Elementary Teacher Learning Research Articles

Pre-Service Elementary Teachers Learning to Plan Modeling-Based Investigations

ABSTRACT Learning to plan modeling-based investigations (MBIs) presents significant challenges for pre-service elementary teachers. Although they understand disciplinary core ideas and modeling practices, they address both as competing learning goals and, as novices, they have not experienced how to structure MBIs for their future students. In the context of a science teacher education course, we have designed a set of pedagogical supports around a biology-specific epistemic tool to help pre-service elementary teachers meet those challenges. This study builds the case of how a group of four pre-service elementary teachers learns to plan MBIs while working with the designed supports. We use the professional vision as a theoretical and analytical framework to characterize the group’s learning through discourses to build shared professional understandings of planning MBIs around biology core ideas. Analysis focused on their highlighting and coding of relevant aspects of disciplinary core ideas, modeling, and structuring MBIs, as well as their creation and use of material representations. The findings illustrate that: a) epistemic negotiation supports the group in integrating biology core ideas and modeling practices when developing explanatory models, and b) pedagogical negotiation, through the de-construction of those explanatory models, supports the group structuring of a MBI, including a natural phenomenon and questions students can investigate in a coherent sequence. We discuss how a biology-specific epistemic tool embedded in pedagogical supports helps pre-service teachers learn to plan MBIs by facilitating both epistemic and pedagogical negotiations.

Teacher-developed Multi-Dimensional Science Assessments Supporting Elementary Teacher Learning about the Next Generation Science Standards

ABSTRACT The onset of the Next-Generation Science Standards [NGSS] has created a need for elementary teachers to develop purposeful, multi-dimensional formative assessments (FAs). In order to promote this process, we utilized teacher learning communities (TLCs) and practice-based professional development focused on key aspects of the reform while documenting how four teachers in rural elementary schools cyclically developed and revised several FAs during a two-year project. Utilizing a multi-case embedded case study design, primary data collected included multiple teacher-developed, classroom-embedded FAs (including student work samples), recurrent audio of conversations wherein teachers discussed the results of their FAs with peers in their TLC, and five teacher interviews. The findings, though not intended to be generalizable, detail how developing FAs helped two of the teachers expose both instructional and assessment-related vulnerabilities as they learned more about the NGSS and the value of purposefully eliciting their student’s thinking in a multi-dimensional manner. Conversely, the other two teachers maintained a prior preference for developing FAs that targeted the memorization of science content—though they did provide students with more “space” to reveal their thinking via more open-ended prompts. This adjustment unfortunately caused numerous challenges for students, as they struggled to provide the “correct” responses the pair sought. Implications discuss how the connections between instruction and assessment can become more tightly intertwined whilst cyclically designing FAs, with an emphasis on the science and engineering practices. Recommendations for future research stemming from outside and within the classroom, as well as practitioner-based supports are discussed.

Characteristics of Group Deliberation by an Elementary Teacher Learning Community in Reorganizing a Social Studies Lesson Plan for the Sixth Graders

Characteristics of Group Deliberation by an Elementary Teacher Learning Community in Reorganizing a Social Studies Lesson Plan for the Sixth Graders

Prospective Elementary Teachers Learning to Reason Flexibly with Sums and Differences: Number Sense Development Viewed Through the Lens of Collective Activity

ABSTRACTI present a viable learning trajectory for prospective elementary teachers’ number sense development with a focus on whole-number place value, addition, and subtraction. I document a chronology of classroom mathematical practices in a Number and Operations course. The findings provide insights into prospective elementary teachers’ number sense development. These include the role of standard algorithms and their relationship to the evolution of classroom mathematical practices that involve reasoning flexibly about number composition, sums, and differences.

Using Video Games to Support Pre-Service Elementary Teachers Learning of Basic Physics Principles

Using Video Games to Support Pre-Service Elementary Teachers Learning of Basic Physics Principles

Using Video Games to Support Pre-Service Elementary Teachers Learning of Basic Physics Principles

The purpose of this work is to share our findings in using video gaming technology to facilitate the understanding of basic electromagnetism with pre-service elementary teachers. To this end we explored the impact of using a game called Supercharged! on pre-service teachers’ understanding of electromagnetic concepts compared to students who conducted a more traditional inquiry oriented investigation of the same concepts. This study was a part of a larger design experiment examining the pedagogical potential of Supercharged! the control group learned through a series of guided inquiry methods while the experimental group played Supercharged! during the laboratory sections of the science course. There was significant difference F(2,134) = 4.8, p < 0.05, η2 = 0.59 between the control and experimental groups on the gains from pre-to-post assessment with an effect size of d = 0.72. However, while students in the experimental group performed better than their control group peers, they rated their knowledge of the topic lower than the control group (M post-control = 3.0, M post-experiment = 2.7), leading to further examination of their laboratory journals. Results of this study show that video games can lead to positive learning outcomes, as demonstrated by the increase in test scores from pre- to post-assessment. Additionally, this study also suggests that a complementary approach, in which video games and hands-on activities are integrated, with each activity informing the other, could be a very powerful technique for supporting student scientific understanding. Further, our findings suggest that video game designers should embed meta-cognitive activities such as reflective opportunities into educational video games to provide scaffolds for students and to reinforce that they are engaged in an educational learning experience.