facilitate another important form of classroom communication. The promise of writing is that it offers an alternative to the visions of classroom communication that are strictly oral in nature.     

Using Explicit Teaching of Philosophy to Promote Understanding of the Nature of Science

Adopting an explicit and reflective approach to the teaching of the history and philosophy of science is useful in promoting high school students’ understanding of the nature of science. Whereas the history of science is usually signposted clearly in the school science curriculum, the philosophy of science is considered to be embedded in and integral to science education. This article argues that philosophical topics also need to be explicitly signposted and discussed in the teaching of the nature of science in high schools. This study investigates an interdisciplinary course on the nature of science in a Chinese senior high school. The course involved explicit teaching of philosophy of science topics with subject knowledge in each lesson. This mixed method design of the research included a modified version of the Views on Science, Technology and Society questionnaire as reported by Aikenhead and Ryan (Science Education, 76(5):477?491, 1992) and phenomenographical analysis. Although the sample size is small, the results suggest that explicit teaching of philosophy of science topics helps students better understand both the nature of science and the relationship between science, technology and society.

     

Review of research on mobile-assisted language learning in familiar,authentic environments

Familiarity with learning contexts is important in the field of mobile-assisted language learning (MALL). Several review studies on MALL have been published to date. However, scholars have not covered certain aspects of familiar contexts in their reviews, such as which learning/instructional methodologies support learning in familiar contexts or what the affordances of familiar contexts are for language learning. To address this gap, the authors in this study reviewed research articles related to MALL in familiar, authentic environments published in the past 10 years. The reviewed articles were from journals published in the Social Science Citation Index between 2009 and 2018. The main aim of this study was to review the published articles to understand (1) pedagogical approaches, (2) data collection, (3) locations, (4) affordances of authentic environments and (5) issues in MALL research. The results revealed that the most frequent items in reviewed articles were task-based learning and communicative language teaching (pedagogical approaches); questionnaires, pretest and posttests and interviews (data collection); the local community and campus (locations); daily encounters, language learning and cognitive load (affordances of authentic environments); and small sample sizes and short-term interventions (issues in MALL research). Based on the results, the authors in this study made several suggestions and provided implications for educators and researchers in the field about MALL in familiar, authentic environments.     

Identifying pathways of teachers’ PCK development

This paper describes a method of analysing teacher growth in the context of science education. It focuses on the identification of pathways in the development of secondary school teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) by the use of the interconnected model of teachers’ professional growth (IMTPG).The teachers (n = 12) participated in a one-year action research project focused on their individual concerns related to teaching science. The use of the IMTPG revealed that teachers use different pathways of learning to develop different aspects of their PCK. For each PCK component, three distinct pathways could be identified, two of which clearly were associated with professional growth. When examining these two pathways in detail, it was found that (1) teachers learned about new instructional strategies and assessment methods mostly through literature reviews and discussions with peers and (2) teachers who analyzed and reflected on student learning as it happened in their classrooms developed understandings that helped them to select and apply instructional strategies to further promote student learning. Both the analytical method as well as the identification of the different developmental pathways help to better understand teacher development in the context of classroom practices.