Supporting Beginning Teacher Planning of Investigation-Based Science Discussions

ABSTRACT

New reforms in science education emphasize facilitating all students’ sense making of the big ideas and crosscutting concepts in science along with engagement in science practices. Supporting this learning requires complex, ambitious teaching that is uncommon in U.S. classrooms. Thus, novice teachers will need considerable support in learning how to plan and enact ambitious science instruction. A practice-based approach to teacher education shows potential for supporting beginning teachers while they are learning to use the tools and teaching practices necessary to engage students in the practices of scientists. This study investigates how a cohort of 22 novice teachers (called “interns” in this article) within a practice-based science methods course planned to facilitate investigation-based science discussions that capitalized on student contributions. Findings indicate that interns used a range of teaching practices that the literature suggests are productive for capitalizing on student contributions. Looking closely at interviews with and lesson plans of 6 focal interns, we find that tools provided by teacher-educators likely supported interns in planning to engage in productive teaching practice with sophistication and may have fostered the development of knowledge for science teaching. For example, the use of open-ended questions from a talk moves tool provided by teacher-educators supported interns in planning to probe student thinking and engaging their students in scientific discourse, potentially leading to the development of knowledge of content and students. This study has implications for novice teachers learning to facilitate investigation-based discussions and teacher-educator programs aiming to support the development of both knowledge and practice for science teaching.

KEYWORDS:

• elementary education
• preservice teacher education
• teaching practice
• tools for teacher education

Notes

¹ This study does not look deeply into interns’ knowledge of content and curriculum. For the two types of lesson plans that were data sources for this study, the interns were provided with curriculum materials rather than having to search out their own. The interns were asked to analyze this curriculum, but because they did not choose the materials on their own, the lessons may not depict their knowledge of content and curriculum.

² Cartier and colleagues (2013) listed three categories of tasks: (a) experimentation; (b) data representation, analysis, and interpretation; and (c) explanation.

³ Not all animals move, for example, sea anemones and coral. In addition, not all animals actively breathe. For example, some species of jellyfish diffuse oxygen across their cell membranes.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a dissertation block grant from the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan.