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There remains a lack of agreement in the field of science education as to whether student 'misconceptions' ought to be considered obstacles or resources, and this has implications for the ways in which prospective teachers think about the value of their students' ideas. This empirical study examines how 14 preservice secondary science teachers in four different science teacher preparation programs interpreted the rationale for eliciting student ideas. The findings indicate that the preservice teachers in this study showed an increase in recognizing the importance of student ideas, yet not all took the same view of their role and value in teaching, which appeared to be closely connected to beliefs about how learning takes place. Five different orientations to student ideas are described in the findings. These include viewing student ideas as evidence of content coverage, as obstacles to understanding, as tools to prime students thinking, interest, and activity, as elements of a positive classroom environment, and as the raw material of learning. The findings suggest that science teacher educators help focus preservice teachers' attention on student thinking and help them learn to incorporate their students' ideas into their instruction in ways that build upon those ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This 3-year longitudinal study explores the evolving beliefs of five prospective secondary science teachers in a university preparation program from recruitment through their first year in the classroom. As an interpretive qualitative study, data were collected through semistructured interviews and an array of artifacts. The data sources were used to construct cases, which led to a cross-case analysis to understand the important themes in the project. There are three important conclusions from this study. First, the teachers' beliefs about teaching initially shift to a contemporary focus while participating in their teacher preparation program, but ultimately return to a didactic orientation by their first year in the classroom. At the same time, the teachers' beliefs about learning remain consistently more contemporary in nature. Finally, when the participants were enrolled in coursework with a field placement that emphasized reform-based teaching, their beliefs about teaching and learning were impacted in different ways based on the context of the placement and the individual. The findings from this study contribute to a deeper understanding of the development of science teacher's beliefs about teaching and learning and the role that early field experiences play from preservice education through the induction years. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 95:1124-1146, 2011 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this case study was to describe characteristic features of abductive inquiry learning activities in the domain of earth science. Participants were undergraduate junior and senior students who were enrolled in an earth science education course offered for preservice secondary science teachers at a university in Korea. The undergraduate students conducted, as a course activity, earth scientific inquiry according to the Abductive Inquiry Model (AIM) to explain a typhoon's anomalous path. Data sources included students' presentation materials, written reports, and interviews with five selected participants. The data were analyzed qualitatively in collaboration with a practicing earth scientist. The findings of the study revealed the characteristics of students' inquiry performance in each phase of the AIM. During the exploration phase, the students investigated earth scientific phenomena with provided data and transformed the data into new forms to discover problems to be explained abductively. In the examination phase, the students activated and expanded their background knowledge to find appropriate rules for abductive inference. Furthermore, they created new rules, which contained hypothetical explanations for the phenomena in question. The selection phase provided the students with opportunities to evaluate their hypotheses with empirical and theoretical criteria and choose more plausible ones. Finally, in the explanation phase, the students provided genetic and narrative explanations using the hypotheses selected previously. Implications for science inquiry learning as well as relevant research were suggested. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 409-430, 2011 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussing the teaching of evolution with concerned parents is a challenge to any science teacher. Using the medical education pedagogy of standardized individuals within the field of teacher education, this article addresses how preservice science teachers elected to verbally interact with standardized parents who questioned the teaching of evolution and proposed alternative curricula. Analysis of video recordings of the simulated interactions yielded three primary themes connected to teachers' understandings of what “counts” as science, teachers' justifications for teaching evolution, and teachers' explanations of the impact of teaching evolution. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed94:552–570, 2010 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The elementary science teacher educators in this article set recognize the challenges that new science teachers face when they enter classrooms. They have developed frameworks and strategies aimed at helping the preservice teachers with whom they work become “well-started beginners” who are ready to address problems of science teaching. To do so, these educators purposefully engage the candidates in focused dialogue regarding challenges or problems of practice that they will likely face in their work. These challenges include (1) engaging in science, (2) organizing instruction, and (3) understanding students. The science teacher educators use a dialogic third space to help the preservice teachers reconsider and develop deeper understandings of these problems of practice. In this introduction, we point out some of the common themes that tie these articles together, including (a) a focus on problems of practice in elementary science teaching, (b) a focus on dialogue with preservice teachers about these problems of practice, (c) a commitment to developing tools and approaches that support principled reasoning about these problems of practice, and (d) a commitment to shared goals and methods for research on elementary science teacher education. We point to ways that these themes are addressed in the three articles. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed93:678–686, 2009 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New views of proficiency in K-8 science that highlight the importance of engaging children in the discourses and practices of science have raised the stakes for elementary teachers and the teacher educators who prepare them. In this paper, a framework for teaching science as argument is presented. The framework is advanced as a means of addressing problems of practices faced by preservice teachers, creating coherence for the design of teacher education experiences, and serving as a tool for shaping a design-based research agenda. Findings of three research studies that examined preservice teachers' developing understandings and practices for teaching science as argument and the ways in which teacher education experiences mediated learning are synthesized. Across the studies, findings suggest that the framework serves as a powerful scaffold for preservice teachers' developing thinking and practice. More specifically, early attention to evidence and argument can leverage other important aspects of effective science teaching, such as attention to classroom discourse and the role of the teacher in monitoring and assessing children's thinking. In closing, a case is made for coherence among science learning opportunities, learning to teach science experiences, and field experiences. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed93:687–719, 2009 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use a 10-year program of research centered on iterations of one elementary science methods course as a vehicle for exploring three important and interrelated goals for the learning of beginning elementary teachers. These include learning about inquiry-oriented science teaching, using science curriculum materials effectively, and anticipating and working with students' ideas in instruction. For each goal we discuss how the literature informs our thinking, describe relevant aspects of our design of the course, and present findings of our research with regard to preservice teachers' experiences in and learning from aspects of the course. For each goal, we also highlight examples from our longitudinal work following the preservice teachers into their early years as elementary teachers, to provide a glimpse of teachers' trajectories related to each of the themes. We close with a discussion of implications for research and practice in elementary science teacher education. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed93:745–770, 2009 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preservice elementary teachers face many challenges in learning how to teach science effectively, such as engaging students in science, organizing instruction, and developing a productive learning community. This paper reports on several iterative cycles of design-based research aimed at fostering preservice teachers' principled reasoning around these problems of practice through modeling-centered scientific inquiry. The first design cycle introduced preservice teachers to modeling and simulation software tools in an effort to advance their understanding of science and technology; the second used an instructional framework embodying modeling-centered inquiry to advance their views of effective science teaching and their lesson-planning practices; the third engaged preservice teachers in analyzing and modifying curriculum materials using reform-based criteria to foster effective curriculum materials use. Outcomes from these iterations indicate that the preservice teachers were most likely to advance their knowledge and practices within a coherent approach that focused on a core scientific practice such as modeling-centered inquiry, provided opportunities to unpack and apply robust tools such as reform-based instructional frameworks, and addressed their perceived problems of practice. The findings from this set of approaches are compared to others in an effort to point toward promising future directions for effective science teacher education. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed93:720–744, 2009 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores factors that might influence preservice teachers' capability for understanding the learning cycle. Relationship between teachers' instructional intentions and the actualization of strategies; Differences between the learning cycle and traditional teaching methods; Instrument for assessing individual understanding of the cycle.

The article presents a study on two instructional models used in teaching science and their conceptual effects on future elementary teachers. The authors use the expository and the learning cycle models in their investigation. The authors' purpose is to examine if there is a need to modify the ways in teaching science by comparing the effectiveness of two instructional models in bringing understanding of science concepts in future elementary teachers. The subjects of study were 52 freshmen, sophomores, and juniors equally divided between two sections of a science course designed for elementary education majors. Each

The article investigates the background and knowledge of the subject matter of science possessed by elementary student teachers who were completing their training U.S. schools. The attitudes of teachers in certain areas of science were also investigated, as well as a comparison of their knowledge of science to certain high school students. Results showed that elementary student teachers had taken chemistry in high school more than any other science, and also showed that student teachers preferred biology over other science classes. Reports revealed that student teachers had taken only 0-67 hours of science work in college, and the mean number of semester hours averaged 15.1. Recommendations were made for future student teachers of science.

The article focuses on the requisite college degrees for someone to be an elementary school science teacher. It was found out that in 32 states it is admissible for a science teacher to teach elementary classes without holding any college degree in science. Sampling of teachers colleges were examined to determine the extent of science instruction prospective elementary science teachers require. Sixty teacher education colleges were studied. The study showed that: For the four year elementary science program, one has to put in 13.6 quarter hours of science; out of the 60 colleges, science is not mandatory in two; science is general biological and physical survey course in forty three of those colleges; a course in the methodology of teaching science is included in three colleges only. As the importance of science is increasing by the day, the numbers of hours that teachers put in for science should also be increased.