{"title":"Reflection time and valuing science: Elementary teachers' science subject matter knowledge development during teaching experience","authors":"Ryan S. Nixon, Adam Bennion","doi":"10.1002/sce.21902","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21902","url":null,"abstract":"Although teachers have opportunities to learn about many things through teaching experience, we know little about how they develop science subject matter knowledge in this setting. With both limited opportunities to learn science subject matter knowledge before becoming teachers and minimal science professional development available while working as a teacher, it is important to understand the extent to which elementary teachers develop science subject matter knowledge in their regular classroom practice and the factors that influence that development. In this longitudinal, mixed methods study we collected both quantitative and qualitative data before and following their final field experience, which was their first opportunity to have significant teaching experience. Findings suggest two important factors for subject matter knowledge development: time for considering science subject matter and a learning setting that values science. In contrast, indicators of learner capacity (i.e., prior knowledge) and time teaching the topics were not associated with teacher subject matter knowledge development.","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142220158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Day Greenberg, Won Yung Kim, Sinead Brien, Angela Calabrese Barton, Micaela Balzer, Louise Archer
{"title":"Designing and leading justice‐centered informal STEM education: A framework for core equitable practices","authors":"Day Greenberg, Won Yung Kim, Sinead Brien, Angela Calabrese Barton, Micaela Balzer, Louise Archer","doi":"10.1002/sce.21903","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21903","url":null,"abstract":"We explore how experienced informal educators worked towards equitable and consequential opportunities for learning in informal STEM settings through pedagogical practice. Drawing from a justice‐centered social practice stance we argue that pedagogical practice that promotes social transformation towards more just futures must confront and respond to, in integrated fashion, how unequal power dynamics, connected to systemic, structural oppressions, impact individual and collective learning. We refer to this focus on the entanglements between justice and responsibility as the ethical and relational dimensions of teaching and learning. In a research‐practice partnership, we drew upon participatory ethnography to explore how practice partners operationalized these “big justice ideas” in their practice. Using two detailed vignettes of practice we illustrate five interconnected patterns of practice: Recognizing, authority sharing, shifting narratives, co‐designing, and embracing humanity. We illustrate how these practices, and their variations, took shape in‐the‐moment, and worked in transformational ways. Last we discuss how these practices are <jats:italic>consequentially directed towards shifting power</jats:italic>—who has the power to name and legitimize what and who matters in informal STEM learning (ISL), how, and why—and about how youths and educators alike engaged each other towards affecting their lives, social relations, and possibilities. Findings can help informal educators refine and expand their mental models of youth, what matters to them, how and why, and what this could mean for their futures.","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142220157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sara C. Porter, Michelle Phillips, Sarah Stallings, Ti'Era Worsley
{"title":"Exploring how museums can support science teacher leaders as boundary spanners","authors":"Sara C. Porter, Michelle Phillips, Sarah Stallings, Ti'Era Worsley","doi":"10.1002/sce.21906","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21906","url":null,"abstract":"Local implementation of science reform efforts in part relies on science teacher leaders (STLs) to improve science instruction in classrooms and beyond. The lack of science‐specific professional learning resources drives STLs to act as boundary spanners to locate resources outside their local context to fill that gap. Museums and other informal science education centers are examples of external entities that STLs might leverage to locate resources for local science education improvement. While we know how museums support pre‐ and in‐service science teachers, there is a gap in our understanding related to museum support for STLs. Here, we used case study research methods to analyze how a museum‐based professional learning programme supported STLs, as boundary spanners to access and adapt resources for local science education reform efforts. We found that each STL reported benefiting from shared resources from the museum, as well as from their peers in their working groups. We also found that STLs reported on different elements of the professional learning programme related to their area of influence (classroom or district) and the problem of practice their group worked on. We discuss how each of the named features of the museum‐based professional learning programme supported boundary spanning of STLs and end with implications and recommendations for the design of professional learning experiences to support their leadership work.","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"61 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142220161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Viewing science teacher learning and curriculum enactment through the lens of theory of practice architectures","authors":"Xavier Fazio, Stephen Kemmis, Jessica Zugic","doi":"10.1002/sce.21901","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21901","url":null,"abstract":"Science teachers struggle to implement and sustain new curricular ideas from professional development (PD) experiences. These PD opportunities are crucial for enacting real‐world changes to teaching practice and address pressing global challenges, such as the teaching and learning of socioscientific topics nested in school communities. Additionally, it is important to consider how school situative conditions are an important aspect in how science teachers learn, develop, and enact curricular practices in their classrooms. This paper is part of a special issue on <jats:italic>Teacher Learning and Practice within Organizational Contexts.</jats:italic> The purpose of this conceptual paper is to illustrate how researchers can frame research using the theory of practice architectures (TPA) as a lens to develop a dynamic socio‐material understanding of teacher learning within teachers' working environments and their local school communities. An ongoing multi‐year professional learning study with science teachers in an elementary school and secondary school was analyzed using TPA. Using a philosophical‐empirical approach, observations from PD sessions and collaborative meetings illustrated teachers' practices in the form of sayings, doings, and relatings and their changes over the duration of the observations with associated modifications in schools' practice architectures. Although specific school conditions, such as timetable restrictions and curriculum accountability, constrained teachers' practices they were still enabled to learn and develop their practices. Overall, TPA was found to be an insightful framework for theorizing changes in science teaching practices of teachers' saying, doings, and relatings at their school sites. Future research focused on PD within schools would benefit from using a TPA approach to theorizing science teacher learning and curriculum enactment practices.","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"182 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142220159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Contextual resources supporting the co‐evolution of teachers' collective inquiry and classroom practice after the grant ended","authors":"Soo‐Yean Shim, Jessica Thompson","doi":"10.1002/sce.21900","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21900","url":null,"abstract":"We explored how various contextual resources accumulated over multiple years operated together to facilitate a team of high school teachers' sustained and agentive learning after a 4‐year research–practice partnership (RPP) grant concluded. Specifically, we examined constellations of resources that promoted the co‐evolution of the teachers' collective inquiry in the professional learning community (PLC) and classroom instruction, focused on supporting students' scientific explanations. We qualitatively analyzed the video/audio recordings of the PLC members' interactions in eight 75‐min PLC meetings (11 h) and a full‐day professional development (8 h) and classroom teaching (34 lessons) over the period of 6 months. We found that the contextual resources accumulated from the historical 4‐year RPP—including a culture of collaborative inquiry, collegial relationships, structures for teacher collaboration, and expertise embedded in individuals as well as co‐developed tools and practices (<jats:italic>cultural, social, structural, and expertise resources</jats:italic>)—were important. These resources, in combination with emerging teacher leadership (<jats:italic>leadership resource</jats:italic>) and timely supports, such as school leadership and district‐based funding for sustaining structures for collaboration (<jats:italic>leadership and structural resources</jats:italic>), enabled the teachers to launch and drive their own collaborative inquiry and shift instruction after the conclusion of the grant. The harmonized contexts led the teachers to learn across the PLC and classrooms by engaging in co‐evolution mechanisms—setting goals based on classroom data, reasoning about instructional practices using various representations of teaching, and experimenting on a set of common practices across classrooms. This paper is part of the special issue on Teacher Learning and Organizational Contexts.","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142220160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Radu Bogdan Toma, Iraya Yánez-Pérez, Jesús Ángel Meneses-Villagrá
{"title":"Measuring Self-Efficacy Beliefs in Teaching Inquiry-Based Science and the Nature of Scientific Inquiry","authors":"Radu Bogdan Toma, Iraya Yánez-Pérez, Jesús Ángel Meneses-Villagrá","doi":"10.1007/s11191-024-00553-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-024-00553-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Inquiry-based science teaching (IBST) is a key goal of science education reforms worldwide. Recent research highlights the importance of infusing inquiry teaching with knowledge about the nature of scientific inquiry, and not just focusing on procedural skills to do inquiry. However, such an endeavour requires teachers to have high levels of self-efficacy. Given the lack of valid and reliable measurement instruments for Spanish-speaking teachers, the present study adapted and validated Aydeniz et al. <i>Science and Education</i>, <i>30</i>(1), 103–120, (2021) Inquiry-Based Science Teaching Efficacy Scale (IBSTES, <i>Science & Education</i>, <i>30</i>:103–120). Confirmatory factor analysis on data from 428 pre-service teachers in kindergarten and elementary school revealed a two-factor structure, which is consistent with the conceptual framework of IBST. The two factors measured self-efficacy beliefs regarding (1) helping students improve their understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry and (2) helping students develop procedural skills for conducting scientific inquiry. Both factors demonstrated very high reliability (> 0.90), as assessed by Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's omega. This latent structure was invariant across genders, suggesting that the instrument can be used with both male and female prospective teachers, allowing for gender comparisons. This study is the first of its kind to validate in Spanish a self-efficacy scale for IBST that specifically tackles the epistemological understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry. The Spanish IBSTES provides a valuable tool for researchers and practitioners to assess and support teacher self-efficacy, which is essential for the success of educational reforms.</p>","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142211075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Scott E. Grapin, Courtney Plumley, Eric Banilower, Alycia S. Mahon, Laura Craven, Kristen Malzahn, Joan Pasley, Abigail Schwenger, Alison Haas, Okhee Lee
{"title":"Development of a questionnaire on teachers' beliefs, preparedness, and instructional practices for teaching NGSS science with multilingual learners","authors":"Scott E. Grapin, Courtney Plumley, Eric Banilower, Alycia S. Mahon, Laura Craven, Kristen Malzahn, Joan Pasley, Abigail Schwenger, Alison Haas, Okhee Lee","doi":"10.1002/sce.21905","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21905","url":null,"abstract":"The limited availability of research instruments that reflect the vision of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) restricts the field's understanding of whether and how teachers are making instructional shifts called for by the standards. The need for such instruments is particularly urgent with teachers of multilingual learners (MLs), who are called on to make shifts in how they think about and enact instruction related to both science and language. The purpose of this study was to develop and gather validity evidence for a questionnaire that measures elementary teachers' beliefs, preparedness, and instructional practices for teaching NGSS science with MLs. We report on the development of the questionnaire over three phases that elicited multiple sources of validity evidence: (a) domain specification and expert review, (b) item writing and cognitive interviews, and (c) piloting and final item selection. Data included feedback from experts in science and language domains, cognitive interviews with 48 teachers, and a pilot with 310 teachers. Results indicated that the questionnaire differentiates among teachers with different levels of the underlying constructs and also that teachers' scores relate to their characteristics (e.g., familiarity with the NGSS). We highlight two implications for emerging research on NGSS‐based instrumentation: (a) the difficulty of communicating with teachers about science and language instructional shifts while teachers are still developing their understanding of such shifts and (b) the potential of emerging NGSS‐based instruments to inform professional development. We close with future directions for our research project specifically and the field of science education broadly.","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142220231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is the Effect of Educational Attainments on Trust in Scientists Underestimated?","authors":"Alena Auchynnikava, Nazim Habibov","doi":"10.1007/s11191-024-00551-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-024-00551-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This research aims to assess and quantify the impact of educational attainments on trust in scientists during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study utilizes instrumental variables (IV) and conventional ordinary least squares regression (OLS) approaches that are applied to micro-data from a multinational survey in 26 nations. The IV approach is used to address endogeneity that is caused by reverse causality, omitted variables, and measurement error. The results of IV models suggest that a unit increase in educational attainments leads to an increase in trust in scientists by a factor of 0.20 to 0.28. In comparison, the results of the conventional OLS suggest that a unit increase in educational attainments leads to an increase in trust in scientists by a factor of 0.09 to 0.16. The results suggest that ignoring endogeneity leads to a considerable underestimation of education’s effect on trust in scientists. At the same time, the results indicate that educational training is a key tool to promote science by increasing trust in scientists. Such a conclusion is especially important given that the results are based on the survey conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, a period characterized by unprecedented public health and economic crises, political backslash, and an “infodemic” of disinformation and misinformation.</p>","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"72 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141943457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}