Preparing More Confident Preservice Elementary Science Teachers: One Elementary Science Methods Teacher's Self-Study

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

Discourse of Making Sense of Data: Implications for Elementary Teachers’ Science Education

This study of classroom discourse and other data from a physical science course for in-service teachers show the areas of success and challenge of the participants in making claims supported by justifications. It also shows that the teachers learned to make scientific claims and were able to make some justifications. Nevertheless, many found the process difficult. Some of those who performed well in the course did not consider the pedagogy suitable for their own students. The implications of the findings for elementary teacher education are discussed.     

Conceptualizing climate change in the context of a climate system: implications for climate and environmental education

Today there is much interest in teaching secondary students about climate change. Much of this effort has focused directly on students’ understanding of climate change. We hypothesize, however, that in order for students to understand climate change they must first understand climate as a system and how changes to this system due to both natural and human influences result in climatic and environmental changes and feedbacks. The purpose of this article is to articulate a climate system framework for teaching about climate change and to stimulate discussion about what secondary students should know and understand about a climate system. We first provide an overview of the research on secondary students’ conceptions of climate and climate change. We then present a climate system framework for teaching about climate and climate change that builds on students’ conceptions and scientific perspectives. We conclude by articulating a draft conceptual progression based on students’ conceptions and our climate system framework as a means to inform curriculum development, instructional design, and future research in climate and environmental education.     

When the atmosphere warms it rains and ice melts: seventh grade students’ conceptions of a climate system

Although many environmental and science educators have explored students’ conceptual understandings, misconceptions, and knowledge of the greenhouse effect, global warming, and climate change, few have investigated the ways students conceptualize climate as a system or how components of the system influence climate. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to begin the process of understanding how US students conceptualize a climate system. A total of 42 seventh grade students (ages 12–13) from the Midwest completed an open-response task. From the inductive analysis of student written responses, 22 codes emerged that reflected students’ conceptions of the climate system. From these codes, three path diagrams were constructed that illustrate these students’ conceptions about how a climate system influences climate and how greenhouse gases and global warming impact the climate system. A generalized model of students’ conception of a climate system was generated. Students in this study conceptualized a climate system in a unidirectional, linear, cause and effect relationship that emphasized the atmospheric component of the climate system.     

Physics students' epistemologies and views about knowing and learning

Classrooms are complex environments in which curriculum, students, and teachers interact. In recent years a number of studies have investigated the effect of teachers' epistemologies on the classroom environment, yet little is known about students' epistemologies and how these interact with those of teachers. The purpose of this study was to document students' epistemologies and their concurrent views about knowing and learning. Using a written essay, short-answer responses to statements, a preferred classroom environment inventory, and interviews, students' views on scientific knowledge and their own knowing and learning were collected from 42 students in three sections of an introductory physics course. Our rather broad, qualitative inquiry provides a dynamic view of students' understanding of knowing and learning in high school physics. Our analyses reveal a spectrum of epistemological commitments commensurable with positions from objectivism to relativism, most of them with experientialist coloring. Even within individuals, these commitments could be at once commensurable and incommensurable with the same epistemological position. We also find rather significant inter- and intra-individual differences with respect to the consequences of a specific epistemological stance to learning, the learning strategies employed, and the learning environment preferred. Students' views on knowing and learning in physics are presented in the form of an emergent theory. The findings are discussed in terms of their application to classroom environments.     

The development of science process skills in authentic contexts

Instructional strategies and curriculum sequences aimed at teaching process skills have received considerable attention in science education. On the other hand, the teaching of domain-independent, context-free skills has been subject to criticism on the ground that important aspects of cognitive activities are functions of meaningful contexts. The intent of this study was to examine the development of integrated process skills in the context of open-inquiry laboratory sessions. The data-collection approach was qualitative and included videotapes of laboratory sessions, laboratory reports of students, and the reflective journals kept by the two teachers involved in the study. Forty-eight students from the Grade 11 introductory physics course, 29 students from the Grade 12 physics course, and 60 students from the Grade 8 general science course from an all-boys private school participated in the study. An interpretive research methodology was adopted for construction of meaning from the data. Students worked in collaborative groups during all of the open-inquiry laboratory sessions. Findings from the study indicate that students develop higher-order process skills through nontraditional laboratory experiences that provided the students with freedom to perform experiments of personal relevance in authentic contexts. Students learned to (a) identify and define pertinent variables, (b) interpret, transform, and analyze data, (c) plan and design an experiment, and (d) formulate hypotheses. Findings of this study suggest that process skills need not be taught separately. Integrated process skills develop gradually and reach a high level of sophistication when experiments are performed in meaningful context.     

Gender-inclusive science teaching: A feminist-constructivist approach

The underrepresentation of women in science is an extensively studied yet persistent concern of our society. Researchers have identified numerous educational and social factors thought to be responsible for this underrepresentation (Kahle, 1990a; Kelly, 1987). One of the dominant explanations, used by many researchers for years to discuss gender differences in science and mathematics achievement as well as interest, has been the differences in the cognitive abilities of men and women. This explanation, however, has been discarded in recent years (Linn & Hyde, 1989; Linn 1990). On the basis of their meta-analyses of various studies. Linn and Hyde (1989) concluded that gender differences in cognitive skills have declined and those that remain are largely explained by experiential differences. Women may not have different cognitive abilities, but they may have a different way of learning rooted in their role in society. The epistemic differences between men and women stemming from their standpoint in life can help us understand their differential interaction with the nature of science, and hence their participation in the field. In the following section, we will briefly discuss the feminist critique of science and extend the implication to science education.     

Microfluidic system for near-patient extraction and detection of miR-122 microRNA biomarker for drug-induced liver injury diagnostics

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) results in over 100 000 hospital attendances per year in the UK alone and is a leading cause for the post-marketing withdrawal of new drugs, leading to significant financial losses. MicroRNA-122 (miR-122) has been proposed as a sensitive DILI marker although no commercial applications are available yet. Extracellular blood microRNAs (miRNAs) are promising clinical biomarkers but their measurement at point of care remains time-consuming, technically challenging, and expensive. For circulating miRNA to have an impact on healthcare, a key challenge to overcome is the development of rapid and reliable low-cost sample preparation. There is an acknowledged issue with miRNA stability in the presence of hemolysis and platelet activation, and no solution has been demonstrated for fast and robust extraction at the site of blood draw. Here, we report a novel microfluidic platform for the extraction of circulating miR-122 from blood enabled by a vertical approach and gravity-based bubble mixing. The performance of this disposable cartridge was verified by standard quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis on extracted miR-122. The cartridge performed equivalently or better than standard bench extraction kits. The extraction cartridge was combined with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy to detect miR-122 as an initial proof-of-concept toward an application in point-of-care detection. This platform enables the standardization of sample preparation and the detection of miRNAs at the point of blood draw and in resource limited settings and could aid the introduction of miRNA-based assays into routine clinical practice.