Journal of Research in Science Teaching最新文献

We propose a conceptual framework for STEM education that is centered around justice for minoritized groups. Justice-centered STEM education engages all students in multiple STEM subjects, including data science and computer science, to explain and design solutions to societal challenges disproportionately impacting minoritized groups. We articulate the affordances of justice-centered STEM education for one minoritized student group that has been traditionally denied meaningful STEM learning: multilingual learners (MLs). Justice-centered STEM education with MLs leverages the assets they bring to STEM learning, including their transnational experiences and knowledge as well as their rich repertoire of meaning-making resources. In this position paper, we propose our conceptual framework to chart a new research agenda on justice-centered STEM education to address societal challenges with all students, especially MLs. Our conceptual framework incorporates four interrelated components by leveraging the convergence of multiple STEM disciplines to promote justice-centered STEM education with MLs: (a) societal challenges in science education, (b) justice-centered data science education, (c) justice-centered computer science education, and (d) justice-centered engineering education. The article illustrates our conceptual framework using the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has presented an unprecedented societal challenge but also an unprecedented opportunity to cultivate MLs' assets toward promoting justice in STEM education. Finally, we describe how our conceptual framework establishes the foundation for a new research agenda that addresses increasingly complex, prevalent, and intractable societal challenges disproportionately impacting minoritized groups. We also consider broader issues pertinent to our conceptual framework, including the social and emotional impacts of societal challenges; the growth of science denial and misinformation; and factors associated with politics, ideology, and religion. Justice-centered STEM education contributes to solving societal challenges that K-12 students currently face while preparing them to shape a more just society.

This article looks at how a Black informal STEM educator supported two Black boys' learning opportunities in coding, specifically investigating how the establishment of politicized trust between the informal STEM educator and youth supported their development of critical agency. Using the dual lenses of socio-spatial relationality and politicized trust, we explore how the socio-spatial relationality of place, materials, and educator–youth interactions allowed for the shifting of power dynamics that were foundational to supporting youth in navigating a coding process that centered who they were and their interests, in the moment. We employ participatory design research aimed at reducing power dynamics by remediating who has power within a setting, grounded in dismantling and disrupting traditional power hierarchies through actively involving the community in the design process. We present two case studies that map the learning trajectories of Donovan and Jabria, two middle-school aged Black boys. Their learning trajectories include the following phases: tensions related to coding with Scratch, pivotal interaction with the educator, and development of critical agency. We unpack how the socially produced space supported Donovan, Jabria, and Worsley to critically read the world of coding, rewrite coding through political action, and establish politicized trust. Throughout this process, we see through Donovan and Jabria's interactions they were constantly editing and producing their interactions with coding which led to newly created learning opportunities by developing their critical agency in coding. Four main points were identified: continuous access to materials, sustained engagement to reimagine possibilities, understanding that all disengagement is not equal, and being explicit in communicating expectations followed by concrete action. Across these points, the salience of relational politicized trust between educator and youth was a cross cutting thread.

Knowledge of science content and the ability to translate knowledge into effective teaching is known as teachers' content knowledge for teaching (CKT). Teachers with developed CKT are able to more effectively determine instructional and assessment activities that will deepen K-12 students' scientific literacy. However, preservice teachers (PSTs) can have limited opportunities to develop CKT, and little is known about how to support PST CKT development in elementary science teacher preparation. In our work, we developed instructional materials (i.e., “CKT Packets”) intended to support teacher educators (TEs) in developing elementary PSTs' CKT for one content area—matter and its interactions. We facilitated a professional learning community for TEs to support their learning how to implement the materials in their courses. We report on results from a mixed-methods study using a quasi-experimental cohort control design with a pretest and posttest to understand differences in PSTs' CKT (N = 250) in eight TEs' science classrooms. Nesting PSTs within their TEs' courses, and controlling for PSTs' prior CKT, engagement time on the assessments, prior coursework, and TE time-invariant effects, we found preliminary evidence that PSTs achieved greater CKT when TEs implemented more CKT Packets. Salient factors that we hypothesize influenced TEs' productive uses of CKT Packets included disruptions to courses/contexts, TEs' sources of motivation for implementing Packets, TEs' entry points for the alignment of curricular materials with existing topics and pedagogical course emphases, TEs' approaches for first-time use of curricular materials, and TEs' experiences with the instructional routines of the Packets. We bound our interpretation of results within limitations (e.g., small sample size, quasi-experimental design) and suggest avenues for new research. Throughout this article, we include implications for TEs, PSTs, educative curricula developers, and researchers working to improve science teaching and learning for students.

Explicitly attending to justice in science teaching and learning is long overdue. Here, we examined the professional teacher identity development of 13 science teachers as they collaborated in networked professional learning communities (PLCs) to implement and revise a culture-setting unit focused on the science of COVID and engaging in collaborative inquiry cycles to identify and refine justice-centered ambitious science teaching (JuST) practices in classrooms. These JuST practices are conceptualized as a synthesis of justice-centered pedagogies and ambitious science teaching. To accomplish our research aims, we drew on qualitative methods, where we relied on transcribed video recordings of 21 PLC meetings and three transcribed end-of-year focus group interviews of two PLCs (i.e., 13 secondary science teachers, mostly white) across a year-long period. As a result of our analyses, we identified how professional learning arranged through PLCs, culture-setting units, and collaborative inquiries supported professional JuST identity development by, among other affordances, providing space for the critical and emotional work of learning to discuss race, affording teachers strategies for getting to know their students and the assets they bring to classrooms, and recognition and positioning of teachers as professionals capable of identifying or developing, refining, and contributing to knowledge about JuST science teaching and learning. Challenges identified included, among others, identifying how the culture-setting units could be effectively integrated into existing curriculum maps and the uneven implementation support from administrators. In the end, what is revealed helps better conceptualize how engaging teachers in PLCs around tasks like curriculum implementation and refinement or collaborative inquires support professional JuST identity development and how such experiences can be more carefully negotiated.

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies generate increasingly sophisticated non-human cognition; however, foundational learning theories only contemplate human cognition, and current research conceptualizes AI as a pedagogical tool. We argue that the incipient abilities of AI for mutual engagement with people could allow AI to participate as a legitimate member in social constructivist learning environments and suggest some potential structures and activities to explore AI's capabilities for full participation.

Donovan, BM, Weindling, M, Salazar, B, Duncan, A, Stuhlsatz, M, Keck, P. Genomics literacy matters: Supporting the development of genomics literacy through genetics education could reduce the prevalence of genetic essentialism. J Res Sci Teach. 2021; 58: 520–550. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21670

We present a systematic review of 29 empirical studies on disability and fieldwork in natural science, postsecondary educational settings. Undergraduate students with disabilities are underrepresented in STEM, and disciplines requiring major field components are some of the least diverse, at least in part because fieldwork has been traditionally viewed as hard, physical, and masculine. Disability Studies in Education (DSE) frames the research questions, inclusion criteria and results. Studies were coded by disability model used, barriers and strategies to accessibility in field science, and meaningful involvement of persons with disabilities in research on fieldwork education. Although most studies asserted a view of disability as a social, cultural, and political phenomenon, some deficit language and interpretations persisted. Few studies included author positionality, and even fewer disclosed author disability status. The main instructional recommendations emphasize flexibility and adaptability, presuming student competence and making small-scale changes consistently over time. Multiple studies emphasize the need for proactive planning, including robust contingency plans, and explaining how these plans can negate the need for complex modification. Twenty-four additional non-empirical studies are identified as resources for discipline-specific guides and checklists for inclusive fieldwork. We conclude that important steps are being taken to investigate and critique barriers to fieldwork participation for students with disabilities, but there is still much work to be done in addressing systemic barriers beyond the control of individual instructors.

Science education policies and standards have called for educators to teach students about the Nature of Science (NOS) and engage them in Culturally Relevant Science Teaching (CRST), which requires critical shifts away from traditional science teaching. As such, teachers are being asked to possess or take up conceptions of science that challenge the status quo. Are teachers making these shifts? Do they conceive of science in these anti-traditional ways? To explore this matter, I developed a conceptual framework around five key science topics: (1) Revision/Static; (2) Scientific Method; (3) Objective/Subjective; (4) Society and Culture; and (5) Critical Space, then surfaced traditional and anti-traditional conceptions regarding each topic drawn from science standards and prior literature. I operationalized this framework to critically analyze 20 secondary science teachers' discourse to determine whether they aligned with a traditional science ideology, an anti-traditional ideology, or somewhere in the middle (conflicting ideology). I found that for the most part participants demonstrated alignment with the anti-traditional conception when it came to the first two topics, however, when it came to the latter three topics, tensions arose and there was noticeably less consensus. As participants discussed concepts related to the latter topics, which I argue are more closely related to society, culture, and humanness, they demonstrated strikingly greater alignment with the traditional conceptions. These findings have implications for science teachers' capacity to teach science with NOS and CRST in mind. Findings also highlight key areas of consideration for teacher educators, curriculum developers, and policymakers when guiding teachers on the journey to attend to NOS and CRST.

Teacher professional development (PD) is essential to continuously improve teaching skills, to adapt to diverse student needs, and to promote equity and inclusion. Only a few studies to date have synthesized how PD programs improve teachers' content knowledge and instructional quality, as well as students' academic performance. In this meta-analysis, we aim to evaluate the impact of PD programs on science teachers and their students. We calculate a total of 514 effect sizes using Hedges' g from 66 studies published between 2010 and 2022. The bias-corrected standardized mean difference (Hedges' g) is within-subject and between-subjects design. The overall effect size is 0.772, indicating a substantial effect size on PD effectiveness (s.e. = 0.063, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.647, 0.897]). We observe considerable heterogeneity of effect sizes, moderated by PD dosage hours, duration, and active teaching. The findings indicate that relatively short PD periods—less than 48 h—and durations under 3 months may yield the most effective science PD for educators. As an alternative, slightly longer engagement exceeding 72 h, coupled with sustained support over 6 months, has proven to be the second most effective option for PD. Furthermore, an active learning approach within PD programs (ḡ = 0.794, s.e. = 0.066, 95% CI [0.656, 0.926]) has emerged as a pivotal influence on PD effectiveness. This study provides insights into education research and policy to understand PD research and to ensure how PD can be designed and implemented to improve student performance.

Even though marginalized women are earning more doctoral degrees in chemistry than ever before, the proportion of women who complete chemistry doctorates does not reflect national population trends. Previous research has explored the experiences of marginalized women seeking chemistry doctorate degrees. These studies highlight the issues that marginalized women face but do not explain why they face them or the systemic issues that underpin these experiences. This study captures the firsthand experiences of marginalized domestic and international women (Black, Hispanic/Latina, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Indigenous) pursuing graduate degrees in chemistry. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 29 participants to understand how their social identities might impact the development of their science identities. Intersectionality and the Science Identity Model informed both the interview guide and the interpretation of our data. Deductive and inductive coding, constant comparative analysis, and thematic analysis were used to examine the interplay between participants' identities and experiences. We found that recognition had a critical impact on women's science identities. Results show that participants received more positive recognition than negative from their academic community. The participants who received mostly positive recognition developed research, teaching, and altruistic science identities. Most of the positive recognition was associated with research accomplishments, which is not surprising since doctoral programs in chemistry focus primarily on research training. Conversely, the participants who received mostly negative forms of recognition developed disrupted science identities. These women described being tokenized, taken advantage of, and having their accomplishments dismissed because of their gender, race, and ethnicity. Additionally, sexist and racist comments surrounding appearance, speech, and demeanor contributed to a diminished sense of being taken seriously and, consequently, feeling less like a scientist.