Challenging gender-blindness in preservice secondary science teachers

This material is based upon work supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Grant No. HRD 945-0022). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.     

Preparing student teachers for alternative assessment in science

This material is based upon work supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation California State University Student Teaching Development Project (DOE-9250027) and the W. M. Keck Foundation. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding ordanizations.     

Science for early adolescence teachers (science FEAT): A program for research and learning

This article is based on a paper which received the “Innovations in Teaching Science Teachers” award at the 1995 meeting of the Association for the Education of Teachers in Science. The award is made possible by Delta Education. This material is based upon work supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Grant No. 9253170). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.     

SCI-LINK: An innovative project linking research scientists and science teachers

Summary The major purpose of the SCI-LINK Projects was to explore ways of linking research scientists and school science teachers. Not only did the project provide these teachers with a better understanding of scientific environmental research and recent findings, but it allowed them to develop activities and other instructional materials they could use in their classrooms. Leadership skills also were developed as evidenced by the Master Teachers that evolved and the many professional activities in which they have been engaged since the first institutes. Many things were done during the course of the project in order to make the process more efficient. These include assistance to scientists in making their presentations and field trips more effective and helping teachers with their writing and library skills. Also explored were the nature and format for the activities the teachers developed and how they can best be evaluated and disseminated. Positive feedback from teachers and the continued interest of research scientists to participate has led to another project patterned after the model used in the SCI-LINK Project. This second generation project, GLOBE-NET, also supported by the National Science Foundation, involves scientists and teachers in the development of instructional materials on global change. At least some of the efforts to improve science education should include scientists and teachers as partners. The model used in the SCI-LINK Project provides one way of doing so.     

Implementing microcomputers in science teaching

Conclusion The most important finding from this study is that if one adheres to the guidelines from the literature on staff development and educational change, teachers can and will change their teaching behaviors. It is very easy, however, to underestimate the time and resources required to implement change in schools. Even a seemingly simple change such as increasing use of educational computing, which teachers can implement in their individual classrooms without an overhaul of schools, is immensely complex and difficult. Helping teachers and schools change requires a systematic effort, with intensive on-going support over a period of three or more years. Science educators, school leaders, and the public must learn that school improvement is not an event but a continual process of renewal and refinement. This study demonstrates the importance of allocating resources to staff development and implementation along with those for curriculum development. Fortunately, the National Science Foundation has recognized the importance of implementation in school improvement by requiring that implementation be an integral part of all curriculum development projects it funds. As Hall (1986) said, “It is not enough to build pretty boxes; what is important is to get the boxes used.” This article is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. MDR-8470061. Any opionions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.     

Research interests of secondary science teachers

In the past few years, science educators and the nation at large have become increasingly concerned about the “Crisis in Science Education.” An underlying cause of this crisis is the nonuniform quality of instruction delivered by secondary science teachers. One way to improve the quality of teaching in the schools is the application of science education research findings to teaching. Most teachers are unaware of the research findings and/or do not apply them in their classrooms. This study helps determine the areas of research which are of greatest interest to secondary science teachers. Results will be used by NSTA to determine the contents of future volumes of the monograph What Research Says to the Science Teacher. A random sample of 600 secondary science teachers was obtained from the National Registry of NSTA. Teachers were sent a 23 item questionnaire that asked them to rate their interest in each research topic on a five point scale. The questionnaire contained the 12 items prepared by a NARST-NSTA committee in 1979 and an additional 11 items using the same format. Demographic data collected from the survey included sex, teaching assignment, role in school, type of school, type of community, years of teaching experience, and familiarity with What Research Says. … Data were analyzed using this demographic data as well as according to whether teachers returned the original or a follow-up questionnaire. Teachers who returned the first questionnaire had basically the same preferences as those who returned the follow-up questionnaire. Sixty percent of the teachers completed the questionnaire in usable form. Overall results of the study based on both frequency of response and on mean rating indicate that the following five topics are of greatest interest to secondary science teachers: laboratory experiences, motivational techniques, effect on college courses, problem solving, and meaningful learning. Analysis of data according to the subject taught indicated that chemistry and physics teachers are more interested in problem solving than biology teachers, and that chemistry, physics, and earth science teachers are also interested in the sequence of the content. Males and females had the same top five interests but in a different order. The same is true for teachers of grades 7–9 versus grades 10–12. Rural teachers preferences varied substantially from those in other settings and differences were also found for teachers familiar with What Research Says … compared to the rest of the sample. For every classification of teacher, the area of least interest was sex difference research.     

Enlist micros: Training science teachers to use microcomputers

A National Science Foundation grant to the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) at The Colorado College supported the design and production of training materials to encourage literacy of science teachers in the use of microcomputers. ENLIST Micros is based on results of a national needs assessment that identified 22 compentencies needed by K–12 science teachers to use microcomputers for instruction. A writing team developed the 16-hour training program in the summer of 1985, and field-test coordinators tested it with 18 preservice or in-service groups during the 1985–86 academic year at 15 sites within the United States. The training materials consist of video programs, interactive computer disks for the Apple II series microcomputer, a training manual for participants, and a guide for the group leader. The experimental materials address major areas of educational computing: awareness, applications, implementation, evaluation, and resources. Each chapter contains activities developed for this program, such as viewing video segments of science teachers who are using computers effectively and running commercial science and training courseware. Role playing and small-group interaction help the teachers overcome their reluctance to use computers and plan for effective implementation of microcomputers in the school. This study examines the implementation of educational computing among 47 science teachers who completed the ENLIST Micros training at a southern university. We present results of formative evaluation for that site. Results indicate that both elementary and secondary teachers benefit from the training program and demonstrate gains in attitudes toward computer use. Participating teachers said that the program met its stated objectives and helped them obtain needed skills. Only 33 percent of these teachers, however, reported using computers one year after the training. In June 1986, the BSCS initiated a follow up to the ENLIST Micros curriculum to develop, evaluate, and disseminate a complete model of teacher enhancement for educational computing in the sciences. In that project, we use the ENLIST Micros curriculum as the first step in a training process. The project includes seminars that introduce additional skills: It contains provisions for sharing among participants, monitors use of computers in participants' classrooms, provides structured coaching of participants' use of computers in their classrooms, and offers planned observations of peers using computers in their science teaching.     

Assessing pre-service teachers’ skills for analyzing teaching

This study investigated the learning-from-practice skills that pre-service teachers possess when they enter teacher preparation programs in the United States. Two subskills were hypothesized to represent, at least in part, what is required to learn from practice: (1) the ability to collect evidence about students’ learning in order to analyze the effects of instruction, and (2) the ability to use the analysis to revise the instruction. Because it seems likely that different teaching situations and contexts reveal these learning-from-practice skills in different ways and to different degrees, this study examined the skills that pre-service teachers exhibited under two experimental conditions. Thirty pre-service teachers were asked to analyze the effects of a videotaped mathematics lesson on student learning, to support their analysis with evidence, and to use their analysis to revise the lesson. Based on the results, it appears that many entry level pre-service teachers can carry out a cause-effect type of analysis of the relationships between specific instructional strategies and students’ learning, and can use this analysis to make productive revisions to the instruction. However, prospective teachers’ ability to collect evidence that supports their analysis appears to be less developed. In addition, the type of analysis that prospective teachers carried out about the effects of instruction on students’ learning differed dramatically across the two experimental task conditions.Preparation of this article was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant #0083429 to the Mid-Atlantic Center for Teaching and Learning Mathematics). The opinions expressed in the article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Foundation. Thanks to James Hiebert for his comments on earlier drafts of the paper.     

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.     

Changes in a preservice elementary teachers physics course

Conclusion Preservice elementary teachers demonstrated the ability to read and interpret distance-time graphs before instruction. Posttest results suggested the new motion curriculum materials greatly improved students’ abilities to read and interpret velocity-time graphs. Despite conducting only one activity with acceleration, students also showed improvement with acceleration-time graphs. The instruction, which included MBL activities, improved the preservice teachers’ general conceptual understanding of these kinematic topics. Future research might include a means to better measure the cause for the conceptual change. Multiple factors played a role, including positive student attitudes toward using the computers, ability to make abstract concepts measurable and describable, and opportunities for frequent experimentation. The capabilities of MBLs changed the focus of the motion curriculum. An MBL’s capacity to quickly gather data and display it opens the door for a rich variety of activities. Developing new motion curriculum was enhanced with opportunities for experimentation and exploration made possible by this technology. The revision of the curriculum was rewarding and exciting for both the instructors and students. The students learned the content, saw an appropriate use of technology, and enjoyed using the computer. The instructors enjoyed exploring the topics using MBLs and became excited with the possibilities of further usage of MBLs. Using MBLs as the powerful tool they are, motion curriculum will continue to be revised, and the instructors will explore more effective ways of structuring the lessons with ways to better teach. This material is based upon work supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Grant No. TPE-9050039). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, and/or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation.     

国家精品课程网站建设的思考——基于英语语言类课程的调查分析

本文以2003-2008年共评选出的54门英语语言类国家精品课程为研究对象,从总体概况、课程模块建设、运行情况三方面对网站建设情况进行了详细分析.数据表明,网站整体建设质量有待改进,课程资源共享程度不够.作者在分析的基础上对国家精品课程网站建设提出了行之有效的建议.     

Ameliorating gender differences in attitudes about science: A cross-national study

The outcomes of two studies reported here indicate that the teacher inservice workshops, combined with activity-based science lessons, affected students' attitudes and perceptions about electricity. Australian and U.S. studies produced different patterns explored and explained in the paper.This material is based upon research supported by the National Science Foundation under grant MDR-88-50570 in the United States and supported by a grant from the Special Projects Program of the Commonwealth Schools Commission in the Education of GirlsDD section of Projects of National Significance in Australia. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the Commonwealth Schools Commission.     

Characteristics of elementary teachers related to attitudes toward science

The purpose of this study is to ascertain what personal and professional characteristics are related to elementary attitudes toward science and the scientific institution. The Schwirian Science Support Scale (TRI-S) was administered to 191 elementary teachers and analysis of variance was used to analyze the data. The personal characteristics examined are: (1) age; and (2) religious preference. The six professional characteristics explored are: (1) highest academic degree held; (2) semester hours of college science; (3) type of undergraduate institution attended; (4) years teaching experience; (5) grade level taught; and (6) the nature oj the teaching experience, i.e., continuous or interrupted. Of these eight independent variables, age is associated with the greatest attitudinal differences, the younger teachers expressing the more positive attitudes toward science. Teachers who graduated from state schools had more positive attitudes than those who came from private, liberal arts institutions. There was also a positive association found between number of hours in science and positive science attitudes.     

Attitude of students in exemplary programs toward their science teachers

Student attitudes concerning their science teachers at third, seventh, and eleventh grade are compared. Samples of students were drawn from those enrolled in NSTA's exemplary programs and other students drawn from classrooms of a random selection of teachers who are also NSTA members. Some of the affective items from the Third Assessment of Science, National Assessment of Educational Progress, were used for the study. Results indicate significantly more positive attitudes of students from the exemplary programs in the following ways:

• (1) pleasure with student questions;
• (2) desire for students to explore their own ideas;
• (3) “liking” of science (at the elementary school level);
• (4) ability and “knowledge” of it to make science study exciting.

     

Philosophic stance of secondary school science teachers,curriculum experiences,and children's understanding of science: Some preliminary findings

This study sought to establish whether teachers' views about the nature of science and scientific inquiry are reflected in their choice and design of learning experiences and, therefore, are significant influences on children's understanding of science. Even those teachers who hold clear and coherent views about science do not plan laboratory-based activities consistently in relation to those views, concentrating instead on the immediate concerns of classroom management and on concept acquisition and development.     

Urban schools' teachers enacting project‐based science

What teaching practices foster inquiry and promote students to learn challenging subject matter in urban schools? Inquiry‐based instruction and successful inquiry learning and teaching in project‐based science (PBS) were described in previous studies (Brown & Campione, 1990 ; Crawford, 1999 ; Krajcik, Blumenfeld, Marx, Bass, & Fredricks, 1998 ; Krajcik, Blumenfeld, Marx, & Solloway, 1994 ; Minstrell & van Zee, 2000 ). In this article, we describe the characteristics of inquiry teaching practices that promote student learning in urban schools. Teaching is a major factor that affects both achievement of and attitude of students toward science (Tamir, 1998 ). Our involvement in reform in a large urban district includes the development of suitable learning materials and providing continuous and practiced‐based professional development (Fishman & Davis, in press; van Es, Reiser, Matese, & Gomez, 2002 ). Urban schools face particular challenges when enacting inquiry‐based teaching practices like those espoused in PBS. In this article, we describe two case studies of urban teachers whose students achieved high gains on pre‐ and posttests and who demonstrated a great deal of preparedness and commitment to their students. Teachers' attempts to help their students to perform well are described and analyzed. The teachers we discuss work in a school district that strives to bring about reform in mathematics and science through systemic reform. The Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools (LeTUS) collaborates with the Detroit Public Schools to bring about reform in middle‐school science. Through this collaboration, diverse populations of urban‐school students learn science through inquiry‐oriented projects and the use of various educational learning technologies. For inquiry‐based science to succeed in urban schools, teachers must play an important role in enacting the curriculum while addressing the unique needs of students. The aim of this article is to describe patterns of good science teaching in urban school. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 722–745, 2006     

Supporting new science teachers in pursuing socially just science education

This forum explores contradictions that arose within the partnership between Teach for America (TFA) and a university teacher education program. TFA is an alternate route teacher preparation program that places individuals into K-12 classrooms in low-income school districts after participating in an intense summer training program and provides them with ongoing support. This forum is a conversation about the challenges we faced as new science teachers in the TFA program and in the Peace Corps program. We both entered the teaching field with science degrees and very little formal education in science education. In these programs we worked in a community very different from the one we had experienced as students. These experiences allow us to address many of the issues that were discussed in the original paper, namely teaching in an unfamiliar community amid challenges that many teachers face in the first few years of teaching. We consider how these challenges may be amplified for teachers who come to teaching through an alternate route and may not have as much pedagogical training as a more traditional teacher education program provides. The forum expands on the ideas presented in the original paper to consider the importance of perspectives on socially just science education. There is often a disconnect between what is taught in teacher education programs and what teachers actually experience in urban classrooms and this can be amplified when the training received through alternate route provides a different framework as well. This forum urges universities and alternate route programs to continue to find ways to authentically partner using practical strategies that bring together the philosophies and goals of all stakeholders in order to better prepare teachers to partner with their students to achieve their science learning goals.     

‘Educating rita’: Is an academic science course for prospective infant and primary teachers appropriate

Conclusion Our decision to choose the Open University S101 Science: A Foundation Course represents a direct attempt on our part to provide a background in science for our prospective infant and primary teachers. Our objective that this course achieve parity with first year Faculty of Science courses may appear to be an unattainable goal, given the methodological problems that have to be faced for such a general purpose course. It would certainly not be feasible for a lecture staff of four persons were it not for the printed readers, texts, assignments, examinations, and audio-visual software purchased, with approval, from the Open University in the United Kingdom. Our pilot study in 1983 gave us some encouragement and, most interestingly, 10 out of the 17 students continued with Science study into Year 2 in 1984, thus committing them to the major study in science in Years 3 and 4. Given that three students failed, 10 out of 14 is a far higher retention rate than anything we have experienced previously. Clearly, the evaluation of our efforts to influence the teaching of science in Tasmanian primary schools must wait, but these evaluative studies should make a contribution to the research data on curriculum issues in Australia. This course could play an important in-service function for present primary teachers. We are hopeful that such a content-based approach to science teacher education may help to convince teachers to take the extensive range of available curriculum materials seriously.     

Partnering to prepare urban math and science teachers: Managing tensions

Although the need for university–school partnerships in preparing teachers is widely accepted, studies of research universities working with teacher unions and urban school districts to respond to the local needs are rare. This case study reveals the tensions that arose when the colleges of education and arts and sciences from a research institution partnered with an urban school district school district and teachers’ association to prepare qualified math and science teachers for its high-need schools. Using a range of data, we identify and analyze the tensions that emerged for each of the partner organizations in planning and implementing a middle school math/science licensure program and offer cautionary advice and support for those who wish to undertake similar efforts.