Download or read book Exploring the Impact of Science Research Experiences for Teachers Stories of Growth and Identity written by Sanlyn Rebecca Buxner and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 1084 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Education reform in the U.S. promotes the teaching of inquiry in science to help students understand how science is done and to increase constructivist, student centered instruction. This qualitative study investigated changes in teachers' understandings about scientific inquiry and nature of science as well as science teaching as a result of participation in one of three summer science research programs. This study also explored what teachers reported valuing about their experiences as they progressed through the program and returned to their classrooms. Data were collected through open-ended surveys, semi-structured interviews, program observation and artifact analysis before, during, and after the research programs as well as follow-up surveys and semi-structured interviews six to nine months after the research programs had ended. In addition to overall findings, six cases are presented to highlight changes and growth that occurred. Participation in these programs did not always lead to the outcomes intended by facilitators, such as strong changes in teachers' understandings about scientific inquiry and full implementation of research with their students; yet there were significant positiveoutcomes from participants' perspectives. Teachers' understandings of scientific inquiry and nature of science changed in small ways as measured by a modified Views of Scientific Inquiry/Views of Nature of Science Survey; however, participants changed their descriptions of science teaching after the programs. These descriptions included more affective goals for their students, the use of more student centered activities, and the importance of engaging students in research. On their post surveys, participants reported their intentions to implement more classroom inquiry, including science research. In follow-up surveys and interviews teachers reported engaging students in more active roles in their classrooms. In addition, teachers reported valuing a number of other outcomes from their participation in these programs. These included increased knowledge and skills in science, insider information about professional science, increased credibility, professional and personal growth, and improvements in students' knowledge and engagement in science and research. An emergent finding of the study was that participating in these research programs had an influence on some participants' identities related to doing science, being a scientist, and teaching science.
Download or read book Studying Science Teacher Identity written by Lucy Avraamidou and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-11 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The overarching goal of this book volume is to illuminate how research on science teacher identity has deepened and complicated our understanding of the role of identity in examining teacher learning and development. The collective chapters, both theoretical and empirical, present an array of conceptual underpinnings that have been used to frame science teacher identity, document the various methodological approaches that researchers have implemented in order to study science teacher identity within various contexts, and offer empirical evidence about science teacher identity development. The findings of the studies presented in this volume support the argument that teacher identity is a dynamic, multidimensional and comprehensive construct, which provides a powerful lens for studying science teacher learning and development for various reasons. First, it pushes our boundaries by extending our definitions of science teacher learning and development as it proposes new ways of conceptualizing the processes of becoming a science teacher. Second, it emphasizes the role of the context on science teacher learning and development and pays attention to the experiences that teachers have as members of various communities. Third, it allows us to examine the impact of various sub-identities, personal histories, emotions, and social markers, such as ethnicity, race, and class, on science teachers’ identity development. The book aims at making a unique and deeply critical contribution to notions around science teacher identity by proposing fresh theoretical perspectives, providing empirical evidence about identity development, offering a set of implications for science teacher preparation, and recommending directions for future research.
Download or read book Studying Science Teacher Identity written by Lucy Avraamidou and published by SensePublishers. This book was released on 2015-12-17 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The overarching goal of this book volume is to illuminate how research on science teacher identity has deepened and complicated our understanding of the role of identity in examining teacher learning and development. The collective chapters, both theoretical and empirical, present an array of conceptual underpinnings that have been used to frame science teacher identity, document the various methodological approaches that researchers have implemented in order to study science teacher identity within various contexts, and offer empirical evidence about science teacher identity development. The findings of the studies presented in this volume support the argument that teacher identity is a dynamic, multidimensional and comprehensive construct, which provides a powerful lens for studying science teacher learning and development for various reasons. First, it pushes our boundaries by extending our definitions of science teacher learning and development as it proposes new ways of conceptualizing the processes of becoming a science teacher. Second, it emphasizes the role of the context on science teacher learning and development and pays attention to the experiences that teachers have as members of various communities. Third, it allows us to examine the impact of various sub-identities, personal histories, emotions, and social markers, such as ethnicity, race, and class, on science teachers’ identity development. The book aims at making a unique and deeply critical contribution to notions around science teacher identity by proposing fresh theoretical perspectives, providing empirical evidence about identity development, offering a set of implications for science teacher preparation, and recommending directions for future research.
Download or read book Research as an Instrument for Change written by Nancy Pierce Morabito and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Landscapes Edges and Identity Making written by Vicki Ross and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2019-10-21 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, experiences as narrative inquiry are explored in order to make sense of research, identities, and the response community we have created through this process. Researchers bring together thinking and experiences in the current educational landscape to better understand the ways researchers have shaped and been shaped by their work.
Download or read book Taking Science Home written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book narrates two teachers’ experiences creating and leading an elementary after-school science program at a public housing authority. The narrative employs a reflexive ethnographic approach to examine the reflections of each teacher during one academic year. The book explores the teachers’ understandings of socially just teaching, their pedagogical transformations, and a vision of how science as a discipline was important in terms of enacting a culturally sustaining pedagogy. The reflexive ethnographic perspective enables consideration of the implications of teachers’ positionality in teaching science to marginalized and/or underrepresented students in informal learning contexts. Through these examinations, the book explains how collaboration was vital in the teachers’ efforts to become insiders in the setting and engage in culturally sustaining pedagogy. The book also narrates the teachers’ development leading to articulation of a framework identified as the zone of pedagogical potential. Finally, the book uses the teachers’ reflections to consider the affordances of learning science. The book concludes with a discussion of the implications from this research for promoting equitable practices in informal settings, as well as the potential for those practices being useful in formal settings. Thus, the book should be of interest to researchers, teachers, educators, and students of education and in particular science education.
Download or read book The Science of Learning and Development written by Pamela Cantor and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-06-21 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This essential text unpacks major transformations in the study of learning and human development and provides evidence for how science can inform innovation in the design of settings, policies, practice, and research to enhance the life path, opportunity and prosperity of every child. The ideas presented provide researchers and educators with a rationale for focusing on the specific pathways and developmental patterns that may lead a specific child, with a specific family, school, and community, to prosper in school and in life. Expanding key published articles and expert commentary, the book explores a profound evolution in thinking that integrates findings from psychology with biology through sociology, education, law, and history with an emphasis on institutionalized inequities and disparate outcomes and how to address them. It points toward possible solutions through an understanding of and addressing the dynamic relations between a child and the contexts within which he or she lives, offering all researchers of human development and education a new way to understand and promote healthy development and learning for diverse, specific youth regardless of race, socioeconomic status, or history of adversity, challenge, or trauma. The book brings together scholars and practitioners from the biological/medical sciences, the social and behavioral sciences, educational science, and fields of law and social and educational policy. It provides an invaluable and unique resource for understanding the bases and status of the new science, and presents a roadmap for progress that will frame progress for at least the next decade and perhaps beyond.
Download or read book An Ecofeminist Investigation of how Research Experiences for Science Teachers Influence Their Conceptualization of the Nature of Science and Their Construction of Storied Science Identities written by Suzanne Poole Patzelt and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study investigated how the figured world of the RET, and other figured worlds of science that teacher’s experience, impacted their conceptions around the nature of science and their identities in science and as science teachers. The main premise behind RET programs is that by partnering science teachers with scientists as mentors, science teachers will glean insight about science they can bring back into their classrooms. Although there is a large body of literature around the impacts of RETs as sites of PD for science teachers, there are several gaps this study aimed to address, such as the use of ecofeminism as a tool for analysis and a focus specifically on identity. This study suggests as science teachers move through figured worlds of science, certain experiences can work to stabilize, or destabilize an identity as a science person or as someone who is not welcomed in science. Looking across science teachers’ storied science identities, I identified four shared storylines: 1) The impact of elementary and middle school science figured worlds on science/teacher identity; 2) the roles of recognition and sense of belonging in the development of science/teacher identity; 3) science/teacher’s identity informing pedagogical practice and commitments; and 4) science teachers feeling valued for their role as expert communicators in RETs. This study suggests that RETs, as figured worlds of science, shape science/teacher identities and their conceptions around the nature of science, in turn impacting science teachers’ classroom practice. It also highlights the need for RETs to take an even more critical examination of the teachers who are participating, the scientists with whom teachers are paired, the students of the participating teachers teach, as well as the language used to describe science and the relationships between teachers and scientists.
Download or read book Personal Professional Political written by Andrea Drewes and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this study is to investigate science teacher identity development as climate change educators. In applying the theoretical construct of identity as narrative to investigate the climate change related instructional experiences, I posed the overarching question: How do teachers’ lived experiences shape their science teacher identity development as a ‘teacher of climate change’? ☐ I used qualitative narrative inquiry methods to examine professional and personal stories of science teachers and their descriptions of instructional enactment of climate change lessons. I described the ways in which teachers draw on aspects of their teaching identity to navigate the opportunities and challenges encountered while teaching this controversial and complex, yet critically important science topic. I collected empirical data to form insights regarding how teachers negotiate competing demands while planning, implementing, and reflecting on their instruction. Data sources included multiple interviews with each teacher and teacher reflections. ☐ In analyzing the collected data, I determined how the identity narratives play a role in their enactment of climate change instruction. Results demonstrate how identity development for teaching climate change is embedded in one’s personal histories, professional teaching and learning experiences, and the political context. Through this process, I developed a conceptual model to show how these lived experiences influence patterns of identity development through five trends: Personal Valuation of Nature; Experiences in Science Teaching and Learning; Teacher Instructional Support and Agency; Epistemic Evidence-based Instruction; and Civic and Social Awareness via Socioscientific Literacy. The strength of enactment of these five trends leads to four possible constructions of identity. These four identities are: Passionate Environmentalist, Student Interest Engager, Content First Educator, and Civic & Epistemic Skills Promoter. ☐ The findings suggest that teacher identities for climate change are frequently multifaceted and these various identities are usually cohesive within an individual, but at times, they may present competing tensions for enactment. Additionally, this study demonstrates the critical need to support educators to strengthen their perceptions of instructional agency to effectively overcome challenges to the enactment of climate change lessons. Implications for teaching, teacher education, educational policy, and educational research related to climate change education and science teacher identity development are also presented.
Download or read book Effect of Research Experiences on Teachers Perceptions of the Nature of Science written by Suchin Visavateeranon and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Research on Teacher Identity written by Paul A. Schutz and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-11 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding teachers’ professional identities and their development is key to unpacking teachers’ professional lives, the quality of their instruction, their motivation and commitment to teach, and their career decision-making. This book features a number of scholars from around the world who represent a variety of disciplines, scientific paradigms, and inquiry methods in researching teacher identity. By bringing these chapters together, this volume initiates active scholarly conversations and extends the boundaries of teacher identity research and practice. This collection of chapters provides significant insight into teacher identity and will be essential reading for pre-service and in-service teachers, teacher educators, school administrators, professional developers, and policy makers at various levels.
Download or read book Becoming a Science Teacher Together Course Creation and Exploration Through Participatory Action Research written by Rachel Diane Askew and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: States across the nation are reporting a shortage in teachers, with science being a particular area of need (Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, & Carver-Thomas, 2016). Research has been done, and is still taking place, centered around elementary school teachers and their beliefs on science teaching (Avraamidou, 2014; 2016), due in part to a noticeable trend in low science teaching self-efficacy, which can impact students beliefs in science (Bergman & Morphew, 2015; Krajcik, Czerniak, & Berger, 2003; Menon & Sadler, 2016; Ramsey & Howe 1969;).Studies on science teacher identity are not often representative of elementary education teachers (Mensah, 2016); nor do they approach the topic from a discussion of subjectivity (Bazzul, 2016).Through collaboration by means of Participatory Action Research (PAR) between myself, as an instructor, and six pre-service elementary teachers, as undergraduate students, we explored what it means to be(come) an elementary science teacher. PAR gave us a space to negotiate the traditional power relations between teacher-students and researcher-participants by allowing for an authentic collaboration where the students realities and views of who they are and want to be as science teachers lead the class. Using a theoretical framework of subjectivity and building off work in elementary science teacher identity (Avraamidou, 2014; 2016; 2019; Mensah, 2016), we disrupted the traditional course expectations and created our own course based on students questions and understandings. The study took place in a sixteen-week elementary science methods course with six students and one instructor. Students in the course were enrolled in the teacher preparation program and in their last semester of course work before completing full-time residency in an elementary or middle school. Data consists of various documents including the co-created course syllabus, assignments, readings, activities, and journals, as well as teacher observations and notes. Individual journal reflections were required at the end of every class and class conversations dove deeper in to concepts on science education and science teacher identity. Collectively, we created a class journeys timeline, which serves as our representation of what we learned about ourselves as science teachers throughout the project..
Download or read book Teacher Learning and Informal Science Education written by Jennifer D. Adams and published by Peter Lang Publishing. This book was released on 2024 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is situated in a study of learning to teach science, informal science education and identity. The study initially aimed to learn how teachers' identities were influenced by teacher learning experiences in informal science institutions and sites. What emerged was how teachers transformed meanings, pedagogies and applications of informal science in ways that both resonated with their identities as teachers and social agents as well as the identities and needs of their students. This book emphasizes the teaching and learning of racialized students as well as highlight the experiences of similarly racialized teachers. However, what emerges are lessons for educators who are committed to authentically enacting equity in learning spaces; that is learning that is attentive to and affirming of students' and teachers' identities and desirings to utilize education as a tool to create imaginations of alternative futures. This is critical if we are to move towards planetary well-being. This book will highlight salient aspects of the research and offer examples of teacher enactments and frameworks for designing professional development and learning experiences that afford critical awareness, creativity and culturally affirming science education both in formal and informal contexts"--
Download or read book Funds of Knowledge written by Norma Gonzalez and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-04-21 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of "funds of knowledge" is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge. The claim in this book is that first-hand research experiences with families allow one to document this competence and knowledge, and that such engagement provides many possibilities for positive pedagogical actions. Drawing from both Vygotskian and neo-sociocultural perspectives in designing a methodology that views the everyday practices of language and action as constructing knowledge, the funds of knowledge approach facilitates a systematic and powerful way to represent communities in terms of the resources they possess and how to harness them for classroom teaching. This book accomplishes three objectives: It gives readers the basic methodology and techniques followed in the contributors' funds of knowledge research; it extends the boundaries of what these researchers have done; and it explores the applications to classroom practice that can result from teachers knowing the communities in which they work. In a time when national educational discourses focus on system reform and wholesale replicability across school sites, this book offers a counter-perspective stating that instruction must be linked to students' lives, and that details of effective pedagogy should be linked to local histories and community contexts. This approach should not be confused with parent participation programs, although that is often a fortuitous consequence of the work described. It is also not an attempt to teach parents "how to do school" although that could certainly be an outcome if the parents so desired. Instead, the funds of knowledge approach attempts to accomplish something that may be even more challenging: to alter the perceptions of working-class or poor communities by viewing their households primarily in terms of their strengths and resources, their defining pedagogical characteristics. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms is a critically important volume for all teachers and teachers-to-be, and for researchers and graduate students of language, culture, and education.
Download or read book Legitimate Peripheral Participation of Secondary Educators in Scientific Research Experiences written by Matthew Phillip Perkins and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Both of the national reform efforts (AAAS, 1993; NRC, 1996) encouraged teachers to engage in professional development that included authentic scientific research experiences. The Department of Energy developed a program to match teachers with mentor scientists at national laboratories for three consecutive summers. Teachers produced and presented a poster summarizing their research at the conclusion of each summer. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to better understand how scientific research experiences impacted teachers. Six dimensions were examined: trajectory of participation, content knowledge development, mentor relationships, beliefs about the nature of science, teacher confidence, and classroom practice. These six dimensions were integrated into three research questions which guided the research: the teachers' ability to increase their level of participation from the first to the last summer of research, the teachers' changes in their understanding of the nature of science (NOS), and any changes in the teachers' classroom teaching because of their involvement in the program. In-depth interviews were triangulated with teachers' posters to provide insights into teachers' legitimate peripheral participation in the research laboratory. The VNOS-C (Lederman et al., 2002) was administered pre/post to the teachers. Evidence of more informed, developing, and more naive understandings of each of the tenets of NOS was collected and compared to.
Download or read book How to Teach Now written by William Powell and published by ASCD. This book was released on 2011 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, William Powell and Ochan Kusuma-Powell provide a practical map to navigate some of today's most complicated instructional challenges: How do you help all students succeed when every classroom is, in effect, a global classroom? And what does a successful education look like in a world that is growing smaller and flatter every day? Drawing on research and years of experience in international schools, the authors identify five critical keys to personalizing learning for students who have wildly different cultural, linguistic, and academic backgrounds: * Focus on your students as learners through systematic examination of their cultural and linguistic identities, learning styles and preferences, and readiness. * Focus on yourself as a teacher and investigate your own cultural biases, preferred teaching style and beliefs, and expectations. * Focus on your curriculum to identify transferable concepts that will be valuable and accessible to all students and further their global competence. * Focus on your assessments to ensure cultural sensitivity and improve the quality of the formative data you gather. * Focus on your collegial relationships so that you can effectively enlist the help of fellow educators with different experiences, backgrounds, skills, and perspectives. The way to teach now is to focus on your students both as individuals and as members of a multifaceted, interdependent community. Here, you'll learn how to design and deliver instruction that prepares students not just to meet standards but to live and work together in our complicated, 21st century world.
Download or read book Teacher Subject Identity in Professional Practice written by Clare Brooks and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-31 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Teacher Subject Identity in Professional Practice focuses on a key, but neglected, element of a teacher’s identity: that of their subject expertise. Studies of teachers’ professional practice have shown the importance of a teacher’s identity and the extent to which it can affect their resilience, commitment and ultimately their effectiveness. Drawing upon narrative research undertaken with a range of teachers over a period of 14 years, the book explores how subject expertise can play a significant role in teacher identity, acting as a professional compass guiding teachers at all levels of their professional practice. It reveals powerful individual stories of meaning-making which highlight the dynamic importance of teachers’ subject expertise The book’s metaphor of a professional compass goes to the heart of teacher professionalism, and provides a valuable mechanism to enable teachers to respond to challenges they face in their daily practice. It enables teachers to consider the moral dimensions of their practice, and can constitute a significant component in professional formation and identity. Throughout the book the importance of subject expertise for teachers’ professional practice is explored at a range of scales: from the classroom to broad education policy, and at different stages of a teacher’s career which offers readers a deeper understanding of the importance of subject expertise for teachers. Teacher Subject Identity in Professional Practice makes a significant contribution to an under-researched area. It identifies the role and significance of teachers’ subject expertise as a dimension of their teacher identity. The book is key reading for teacher educators, policy makers and researchers with an interest in teachers’ professional development and practice.
