Examining the Content of Preservice Teachers’ Reflections of Early Field Experiences

This paper describes an exploratory study that examined the content of preservice elementary teachers’ reflections of their documented early field experiences of science teaching in authentic contexts. The study used an early field experience model that was focused on the objective of profiling an elementary science teacher as the practical merit of reflection. Preservice elementary teachers individually and collaboratively reflected on their early field experiences and used the resulting reflections to construct profiles of an elementary science teacher respectively in synthesis papers. Data sources included journal entries and synthesis papers resulting from individual and collaborative reflections. Thematic analysis revealed that profiles of an elementary science teacher constructed from both individual and collaborative reflections were based on the roles of teacher as a guide and teacher as a mediator. Analysis further revealed that classroom management and discipline and safety were the key foci factored within individual reflections while what promotes learning and the difference between what is effective and ineffective scaffolding respectively, served as the foci within collaborative reflections. Also, collaborative reflection provided a structured approach to reflection as it drew preservice elementary teachers into collective dialogue and negotiation capturing the tensions they faced when trying to make sense of the practice of other teachers. Implications include the need to frame early field experiences with objectives that are understood by all parties involved in early field experiences; and, the need to instill the importance of observation, documentation, and reflection which collectively sum up preservice teachers’ early field experiences.     

Understanding Changes in Teacher Roles Through Collaborative Action Research

The purpose of this article is to present the design and findings of a collaborative action research study that involved five secondary science teachers as action researchers and me, as facilitator, collectively articulating the teachers’ changing teaching roles when the teachers taught with computer technology. Data included interviews, observations, and focus group discussions. Data analysis entailed thematic analysis of data to identify initial and changes in teachers’ roles. Collaborative action research context helped the teachers to perceive their changing teaching roles through collective negotiation. Implications for facilitators of action research include the need to articulate their theoretical orientation prior to the onset of facilitating action research projects and to acknowledge and accept action researchers as fellow active knowledge producers.     

Dimensions and Orientations of Pre-Service Early Childhood Teachers’ Conceptions of Teaching Science

Early Childhood Education Journal - The purpose of the study was to investigate prospective early childhood teachers’ conceptions of teaching science, and thus identify their strategies for...     

Prospective secondary mathematics teachers’ pedagogical knowledge for teaching the estimation of length measurements

Prospective secondary mathematics teachers’ pedagogical knowledge for teaching the estimation of length measurements was investigated by examining their personal benchmarks for measurement estimation. Benchmarks for measurement estimation are the meaningful representations of units that serve to increase one’s understanding of measurement and one’s ability to estimate measurements. Data included electronic journal responses, observation and verbal data, and work samples. Thematic analysis revealed that prospective teachers possessed various benchmarks for measurement estimation that enabled them to estimate length measurements, but these benchmarks for measurement estimation were not evident in participants’ pedagogical knowledge for teaching the estimation of length measurements. Participants’ pedagogical knowledge for teaching the estimation of length measurements was instead based on the belief that hands-on activities were the only way to teach the estimation of length measurements.     

Minority Preservice Teachers’ Conceptions of Teaching Science: Sources of Science Teaching Strategies

This study explores five minority preservice teachers’ conceptions of teaching science and identifies the sources of their strategies for helping students learn science. Perspectives from the literature on conceptions of teaching science and on the role constructs used to describe and distinguish minority preservice teachers from their mainstream White peers served as the framework to identify minority preservice teachers’ instructional ideas, meanings, and actions for teaching science. Data included drawings, narratives, observations and self-review reports of microteaching, and interviews. A thematic analysis of data revealed that the minority preservice teachers’ conceptions of teaching science were a specific set of beliefs-driven instructional ideas about how science content is linked to home experiences, students’ ideas, hands-on activities, about how science teaching must include group work and not be based solely on textbooks, and about how learning science involves the concept of all students can learn science, and acknowledging and respecting students’ ideas about science. Implications for teacher educators include the need to establish supportive environments within methods courses for minority preservice teachers to express their K-12 experiences and acknowledge and examine how these experiences shape their conceptions of teaching science, and to recognize that minority preservice teachers’ conceptions of teaching science reveal the multiple ways through which they see and envision science instruction.     

An analysis of prospective teachers’ knowledge for constructing concept maps

Background: Literature contends that a teacher’s knowledge of concept map-based tasks influence how their students perceive the task and execute the creation of acceptable concept maps. Teachers who are skilled concept mappers are able to (1) understand and apply the operational terms to construct a hierarchical/non-hierarchical concept map; (2) identify the legitimacy of the constructed concept map by verifying its graphical structure and its educational utility; and (3) determine the inherent ‘good’ and ‘poor’ qualities of the resulting graphical structure to reiterate the ‘good’ qualities and to coach and provide feedback to alleviate ‘poor’ qualities.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of prospective teachers’ knowledge underpinning the technique used to construct concept maps and thus, explicate their facility to construct concept maps.

Sample, Design and Methods: Data consisted of 200 concept maps constructed by prospective teachers in an elementary science methods course.

Results: Analysis revealed that the prospective teachers had predominantly constructed either hierarchical and/or non-hierarchical concept maps. It is likely that their maps reflect the teaching that they themselves would have experienced in their science classrooms during their own education. Additionally, most of these concepts maps only contained the root concept and subordinate concepts and lacked directional linking lines, linking phrases, labelled lines and propositions.

Conclusions: We argue that teacher educators need to assess their prospective teachers’ understanding of concept mapping in relation to the legitimacy (the nature and quality) of the end-products (graphical structures) of such practices. Prospective teachers also need to understand the educational utility of concept mapping in terms of how these end-products impact and/or effectuate learning.     

Analyzing prospective teachers’ images of scientists using positive,negative and stereotypical images of scientists

Background and purpose : This study details the use of a conceptual framework to analyze prospective teachers’ images of scientists to reveal their context-specific conceptions of scientists. The conceptual framework consists of context-specific conceptions related to positive, stereotypical and negative images of scientists as detailed in the literature on the images, role and work of scientists.

Sample, design and method : One hundred and ninety-six drawings of scientists, generated by prospective teachers, were analyzed using the Draw-A-Scientist-Test Checklist (DAST-C), a binary linear regression and the conceptual framework.

Results : The results of the binary linear regression analysis revealed a statistically significant difference for two DAST-C elements: ethnicity differences with regard to drawing a scientist who was Caucasian and gender differences for indications of danger. Analysis using the conceptual framework helped to categorize the same drawings into positive, stereotypical, negative and composite images of a scientist.

Conclusions : The conceptual framework revealed that drawings were focused on the physical appearance of the scientist, and to a lesser extent on the equipment, location and science-related practices that provided the context of a scientist’s role and work. Implications for teacher educators include the need to understand that there is a need to provide tools, like the conceptual framework used in this study, to help prospective teachers to confront and engage with their multidimensional perspectives of scientists in light of the current trends on perceiving and valuing scientists. In addition, teacher educators need to use the conceptual framework, which yields qualitative perspectives about drawings, together with the DAST-C, which yields quantitative measure for drawings, to help prospective teachers to gain a holistic outlook on their drawings of scientists.     

Teachers’ Organization of Participation Structures for Teaching Science with Computer Technology

This paper describes a qualitative study that investigated the nature of the participation structures and how the participation structures were organized by four science teachers when they constructed and communicated science content in their classrooms with computer technology. Participation structures focus on the activity structures and processes in social settings like classrooms thereby providing glimpses into the complex dynamics of teacher–students interactions, configurations, and conventions during collective meaning making and knowledge creation. Data included observations, interviews, and focus group interviews. Analysis revealed that the dominant participation structure evident within participants’ instruction with computer technology was (Teacher) initiation–(Student and Teacher) response sequences–(Teacher) evaluate participation structure. Three key events characterized the how participants organized this participation structure in their classrooms: setting the stage for interactive instruction, the joint activity, and maintaining accountability. Implications include the following: (1) teacher educators need to tap into the knowledge base that underscores science teachers’ learning to teach philosophies when computer technology is used in instruction. (2) Teacher educators need to emphasize the essential idea that learning and cognition is not situated within the computer technology but within the pedagogical practices, specifically the participation structures. (3) The pedagogical practices developed with the integration or with the use of computer technology underscored by the teachers’ own knowledge of classroom contexts and curriculum needs to be the focus for how students learn science content with computer technology instead of just focusing on how computer technology solely supports students learning of science content.