Next Generation Science Teacher Educators

Abstract

In 1994 and 1995, when Norman Lederman was President and Past-President of ASTE (then called AETS) he wrote two AETS Newsletter presidential messages (Ledrman 1994, 1995) that discussed issues surrounding curriculum and instructional integration. At this time the Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS 1993) had already been published and one of the Drafts of the National Science Education Standards (NRC 1996) was available. Several months ago the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (Achieve 2013) appeared on the scene. Depending on who you speak to, the NGSS build upon previous science education reform efforts or they represent a totally new perspective. We prefer the former interpretation. Lederman’s expressed concern in the AETS Newsletter related to the professed integrated structure of the K-12 curriculum and instructional approach. We believe that with all the differences between the NGSS and previous reform documents (e.g., the centrality of engineering practices) one important commonality is the focus on integration. It could be argued that prior reforms only focused on the integration of disciplinary subject matters and the NGSS is more comprehensive in its focus on the integration of science and engineering practices, core concepts, and cross-cutting concepts. Our organization is the premier professional organization of science teacher education worldwide. Reform documents and initiatives typically put a magnifying glass on desired student outcomes, and with less frequency on instructional practice. It is not uncommon to hear the authors of such documents say that the reform in question ‘‘is not a curriculum’’ or that it is ‘‘pedagogically agnostic.’’ Nevertheless, we think our membership would all agree that each reform effort has strong implications for science teacher educators. The last two words are correct; we are talking about the education of those who become teacher educators, who then in turn educate classroom teachers. In 1997 AETS published a position statement on Professional Knowledge Standards for Science Teacher Educators (Lederman et al. 1997). The document