Preservice Secondary Science Teachers Research Articles

Metacognitive scaffolding for preservice teachers’ self-regulated design of higher order thinking tasks

This study compared two professional training courses targeting self-regulated learning (SRL) amongst preservice secondary science teachers in the context of didactic content knowledge for teaching higher-order thinking (HOT-PCK), either with metacognitive scaffolding (Meta group) or without (Control group). Measures included trainees' comprehension and design of HOT-PCK learning tasks, online SRL reflections about learning-teaching events, and self-reported SRL aptitude. Results indicated skill improvement in both groups, but the metacognitive support provided by the IMPROVE self-questioning technique better enhanced the preservice teachers’ (PSTs) development of HOT-PCK, both as students (comprehension skills) and as future teachers (design skills), additionally as their ability to reflect on and control their studying. Findings also revealed significant correlations between SRL assessments (self-reports, event-based reflections) and between SRL and HOT-PCK indices. Consequences for teacher education combining SRL and HOT-PCK contexts are discussed.

Fostering expansive and connective sensemaking with preservice secondary science teachers

AbstractPreservice secondary science teachers often experience science learning in narrow and marginalizing ways in their science preparation. These experiences cause harm, particularly for preservice teachers of color. They also limit the disciplinary resources they can develop for later teaching science in ways that value and sustain their students' ways of knowing and being in the world. Our research explores possibilities for cultivating new spaces for preservice secondary science teachers to engage in science. In a content‐focused education course, we designed for and studied preservice teachers' engagement in expansive and connective sensemaking, incorporating heterogeneity, power, and historicity in pursuits of explanatory accounts of the natural world. In this article, we examined how this course design can support preservice teachers to attune to heterogeneity in ways of knowing in science and to connect to identity and historicity in scientific sensemaking. Our analysis suggests that students' final projects reflected attunements to diverse knowing, communicating, and relating in science and deep connections with their identities and future‐making, yet had fewer connections to sociohistorical narratives and structures. We developed illustrative case studies of four student projects, highlighting the personal, social, and political possibilities of creating space for future educators to imagine more expansive and connective forms of science. This study contributes a novel model for preservice science teacher education to support teacher learning to value and sustain their students' ways of knowing and being in the world.

Development of VAScoR: A rubric to qualify and score responses to the views of nature of science (VNOS) questionnaire

AbstractWe report on the development of a rubric to reliably qualify and score responses to the Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire (VNOS): The VNOS Analysis and Scoring Rubric (VAScoR). The VAScoR is designed to (a) provide systematic guidance for the qualitative analysis, and score assignment to nuanced categories, of VNOS responses, (b) explicitly scaffold qualitative inferencing and standardize score assignment to substantially lessen the burden of, and variance in, analyzing and scoring the VNOS, and (c) improve the viability and meaningfulness of cross‐study comparisons drawing on VNOS data. The rubric adopted the VNOS's consensus NOS framework and further delineated core and related elements across 10 target NOS aspects. The VAScoR's reliability was examined in two studies that drew on VNOS questionnaires completed by 185 preservice secondary science teachers (58% female; 126 undergraduate and 59 graduate students) enrolled over several years in a combined undergraduate and graduate licensure program in a large U.S. Midwestern university. In Study I, VAScoR analyses of 86 VNOS questionnaires undertaken by a single author were used to examine the rubric's intra‐rater reliability, which resulted in a robust Cronbach's alpha value of 0.81. In Study II, analyses by four authors of a randomly generated, overlapping set of 18 questionnaires were used to examine inter‐rater reliability, which was supported with substantial consensus among raters as indicated by a Cohen's kappa of 0.71. Further evidence for the VAScoR's inter‐rater reliability was indicated by moderate to strong consistency among four raters with an overall Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.82, and coefficient values ranging from 0.77 to 0.89 for six possible rater pairings.

Praxis crisis and the trouble with science teacher education for emergent bilingual learners

AbstractIn this study, we explore how preservice secondary science teachers articulated their agency and structural awareness within racist–nativist policy and schooling environments that limit emergent bilingual students' opportunities to learn science. Our praxis‐oriented analysis led us to characterize novice teacher participants' discursive positionings within this structure–agency dialectic—that is, what it means to teach science well with emergent bilingual learners in the context of structural exclusions—as deficit, distancing, or discerning. We then discuss how these preservice teacher positionings were a function of tension management for working within the structure–agency dialectic. In our discussion, we refer to this phenomenon as praxis crisis, that is, the disjuncture between theory and practice that occurs as teachers negotiate the real and perceived constraints of their work. We consider how the concept of praxis crisis that emerged from our work can be a critical dialogic tool for transformative learning in science teacher education research and practice, and how a praxis‐oriented methodological approach can support more expansive and nuanced understandings of teacher learning.

“People Need to Speak Up”: Preservice Secondary Science Teachers’ Movement Toward a Justice-Centered Science Education

ABSTRACT Teacher education programs must prepare their preservice science teachers to center social justice and to meet the academic needs of culturally, racially, and linguistically diverse students, as justice-centered discourses are traditionally absent from science classrooms yet integral to the teaching and learning of rich and relevant phenomena. In this study, we investigated a cohort of preservice secondary science teachers enrolled in a yearlong, post-baccalaureate teacher education program that attended to social justice. We conducted four interviews with each participant across their program and qualitatively analyzed their discussions of social justice ideas and teaching practices using three tenets of a justice-centered science pedagogy framework: enacting an antiracist and equitable science education, grounding instruction in social and environmental justice phenomena, and framing students as transformative intellectuals. We found preservice teacher participants discussed enacting antiracist and equitable science teaching by using a critical lens to identify inequities in classrooms and schools, and by attending to high academic expectations. Preservice teachers described focusing on socioscientific phenomena and local contexts as starting points for teaching about social justice science issues. Participants also shared their work toward framing students as transformative intellectuals by developing teacher-student relationships, building from students’ ideas, and discussing emerging ideas and efforts for student advocacy. Findings from this study underscore the need for more focused work on ways to prioritize the justice component of social justice science issues and the student advocacy component of students as transformative intellectuals so as to prepare preservice teachers to fully enact a socially just science education.

Teaching Mathematics and Science Through a Social Justice Lens

Abstract Teaching mathematics and science embedded in social justice is not a familiar concept for many teachers, especially pre-service teachers. This qualitative, descriptive, and interpretative study examines the experiences and reflections of 26 middle grade and secondary pre-service mathematics and science teachers on teaching and learning mathematics and science through the social justice lens as they took a semester-long course concurrently with their student-teaching. The primary research question was, “How may a semester-long course focusing on teaching and learning mathematics and science with social justice awareness provide pre-service teachers with opportunities to reflect on and change their teaching practices?” Data included researchers’ field notes and participating pre-service teachers’ verbal discussions, written reflections, and classroom presentations. The findings suggest that teaching mathematics and science in the context of social justice enhanced the pre-services teachers’ awareness of educational opportunity and equity. The findings also indicate teaching mathematics and science from the social justice perspective requires a paradigm shift in teaching and learning. Furthermore, the study exposes the limitations of the current school structure and culture for meaningful learning, the limitations of existing curricula and state-mandated texts, and the lack of adequate resources in teaching mathematics and science in social justice contexts.

Examining preservice science teachers' implementation of language‐ and literacy‐integrated science through a cultural historical activity theory lens

AbstractThe increasing attention in science education reform documents to language and literacy, coupled with the growing linguistic diversity of United States classrooms, means that science teacher educators and researchers are facing an important task of preparing secondary science preservice teachers (PSTs) to teach a language‐ and literacy‐integrated form of science in linguistically diverse classrooms. Unfortunately, research in this field is in its nascency, and while some studies have addressed PSTs' instructional planning for and implementation of language‐ and literacy‐integrated science instruction, none have considered the unique contextual factors that inform PSTs' uptake of these reform‐oriented instructional practices, despite many studies suggesting student‐teaching contexts are a key factor in PSTs' instructional decisions. The purpose of this multiple case study was to consider the unique contextual factors that supported and constrained three PSTs' uptake of language‐ and literacy‐integrated science practices through a Cultural‐Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) lens. Findings indicated that PSTs' implementation of language‐ and literacy‐integrated science instruction was shaped by interactions among the mediating elements of their student teaching activity systems, including PSTs' division of labor with mentor teachers, the classroom and school norms, PSTs' perceptions of their classroom communities, and PSTs' past life experiences and resources. These findings highlight the roles that different elements of learning‐to‐teach contexts can play in PSTs' enactment of reform‐oriented instruction. Implications for science teacher education, instruction for emergent bilinguals, and research are discussed.

Developing Mathematics and Science Teachers’ Ability to Design for Active Learning: A Design-based Research Study

This paper describes an approach to working with secondary preservice mathematics and science (M&S) teachers to develop their ability to design for active learning. It presents the design of a studio-style intervention that augments existing teacher education. It describes the way that these studios can be organised, with specific suggestions that a specialised learning designer, a subject matter expert, and administrative support be included to aid in the design for learning—on the justification that this can both improve the learning design as well as advance teacher learning. It describes a study in which 10 secondary M&S preservice teachers experienced this style of studio, through iterations of learning design sessions and teaching practice. The studio differs from existing models (such as the ‘clinical model’) through its focus on learning design, the structure of the learning network, and the way that it augments (rather than replaces) existing teacher education. The paper presents results from the study in terms of teacher self-efficacy and self-reported perceptions. It discusses a set of design principles that emerged through the process of developing and testing this model and proposes considerations for researchers or teacher educators looking to use a similar approach in future by focusing on the roles, tasks, and activities for members within the network.

The lived experiences of pre-service science teachers designing and teaching socioscientific issues-based units

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of secondary science preservice teachers while designing and implementing SSI-based instructional processes, as well as their interpretations from these experiences. Phenomenological research that relies upon how individuals live out meanings in our everyday life was employed in this study. The participants of this study involved seven senior pre-service science teachers. Based on Seidman’s (Interviewing as qualitative research: A guide for researchers in education and the social sciences, 2006) phenomenological interview model, three in-depth interviews were conducted with each participant. The data analysis procedure of this study was done inductively via thematic analysis. The analysis of the interviews revealed the following themes: (1) Transformation, (2) Dilemmas, (3) Critiques, (4) Struggles, and (5) Change. This study demonstrated that pre-service science teachers’ views, ideas, and practices were transformed and changed during the 8 months of involvement in this phenomenological study. It was, therefore, fair to claim that the nature of phenomenological methodology provided opportunities for not only improvements on the participants but also observing and illustrating these changes.

Preservice Teachers’ Views of the “Social Embeddedness” Tenet of the Nature of Science: A New Method of Analysis

ABSTRACT It is generally accepted that a robust science education includes knowledge of science, as well as knowledge about science, or, in other words, an understanding of the “Nature of Science.” However, debates around what Nature of Science is and how to measure it are far from settled, and this compromises our ability to support teachers and students develop their understanding in this area. In this paper, two approaches assessing one aspect of the Nature of Science, the degree to which is it “socially embedded,” are compared. The VNOS-C was administered to a cohort of pre-service secondary science teachers and analyzed using the traditional approach as well as a new approach, using “Specialization” from a framework known as Legitimation Code Theory. The results from the standard analytical approach revealed that preservice teachers’ ideas were overwhelmingly Naïve or Mixed, and that these did not change over the course of the semester. However, there was insufficient discrimination between students’ ideas, particularly those in the Mixed category. The new approach was able to capture more of the nuances in preservice teachers’ responses. The potential of the new approach will be discussed in terms of its utility for understanding Nature of Science theory and improving assessment in relation to the “social embeddedness” tenet.

Pre-service Teachers’ Beliefs about Motivating Students to Learn Science

Motivation in science learning is important, given increasing necessity for scientific and critical literacy. The purpose of this article is to examine secondary science pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) beliefs about motivating students to learn science. A mixed method study was conducted with 73 secondary science PSTs across Australia. A web-based survey and interviews were used to gather data. Turner et al.’s motivation theory (2011) is used as a framework to analyse the data. The findings indicate that the PSTs believed that competence, belongingness, and meaningful learning were factors involved in motivating students. These findings are critical as they are relevant to science education and to initial teacher education and as such, this research contributes to the body of knowledge in this area.

Pre‐service teachers enactment of language‐ and literacy‐integrated science instruction in linguistically diverse science classrooms

AbstractThe Next Generation Science Standards and increasing linguistic diversity of students in United States science classrooms require language‐focused science instruction for which many secondary science teachers are not prepared. To date, minimal research has addressed how to best support secondary science pre‐service teachers (PSTs) in teaching in linguistically diverse classrooms despite the fact that most PSTs will have the opportunity to teach emergent bilinguals (EBs) at some point in their careers. The purpose of this multiple case study was to determine at what level and in what ways three secondary science PSTs were able to integrate language and literacy into their science instruction following their participation in two language‐ and literacy‐integrated science methods courses. PSTs' instruction was analyzed using an observation rubric and supported by instructional materials, interviews, and reflections. Results indicated that, following the intervention, PSTs were able to enact most language‐ and literacy‐integrated science practices at the targeted level. However, the ways in which they did so varied and at times led to missed opportunities for EBs' participation in key scientific practices. Implications for teacher educators and researchers are addressed.

Perceptions of Pre-Service Secondary Science Teachers on Inquiry-Based Science Education: An Analysis of the Demographic Variables

Implementing the inquiry approach in the science classroom represents a challenge for pre-service secondary science teachers due to the perceptions they build around inquiry and determine their future teaching practice. In this work, we analyse the perceptions of 46 students of the science specialities of the Master’s Degree in Secondary Education Teaching, using the design of a questionnaire adapted from the PRIMAS project. The results obtained show some initial perceptions of the participants with a very homogeneous profile for the variables analysed, finding them favourable to the inquiry as a teaching approach, although showing some concrete difficulties. We also found some statistically significant differences regarding gender and previous academic and teaching experience. However, the prior research background associated with the science and technological degrees completed by the participants seemed not to affect their perception about inquiry. We finally raise some implications of the results obtained and give some orientation that might be useful for the initial training of secondary science teachers.

Secondary Science Preservice Teachers: Technology Integration in Methods and Residency

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to describe what and how secondary science preservice teachers (SSPST) implemented technology, in student teaching residency, that they had planned in previous science methods courses. A collective case study approach with purposeful sampling was used to gain understanding of multiple perspectives across prior experience, gender, and content areas. Data included written responses, observations, content analysis of lesson plans, and assessment using the Technology Use in Science Instruction (TUSI) instrument. SSPSTs used a variety of technology during methods and residency teaching. The authors used the TUSI instrument to describe areas of strength and weakness how SSPSTs used technology. This study includes recommendations for science teacher educators to prepare SSPSTs to integrate technology for meaningful learning.

Access, Dissent, Ethics, and Politics: Pre-service Teachers Negotiating Conceptions of the Work of Teaching Science for Equity

This study examines the development of secondary preservice science teachers’ (PSTs’) sociopolitical understandings in the context of a yearlong, masters-level, justice-oriented teacher education program. It articulates a theoretical perspective regarding teachers’ conceptions of the work-of-teaching in terms of pedagogical and disciplinary commitments. These conceptions are ideological links between classroom practices and teachers’ understanding of the sociopolitical context of their work. Teachers’ conceptions include how they view their and their students’ agency to gain access to enabling structures or dissent against oppressive structures that contribute to inequity in science education. The embedded case study design with 10 PSTs draws on various data sources from three time periods, and several types of experiences, in the teacher education program. A focus on four cases illustrates how PSTs rearticulated ideological committments in ways that have direct implications for the development of their practice and also connections to the content areas they teach. One case reinforces that teachers may begin to reject deficit views and embrace their agency by learning about the ways in which racism structures society. Another case shows how PSTs’ political clarity may be pushed in the direction of understanding multiple forms of oppression as structural. Together, the four cases illuminate an ideological component to content area teaching, or content area considerations in teachers’ ideological committments. Science teachers may develop sophisticated views of their work by analyzing their disciplines and curriculum as structures that are subject to the same critiques levied against other social structures. While PSTs did not feel that justice-centered pedagogies were within their full reach at the end of the program, they moved from aiming to demonstrate to students the utility, value, and importance of content areas toward exploring the relevance of the content areas with students.

Preservice Secondary Science Teachers’ Implementation of an NGSS Practice: Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking

ABSTRACT We investigated six preservice secondary science teachers’ implementation of reform-based science, in particular, their teaching of the Next Generation Science Standards’ (NGSS) science and engineering practice of using mathematics and computational thinking. A modified version of the Task Analysis Guide in Science served as our conceptual framework: It assesses both the integration of practices and content (i.e., the kind of thinking required), and the cognitive demand of tasks (i.e., the level of thinking required) in teachers’ lessons. We used this framework to qualitatively analyze our preservice teacher participants’ edTPA (teacher performance assessment) lessons—including their written commentaries, video-recorded lesson excerpts, and student work samples—for their implementation of the NGSS using mathematics and computational thinking practice. We examined (1) the integration of the mathematical content and practices outlined in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics within the target NGSS practice, and (2) the cognitive demand of the mathematics in relation to science and mathematical practices. We found that four of our six preservice teachers implemented lessons that were integrated and cognitively demanding: These participants used the mathematics to move students’ understanding of the science phenomena forward. However, the other two participants implemented lessons that integrated mathematical content and practices but were low in cognitive demand. We conclude with implications for how teacher education programs can better support preservice teachers’ implementation of lessons that are both integrated and cognitively demanding so as to promote students’ mathematical reasoning and scientific sensemaking.

Developing Secondary Pre-Service Science Teachers’ Instructional Planning Abilities for Language- and Literacy-Integrated Science Instruction in Linguistically Diverse Classrooms

ABSTRACT As science classrooms become more linguistically diverse, it is becoming increasingly important that pre-service teachers (PSTs) are trained with the skills and knowledge they need to support science learning for all students, especially English Learners. The purpose of this study was to determine how 11 secondary science PSTs’ instructional planning for language- and literacy-integrated science instruction changed over the course of their participation in two language- and literacy-integrated science methods courses. Data sources included open-ended survey questions, interviews, and participant-created lesson plans, instructional materials, and reflections. Inductive and deductive qualitative analyses were employed to identify themes across participants and data sources. Results suggest that, following participation in the methods courses, more PSTs integrated language- and literacy-integrated science practices into their instructional materials than prior to the intervention. Further, important changes in the nature of integration were observed. Results add to the emerging literature on preparing secondary science PSTs to teach in linguistically diverse classrooms and have implications for science teacher education and student learning.

Characterising pre-service secondary science teachers’ noticing of different forms of evidence of student thinking

ABSTRACTEvidence of student thinking takes a variety of forms (e.g. verbal responses, gestures) and has varying degrees of visibility within classroom interactions. The purpose of this study was to characterise the nature of pre-service science teachers’ (PSTs’) noticing skills of different forms of evidence of student thinking using video-based interviews. In the interviews, the PSTs were asked to describe what they had noticed in the videos that captured different forms of evidence of student thinking and ‘think on their feet’ to propose the next instructional moves as if they were the teacher. The PSTs’ comments on the videos were analysed qualitatively with respect to the forms of evidence they noticed and how they interpreted and responded to the evidence. Several findings regarding the nature of PSTs’ noticing skills were uncovered. First, the PSTs readily identified non-verbal forms of evidence, such as voting and student actions. However, some forms of evidence that potentially reveal the content of student thought, such as student artefacts, questions and verbal explanations, were less visible to the PSTs. Second, the PSTs used the identified evidence to infer student engagement levels, attributes and understanding and were generally able to propose instructional responses based on the student thinking that they had identified. Third, the findings also suggest that when the PSTs paid attention to the details of the evidence, they were more likely to connect their instructional decisions to student understanding at a content-specific level. The implications for research on PSTs’ noticing and initial education are discussed.

Using Video-Based Interviews to Investigate Pre-service Secondary Science Teachers’ Situation-Specific Skills for Informal Formative Assessment

This study investigated the nature of pre-service science teachers’ (PSTs’) situation-specific skills for informal formative assessment (FA) and their awareness of activating these skills in classroom-like situations. Video-based interviews were conducted to collect data from fifteen PSTs before they participated in a teacher education program. Authentic classroom videos capturing evidence of student thinking were used as probes to elicit information on the PSTs’ perceptions, interpretations, and decision-making in various classroom-like situations that afforded opportunities for FA. The findings indicate that the PSTs tended to focus on content-generic evidence and the responses of students in the whole class, to infer student thinking at a non-content specific level, and to propose responses that were vague or devoid of scientific content. On re-exposure to the same evidence of student thinking captured in short video clips, and with more specific prompting questions, more of the PSTs identified content-specific evidence from individual students and interpreted the nuances of student thinking at a content-specific level. Yet, the capacity of the PSTs to propose student-focused instructional moves remained limited. Overall, the findings suggest that the PSTs were not particularly aware of applying their situation-specific skills for informal FA when making on-the-fly teaching decisions in classroom-like situations that offer rich opportunities for FA. This study adds to the existing understanding of PST knowledge/skills for informal FA and provides a mechanism for eliciting and characterizing teachers’ situation-specific skills for informal FA. The implications for initial teacher education are discussed.

Preservice secondary science teachers’ understanding of academic language: Moving beyond “just the vocabulary”

AbstractTo prepare preservice secondary science teachers to teach English learners (ELs), teacher education programs must provide sustained coursework and experiences in principles and strategies found effective in supporting ELs’ learning of science. In the context of a teacher education program recognized for its attention to ELs, we investigated seven preservice secondary science teachers’ understanding of academic language and of how to support EL students’ use of academic language. More specifically, over the course of their 13‐month program, we examined changes in (a) preservice teachers’ understanding of the three levels of academic language (i.e., lexical, or vocabulary; syntactic, or sentence; and discursive, or message) and (b) the types of instructional support they reported using at each level (e.g., peer collaboration at the discursive level). We also compared their understanding of academic language and instructional support both to their experienced cooperating teachers’ understanding and to their actual classroom practice. From qualitative analysis of data collected, we found that preservice teachers understood academic language as more than just vocabulary—as spanning lexical, syntactic, and discursive levels—although they reported implementing more types of supports at the lexical and discursive levels than at the syntactic level. We also found that preservice teacher participants’ understanding of academic language and instructional support resonated with that of their cooperating teachers and with their own classroom practice. We close with discussion of ways teacher education programs can deepen and broaden preservice secondary science teachers’ understanding of the role of academic language in ELs’ science learning