The Impact of a Practice-Teaching Professional Development Model on Teachers’ Inquiry Instruction and Inquiry Efficacy Beliefs

This study examined changes in middle school teachers’ beliefs about inquiry, implementation of inquiry practices, and self-efficacy to teach science through inquiry after participating in a year-long professional development program. The professional development model design was based on Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory of learning and literature on effective professional development. Using the Electronic Quality of Inquiry Protocol (EQUIP) before and after the program (Marshall, Smart & Horton, 2010), teachers’ quality of inquiry instruction significantly increased across all 4 EQUIP factors. To assess teachers’ inquiry teaching efficacy, the Teaching Science as Inquiry (TSI; Dira-Smolleck, 2004) instrument was administered 3 times to the teacher participants. Changes between time points of TSI administration were examined for personal self-efficacy and outcome expectancy across 5 essential features of classroom inquiry. Findings for the personal self-efficacy scale showed statistically significant gains from pre-Institute to 1-year follow-up for all 5 inquiry features. Teachers’ outcome expectancy beliefs significantly increased across the program for 3 of the 5 essential features of inquiry. The results indicate the effectiveness of the professional development model at increasing the participants’ inquiry efficacy as well as the quality of their inquiry instruction. Our study provides evidence to support the need to include collaborative practice-teaching and reflection opportunities within professional development models that aim to increase teachers’ use of inquiry-based instructional strategies.     

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.     

Evidence of Science and Engineering Practices in Preservice Secondary Science Teachers’ Instructional Planning

There is a current national emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Additionally, many states are transitioning to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which encourage teachers to incorporate engineering in science classrooms as well as have their students learn science by doing science. Methods courses are also shifting to adequately prepare preservice science teachers in these areas. This study examines preservice science teachers’ pre- and post-ideal inquiry-based lesson plan scenarios before and after intervention in their Secondary Science Methods I and II courses. These preservice science teachers participated in a variety of opportunities to practice authentic science inquiry (ASI) pedagogical techniques as well as integrated STEM topics, with a particular emphasis on computer programming throughout their 80 h of Methods instruction. ASI is a type of inquiry where students learn science by conducting science research in a grade-appropriate manner. Thirty-eight preservice teachers’ scenarios were analyzed using a rubric from Spuck (2014) to determine the degree to which the ten components of ASI were included in scenarios pre- to post-instruction. Trends in ASI component inclusion are discussed. These findings indicate that preservice science teachers are proficient at writing inquiry-based lessons where they planned opportunities for their future students to collaborate, use scientific instrumentation, and collect and analyze data, but need additional support with developing student activities where students create testable questions, revise their question and methods, participate in peer review, and disseminate their results to their peers or the larger scientific community. Overall, the results suggest Methods instruction should reinforce preservice teachers’ focus on planning lessons which include opportunities for all ASI components. Interventions in the aforementioned areas of weak inclusion may be beneficial to preservice teachers.     

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.     

Increasing Secondary Teachers’ Capacity to Integrate the Arts

Abstract

Examples from a team of collaborating secondary teachers—one visual arts teacher and one science teacher—highlight key aspects of this professional development project in arts integration. The article traces a regional network designed to build teacher capacity with implications for the design, effectiveness, and sustainability of professional development for secondary teachers. It describes the framework for professional development through the first two years of the project. In year one, teachers increased their understanding of arts integration; collegial collaboration; the design and use of assessments that align with standards, benchmarks, and learning goals; and how to reflect on student work. In year two, professional development activity focused on co-teaching and helping teachers to increase the rigor of student learning goals as a way to improve student learning in arts and non-arts content areas. Project outcomes and challenges to sustaining such job-embedded and networked professional learning opportunities are discussed and directions for further research are offered.     

K-12 Science and Mathematics Teachers’ Beliefs About and Use of Inquiry in the Classroom

A survey instrument was developed and administered to 1,222 K-12 mathematics and science teachers to measure their beliefs about and use of inquiry in the classroom. Four variables (grade level taught, content area taught, level of support received, and self-efficacy for teaching inquiry) were significantly correlated to two dependent variables, percentage of time that students are engaged in inquiry during a typical lesson and the perceived ideal percentage of instructional time that should be devoted to inquiry. Specifically, elementary school teachers reported using inquiry-based practices more than either middle-school or high-school teachers; similarly, elementary-school teachers believed such practices should be used more often. All groups, however, reported believing in an ideal percentage of time devoted to inquiry instruction that was significantly greater than their reported percentage of time actually spent on inquiry instruction. A disordinal effect was found between grade level taught and content area taught; at the elementary level, science teachers reported both an ideal and actual percentage of time on inquiry higher than those reported by the math teachers, while at the high school level math teachers reported both an ideal and actual percentage of time on inquiry higher than those reported by the science teachers. No correlations were found between typical and ideal percentage of time devoted to inquiry and subject matter content knowledge training, gender, years of teaching experience, or maximum degree earned.     

Teachers’ Evaluation of Enterprise Education in the Secondary School

Abstract

This investigation was undertaken as part of research into ‘mini‐enterprise'activity in the secondary school. The research aimed to evaluate ‘mini‐enterprise’ as an approach to learning and to offer different examples in practice. Fundamental to this evaluation was an examination of the views and attitudes of teachers towards ‘mini‐enterprise’ work. This paper describes the survey undertaken to determine teachers’ attitudes towards certain key ‘enterprise’ issues and offers a summary of the research findings concluding in a discussion of the wider educational implications.     

Exploring Exemplary Elementary Teachers’ Conceptions and Implementation of Inquiry Science

This study was an exploration of the conceptions of inquiry science held by exemplary elementary teachers. The origins of these conceptions were explored in order to establish how best to improve elementary teachers’ understanding and implementation of inquiry science teaching. Four focus group sessions were held as well as classroom observations. Data were also collected through surveys and interviews. The six exemplary teachers in this study held ideas about inquiry as “finding things out” and all described themselves as having been children who explored and experimented with the world around them. The teachers provided information about successful classroom environments and attitudes that they use to achieve strong inquiry science learning. The teachers had a number of recommendations for helping other teachers become inquiry science teachers and suggestions for professional development for teachers are made based on these recommendations.     

Inquiry and Astronomy: Preservice Teachers’ Investigations of Celestial Motion

This study investigated the impact of an open inquiry experience on elementary science methods students’ understanding of celestial motion as well as the methods developed by students to answer their own research questions. Pre/post interviews and assessments were used to measure change in participants’ understanding (N = 18). A qualitative approach was used to describe the nature of each participant’s investigation through an analysis of their science journal and poster presentations. A comparison of participants’ inquiry projects with the change in their understanding revealed that while most participants improved in both their area of inquiry and beyond, elementary science methods students may need more guidance to reach a full scientific understanding across all aspects of celestial motion.     

Preservice and Inservice Teachers’ Challenges in the Planning of Practical Work in Physics

Practical work in school science plays many essential roles that have been discussed in the literature. However, less attention has been paid to how teachers learn the different roles of practical work and to the kind of challenges they face in their learning during laboratory courses designed for teachers. In the present study we applied the principles of grounded theory to frame a set of factors that seem to set major challenges concerning both successful work in the school physics laboratory and also in the preparation of lessons that exploit practical work. The subject groups of the study were preservice and inservice physics teachers who participated in a school laboratory course. Our results derived from a detailed analysis of tutoring discussions between the instructor and the participants in the course, which revealed that the challenges in practical or laboratory work consisted of the limitations of the laboratory facilities, an insufficient knowledge of physics, problems in understanding instructional approaches, and the general organization of practical work. Based on these findings, we present our recommendations on the preparation of preservice and inservice teachers for the more effective use of practical work in school science and in school physics.     

Teachers’ Emotion Minimizing Language and Toddlers’ Social Emotional Competence

Teachers in toddler classrooms are important agents of emotion socialization. The current study examined teachers’ use of emotion minimizing language in toddler classrooms and toddlers’ social emotional competence. Teachers’ emotion minimizing language is described as language that purposefully distances them from a child’s emotions and discourages children’s expression of their emotions. Research Findings: Results indicate a negative relationship between teachers’ emotion minimizing language and toddlers’ social emotional competence when program quality, child age, and child gender are controlled. Practice or Policy: Implications relevant to teacher preparation programs and professional development are discussed, with a primary focus on the methods by which teachers are trained to use language to respond to young children’s emotions.     

Graduate Social Work Students’ Experiences with Group Work in the Field and the Classroom

For decades, group work scholars have described a discrepancy between student preparation for group work practice and opportunities to work with groups in the field practicum and professional practice. Educators in related disciplines such as counseling and psychology have expressed similar concerns. This article reports findings of a study of MSW students in a program that includes a practice methods specialization in group work. The purpose was to determine the prevalence of group assignments among all students regardless of their method specialization. A majority of all respondents reported substantial opportunities to practice group work and receive appropriate supervision. Opportunities for majors in group work were significantly greater than for their non-group work counterparts. However, a majority of all students did not feel classes prepared them for group practice. Findings suggest social work must renew its commitment to preparing all students for this practice modality.     

Steps to Opening Scientific Inquiry: Pre-Service Teachers’ Practicum Experiences with a New Support Framework

This qualitative multiple-comparative case study investigates (1) The reported experiences and impressions of four pre-service teachers (PTs) on practicum placement in four different classrooms (grades 1–9) where a new Steps to Inquiry (SI) framework was being utilized to support students conducting open inquiry; (2) The relative dispositions of the PTs toward conducting open inquiry, as indicated by their core conceptions regarding science, the purpose of education, effective teaching, and the capacity of students. Findings indicate that (1) although there were differences in the experiences of the four PTs, all four had an opportunity to observe and/or facilitate students conducting open inquiry with the SI framework, and after the practicum, all of them reported that they would like to include open inquiry in their own classrooms in the future; (2) one PT already possessed core conceptions indicative of a favorable disposition toward open inquiry before the placement; another altered her core conceptions substantially toward a favorable disposition during the placement; a third altered her conceptions regarding the capacity of students; and one PT maintained core conceptions indicative of a disposition that was not favorable to open inquiry despite the pronouncements that she would like to conduct open inquiry with students in their own future classroom. Possible reasons for the differences in the responses of the four pre-services teachers to the practicum placement are discussed.     

Probing Pre- and In-service Physics Teachers’ Knowledge Using the Double-Slit Thought Experiment

This study describes the use of the double-slit thought experiment as a diagnostic tool for probing physics teachers’ understanding. A total of 9 pre-service teachers and 18 in-service teachers with a variety of different experience in modern physics teaching at the upper secondary level responded in a paper-and-pencil test and three of these teachers were interviewed. The results showed that the physics teachers’ thought experiments with classical particles, light, and electrons were often partial. Many teachers also suffered a lack of the basic ideas and principles of physics, which probably hindered thought experimenting. In particular, understanding the ontological nature of classical particles, light and electrons seemed to be essential in performing the double-slit experiment in an appropriate way. However, the in-service physics teachers who had teaching experience in modern physics were more prepared for the double-slit thought experiment than the pre-service teachers. The results suggest that both thought experiments and the double-slit experiment should be given more weight in physics teacher education, even if experience in modern physics teaching at upper secondary school seems to some extent to develop teachers’ abilities.