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.

     

Meet the phallic teacher: designing curriculum and identity in a neoliberal imaginary

This paper introduces the concept of the phallic teacher, a spectral figure negotiated in teachers’ everyday work and in school-based disciplinary communities of practice. Reporting the findings of a 3-year Australian doctoral study completed in 2014, the paper looks closely at how English teachers design both curriculum and identity in an environment where feminist and poststructuralist work of the late 20th century seems to have lost traction. These observations made here are based on empirical research in a Victorian school, combined with autoethnographic writing and other materials connecting teachers’ and researchers’ lives to the broader cultural postfeminist debate. The paper makes room for an absent subject, the teacher, marginalised in neoliberal discourses of curriculum and critiques the masculinist hegemony of outcomes and standards-based education. This provides us with new ways to challenge increasingly dominant current paradigms and to conceptualise a different future in which the standpoints of teachers are privileged in curriculum theory and curricular innovation.     

The Relevance of Systems Theory for Teachers Dealing with Emotional and Behaviour Problems in Schools

Children with emotional and behaviour problems provide a daily challenge for parents, teachers and the wider community. The perception of this challenge and how to address it varies according to the assumptions made about the underlying causes of the problems. In this paper the nature of emotional and behaviour problems will be explored with a brief outline of traditional interventions adopted when difficulties arise within the context of school. The conceptual approach of systems theory is then outlined. This is followed by a critical examination of its relevance for teachers as a theory, as a language for dealing with difficulties and as an approach to intervention.     

A “Toolkit” for developing critically reflective science teachers

The purpose of this paper is to describe various “tools” we use to facilitate critical reflection as we teach prospective science teachers. The notion of “tools” refers to materials and experiences used to facilitate prospective teachers’ critical reflection on science teaching and learning. Reflective tools are not intrusive devices used by instructors to analyse mechanically what prospective teachers are learning; rather, these tools are intended to provide prospective teachers with the means to generate and critique their own views of science teaching and learning. Each tool is described herein with respect to its potential use and the way in which it is introduced to prospective science teachers. We conclude with discussion of the potential for reflective tools to contribute to research on reform of science teacher education, with particular attention to primary teacher preparation.     

Sponsors of Pleasure: Wide Reading Re-imagined Through Social Curation

This article moves beyond book-based school ‘wide reading’ to propose constellations of multimodal media, including music videos, fashion parades, literary works, online games and material artefacts, along with associated pedagogies, as sponsors of pleasure. The article, based on empirical research with teachers in an Australian secondary school, proposes how the pleasure teachers experience in textual curation and research during curriculum planning might inform understandings of what reading might be for students. The author also considers the barriers to recognising diverse texts as having merit for study. Featuring Mattel’s Barbie, Kanye West and Andy Warhol, the article demonstrates how curation can inspire a vibrant reading fan culture and asks how teachers and students can negotiate or co-design ‘reading for pleasure’ curricula that make meaningful use of learner desires to seek collaboratively and collate creatively traces of meaning across media. Reading is an inevitable, spontaneous and enjoyable aspect of these practices.     

Comparing the Accuracy of Student Growth Measures

Testing programs are often interested in using a student growth measure. This article presents analytic derivations of the accuracy of common student growth measures on both the raw scale of the test and the percentile rank scale in terms of the proportional reduction in mean squared error and the squared correlation between the estimator and target. The study contrasts the accuracy of the growth measures against that of current status measures—current test scores and their percentile ranks. Key findings include the extent that status measures are more accurate than any of the growth measures and that alternative methods to estimate growth could be more accurate than the currently used methods. Our findings highlight the importance for evaluating the statistical properties of growth measures along with other concerns for states that are debating the reporting of growth. Our results also point out that assessing the accuracy of growth measures requires the specification of quantities of interest in terms of latent achievement rather than observed test scores, which is common practice for developing status measures but essentially never done by testing programs for growth measures.