Relations Among Two Teachers’ Practices and Beliefs,Conceptualizations of the Nature of Science,and their Implementation of Student Independent Inquiry Projects

In this study we sought to understand factors that shaped teachers’ use of student inquiry projects. We examined, over 3 years, the practices and conceptions of two teachers involved in implementing student inquiry projects. Neither teacher was initially satisfied with her success at supporting student inquiry, but the two had very different responses to difficulties they faced. These responses related strongly to their ideas about how learning should be structured. There was less relation between their stated views about the nature of science and their use of inquiry than was expected. The teacher with espoused views about the nature of science generally in accord with reform documents did not support student inquiry projects that involved actual investigations. The teacher with views on the nature of science less aligned with reform documents worked hard to support student investigations in her classroom. Our findings support the claim that merely learning about the nature of science or about student inquiry may not generate changes in a teacher’s practice. On closer analysis, we found that the two teachers understood aspects of the nature of science from two quite different perspectives, the proximal and the distal. The proximal view of the nature of science was more closely aligned with implementation of actual student investigations. The efforts of these two teachers in implementing inquiry illustrate the dilemmas and challenges they faced as they attempted student inquiry projects.     

Using Educative Assessments to Support Science Teaching for Middle School English-language Learners

Grounded in Hallidayan perspectives on academic language, we report on our development of an educative science assessment as one component of the language-rich inquiry science for English-language learners teacher professional learning project for middle school science teachers. The project emphasizes the role of content-area writing to support teachers in diagnosing their students’ emergent understandings of science inquiry practices, science content knowledge, and the academic language of science, with a particular focus on the needs of English-language learners. In our current school policy context, writing for meaningful purposes has received decreased attention as teachers struggle to cover large numbers of discrete content standards. Additionally, high-stakes assessments presented in multiple-choice format have become the definitive measure of student science learning, further de-emphasizing the value of academic writing for developing and expressing understanding. To counter these trends, we examine the implementation of educative assessment materials—writing-rich assessments designed to support teachers’ instructional decision making. We report on the qualities of our educative assessment that supported teachers in diagnosing their students’ emergent understandings, and how teacher–researcher collaborative scoring sessions and interpretation of assessment results led to changes in teachers’ instructional decision making to better support students in expressing their scientific understandings. We conclude with implications of this work for theory, research, and practice.     

Teacher guidance to mediate student inquiry through interactive dynamic visualizations

The purpose of this study is to investigate how three teachers guided their students to learn science using interactive dynamic visualizations incorporated in an inquiry digital unit. The results show that the teachers’ guidance varied in frequency, occasion, and content type. Each teacher demonstrated a different instructional approach in terms of the two dimensions of facilitating versus informing, and responsive, norm-revealing inquiry guidance versus planned, meaning-defining inquiry guidance. The study illustrates the range of inquiry instruction supporting learning with interactive dynamic visualizations. Moreover, the teacher effect was significant on the students’ learning outcomes when instructional time and the students’ pre-test scores were controlled using a multiple regression model. Effective teaching strategies that augment students’ integrated understanding of science phenomena through interactive dynamic visualizations are discussed based on the association between teaching effects and learning outcomes.     

Teacher Implementation and the Impact of Game-Based Science Curriculum Materials

Research-based digital games hold great potential to be effective tools in supporting next-generation science learning. However, as with all instructional materials, teachers significantly influence their implementation and contribute to their effectiveness. To more fully understand the contributions and challenges of teacher implementation of digital games, we studied the replacement of existing high school biology genetics lessons over a 3- to 6-week period with Geniverse, an immersive, game-like learning environment designed to be used in classrooms. The Geniverse materials infuse virtual experimentation in genetics with a narrative of a quest to heal a genetic disease; incorporate the topics of meiosis and protein synthesis with inheritance; and include the science practices of explanation and argumentation. The research design involved a quasi-experiment with 48 high school teachers and about 2000 students, student science content knowledge and argumentation outcome measures, and analysis using hierarchical linear modeling. Results indicate that when Geniverse was implemented as the designers intended, student learning of genetics content was significantly greater than in the comparison, business-as-usual group. However, a wide range of levels of Geniverse implementation resulted in no significant difference between the groups as a whole. Students’ abilities to engage in scientific explanation and argumentation were greater in the Geniverse group, but these differences were not statistically significant. Observation, survey, and interview data indicate a range of barriers to implementation and teacher instructional decisions that may have influenced student outcomes. Implications for the role of the teacher in the implementation of game-based instructional materials are discussed.     

Teacher interactions and effects on group triple problem solving space

ABSTRACT

Research shows that collaborative work promotes student learning and improves social skills, but teachers are still exploring how to best support problem-solving in a small group context, particularly in the science classroom. This study builds on prior research to characterise teacher interactions with small groups in secondary science and analyses how those interactions affect a collectively constructed space – the triple problem solving space (TPSS) – in which group members collectively understand a task (content/cognitive dimension), manage social interactions (social/relational dimension), and co-construct the emotional life of the group (affective dimension). Results of two biology teachers’ interactions with students in small groups working on inquiry and engineering design activities show that most interactions were administrative and had little influence on the group’s TPSS. Teacher interactions that engaged students in monitoring their problem-solving process, however, did have the capacity to increase cognitive work of the group, which subsequently impacted the students’ group affect and social dimension. These findings suggest that interactions focused on cognitive processes have the potential to support all aspects of a group’s TPSS. Though this research is only a first step in understanding the impact of teacher interactions on small group work, implications for teaching practices are discussed.     

Inquiry identity and science teacher professional development

An effective inquiry-oriented science teacher possesses more than the skills of teaching through investigation. They must address philosophies, and ways of interacting as a member of a group of educators who value and practice science through inquiry. Professional development opportunities can support inquiry identity development, but most often they address teaching practices from limited cognitive perspectives, leaving unexplored the shifts in identity that may accompany teachers along their journey in becoming skilled in inquiry-oriented instruction. In this forum article, we envision Victoria Deneroff’s argument that “professional development could be designed to facilitate reflexive transformation of identity within professional learning environments” (2013, p. 33). Instructional coaching, cogenerative dialogues, and online professional communities are discussed as ways to promote inquiry identity formation and collaboration in ways that empower and deepen science teachers’ conversations related to personal and professional efficacy in the service of improved science teaching and learning.     

Using Automated Scores of Student Essays to Support Teacher Guidance in Classroom Inquiry

Computer scoring of student written essays about an inquiry topic can be used to diagnose student progress both to alert teachers to struggling students and to generate automated guidance. We identify promising ways for teachers to add value to automated guidance to improve student learning. Three teachers from two schools and their 386 students participated. We draw on evidence from student progress, observations of how teachers interact with students, and reactions of teachers. The findings suggest that alerts for teachers prompted rich teacher–student conversations about energy in photosynthesis. In one school, the combination of the automated guidance plus teacher guidance was more effective for student science learning than two rounds of personalized, automated guidance. In the other school, both approaches resulted in equal learning gains. These findings suggest optimal combinations of automated guidance and teacher guidance to support students to revise explanations during inquiry and build integrated understanding of science.     

Enhancing Teachers’ Application of Inquiry‐Based Strategies Using a Constructivist Sociocultural Professional Development Model

This two‐year school‐wide initiative to improve teachers’ pedagogical skills in inquiry‐based science instruction using a constructivist sociocultural professional development model involved 30 elementary teachers from one school, three university faculty, and two central office content supervisors. Research was conducted for investigating the impact of the professional development activities on teachers’ practices, documenting changes in their philosophies, instruction, and the learning environment. This report includes teachers’ accounts of philosophical as well as instructional changes and how these changes shaped the learning environment. For the teachers in this study, examining their teaching practices in learner‐centered collaborative group settings encouraged them to critically analyze their instructional practices, challenging their preconceived ideas on inquiry‐based strategies. Additionally, other factors affecting teachers’ understanding and use of inquiry‐based strategies were highlighted, such as self‐efficacy beliefs, prior experiences as students in science classrooms, teacher preparation programs, and expectations due to federal, state, and local mandates. These factors were discussed and reconciled, as they constructed new understandings and adapted their strategies to become more student‐centered and inquiry‐based.     

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     

Teaching aquatic science as inquiry through professional development: Teacher characteristics and student outcomes

We present an inquiry‐based, aquatic science professional development (PD) for upper‐elementary, middle, and high school teachers and examine changes in student outcomes in light of participating teachers’ characteristics and the grade band of the students. Our study lends support to the assertion that inquiry‐ and content‐focused PD, paired with classroom implementation, can effectively improve student learning. Our findings indicate that students improved in their nature of science (NOS) and aquatic science content knowledge and that these changes depended in some ways on the participating teachers’ characteristics and adherence to the program. The students’ improvements were amplified when their teachers adhered more closely to the PD activities during their classroom implementation. The teachers’ previous science PD experience and pre‐PD understanding of inquiry‐based teaching also explained some of the variability in student growth. In both NOS and content, students of teachers with less prior science‐PD experience benefited more. Grade band also explained variation in student outcomes through interactions with teacher‐characteristic variables. In high school, students of teachers with lower pre‐PD inquiry knowledge appeared to learn more about NOS. Our results suggest that inquiry and content training through PD may minimize disparities in teaching due to inexperience and lack of expertise. Our study also demonstrates the value of PD that teaches a flexible approach to inquiry and focuses on underrepresented, interdisciplinary content areas, like aquatic science. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 54:1219–1245, 2017     

Balancing Teacher and Student Roles in Elementary Classrooms: Preservice elementary teachers’ learning about the inquiry continuum

Using the National Research Council's inquiry continuum framework, we use a multiple-case study research design to investigate the teacher- and student-directedness of elementary preservice teachers’ planned and enacted science lessons and their pedagogical reasoning about science instruction during a semester-long science methods course. Our specific research questions were (1) What ideas do elementary preservice teachers bring to a science teaching methods course about the inquiry continuum? and (2) How do their ideas about the inquiry continuum change over the course of the semester through engaging in planning, enactment, and reflection upon science instruction? Participants’ course artifacts (journals, reflective teaching assignments, and lesson plan rationales), interviews, and field observations of their enacted science lessons served as data for this study. Findings show that although the preservice teachers began the semester defining inquiry as highly student-directed, their ideas and definitions broadened over the course of the semester to include and embrace more teacher-directed forms of inquiry. Their early science lessons were more student-directed but, as they encountered challenges engaging in inquiry-based instruction and increasingly emphasized students’ learning needs, they began to plan and enact lessons that were more teacher-directed. Teacher education programs need to explicitly emphasize these variations of inquiry as a core component of supporting preservice teachers’ learning to teach science as inquiry.     

Teacher education students using TPACK in science: a case study

Teacher education is in the grip of change. Due to the new Australian Curriculum, no longer is it possible to plan and implement lessons without considering the inclusion of Information and Communication Technologies. Simply knowing about the latest technology gadgets is not enough. Information literacy is essential in today’s information-rich learning and working environment. Students and teachers must be able to engage with diverse learning technologies efficiently and effectively in the search for the “right information” at the “right time” for the “right purpose”. Key information literacy and inquiry skills have been recognised as vital learning goals by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority and the International Society for Technology in Education and are thus critical in science teacher education. This paper examines the overlap of technology, pedagogy and science content in the Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework and its affordances for science educators, at the intersection between technology knowledge, science pedagogy (information literacy and inquiry) and science content knowledge. Following an introduction of the TPACK framework for science education, the paper reports the research findings, which illustrate that 90% of pre-service teachers thought the experimental unit improved their understanding of the inquiry process, 88% reported more confidence in their understanding of science concepts and 94% of students reported an increase in their knowledge and confidence of Web 2.0 tools in supporting scientific inquiry in science. The implications of this study are that the online inquiry improved students’ knowledge and confidence in the skills and processes associated with inquiry and in science concepts.     

Crossing the Border from Science Student to Science Teacher: Preservice Teachers’ Views and Experiences Learning to Teach Inquiry

Preservice science teachers face numerous challenges in understanding and teaching science as inquiry. Over the course of their teacher education program, they are expected to move from veteran science students with little experience learning their discipline through inquiry instruction to beginning science teachers adept at implementing inquiry in their own classrooms. In this study, we used Aikenhead’s (Sci Educ 81: 217–238, 1997, Science Educ 85:180–188, 2001) notion of border crossing to describe this transition preservice teachers must make from science student to science teacher. We examined what one cohort of eight preservice secondary science teachers said, did, and wrote as they both conducted a two-part inquiry investigation and designed an inquiry lesson plan. We conducted two types of qualitative analyses. One, we drew from Costa (Sci Educ 79: 313–333, 1995) to group our preservice teacher participants into one of four types of potential science teachers. Two, we identified successes and struggles in preservice teachers’ attempts to negotiate the cultural border between veteran student and beginning teacher. In our implications, we argue that preservice teachers could benefit from explicit opportunities to navigate the border between learning and teaching science; such opportunities could deepen their conceptions of inquiry beyond those exclusively fashioned as either student or teacher.     

A Case Study Exploring the Identity of an In-Service Elementary Science Teacher: a Language Teacher First

Teachers are central to providing high-quality science learning experiences called for in recent reform efforts, as their understanding of science impacts both what they teach and how they teach it. Yet, most elementary teachers do not enter the profession with a particular interest in science or expertise in science teaching. Research also indicates elementary schools present unique barriers that may inhibit science teaching. This case study utilizes the framework of identity to explore how one elementary classroom teacher’s understandings of herself as a science specialist were shaped by the bilingual elementary school context as she planned for and provided reform-based science instruction. Utilizing Gee’s (2000) sociocultural framework, identity was defined as consisting of four interrelated dimensions that served as analytic frames for examining how this teacher understood her new role through social positioning within her school. Findings describe the ways in which this teacher’s identity as a science teacher was influenced by the school context. The case study reveals two important implications for teacher identity. First, collaboration for science teaching is essential for elementary teachers to change their practice. It can be challenging for teachers to form an identity as a science teacher in isolation. In addition, elementary teachers new to science teaching negotiate their emerging science practice with their prior experiences and the school context. For example, in the context of a bilingual school, this teacher adapted the reform-based science curriculum to better meet the unique linguistic needs of her students.

     

Teacher collaborative inquiry as a professional development intervention: benefits and challenges

The paper reports on a collaborative learning project coded as the teacher inquiry community that was carried out over a year in a private higher education institution to improve the professional capability of language-based subject teachers. Nine teachers completed the project all of whom were females and shared work experience of 2–29 years. Six of them held some form of qualification in education, and all except for one possessed at least a basic degree in some field. The study focused on three questions namely teacher benefits, impact of practice, and application of solutions. Findings revealed that the former two questions were well substantiated for most teachers, but the same thing could not be said of the third. While a number of senior teachers benefitted at the level of classroom implementation, the others explained away their inability to incorporate new ideas in their teaching. Individual characteristics and personality, and culture seemed to make a difference. However, the study concluded that the collaborative learning model could serve as a viable mechanism for the teachers’ professional development.     

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.     

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