Novice elementary teachers’ knowledge of, beliefs about, and planning for the science practices: a longitudinal study

ABSTRACT

This longitudinal research examines the knowledge of, beliefs about, and planned use of the science practices of five novice elementary or primary teachers during their science methods course, student teaching, and first year of teaching. To answer our research questions, we collected lesson plans and conducted interviews after the teachers taught science lessons, and we coded these data sources for science practices and sub-practices. We found that the novice elementary teachers assumed a wide range of purposes for using the science practices in their classroom. For example, they emphasised the practices’ cross-curricular nature as well as how the practices can engage students in real science. In reference to the use of the science practices in their plans, there were aspects of the practices where the novice teachers’ planned practice did not yet match their understanding or beliefs. For instance, the novice teachers knew that reasoning is a part of science explanations, but there was little evidence of this element of Explanation and Argumentation in their plans. This work adds to the field's understanding of how novice elementary teachers use multiple science practices in planning to engage their students in sensemaking, and has implications for elementary science teacher education.

KEYWORDS:

• science practices
• elementary teacher education
• teacher knowledge

Acknowledgments

This research is funded by a grant from the Spencer Foundation awarded to Elizabeth A. Davis and Annemarie Palincsar. We appreciate this generous funding. Any opinions, findings, and recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors. We are very grateful for the participation of the novice teachers who shared their practice with us. We are also grateful for the insights and contributions of team members of the research project, past and present, particularly Amber Bismack and John-Carlos Marino.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 We focus exclusively on the science practices although the Framework and NGSS also include engineering practices.

2 One participant only provided a lesson plan during the science methods course (the only time it was required). While we requested 5 interviews across two years, two participants missed one interview, while others did extra interviews. Thus, there is some variability in data availability.

3 Data references use this key: Name of participant _ Period of study [SMC – science methods course, ST – student teaching, FYT – first year teaching] _ Data source [I – interview, LP – lesson plan].

Additional information

Funding

This research is funded by a grant from the Spencer Foundation awarded to Elizabeth A. Davis and Annemarie Palincsar.