Prospective Elementary Teachers' Science Teaching Orientations and Experiences that Impacted their Development

A large body of literature illustrates that many elementary teachers are reluctant to teach science and confess a lack of confidence to teach it. Nevertheless, a review of the literature indicates a few cases of elementary teachers who do well in science and offers rare examples of enthusiast elementary teachers. The question then becomes how those cases came to be? The purpose of this study is to document two such cases of prospective elementary teachers, illustrate their unique characteristics and shed light on how those came to be. The study was designed upon a narrative inquiry approach focusing on the collection of personal stories. Multiple sources of data were used in order to examine the participants’ science teaching orientations and the kinds of experiences that influenced their development: drawings, interviews, reflective assignments, and others. The analysis of the data was grounded within the Three-Dimensional Space Narrative Structure. The findings of the analysis illustrated that the participants perceived certain experiences they had during their university coursework as critical to shaping their orientations to science and science teaching: inquiry-based investigations, contemporary theoretical discussions, outdoors field study, friendly classroom environment and the characteristics of their instructors. These findings have implications for the design of teacher education courses that aim to engage prospective elementary teachers, especially females, in meaningful learning experiences and support them in developing science teaching orientations that are in line with reform recommendations.     

Promoting Teacher Learning Through Learning Study Discourse: The Case of Science Teachers in Singapore

The potential of a theory of variation-framed learning study, a teacher professional development approach, to help teachers overcome curricular and pedagogical challenges associated with teaching new science curricula content was explored. With a group of Singapore teachers collaboratively planning and teaching new genetics content, phenomenographic analysis of data corpus from classroom observations, teacher meetings and interviews revealed teacher learning that manifested in the teachers’ experiences. These were captured as (1) increased degrees of student-centered pedagogy and challenges to teachers’ prior assumptions about science pedagogy, (2) increased awareness of possibilities and limitations of their beliefs about science pedagogy, and (3) emergence of new understandings about new curricular content and science pedagogy. The possibility of transformative and generative learning is also discussed.     

Teacher Roles of Questioning in Early Elementary Science Classrooms: A Framework Promoting Student Cognitive Complexities in Argumentation

The purpose of this study was to investigate the various roles that early elementary teachers adopt when questioning, to scaffold dialogic interaction and students’ cognitive responses for argumentative practices over time. Teacher questioning is a pivotal contributing factor that shapes the role teachers play in promoting dialogic interaction in argumentative practice and that different roles serve different functions for promoting students’ conceptual understanding. The multiple-case study was designed as a follow-up study after a 4-year professional development program that emphasized an argument-based inquiry approach. Data sources included 30 lessons focusing on whole class discussion from three early elementary teachers’ classes. Data were analyzed through two approaches: (1) constant comparative method and (2) enumerative approach. This study conceptualized four critical roles of teacher questioning—dispenser, moderator, coach, and participant—in light of the ownership of ideas and activities. The findings revealed two salient changes in teachers’ use of questions and the relationships between teachers’ question-asking and students’ cognitive responses: (1) teachers increasingly used multiple roles in establishing argumentative discourse as they persistently implemented an argument-based inquiry approach, and (2) as teachers used multiple roles in establishing patterns of questioning and framing classroom interactions, higher levels of student cognitive responses were promoted. This study suggests that an essential component of teacher professional development should include the study of the various roles that teachers can play when questioning for establishing dialogic interaction in argumentation and that this development should consist of ongoing training with systematic support.     

A Visual Search Tool for Early Elementary Science Students

Journal of Science Education and Technology - This paper reports on the development of a visual search interface (called “SearchKids”) to support children ages 5–10 years in their...     

促进教师的专业发展:英国教师教育标准述评

英国教师教育标准是由"学校培训与发展局"制定的,分为"职前教师教育要求"和"教师专业标准"两套体系。该标准凸显了教师专业发展的理念,体现了教师教育的一体化趋势和教师专业化管理的动力原则,反映了人们对教师素质的最新认识和对教师内在专业特性提升的要求,对我国教师教育标准的制定有借鉴意义。     

A Structural Model of Prospective Science Teachers' Nature of Science Views

This study aims to establish a viable structural model of prospective science teachers' nature of science (NOS) views, which could be used as an analytical tool for understanding the complex relationships between prospective teachers' conceptions of NOS and factors possibly affecting their conceptions. In order to construct such a model, likely factors that might influence prospective teachers' NOS views were hypothesized. These included science process skills; attitudes toward science teaching; academic achievement in pedagogical and science courses; and social, religious, economic, political, aesthetic, and theoretical values. The hypothetical model was then developed and modified using structural equation modeling methodology. The final viable model indicates that attitudes toward science teaching, science process skills, academic achievement in pedagogical courses, religious values, and economic values explain NOS views with low predictive power.     

国外小学教师科学教学效能感研究的现状与展望

国外研究者分别探讨了小学教师科学教学效能感的测量、影响因素、来源及其转变,但这些研究多基于西方文化背景,由于测量工具单一而导致一些研究结论不一致。我国小学教师科学教学效能感的研究还是空白,因此,应基于我国的实情和文化环境进行一些开创性研究。本领域的一些研究难题也昭示了将来的研究方向。     

教师学习投入状况及特征

从学习的经费投入、时间投入和精神投入等三方面入手,对北京市中小学教师学习投入状况进行问卷调查,并在学校的层次、级别及所在地,教师的性别、教龄和学科等层面进行比较,分析当前北京市中小学教师学习投入状况及其基本特征。     

Development of an Instrument to Assess Prospective Elementary Teacher Self-Efficacy Beliefs about Equitable Science Teaching and Learning (SEBEST)

This paper presents an overview of the procedures used to develop and validate an instrument to measure the self-efficacy beliefs of prospective elementary teachers about equitable science teaching and learning. The instrument, titled the SEBEST, was based on the work of Ashton and Webb (1986a, 1986b) and Bandura (1977, 1986). It was modeled after the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI) (Riggs, 1988) and the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument for Prospective Teachers (STEBI-B) (Enochs & Riggs, 1990). Based on the standardized development procedures used and associated evidence, the SEBEST appears to be a content and construct valid instrument, with high internal reliability qualities. "Most probable response" plots are introduced and used to bring meaning to SEBEST raw scores.     

教师课改认同感与教师专业学习社群的关系研究

近年来西方研究指出教师专业学习社群能支持教师成为改革代理人,提升其改革投入。因此本研究通过对实施新课改十年S省的调查研究,考察教师课改认同感与教师专业学习社群的关系。研究发现:教师专业学习社群能通过影响教师对新课程特征的认知,并能通过改革学校改革管理来提升教师的改革价值感,进而影响其课改认同感。     

The Science Semester: Cross-Disciplinary Inquiry for Prospective Elementary Teachers

We describe the Science Semester, a semester-long course block that integrates three science courses and a science education methods course for elementary teacher education majors, and examine prospective elementary teachers’ developing conceptions about inquiry, science teaching efficacy, and reflections on learning through inquiry. The Science Semester was designed to provide inquiry-oriented and problem-based learning experiences, opportunities to examine socially relevant issues through cross-disciplinary perspectives, and align with content found in elementary curricula and standards. By the end of the semester, prospective elementary teachers moved from naïve to intermediate understandings of inquiry and significantly increased self-efficacy for science teaching as measured on one subscore of the STEBI-B. Reflecting on the semester, prospective teachers understood and appreciated the goals of the course and the PBL format, but struggled with the open-ended and student-directed elements of the course.     

Management Strategies for Promoting Teacher Collective Learning

This paper aims to validate a theoretical model for developing teacher collective learning by using a quasi-experimental design, and explores the management strategies that would provide a school administrator practical steps to effectively promote collective learning in the school organization. Twenty aided secondary schools in Hong Kong were selected by cluster sampling, and 777 teachers took part in the questionnaire survey. A structural equation model was applied to identify the interrelationship of the 5 disciplines of Senge＇s （1990） learning organization model. Results showed that personal mastery and systems thinking are individual and collective level predictors respectively for teacher collective learning. Building a mental model and shared vision in a sequential order predict systems thinking. Management strategies in cultural, policy and leadership domains are recommended to school administrators who wish to promote teacher collective learning as a means of coping with the changes generated by the curriculum reform in Hong Kong.     

教师专业学习共同体研究述评

20世纪90年代以来,教师专业学习共同体的出现引起了国内外的共同关注,但是我国在实施和构建中小学专业学习共同体方面还存在着很多的问题,为此我们需要重新回归这一概念的含义、实施的形成过程以及影响因素,进而为我国中小学专业学习共同体的建构带来一定的思考与启示。     

终身学习型专业发展:日本教师资格标准述评

日本在教师专业发展中,对教师的资质能力提出了明确要求,并在《教育职员资格法》和《教员资格更新制》中对教师资格的获得与晋升做出了明确规定,从法律上确保了教师专业发展的终身一体化进程。     

Learning Environment and Attitudes Associated with an Innovative Science Course Designed for Prospective Elementary Teachers

This study assessed the effectiveness of an innovative science course for improving prospective elementary teachers’ perceptions of laboratory learning environments and attitudes towards science. The sample consisted of 27 classes with 525 female students in a large urban university. Changing students’ ideas about science laboratory teaching and learning and creating more positive attitudes towards science were accomplished by using a guided open-ended approach to investigations, together with instructors who used cooperative learning groups to create a supportive environment. Ideas and attitudes prior to the course were assessed using a questionnaire focusing on the students’ previous science laboratory courses, and these were compared to data collected at the end of the course. Students reported large and statistically significant improvements on all seven scales assessing the laboratory learning environment and attitudes towards science. The largest gains were observed for Open-Endedness and Material Environment (with effect sizes of 6.74 and 3.82 standard deviations, respectively). An investigation of attitude-environment associations revealed numerous positive and statistically significant associations in both univariate and multivariate analyses. In particular, the level of Instructor Support was the strongest independent predictor of student attitudes at two levels of analysis.     

Teacher Leaders Building Foundations for Data-Informed Teacher Learning in One Urban Elementary School

ABSTRACT

We examine how teacher leaders (TLs), working in a low-income urban elementary school, supported their colleagues to learn how to collect quality formative data and to discuss it in collaborative conversations in order to make their students’ learning visible. The TLs faced challenges reflecting consequences resulting from the district’s high stakes accountability policies restricting teachers’ agency with instructional decision-making and limiting their definitions of data as summative test scores. We document how the TLs worked to reframe teachers’ understanding of data to include evidence of student thinking and supported their colleagues to reclaim teaching as professional versus technical work.     

A Randomized Trial of Teacher Development in Elementary Science: First-Year Achievement Effects

Abstract

This article describes 1st-year experimental effects of a large-scale reform providing professional development to elementary school teachers to implement an extended, inquiry-oriented science curriculum. Known as “immersion teaching” because it “immerses” teachers and students in the full cycle of scientific inquiry, this approach developed through a partnership involving university-based science and mathematics content experts and educators and K-12 educators from the Los Angeles Unified School District. Multilevel analyses, which examined school-level effects of assignment to the professional development intervention, nested Grade 4 students and their science achievement outcomes within the 80 study schools. The analyses revealed a statistically significant negative 1st-year treatment effect of school-level assignment to the initiative on the key science achievement outcome. We also tested whether the treatment had differential effects for English language learners, schools with large proportions of English language learners, and students of new teachers. We found an interaction effect of the treatment by teacher experience level for the teachers who were the primary target of the intervention, with the treatment having positive effects for novice teachers (3 years of experience or less) but a larger, negative effect for veteran teachers. We explore analytically three sets of explanations for the unexpected negative main effect of treatment: potential statistical and design artifacts, possible misalignment between the assessments and content of the treatment, and practical issues related to implementation of the treatment.     

大学英语教师学习共同体叙事研究

一项跟踪某高校大学英语教师学习共同体的个案研究表明：以课堂教学研究为核心的教师学习共同体,从情感和知识技能两个维度促进了大学英语教师科研成长及身份转变。教师学习共同体打破以往自上而下的教师团队建设形式,有利于促进教师师徒传授和同伴互助,是普通大学英语教师专业发展的有效途径。     

谈教师专业学习共同体中的合作

教师专业学习共同体的核心是合作,教师专业学习共同体必须构建起自己的合作组织文化,促使教师在合作中实现专业发展.这样的合作包括三个层次的内涵,即以共同愿景为指引,以教学实践为载体,以反思与对话为途径.教师专业学习共同体开展合作的基本形式,按照结构可以分为常规制度型合作、项目问题型合作、结构松散型合作.