Search

This study investigates the identity development of teacher leaders in an, urban school district who participated in a Noyce Master Teaching Fellow, program. We identify tensions that arose from involvement in this, external community of practice (CoP) and changes in teacher leader, meanings and practices in their school CoPs. Qualitative key findings, indicate that as boundary crossers, (1) teacher leader activities surfaced, tensions between CoPs, promoting boundary competence, and (2), participation in an external CoP reshaped their identities, especially mentors. Implications include recognizing that external CoPs can support, learning mechanisms for addressing educational issues, for example, teacher retention.

Engaging preservice teachers in the analysis of videos of teaching has become a widely-used and highly-regarded approach within teacher preparation. This approach has become even more pronounced in the wake of COVID-19. Despite the myriad ways that video can support teacher preparation, uncertainties remain regarding how to design and facilitate productive video tasks. This paper reviews existing frameworks to guide the use of video tasks. It then introduces and describes the Framework for Analyzing Video in Science Teacher Education (FAVSTE) to highlight important decision points regarding the implementation of video tasks for teacher educators. Further this paper discusses how the FAVSTE connects to and expands on existing frameworks. Finally, the paper provides two examples to illustrate its use so that it might support teacher educators in maximizing the effectiveness of video analysis/reflection tasks.

Video analysis of teaching episodes is a widely-used approach in science teacher education. While numerous scholarly articles have been written on the topic, there are still many unanswered questions about the most effective strategies for integrating this approach into science teacher education. The current article adds to this area of inquiry by detailing the use of video analysis and reflection across a three-course sequence in an MAT program in secondary STEM education. The same instructor taught all three courses, and this instructor presents the affordances and constraints of the use of video analysis integrated with the professional noticing framework. A pair of researchers who collected data during the year-long implementation of this integrated approach share the outcomes from their perspective. Using ideas associated with distributed cognition from Hutchins's "Cognition in the Wild," the instructor and researchers show that most of the shortcomings with this integrated approach were a result of not effectively distributing knowledge across the different components of this system--including both humans and instruments. The authors specify how those shortcomings could be addressed by others seeking to replicate aspects of this integrated approach. They also show that, despite the missteps in helping the MAT candidates learn how to use video and the professional noticing framework to improve their pedagogy, the candidates did show evidence of achieving the ultimate goal of this effort: knowing how to analyze and articulate their own and others' teaching practices.

The central pedagogical principle on which the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS) are built is that of three-dimensional learning. This principle posits that it is through meaningful integration of the disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), science and engineering practices (SEPs), and crosscutting concepts (CCCs) that students will attain an understanding of both the knowledge and processes of science. The purpose of this article is to bring the value of CCCs to the foreground and to provide suggestions and resources for purposefully integrating them into curricula and instruction. As such, this article will supplement previous entries in this journal (Duschl 2012; Metz 2013; Talanquer 2019) that have specifically addressed CCCs and focused more on what they generally represent and how, in a broad sense, they can be utilized by teachers. Science Scope also has included several articles (Fick, Arias, and Baek 2017; German 2017; Mohl et al. 2017; Plonczak and Zwirn 2015) that support teachers in employing the CCCs. To augment these previous works, for each CCC, this article offers: (1) specific facets of the CCCs that teachers should consider explicitly addressing; (2) resources that support use of the CCCs, and (3) sample activities that show the CCCs in action.

The importance of how classroom discourse can be used to support science learning has gained national attention with respect to both science teaching and research across K12 and higher education. In this review article, we examine a commonly referenced set of nine frameworks for use in "science" classrooms. Specifically, we examine the ways in which various frameworks emphasize the structure (i.e., "form") or practical use (i.e., "function") of language across classroom settings, and the impact of such an emphasis on the facilitation and analysis of science classroom discourse. The findings from this review should help researchers investigate and educators facilitate classroom discourse in ways that ensure that all students can participate in and demonstrate their scientific understanding.

ABSTRACT This qualitative case study delved into students’ understanding and positioning while they participated in solving an authentic, conceptually‐based problem in a high‐school chemistry class. Verbal and nonverbal cues, particularly gestures, offered broader awareness of students’ engagement in sensemaking during the learning experience. The chemistry classroom emerged as a dynamic space where intricate scientific thinking unfolded during this experience, and our embodied, multimodal analysis focused on unraveling this complexity. Our analysis determined the ways that various features of the contextual configuration—the intersection of different semiotic fields in the social setting—affected student thinking and participation. For example, the lack of specific reference to semiotic resources and the lack of attention to a key gesture influenced the way ideas evolved in the solution generation phase. The analysis also revealed the teacher's impact on the contextual configuration at critical junctures, including her influence on the use of semiotic resources and on student positioning. Finally, the embodied and multimodal analysis provided insights into the affordances and constraints of the activity structure and modes of communication on student's involvement in scientific practices. These insights highlighted the importance of educators recognizing diverse forms of student expression, including gestures, as essential for nurturing scientific sensemaking and supporting students in utilizing different modalities productively. Our approach can assist researchers in holistically investigating pedagogical strategies that can facilitate reform‐based science teaching. It can also assist teachers in fostering effective communication—both verbal and non‐verbal, while simultaneously guiding positioning within and between student groups, establishing an environment conducive to equitable sensemaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The program team operating an NSF Noyce Master Teacher program has been building a conceptual framework for developing teacher leaders. The program has focused its efforts on a group of 16 chemistry and physics teachers in Southeast high-needs schools. The conceptual framework is based on the view that teacher leaders are those individuals who retain a classroom presence, while simultaneously innovating practice and empowering others. A core principle of the framework is that embodying these attributes requires an ability to see oneself and the teaching practice in a way that goes beyond the expertise associated with content and pedagogical knowledge. Evidence drawn from years three and four of the NSF Noyce Master Teacher program are presented to demonstrate the participating teachers' understanding of the framework's components. These data also indicate the potential of the teachers to use the framework's principles to engage in leadership activity. Characterizing such understanding and the changes in it are foundational to determining the way such a framework influences teachers' approaches to leadership. This paper has implications for the growing number of teacher leader initiatives across the United States, and for the question of whether science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teacher leadership should be considered separately from a "general notion" of teacher leadership.

For a variety of reasons, understanding oxidation-reduction (redox) reactions can be challenging for introductory chemistry students. To provide an experiential foundation for students to learn redox concepts, we developed a laboratory experiment that frames redox reactions as a simulated murder mystery. In this experiment, permanganate, which serves as the oxidizing agent, reacts with each of the four monomer units of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which serve as the reducing agents. The reactions are designed to produce dissimilar manganese oxidation states, and hence dissimilar solution colors. For practical reasons, the four monomer units of DNA are used as mimics of four polymeric DNAs from four murder suspects. The color obtained from the redox reaction using "DNA" from the murder weapon is compared to that from the four suspects to identify the perpetrator. The experiment can contribute to the students' emergent understanding of basic redox concepts, of the variable nature of transition metal oxidation states, and of the concept that the DNA monomers are distinct chemicals with distinct reactivities (i.e., reducing potentials in this experiment). Alternative strategies for framing the experiment, as well as some of its limitations, are discussed. The contributions of first-year undergraduate researchers to this experiment are also described.

This paper describes a professional development model for developing science teacher leaders that has evolved and been refined through working with 16 high school chemistry and physics teachers in high-needs schools over the past 3 years. The theoretical framework draws upon Goodwin's notion of professional vision and Dempsey's four metaphors to inform an understanding of professional identity consistent with innovation and empowerment in (a) the classroom setting with students and (b) with teachers in collegial environments. Thus, leadership practices and purposes are discussed at two distinct levels and contexts, which interact reflexively. Sociolinguistic discourse analysis of multiple data sources enabled us to identify the professional development features that promoted or hindered the teachers' growth toward a leadership perspective and disposition. Implications for science teacher renewal and retention as well as limitations of the study and proposed leadership model are also shared and discussed.

This paper presents important findings that were observed as interconnected key elements of high-quality co-teaching of a physics course for pre-service science teachers while the collaborating faculty experienced a pedagogical convergence. This pedagogical convergence is akin to the conceptual convergence that Roschelle (1992) has described as being a central mechanism in conceptual change learning. Four elements of that pedagogical convergence are identified and discussed: two found within Roschelle's framework and two recognized by the faculty members through their reflection on the course. This pedagogical convergence had a significant positive influence on the design and, more importantly, the implementation of the co-taught physics course, resulting in a productive and impactful collaboration between the two faculty members. The paper includes perspectives from both faculty members on each element of the pedagogical convergence and students as well as on the teaching context and critical aspects of practice. The ideas in the paper should provide college faculty members meaningful directions as to how co-teaching could be implemented across a range of science disciplines and the framework can serve as a foundation for creating a co-taught college science course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new lens for analyzing written reflections on the teaching experiences of pre-service [science] teachers. The lens, which borrows heavily from Activity Theory, allows science education researchers and teacher educators to identify tensions, disturbances, conflicts, and contradictions within teachers' written reflections as a means to help the participants situate their successes and challenges within the activity systems in which they operate. This paper describes the process through which the lens was crafted, defines the key constructs comprising the lens, applies the lens to the analysis of two purposefully selected reflection documents, and then considers the affordances of the lens. It also discusses how the insights gained from this lens have lead to new ways of facilitating reflection in pre-service science teachers, including the use of Kenneth Snelson's tensegrity sculptures as a metaphor for the goal of reflection. Finally, it connects the tensions identified in the individual reflections of two pre-service science teachers to broader issues being addressed in science education.

A guided inquiry lesson intended to support the linguistic and conceptual development of English language learners (ELLs) in a small, cotaught, high-needs secondary setting is presented. Collaborative groupings based on language and content ability coupled with an emphasis on student-student discourse and a hands-on investigation appeared to contribute to the positive outcomes that were observed on a written assessment. The phenomenon of code switching, where students spoke in their native tongue at times of apparent high cognitive demand, was observed. Implications of the approach used in this lesson for teaching chemistry in culturally diverse settings are discussed.

National initiatives to expand the aggregate science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce reflect America's goals to increase global competitiveness. However, the aggregation of STEM stakeholders may elicit a "diffusion of responsibility" because individuals assume others are already acting. Here, we perform a longitudinal case study of U.S. public school chemistry teachers to illustrate a diffusion of responsibility within the STEM community regarding who is responsible for the teacher workforce. Utilizing the 1987-2007 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) data, we determine how chemistry teacher demographics compare to other disciplines. Our results suggest that the aggregate success of STEM education initiatives may mask the need for discipline-specific reform. We describe reforms in the context of boundary objects and discuss implications for policy decisions as "boundary crossings."

In the past three decades, researchers have noted the limitations of a problem-solving approach that overemphasizes algorithms and quantitation and neglects student misconceptions and an otherwise qualitative, conceptual understanding of chemical phenomena. Since then, studies and lessons designed to improve student understanding of chemistry has overwhelmingly targeted introductory level, high school and first-year college students. In this article, we present a model-based learning cycle approach with upper-level undergraduate and beginning graduate students that investigated their ability to model the adiabatic and isothermal compression/expansion of a gas in a syringe. We were interested to observe, given the extent of their previous chemistry coursework, how students struggled to connect macroscopic observations with particulate representations. Analysis of laboratory reports, reflective journal entries, and classroom discourse transcripts indicate the learning experience was efficacious in uncovering and addressing student conceptual challenges with using models appropriately to describe gas behaviour under the experimental conditions for this investigation.

In this paper, we argue for a more "systematic" approach for studying the relationship between classroom practices and scientific practices--an approach that will likely better support the systemic reforms being promoted in the Next Generation Science Standards in the USA and similar efforts in other countries. One component of that approach is looking at how the nature of the "activity structure" may influence the relative alignment between classroom and scientific practices. To that end, we build on previously published research related to the practices utilized by five high-school chemistry teachers as they enacted problem-solving activities in which students were likely to generate proposals that were not aligned with normative scientific understandings. In that prior work, our analysis had emphasized micro-level features of the talk interactions and how they related to the way students' ideas were explored; in the current paper, the analysis zooms out to consider the macro-level nature of the enactments associated with the activity structure of each lesson examined. Our data show that there were two general patterns to the activity structure across the 14 lessons scrutinized, and that each pattern had associated with it a constellation of features that impinged on the way the problem space was navigated. A key finding is that both activity structures (the expansive and the open) had features that aligned with scientific practices espoused in the Next Generation Science Standards--and both had features that were not aligned with those practices. We discuss the nature of these two structures, evidence of the relationship of each structure to key features of how the lessons unfolded, and the implications of these findings for both future research and the training of teachers.

Reaction kinetics is an axiomatic topic in chemistry that is often addressed as early as the high school course and serves as the foundation for more sophisticated conversations in college-level organic, physical, and biological chemistry courses. Despite the fundamental nature of reaction kinetics, students can struggle with transforming their corpuscular reaction concepts into mathematical rate models. Here, we describe an approach to teaching rate laws at the introductory college level that draws upon model-based reasoning as the pedagogical underpinning. Collision theory, graphical analysis of kinetics plots, and transformations between concentration/time and rate/concentration representations are used to facilitate the growth in understanding about rate laws and reaction mechanisms. The learning outcome expected by the conclusion of the instructional sequence is the ability to collect and analyze kinetic data to determine reaction orders and rate laws using mathematical concepts familiar to students just beginning a course sequence in calculus. While the ideas that are discussed in this paper focus on kinetics principles as they might be presented in undergraduate general chemistry courses, we believe they would also prove useful at the advanced high school level.

In "Penetrating a Wall of Introspection: A Critical Attrition Analysis," Johannsen, Rump, and Linder strive to give a voice to those whose thoughts might otherwise be unheard: students representing the casualties in the conflict surrounding the practices of STEM education, specifically those in the field of physics. Beyond giving those students a voice, they try to filter out and amplify a message that the seven individuals themselves may not have recognized: that the cause of their struggles in their physics programs might not be something innate ("causa materialis" in the authors' framework), but might be found outside the individuals ("causa efficiens" in the authors' framework). In our response, we attempt to extend the conversation regarding the issues these authors have raised by (1) considering the conditions within the physics community that might exacerbate this situation and (2) exploring from a different perspective the nature of the discourses that will either perpetuate or ameliorate such circumstances. In so doing we seek to provide a more holistic description of the features of the educational system that help to construct the wall of introspection and that might, in turn, be redressed in order to help tear it down--and positively impact attrition rates.

Vygotsky described the distinction between the "appearance and essence of things" as generating the need for science; he also discussed how this difference is responsible for the fundamental challenge faced by science teachers, as it often requires them to have to build bridges between students' ideas and those of science. Those bridges are often constructed in the conversation around activities designed to help students explore scientific (and in the current context, chemical) phenomena. This article provides suggestions about how a teacher might facilitate such conversations by overviewing two frameworks, Stein and colleagues' practices for orchestrating productive disciplinary discussions and Holton's notion of thematic origins of scientific thought, and considering how those two frameworks might be integrated. To make the ideas being advocated more concrete, they are applied to an actual lesson that occurred in an introductory high school chemistry class. Through this example, the authors attempt to make clear the potential of this approach for effectively supporting students in gaining deeper awareness of their own conceptions, as well as of different ways of coming to know (i.e., different epistemologies) in science. This article encourages readers to engage in a dialogue about how to use these principles in their particular contexts.

Five high-school chemistry teachers were asked to enact a lesson in which they posed a problem for which students were likely to generate solutions based on reasoning that was not aligned with accepted principles of chemistry. Four teachers selected a problem related to the stoichiometry of a reaction; the fifth chose a problem associated with periodic trends. The goal of the research was to understand the kinds of strategies used by these teachers to support students' progress towards more sophisticated conceptualizations of the phenomena being explored. Transcripts of teacher interviews and the discourse contained within the videotapes of the lessons were analyzed to identify similarities and differences in the strategies teachers employed. The data suggest that all of the teachers operated off a common lesson schema that caused them to implement certain pedagogical practices--especially certain discourse moves. This "traditional cognitive conflict" schema from which the teachers' discursive practices seemed to be derived reduced the opportunities for them to gain full access into their students' thinking related to the principles underlying the problems posed. Moreover, it eliminated possible pathways the teachers could have laid down between the conceptions of students and those of chemists. For researchers this study suggests the need to further explore the prevalence of such practices and what prompts their utilization; for teachers this study shows the influence their choice of certain discourse moves can have on a lesson's conceptual trajectory. (Contains 3 tables and 4 notes.)

Inquiry has been advocated as an effective pedagogical strategy for promoting deep conceptual understanding and more sophisticated scientific thinking by numerous bodies associated with chemistry (and science) education. To allow inquiry to achieve these goals, the teacher must manage the amount of cognitive load experienced by students while they engage in inquiry activities. This article can help teachers address that challenge by discussing the notion of framing (a form of scaffolding) and by presenting a model designed to help teachers more effectively frame inquiry activities. Using the metaphor of a picture frame, the model introduces five components of the framing process that can be employed by teachers as guidelines for developing the background information they will share with students prior to an inquiry activity. Those components are context, goals, actions, tools, and interactions. Providing students with such a carefully developed background can better orient them to the purpose of the inquiry activity, put boundaries on the problem space they will be exploring, and reduce the cognitive load as they engage in the activity, all of which should improve the inquiry learning experience. (Contains 1 figure.)

A number of concerns have been raised by researchers regarding the use of models in science classrooms. Those concerns have largely been raised in studies involving interviews with students and teachers. In this article, I address issues that surfaced through my examination of classroom teaching episodes; two of these episodes and their associated issues are presented as a pair of vignettes. I offer a framework for reflecting on such issues that focuses on four key terms from a definition of models: "embody", "tools", "phenomena", and "characteristics". Preceding each vignette, the meaning of the term is unpacked, and following each vignette, that term is used to analyze the way model-related actions unfolded in the episode. This framework has the potential to allow teachers to better facilitate their students' use of models for investigating chemical phenomenon. This could endow students with the capacity to engage in more sophisticated modeling processes such as creating and analyzing their own models. (Contains 9 notes and 2 figures.)

Within the historical context of the development of chemistry, Avogadro's hypothesis represents a fundamental concept: It allowed Avogadro to explain Gay-Lussac's law of combining volumes and it allowed Cannizzaro to establish a more accurate set of atomic mass values. If students are going to understand the concept of relative atomic masses and how they are determined, then the road to that understanding should pass through Avogadro's hypothesis. Unfortunately, this concept is counter-intuitive, which is perhaps part of the reason it was almost a half century before it gained some level of acceptance among chemists. For students, this concept is as difficult to understand today as it was for the chemists of the 19th century. This article uses a model from educational psychology--Chi's theory of ontological misclassification--to explain the source of that difficulty. More importantly than offering this explanation, though, the article discusses how Chi's theory can be used to teach this concept in a manner that has proven quite successful in the author's classroom. (Contains 12 notes.)

The study describes a new methodology and learning cycle, which will give a better understanding of the periodic table to the students. The students following the cycle have now started focusing more on the chemical instead of physical properties when developing their schemes.

The features and the development of various new acids and bases activity sets that combines chemistry with nanotechnology are being described. These sets lead to the generation of many nanotechnology-based pharmaceuticals for the treatment of various diseases.

This research study focused on understanding changes that were taking place in Promotion and Tenure (P and T) practices in eight selected institutions of higher education in the state of Georgia and examined factors, if any, that were acting as a catalyst for change. The research team used both quantitative and qualitative analyses of the P and T dossier reviews. The study did broaden our understanding of important and complex issues in higher education. The results have implications for higher education faculty and administrators as they contemplate tenure and promotion decisions and policies, and complete future research studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The very word education means a drawing out and bringing forth of critical characteristics, and as such, learning science should involve teachers seeking to draw out and refine student understandings. Providing opportunities for students to reflect on what has happened during a demo is not only an effective method of assessment but has also been shown to improve student learning of the science content that is being demonstrated (Crouch et al. 2004). Demos serve many roles in the science learning process, including fostering student engagement, modeling concepts that may be difficult or impossible to observe in the classroom, providing assessment opportunities, and supporting storylines. We encourage teachers to widen their repertoire of science demos, especially ones when it is just you, the teacher, the materials, and your audience. [Extracted from the article]

Two different chemical reactions that are both conducted in zipper-style plastic storage bags are presented to show the predictive of reaction products and the application of the Relative Acid-Base Strength chart. The demonstration helps in making the students aware of the fact that the two unstable acids produced in these gas-baggie reactions, sulfurous and carbonic, are Lewis acid-base adducts, which will help explain their tendency to decompose.

Two experiments are described that allow students to experience directly the certain fundamental principles related to chemical bonding while undergoing introductory chemistry courses. These activities include the inquiry based teaching approach and require that students ponder over the data they gather in order to recognize patterns and develop explanations.

"Curriculum alignment projects, towards developing a need to know", presents an approach to curriculum design that could be considered truly constructive in its format. Successful completion of the project requires students to synthesize a number of concepts that make up the block's learning objectives.