Volume 8: Issue 4 [2023]

ISSN 2472-2553

A Role Identification Activity to Support Science Teacher Leaders in Identifying Professional Learning Needs

by Sara C. Heredia, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Michelle Phillips, Exploratorium; Sarah Stallings, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; & Ti'Era Worsley, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Abstract

Science teacher leadership has been identified as an important factor in the improvement of science education. However, there is wide variation in how leadership roles are assigned or taken up by science teachers. This makes designing professional development for science teacher leaders challenging. In this article, we present an activity designed to support science teacher leaders in identifying the leadership roles they occupy and the roles they would like to develop further through professional development. We present data from a group of science teacher leaders who participated in a professional learning program supported by a large science museum. Based on the data we collected, we provide a snapshot of how we interpreted that data and identify professional learning needs and possible resources for the science teacher leaders in the program.

Preservice Teachers Facilitating a Discussion With Elementary Student Avatars Before Facilitating It With Real Students

by Pamela S. Lottero-Perdue, Towson University; Karen Cimino, Towson University; & Julia Brandeberry, Towson University
Abstract

In this article, we share our innovation in which we used backward design to develop a scenario for use within the Mursion mixed-reality (MR) upper elementary simulated classroom environment to enable preservice teachers (PSTs) to practice facilitating an ambitious group discussion before facilitating that discussion to students in their field placement. The third-year elementary PSTs were enrolled in a course in which they taught a fourth-grade, NGSS-aligned unit that focused on the external and internal structures of sea turtles and how an injury to one or more of those structures could impact their growth, survival, behavior, or reproduction. To enhance the unit, we added a nonfiction text, Karl’s New Beak (Nargi & Popham, 2019), that examines the ramifications on survival, behavior, and reproduction faced by an Abyssinian ground hornbill missing most of his lower beak. At the end of the unit, each PST facilitated a discussion to elicit connections their students made between key ideas in the unit and text about how an injury to an animal impacts its survival, behavior, or reproduction. We share key elements of scenario design and how the PSTs prepared for, implemented, and debriefed from the MR simulated discussion. We also summarize and provide examples from the PSTs’ reflections on how the simulated experience prepared them to facilitate the same discussion with their small groups of fourth graders. For teacher educators who have access to the Mursion system, we provide our scenario and recommendations on how to begin utilizing this technology.

Redesigning a Science Teacher Preparation Program for Equity: Using Critical Whiteness Pedagogy to Educate Secondary Science Preservice Teachers

by Jonathan McCausland, New Mexico Highlands University; & Scott McDonald, Pennsylvania State University
Abstract

In this article, we describe the redesign of a secondary science teacher preparation program. The goal of the redesign was to help preservice teachers in the program become more justice-oriented science teachers. We describe the impetus for the redesign and how we went about redesigning the program through an iterative process of conjecture mapping (Sandoval, 2014), and we highlight important elements of the program. Ultimately, we argue that teacher preparation programs can draw upon practice-based teacher education and critical whiteness pedagogy to assist preservice teachers in becoming justice-oriented science teachers. By blending practice-based teacher education and critical whiteness pedagogy, preservice science teachers can practice being justice oriented, helping them become novice critical whiteness ambitious science teachers.