Marcum-Dietrich, N., Kerlin, S., Staudt, C., & Daniels, M. (2018). Our watershed. The Science Teacher, 85(2).
In this article, students use data and models to make a difference in their own school yard.
We describe a four-step strategy used in our professional development program to help elementary science teachers recognize and create lesson plans with coherent conceptual storylines. The conceptual storyline of a lesson refers to sequencing its scientific concepts and activities to help students develop a main scientific idea and, often, is an implicit component of a lesson plan.
This article describes a four-step strategy used in our professional development program to help elementary science teachers recognize and create lesson plans with coherent conceptual storylines.
Measurement is paired with data as a fundamental domain of K–grade 5 mathematics in the Common Core State Standards, and it is one of five core content areas in NCTM’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. This book presents lively activities that dovetail with standards and research-based stages of development to support students’ steady growth of understanding of measurement.
A Pleasure to Measure will enable you to select activities quickly, easily, and confidently to target the content that your students are ready to learn. You’ll find everything that you need in the six E’s that the authors detail for each activity—Essentials, Engage, Explore, Expect, Extend, and Enrich.
This article summarizes how a group of undergraduate regional university faculty built a program for rigorous and research-based science teacher preparation at the elementary level—namely, the “Model of Research-Based Education for Teachers” (MORE for Teachers). First, we discuss the research upon which the program is built: (1) a preparation infrastructure that includes rigorous content, focused teaching methods, and integrated field experiences with an emphasis on quality mentoring from cooperating teachers and (2) a conceptual framework for how people learn science.
This article summarizes how a group of undergraduate regional university faculty built a program for rigorous and research-based science teacher preparation at the elementary level—namely, the “Model of Research-Based Education for Teachers” (MORE for Teachers).
In this study, we investigated how high school credit recovery students worked in small groups and used computer-based scaffolds to conduct scientific inquiry in a problem-based learning unit centered on water quality. We examined how students searched for and evaluated information from different sources, and used evidence to support their claims. Data sources included screen recordings, interviews, scaffold trace data, and scaffold entry quality ratings. Findings indicate that many students struggled to use the scaffolding and did not fully respond to scaffold prompts.
In this study, we investigated how high school credit recovery students worked in small groups and used computer-based scaffolds to conduct scientific inquiry in a problem-based learning unit centered on water quality.
This tool is designed to help teachers reflect on a lesson they observed and guide effective, learning-focused mentoring conversations.
Presentation on ViSTA at the 2017 NARST conference in San Antonio, Texas. The ViSTA Plus project is a multi-year preservice teacher education program for elementary teachers that spans the methods course, student teaching, and the first year of teaching.
Evaluation is an important aspect of science and is receiving increasing attention in science education. The present study investigated (1) changes to plausibility judgments and knowledge as a result of a series of instructional scaffolds, called model–evidence link activities, that facilitated evaluation of scientific and alternative models in four different Earth science topics (climate change, fracking and earthquakes, wetlands and land use, and the formation of Earth’s Moon) and (2) relations between evaluation, plausibility reappraisal, and knowledge.
Evaluation is an important aspect of science and is receiving increasing attention in science education. The present study investigated (1) changes to plausibility judgments and knowledge as a result of a series of instructional scaffolds, called model–evidence link activities, that facilitated evaluation of scientific and alternative models in four different Earth science topics (climate change, fracking and earthquakes, wetlands and land use, and the formation of Earth’s Moon) and (2) relations between evaluation, plausibility reappraisal, and knowledge.
Quality early science education is important for addressing the low science achievement, compared to international peers, of elementary students in the United States. Teachers’ beliefs about their skills in a content area, that is, their content self-efficacy is important because it has implications for teaching practice and child outcomes. However, little is known about how teachers’ self-efficacy for literacy, math and science compare and how domain-specific self-efficacy relates to teachers’ practice in the area of science.
Quality early science education is important for addressing the low science achievement, compared to international peers, of elementary students in the United States. Teachers’ beliefs about their skills in a content area, that is, their content self-efficacy is important because it has implications for teaching practice and child outcomes. However, little is known about how teachers’ self-efficacy for literacy, math and science compare and how domain-specific self-efficacy relates to teachers’ practice in the area of science. Analysis of survey and observation data from 67 Head Start classrooms across eight programs indicated that domain-specific self-efficacy was highest for literacy, significantly lower for science, and lowest for math. Classrooms varied, but in general, engaged in literacy far more than science, contained a modest amount of science materials, and their instructional support of science was low. Importantly, self-efficacy for science, but not literacy or math, related to teachers frequency of engaging children in science instruction. Teachers’ education and experience did not predict self-efficacy for science. Practice or Policy: To enhance the science opportunities provided in early childhood classrooms, pre-service and in-service education programs should provide teachers with content and practices for science rather than focusing exclusively on literacy.
Now more than ever, scientific literacy (i.e., systemizing methods, engaging in critical comparison, utilizing research to inform practice) has been recognized as vital for the 21st-century workforce (National Research Council, 2010 National Research Council. (2010). Exploring the intersection of science education and 21st century skills: A workshop summary. National Research Council. Washington, DC: National Academies Press). Strong science education is critical for developing these skills in the U.S. population. However, U.S. elementary children perform below several of their international peers in science achievement tests (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2012). This is not surprising considering that the foundation for scientific understanding is shaky: Elementary teachers spend just 6% to 13% of their instructional time teaching science (NCES, 2012 National Center for Education Statistics. (2012). The condition of education 2012. Retrieved from
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012045.pdf), and preschool teachers devote even less time (4%–8% of instructional time) to promoting science experiences (Tu, 2006 Tu, T. (2006). Preschool science environment: What is available in a preschool classroom? Early Childhood Education Journal, 33, 245–251. doi:10.1007/s10643-005-0049-8). A primary factor, particularly among early childhood educators, is a lack of preparation for designing and implementing science education, which results in little confidence for teaching science (Greenfield et al., 2009 Greenfield, D. B., Jirout, J., Dominguez, X., Greenberg, A., Maier, M., & Fuccillo, J. (2009). Science in the preschool classroom: A programmatic research agenda to improve science readiness. Early Education & Development, 20, 238–264. doi:10.1080/10409280802595441; Hamlin & Wisneski, 2012 Hamlin, M., & Wisneski, D. B. (2012). Supporting the scientific thinking and inquiry of toddlers and preschoolers through play. Young Children, 67, 82–88). Of course, children are unlikely to develop necessary science knowledge and skills without effective science instruction and experiences (Gelman & Brenneman, 2012 Gelman, R., & Brenneman, K. (2012). Classrooms as learning labs. In N. Stein & S. Raudenbusch (Eds.), Developmental science goes to school (pp. 113–126). New York, NY: Routledge; Morris, Croker, Masnick, & Zimmerman, 2012 Morris, B. J., Croker, S., Masnick, A. M., & Zimmerman, C. (2012). The emergence of scientific reasoning. In H. Kloos, B. J. Morris, & J. L. Amaral (Eds.), Current topics in children’s learning and cognition (pp. 61–82). Rijeka, Croatia: InTech). Thus, one critical research aim fulfilled by the present study was to describe early childhood educator self-efficacy for science and identify how self-efficacy is related to the science opportunities provided in early childhood classrooms.
