Using “Slowmation” to Enable Preservice Primary Teachers to Create Multimodal Representations of Science Concepts

Research has identified the value of students constructing their own representations of science concepts using modes such as writing, diagrams, 2-D and 3-D models, images or speech to communicate meaning. ??Slowmation?? (abbreviated from ??Slow Animation??) is a simplified way for students, such as preservice teachers, to make a narrated animation using a combination of modes. In this study, 13 preservice primary teachers learned how to create a slowmation during a two-hour class in a science methods course and then created one about an allocated science topic as an assignment. The research question that guided this study was, ??What are the preservice teachers?? perceptions of making a slowmation and how was the science concept represented in the animation??? Data included pre and post individual interviews, concept maps constructed during the interviews and the animations as artifacts. Three case studies provide a window into the perceptions of preservice teachers making a slowmation and show how they represented their concept. Slowmation is a new form of student-generated representation which enables them to use their own technology to construct a narrated animation as a multimodal representation to explain a science concept.     

Additive and disruptive pedagogies: The use of slowmation as an example of digital technology implementation

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of 35 preservice teachers as they were introduced to a new digital technology, “Slowmation” (abbreviated from Slow Animation), as a “disruptive” pedagogy over a period of 12 months. The participants in the study were 35 preservice teachers from an elementary cohort. Primary data sources included field notes and semi-structured interviews. Findings revealed that the preservice teachers enjoyed using slowmation as learners during the on-campus part of their program, yet very few used it as a disruptive pedagogy when teaching during their extended practicum. Our study highlights the challenges inherent in introducing “disruptive” pedagogies in a teacher education program.     

Preservice Elementary Teachers' Evaluations of Elementary Students' Scientific Models: An aspect of pedagogical content knowledge for scientific modeling

Part of the work of teaching elementary science involves evaluating elementary students' work. Depending on the nature of the student work, this task can be straightforward. However, evaluating elementary students' representations of their science learning in the form of scientific models can pose significant challenges for elementary teachers. To address some of these challenges, we incorporated a modeling-based elementary science unit in our elementary science teaching methods course to support preservice teachers in gaining knowledge about and experience in evaluating students' scientific models. In this study, we investigate the approaches and criteria preservice elementary teachers use to evaluate elementary student-generated scientific models. Our findings suggest that with instruction, preservice elementary teachers can adopt criterion-based approaches to evaluating students' scientific models. Additionally, preservice teachers make gains in their self-efficacy for evaluating elementary students' scientific models. Taken together, these findings indicate that preservice teachers can begin to develop aspects of pedagogical content knowledge for scientific modeling.     

Data and graph interpretation practices among preservice science teachers

The interpretation of data and construction and interpretation of graphs are central practices in science, which, according to recent reform documents, science and mathematics teachers are expected to foster in their classrooms. However, are (preservice) science teachers prepared to teach inquiry with the purpose of transforming and analyzing data, and interpreting graphical representations? That is, are preservice science teachers prepared to teach data analysis and graph interpretation practices that scientists use by default in their everyday work? The present study was designed to answer these and related questions. We investigated the responses of preservice elementary and secondary science teachers to data and graph interpretation tasks. Our investigation shows that, despite considerable preparation, and for many, despite bachelor of science degrees, preservice teachers do not enact the (“authentic”) practices that scientists routinely do when asked to interpret data or graphs. Detailed analyses are provided of what data and graph interpretation practices actually were enacted. We conclude that traditional schooling emphasizes particular beliefs in the mathematical nature of the universe that make it difficult for many individuals to deal with data possessing the random variation found in measurements of natural phenomena. The results suggest that preservice teachers need more experience in engaging in data and graph interpretation practices originating in activities that provide the degree of variation in and complexity of data present in realistic investigations. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 1063–1088, 2005     

On the nature of teaching nature of science: Preservice early childhood teachers' instruction in preschool and elementary settings

This study explored whether early childhood preservice teachers' concerns about teaching nature of science (NOS) and their intellectual levels influenced whether and how they taught NOS at the preschool and primary (K‐3) levels. We used videotaped classroom observations and lesson plans to determine the science instructional practices at the preschool and primary levels, and to track whether and how preservice teachers emphasized NOS. We used the Stages of Concern Questionnaire (SOCQ) pre‐ and postinternship to determine concerns about NOS instruction, and the Learning Context Questionnaire (LCQ) to determine intellectual levels. We found that neither concerns about teaching NOS nor intellectual level were related to whether and how the preservice teachers emphasized NOS; however, we found that all preservice early childhood teachers began their internships with NOS concern profiles of “worried.” Two preservice teachers' NOS concerns profiles changed as a result of their internships; one to “cooperator” and one to “cooperator/improver.” These two preservice teachers had cooperating teachers who were aware of NOS and implemented it in their own science instruction. The main factors that hindered or facilitated teaching NOS for these preservice teachers were the influence of the cooperating teacher and the use of the science curriculum. The preservice teacher with the cooperating teacher who understood and emphasized NOS herself and showed her how to modify the curriculum to include NOS, was able to explicitly teach NOS to her students. Those in classrooms whose cooperating teachers did not provide support for NOS instruction were unable to emphasize NOS. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:213–233, 2010     

Preservice Teachers’ Images of Scientists: Do Prior Science Experiences Make a Difference?

This article presents the results of a mixed methods study that used the Draw-a-Scientist Test as a visual tool for exploring preservice teachers’ beliefs about scientists. A questionnaire was also administered to 165 students who were enrolled in elementary (K–8) and secondary (8–12) science methods courses. Taken as a whole, the images drawn by preservice teachers reflected the stereotype of a scientist as a man with a wild hairdo who wears a lab coat and glasses while working in a laboratory setting. However, results indicated statistically significant differences in stereotypical components of representations of scientists depending on preservice teachers’ program and previous science experiences. Post degree students in secondary science methods courses created images of scientists with fewer stereotypical elements than drawings created by students in the regular elementary program.     

Curriculum design for inquiry: Preservice elementary teachers' mobilization and adaptation of science curriculum materials

Curriculum materials are crucial tools with which teachers engage students in science as inquiry. In order to use curriculum materials effectively, however, teachers must develop a robust capacity for pedagogical design, or the ability to mobilize a variety of personal and curricular resources to promote student learning. The purpose of this study was to develop a better understanding of the ways in which preservice elementary teachers mobilize and adapt existing science curriculum materials to plan inquiry‐oriented science lessons. Using quantitative methods, we investigated preservice teachers' curriculum design decision‐making and how their decisions influenced the inquiry orientations of their planned science lessons. Findings indicate that preservice elementary teachers were able to accurately assess how inquiry‐based existing curriculum materials are and to adapt them to make them more inquiry‐based. However, the inquiry orientations of their planned lessons were in large part determined by how inquiry‐oriented curriculum materials they used to plan their lessons were to begin with. These findings have important implications for the design of teacher education experiences that foster preservice elementary teachers' pedagogical design capacities for inquiry, as well as the development of inquiry‐based science curriculum materials that support preservice and beginning elementary teachers to engage in effective science teaching practice. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:820–839, 2010     

Challenging the tyranny of the five‐paragraph essay: teachers and students as semiotic boundary workers in classroom and digital space

This article addresses several challenges faced by educators and students in English classrooms in the US–Mexico borderlands region that will resonate with educators more broadly. I present how Ms Smith, the predominately Latino students in her high school writing class and I moved beyond what Ms Smith called the “tyranny of the five‐paragraph essay” used for standardised tests so that students were able to make personally and academically meaningful arguments in their writing. I examine how we collaboratively mobilised interests, motivations and diverse semiotic resources across out‐of‐school and in‐school contexts in the process of developing multimodal and hybrid genres and texts. First, I describe how Ms Smith and I crafted hybrid, digitally mediated classroom spaces and essay assignments informed by students' identity and literacy practices within digital networks. Next, I examine how three Latina students used semiotic resources and issues circulating in the different spaces of their lives to confidently argue their perspectives within the hybrid genres we created. From this collaborative work, I suggest that thinking of students and teachers as “semiotic boundary workers” provides a useful framework for practitioners who want to enable young people to draw on their practices and digital tools and engage their expansive, networked and creative affordances in academic contexts.     

Explanations in STEM Areas: an Analysis of Representations Through Language in Teacher Education

Constructing explanations of scientific concepts is one of the most frequent strategies used in the science classroom and is a high-leverage teaching practice. This study analysed the explanations provided by student teachers in STEM areas from a socio-materiality perspective focused on verbal and nonverbal language and representations. The study was conducted in a hybrid research format by scholars and a preservice teacher. First, the study compared the representational elements used by 86 student teachers to construct explanations about various concepts in a roleplay setting. Next, a positioning analysis was done by a preservice teacher, to a selection of five of these explanations focused on the concept of “force”. The positioning analysis highlighted the embedded voices in the construction of explanations, with a focus on the intersection between science and language. The results showed that the student teachers created explanations as static artefacts, mainly using examples, graphs and images to clarify the concepts. The voices of learners and scientists were mostly absent from the explanations, which led to the presentation of explanations in STEM areas as finished and unquestionable artefacts, with references neither to nature nor to the history of science. We reflect on the meanings attributed to learning to be a practitioner in the context of interconnecting science and language through explanations, as a process of meaning (re)production within the classroom. Implications for teacher education are discussed in order to enhance student teachers’ awareness about constructing knowledge by enacting explanations in the science classroom.

     

Agency, Identity, and Social Justice Education: Preservice Teachers’ Thoughts on Becoming Agents of Change in Urban Elementary Science Classrooms

Using multiple theoretical frameworks, reflective writings and interviews, this study explores preservice elementary teachers’ emerging identities as science teachers and how this identity is connected to notions of critical agency and a stance toward social justice. The study addresses two central questions pertaining to preservice teachers’ conceptions as “agents of change” and how their perceptions as change agents frame their science teacher identities and understanding of teaching science in urban elementary classrooms. Their identity in the moment as elementary preservice teachers—not yet teachers—influences how they view themselves as teachers and how much agency or power they feel they have as agents of change in science classrooms. Findings suggest that science teacher education must play a more immediate, fundamental and emancipatory role in preparing preservice teachers in developing science teacher identities and a stance toward social justice.     

Curriculum-Dependent and Curriculum-Independent Factors in Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Adaptation of Science Curriculum Materials for Inquiry-Based Science

In this nested mixed methods study I investigate factors influencing preservice elementary teachers’ adaptation of science curriculum materials to better support students’ engagement in science as inquiry. Analyses focus on two ‘reflective teaching assignments’ completed by 46 preservice elementary teachers in an undergraduate elementary science methods course in which they were asked to adapt existing science curriculum materials to plan and enact inquiry-based science lessons in elementary classrooms. Data analysis involved regression modeling of artifacts associated with these lessons, as well as in-depth, semester-long case studies of six of these preservice teachers. Results suggest that features of the existing science curriculum materials, including measures of how inquiry-based they were, have a relatively small influence on the preservice teachers’ curricular adaptations, while teacher-specific variables account for a much greater percentage of the variance. Evidence from the case studies illustrates the critical impact of the preservice teachers’ field placement contexts as an explanatory, teacher-specific factor in their curricular adaptations. These findings have important implications for science teacher educators and science curriculum developers, in terms of not only better understanding how preservice teachers engage with curriculum materials, but also how programmatic features of teacher education programs influence their ability to do so.     

Exploring the Use of Lesson Study to Develop Elementary Preservice Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Teaching Nature of Science

This study explored a modified version of Japanese Lesson Study to determine whether and how it influenced preservice elementary teachers in their abilities to deliver science lessons that included nature of science (NOS) to their own students. We used a case study approach that focused on one subset of a cohort of preservice elementary teachers within their field placement settings. Data sources included lesson plans, lesson feedback forms, videotapes of delivered lessons, and videotapes of lesson study feedback sessions. Early in the semester peers provided feedback on content, and later in the semester peers provided feedback on classroom management as well as content during the lesson study feedback sessions. We found that preservice elementary teachers were able to provide feedback to their peers regarding how to include NOS in their science lessons, yet did not naturally included NOS connections within their own lessons.     

Characterizing productive reflection among preservice elementary teachers: Seeing what matters

Effective teachers consider interrelationships among aspects of teaching including learners, subject matter knowledge, assessment, and instruction. The 70 journal entries of 25 preservice elementary teachers are analyzed to characterize the teachers’ written reflection. One focus of the analysis is on how the preservice teachers integrate ideas about these aspects of teaching. The preservice teachers sometimes integrate ideas about learners with ideas about instruction. Further analyses illustrate the difference between integrating ideas and simply juxtaposing them. The paper illuminates how reflecting on multiple aspects of teaching may help new teachers integrate their knowledge and begin to develop a more complex view of teaching.     

An Empirical Examination of the Warfare Metaphor with Respect to Pre-Service Elementary Teachers

Since its origination in the late nineteenth century, the warfare metaphor has been used to characterize the relationship between science and religion, especially orthodox Christianity. Though thoroughly discredited by historians of science, the ideological descendants of Thomas Huxley, who spoke of science in quasi-religious terms, have kept the warfare metaphor alive. On the other hand, there are substantial numbers of Christians who at least appear to oppose science given their high-profile opposition to the general theory of evolution. The research reported in this paper asked, “Does anti-science sentiment increase with increasing orthodox Christian belief?” Two validated, published instruments were used: The Thinking about Science Survey Instrument and the Christian Fundamentalist Belief Scale. The subjects for the study were 545 preservice elementary teachers. The analysis did not show that anti-science sentiment increases with increasing Christian belief. Subjects with strong Christian beliefs were found to be just as supportive of science, if not more so, than subjects with no Christian beliefs. The study concludes with a caution against projecting attitudes toward science “on the whole” based on attitudes specifically toward evolution when working with preservice elementary teachers. Such a projection could well be counterproductive. The study has implications for other modern countries having highly religious populations such as Turkey.     

Developing Preservice Teachers’ Expertise in Equitable Assessment for English Learners

This study illustrated a pathway of growth that a preservice teacher might traverse when learning to use and develop equitable assessments (EA). The study is rare in that it looks at the development of preservice teachers’ understanding and ability to design EA. I examined the understanding and implementation of EA of 23 secondary preservice teachers within two classes. The methods classes focused on the academic content area of science. Participants’ journals, teaching philosophies, and inquiry-based science units served as data sources. Participants progressed from a simple view of EA as “fairness” to a more sophisticated view of EA, including: ways to increase fairness, the importance of challenging students, and using assessments for learning. Results also showed changes in preservice teachers’ views of learners and the purpose of assessment. While understanding developed robustly, teachers’ assessment plans in their units were not as strong. Teacher education programs need to place more emphasis on developing critical understanding of EA practices to meet the needs of diverse learners.     

Preservice teachers’ expressed awarenesses: emerging threads of retro-spection of learning and pro-spection of teaching

In this paper, we report an enquiry into elementary preservice teachers’ learning, as they engage in doing mathematics for themselves. As a group of researchers working in elementary Initial Teacher Education in English universities, we co-planned and taught sessions on growing pattern generalisation. Following the sessions, interviews of fifteen preservice teachers at two universities focused on their expressed awareness of their approach to the mathematical activity. Preservice teachers’ prospective planning and post-teaching evaluations of similar activities in their classrooms were also examined. We draw on aspects of enactivism and the notion of reflective “spection” in the context of teacher learning, tracing threads between preservice teachers’ retro-spection of learning and pro-spection of teaching. Our analysis indicates that increasing sensitivity to their own embodied processes of generalisation offers opportunities for novice teachers to respond deliberately, rather than to react impulsively, to different pedagogical possibilities. The paper contributes a new dimension to the discussion about the focus of novice elementary school teachers’ retrospective reflection by examining how deliberate retrospective analysis of doing mathematics, and not only of teaching actions, can develop awarenesses that underlie the growth of expertise in mathematics teaching. We argue that engaging preservice teachers in mathematics to support deliberate retrospective analysis of their mathematics learning and prospective consideration of the implications for teaching can enable more critical pedagogical choices.

     

Discourse analysis in classrooms: approaches to language and literacy research

This study reports the results of an innovative assignment in which preservice teachers’ mental representations were examined through drawing floor plans of an “ideal middle-level mathematics classroom.” The 41 middle-level mathematics preservice teachers created two floor plans, one at the beginning of the semester and the other for the course final. An essay was also submitted describing how the final floor plan addressed the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics principle of Teaching. Participants designed and described floor plans that encouraged the use of inquiry and hands-on activities and technology as instructional strategies, focused on student learning styles and individual needs, established a comfortable, organized and safe learning environment, demonstrated flexibility in grouping strategies, and encouraged communication between peers and with the teacher. The essays also suggest that the preservice teachers’ emerging teacher identity was influenced by professional experiences such as field placements and peer lessons.     

Variable Relationships among Different Science Learners in Elementary Science-Methods Courses

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among science content knowledge, understanding the Learning Cycle, and self-efficacy among preservice teachers. Preservice teachers enrolled in an elementary science-methods course were categorized as Fearful, Disinterested, Successful, or Enthusiastic science learners based on differing background characteristics in the variables of science interest, performance in science courses methods courses. Analysis revealed that the four categories increased differentially in their science content knowledge, understanding of the Learning Cycle, science teaching self-efficacy, and confidence to learn science. Fearful science learners demonstrated less increases in science content knowledge and understanding of the Learning Cycle than the other three categories. Disinterested science learners demonstrated fewer gains in science content knowledge than Enthusiastic science learners. Fearful science learners were less confident to learn science than other categories. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material that is available to authorized users. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Developing an Instrument to Examine Preservice Teachers’ Pedagogical Development

National and international reform documents have forged blueprints for advancing science education. Coursework for preservice teachers needs to correspond to these documents by providing learning experiences that develop preservice teachers’ capabilities to plan and implement reform measures. Using a pretest–posttest design, responses from 59 2nd-year preservice teachers from the same university were compared after involvement in an elementary science pedagogy coursework. The survey, which was linked to the course outcomes (constructs) and multiple indicators, measured the preservice teachers’ perceptions of their development towards becoming elementary science teachers. A pretest–posttest survey linked to course outcomes can be employed to assess perceived pedagogical development of preservice teachers, which can inform further teaching practices for implementing science education reform agendas.