Science & Education最新文献

Reform-oriented instruction is advocated in secondary science, encouraging students to engage with the experimental and epistemic practices of science. It is challenging for teachers though, especially for out-of-field teachers. This study focuses on biology and chemistry teachers who are called to teach middle-school physics. These teachers face not only a knowledge gap, but also an epistemic gap arising from the distinct epistemic practices that are applied in the different school-subjects to construct scientific knowledge. We put forward a professional development (PD) approach for out-of-field teachers that capitalizes on the strengths and resources they bring from their original field of expertise, and describe design guidelines for a PD program designed to enable them to carry out inquiry experiences in physics with their students. Given our PD approach, we argue that successful classroom implementation should be framed differently for out-of-field teachers. Rather than expecting them to strictly implement the PD activities and thus completely change their familiar practice, successful implementation would entail modifications that integrate new practices with familiar ones. Using the boundary-crossing framework, we analyze three illustrative case studies in which teachers report on classroom implementation. We show how teachers remained rooted in their former practice - biology and chemistry instruction - and at the same time were inspired to adopt physics-oriented practices, for example integrating mechanistic reasoning and deductive approaches. Illustrating the different boundary crossing mechanisms the teachers applied and the boundary objects that mediated this process sheds light on new productive avenues for the PD of out-of-field science teachers.

Learning science in the context of local phenomena and problems can be powerful for young people. Yet, designing place-based instructional materials is resource intensive, limiting broad access. This study investigates how instructional materials designed for widespread use can support teacher localization through phenomenon adaptation, whereby teachers add or swap phenomena relevant to students' interests, identities, and community. Using design-based research, we developed two upper elementary storyline units and professional learning to support teachers' pedagogical design capacity for phenomenon adaptation. We studied 12 teachers' adaptations during their first implementation of the units by analyzing teachers' interviews, reflections, and professional learning discussions. Findings from both units showed that all teachers added phenomena, with common adaptations including adding student-generated phenomena. In the unit anchored around one phenomenon, teachers extended exploration of existing phenomena, citing student interest and cross-curricular connections as rationale. In the unit motivated by multiple phenomena, teachers added new phenomena to support knowledge building and connect to students' lived experiences. Embedded curricular resources offered low-floor entry points for teachers new to the unit. Supplementary resources showed potential as high-ceiling options for more experienced teachers. Phenomenon adaptation requires teachers to coordinate their knowledge of curriculum, students, and community resources to incorporate meaningful phenomena while maintaining coherence. Challenges included time constraints, high quality of existing materials, limited knowledge of local phenomena, and limited confidence. Implications for curriculum and professional learning are discussed, highlighting the potential to turn curricula designed for widespread use into locally-relevant learning experiences.

This paper theorizes transformative agency and its potential to promote justice-oriented science teacher education. We argue that science education often acts as a disimagination machine, constraining possibilities for envisioning and enacting transformative change. To contest this reality, we draw on critical perspectives in science education, specifically Paulo Freire's and Simone Weil's philosophies to theorize transformative agency as encompassing three dimensions: a) reading the world to identify injustices, b) imagining untested feasibilities, and c) writing the world anew. In doing so, we act upon the belief that inherited practices of science education that negate collective joy must be challenged. We expand current conceptualizations of transformative agency by proposing critical imagination as one of its core components, enabling the envisioning of possibilities for change. We propose three pedagogical approaches for cultivating critical imagination: a) facilitating practices that move beyond the self to recognize multiple human and nonhuman others; b) adopting a planet-centred orientation to education transcending human-centered approaches; and c) troubling dominant spatial and temporal scales of thinking. We argue for the need to develop liberatory pedagogies that bring critical scientific questions to justice issues while nurturing critical imagination. This entails conceiving agency as more than responsive classroom practices but rather as achieving justice-oriented commitments, agendas and visions that center the world and its necessities.

This longitudinal phenomenological case study examines a science outreach program called iBEARS from undergraduate mentors' perceptions of their expectation for success, value in the experience, and knowledge gained. Undergraduates (n = 24) mentored K-12 classrooms through biology research projects, participated in pre- and post-questionnaires, and follow-up interviews 4 years later (n = 4). We found that prementoring themes focused on expectancy for successful and enjoyable outreach experiences and gaining skills for future careers. Postmentoring, undergraduates emphasized enjoying the experience and reinforced research capabilities. Follow-up interviews revisited mentoring skills' utility for current/future careers. Additionally, they expressed mentoring and providing value to society as part of their identities. Perceptions of their own learning as a result of teaching others also became a valued aspect of the experience. Strong perspectives of value and personal importance may have overshadowed cost. Future research could utilize cost–benefit analysis to explore these constructs in combination.

To cultivate the capability of making informed decisions on socioscientific issues, ideally, we hope students would engage in discerning and evaluating justifications for and against different positions while constructing well-structured, persuasive arguments. When argumentations do not develop ideally, it is important to understand the constraints presented. This study explores a case where socioscientific argumentation (SSA) in a fifth-grade classroom showed unbalanced structural and content quality. The students’ oral arguments and post-discussion written arguments both demonstrated quality structure in terms of justification use, multiple perspective-taking, and rebuttals, and low accuracy level of knowledge-based justifications. Tracing the development of the SSA, we identified a few teaching and learning features that shaped this discourse pattern, including an overemphasis on structure, side-taking setting, context knowledge provided in brief points, and the students’ lack of content and context knowledge. Implications for practice and future research were discussed in reflection.

Attention to emotion could offer insight into supporting the science-informed civic participation of young people. We drew on sociocultural views of emotion, civic participation, and science literacies to examine digital civic media about climate change produced by youth during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, investigating intersections of emotional, civic, and scientific practices of making meaning. Using mixed-methods, we analyzed 82 media pieces created by youth across the US. With an analytic framework informed by prior research and adapted to meet our data, we found two common patterns that emerged in over half of the data set: (1) fear and/or despair around the impacts of climate change and (2) anger over inaction around mitigating climate change. Additionally, we found that the fear/despair pattern was associated with youth engagement in civic empathy and the anger pattern was associated with youth practices of critique. We also identified less common and less distinct patterns, including positive emotion around actions, guilt around causes, and generalized worry across youth civic authors. We use these findings to suggest that emotion is entangled in youth civic participation around climate change, and that such participation can be afforded and constrained by emotion. We offer implications for teaching and use our findings to call attention to the need for science education that attends to the emotional nature of youth social practices within and beyond science-related civic issues.

Theorizing and exploring teacher learning contexts is critical to understanding reform-based instructional changes. Research on professional learning, organizational contexts, and science reform has grown over the years, particularly since the unveiling of the Framework for K-12 Science Education in the United States. In this article, the authors present the case of Mr. Gray—a veteran middle school science teacher—to explore factors that influence the implementation of professional learning tools and resources. Using the theoretical constructs of habitus, structure, and agency, the study offers insight into the acquisition of reform-aligned teaching practices and illuminates why it is challenging to change science pedagogy. While professional learning was a supportive structure, especially for availing new schemas and supporting agency, this paper highlights the importance of considering agency-related constraints beyond professional learning. Students' ways of participation, assessments, and a teacher's existing habitus were found to be influential structures that constrained Mr. Gray's agency toward reform. The authors argue that structures have differential power in influencing change and that structures may work together in unpredictable ways, across different teaching contexts, to limit or facilitate change of teaching habitus. The interplay of habitus, structure, and agency explored in this study has implications for professional learning design and teacher education programs.