How Do Beginning Primary School Teachers Cope with Science? Toward an Understanding of Science Teaching Practice

This study emerged from a consideration of how some beginning primary school teachers cope when faced with teaching science. Primary teachers typically lack science content knowledge and therefore the science pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) that enables them to teach science. Aspects of a group of beginning primary school teachers' science teaching practices were consequently examined in order to understand better the basis of their practice. In particular, science PCK and its relationship to activities that work were considered, illuminated by findings about activities that work from a separate study with practicing teachers. The main assertion arising from this study is that activities that work have a close relationship with science PCK. A number of implications for primary science curriculum emerge from this assertion, such as considerations for preservice teacher education science courses and the nature of the primary science curriculum.     

From stories of staying to stories of leaving: a US beginning teacher’s experience

This narrative inquiry traces a beginning teacher’s unfolding career over a six-year period in a diverse middle school in the fourth largest city in the USA. The work revolves around two conceptualizations: ‘stories to live by’ and ‘stories to leave by.’ How these identity-related phenomena surface and play out in an entry-level teacher’s experiences become revealed. The stories of experience lived and told, and relived and retold, illuminate the influence of context on beginning teachers’ knowing. The interwoven nature of educators’ lives also forms a major theme. In the final analysis, the beginning teacher’s ‘stories to live by’ are no longer able to sustain her in her urban teaching milieu. Shifting occurs and ‘stories to leave by’ prevail.     

Beyond a command performance: reflections on Classmates as a new teacher preparation initiative

This paper reflects on a new pre‐service teacher education initiative, Classmates. Classmates is a collaboration between the University of Western Sydney (UWS) and the New South Wales Department of Education and Training (DET), South Western Sydney Region. Classmates aims to prepare pre‐service teachers to work in challenging, hard‐to‐staff schools. These contexts typically have socially disadvantaged populations and annually experience teacher shortages and high teacher turnover, particularly amongst beginning and early career teachers. Classmates seeks to produce beginning teachers who are highly prepared for, confident and mentally and emotionally equipped to work in such environments. This discussion focuses on some of the positive attributes about the initiative, particularly its practicum structure; its nurturing of pre‐service teachers to work in challenging contexts; and its strong focus on networking and development of ongoing support structures.     

Assessing students' understanding of inquiry: What do prospective science teachers notice?

The theoretical construct of teacher noticing has allowed mathematics teacher educators to examine teacher thinking and practice by looking at the range of activities that teachers notice in the classroom. Guided by this approach to the study of teacher thinking, the central goal of this exploratory study was to identify what prospective science teachers notice when evaluating evidence of student understanding in another teacher's inquiry‐based unit. Our results are based on the qualitative analysis of 43 prospective teachers' evaluations of assessment evidence presented to them in the form of a video case and associated written artifacts. Analysis of our data revealed two major categories of elements, Task‐General and Task‐Specific, noticed by our study participants. Task‐General elements included attention to learning objectives, independent student work, and presentation issues and they often served to guide or qualify the specific inquiry skills that were evaluated. Task‐Specific elements included the noticing of students' abilities to perform different components of an investigation. In general, study participants paid attention to important general and specific aspects of student work in the context of inquiry. However, they showed preferential attention to those process skills associated with designing an investigation versus those practices related to the analysis of data and generation of conclusions. Additionally, their interpretations of assessment outcomes were largely focused on the demonstration of general science process skills; much less attention was paid to the analysis of the epistemological validity or scientific plausibility of students' ideas. Our results provide insights into the design of meaningful learning experiences for prospective teachers that elicit, challenge, and enrich their conceptions of student understanding in the context of inquiry. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 50:189–208, 2013     

Understanding the co‐construction of inquiry practices: A case study of a responsive teaching environment

We set out to understand how different instantiations of inquiry emerged in two different years of one elementary teacher's classroom. Longitudinal observations from Mrs. Charles' 5th grade science classroom forced us to carefully and deliberately consider who exactly was responsible for the change in the class activities and norms. We provide empirical evidence to show how a focus on the teacher can easily overlook the complex dynamics of the classroom. The data reveal that students had a substantive and generative role in the class's arrival at the different instantiations of scientific inquiry—the nature and form of inquiry—that were constructed each year. We argue that, in an environment where a teacher carefully attends and responds to student thinking, the nascent resources students have for reasoning about phenomena can affect not only the conceptual ideas that emerge, but also influence what inquiry activities or practices become established as normative and productive over time. Our work with Mrs. Charles illuminates an important methodological concern with research on teacher development as well as the construct of teacher learning progressions; research accounts that focus primarily on the teacher may overlook the classroom norms that are negotiated between teacher and student, and thereby provide an incomplete portrayal of the teacher's activity within one classroom and the teacher's progress across multiple years. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 429–464, 2012     

新手英语教师实践性知识建构与重构的叙事探究

教师的实践性知识是教师专业实践能力发展的知识基础。文章从教师实践性知识的构成要素和生成机制入手,采用叙事探究的研究方法,通过分析小陈老师与\"糟糕班\"之间的故事来探索处于教学最初阶段的新手教师的实践性知识是如何建构与重构的。     

The Assessment of Student Teachers’ Academic and Professional Knowledge in School‐Based Teacher Education

The aim of this study was to scrutinize the assessment of teacher knowledge in a school‐based course at one Swedish pre‐service teacher education program. In a general education school‐based course, teacher educators visited the student teachers at their school placements and met them and their school mentors in student‐teaching conferences to assess their teacher knowledge. The findings primarily show that the assessment procedures are influenced by teacher educators’ organization of the school visits and conferences. Secondly, the organization of the school visits and conferences influences who the potential and actual assessors at the conferences can be and are. Thirdly, the assessed student teacher knowledge at the conferences is described as procedural knowledge in a knowledge‐in‐practice perspective, almost exclusively in the area of relational, emotional, and caring learning objectives and aspects of teaching activities. Fourthly, the findings show that propositional knowledge in a knowledge‐for‐practice perspective is hardly mentioned or assessed.     

Social justice and school linkages in teacher education programmes

This paper investigates current research into the role of education in combating social injustice, assembles this research to indicate key features of a teacher education programme that would assist education for social justice, and links these features to one innovative university teacher education programme to ascertain some of the practical difficulties in establishing such a programme. The research indicated key approaches that would enhance the probability that graduates from teacher education programmes will be able to pursue social justice initiatives.     

培训新教师的导师:来自荷兰的经验

荷兰学者冯克进行了长期研究,发现作为一名成功的新教师导师必须具备的知识基础包括三个基本要素:第一,新教师专业发展的过程;第二,指导新教师课堂教学的策略;第三,理解新教师的经验学习过程.     

Enhancing Elementary Science Teachers’ Knowledge of Teaching: The Case of Designing and Implementing an Instructional Unit

This article provides a model for the professional development of elementary science teachers. The model focused on integrating different domains of knowledge into science teaching, including the knowledge of the science curriculum, especially scientific inquiry, teachers knowledge, and students knowledge. The two case studies in this article revealed that the teachers construct their knowledge in a social context. The constant reflections on the experiences helped them to generate alternative teaching approaches. The findings suggest that the model of the project had two functions. First, it provides a useful strategy to help science teachers to bridge the gap between theories of teaching and their own teaching practices. Second, it provides a social learning environment for learning how to teach science.