Daniel P. Shepardson

Teaching and Learning About Inquiry: Insights and Challenges in Professional Development

The purpose of this study was to determine if teachers who participated in a professional development program continued to learn about inquiry and inquiry teaching as they implemented inquiry in their classrooms. A qualitative design utilizing inductive analysis was used to investigate teachers’ understanding and classroom implementation of inquiry. Findings are presented as assertions, drawing support from four focal teachers. For each assertion, confirming and disconfirming data are presented. Based on these data, we assert that a) there was little or no change in teachers’ individual understanding of inquiry, and b) professional development enhanced teachers’ ability to design inquiry-based activities – however, classroom implementation did not reflect a high level of inquiry.

Bugs, butterflies, and spiders: children's understandings about insects

This article explores elementary childrens ideas about insects. The study involved 20 children from each grade level, kindergarten through fifth-grade, for a total of 120 children. The data collection procedure was designed to investigate what an insect means to children, through the use of three different tasks: draw and explain, interview about instances, and the formulation of a general rule. Considering childrens responses to the three tasks, I found that their ideas about insects reflect understandings based on physical characteristics of size and shape, arthropod characteristics, insect characteristics, human-insect interactions, life habits of insects, feeding habits of insects, and means of locomotion. Childrens understandings are juxtaposed to that of a scientific perspective, elucidating implications for curriculum development and instructional practice.

The role of anomalous data in restructuring fourth graders' frameworks for understanding electric circuits

This is a case study of the nature of fourth grade childrens understandings of electric circuits and how their understandings provided them with frameworks for interpreting data derived from the observation and manipulation of electric circuits. The findings suggest that (a) childrens interpretive frameworks of electric circuits are reflected in the specificity of details, consistency and coherence of their understandings; (b) the detail, consistency and coherence of childrens understandings influenced their ability to view data as anomalous, supportive or irrelevant; (c) children whose interpretive frameworks enabled them to view the electric circuit data as anomalous were challenged to change their understandings of electric circuits; (d) children whose interpretive frameworks enabled them to view the electric circuit data as supportive evidence weakly restructured their existing understandings of electric circuits and (e)children whose interpretive frameworks enabled them to view the electric circui...

Conceptualizing climate change in the context of a climate system: implications for climate and environmental education

Today there is much interest in teaching secondary students about climate change. Much of this effort has focused directly on students’ understanding of climate change. We hypothesize, however, that in order for students to understand climate change they must first understand climate as a system and how changes to this system due to both natural and human influences result in climatic and environmental changes and feedbacks. The purpose of this article is to articulate a climate system framework for teaching about climate change and to stimulate discussion about what secondary students should know and understand about a climate system. We first provide an overview of the research on secondary students’ conceptions of climate and climate change. We then present a climate system framework for teaching about climate and climate change that builds on students’ conceptions and scientific perspectives. We conclude by articulating a draft conceptual progression based on students’ conceptions and our climate system framework as a means to inform curriculum development, instructional design, and future research in climate and environmental education.

The Role of Children's Journals in Elementary School Science Activities.

Abstract: This article reports on a study that investigated the ways that childrens use of science journals aided their acquisition of science understandings in one kindergarten and one fourth-grade classroom. The questions for investigation were: how does the child contextualize the science experience on the journal page? How do child-produced graphics on the journal page reflect the childrens experiences with other school texts? The study found that children recontextualized their understandings of the science investigation and phenomena by using three types of mental contexts that were reflected in their science journals: these contexts were imaginary, experienced, and investigative worlds. By drawing on these three worlds or internal contexts, the children were able to pull the external phenomenon into an internal context that was familiar to them. The childs construction of ideas about a current science experience as expressed on the journal page may reflect experiences with other conventional texts. In this study the childrens representations of their imaginary, experienced and/or investigative worlds were shaped by other texts and structures such as school science texts.

Learning science in a first grade science activity: A Vygotskian perspective

The objectives of this article are to: (a) synthesize the key aspects of Vygotskys sociocultural theory of learning; and (b) interpret classroom vignettes and child interviews from a first-grade science activity in light of Vygotskys theory. The key aspects of Vygotskys sociocultural theory explored in terms of the teaching–learning process are: the social interactional nature of learning; the role of psychological and technical tools, the role of social interactions in mediating childrens thought; and the interplay between everyday and scientific concepts.

Social interactions and the mediation of science learning in two small groups of first-graders

This study investigated the nature of small-group social interactions in the mediation of childrens science learning. Two small groups of 4 first-graders and their teacher were observed throughout a 15-day unit on insect life cycles (butterfly and beetle metamorphosis). The study was qualitative in nature and guided by a sociocultural constructivist framework. Consistent with the theoretical framework, inductive analysis methodology guided the methods of inquiry. On the basis of the patterns that emerged from the data, two assertions are postulated to explain how the teachers and childrens social interactions mediated the childrens science learning during small-group activity.

Water Transformation and Storage in the Mountains and at the Coast: Midwest Students' Disconnected Conceptions of the Hydrologic Cycle.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate students’ conceptions of the hydrologic cycle and to examine whether these conceptions vary by grade level and community setting. This study was descriptive in nature and reflected a cross‐age design involving the collection of qualitative data from 1,298 students from the Midwest, USA. These data were analysed for content in an inductive manner to identify student’s conceptions, and statistical analysis was used to determine the significance in the frequency of these student conceptions. Four categories emerged that reflected different degrees of sophistication of students’ conceptions of water transformation, movement, and storage. These Midwest students often portrayed the hydrologic cycle in the context of mountain or coastal landscapes that are common in textbooks but that are not representative of the environments where students live and where many of these students might apply their understanding of environmental systems as adults. Based on these findings, we make curricular recommendations that build on the students’ conceptions, the hydrologic concept, and the National Research Council science education standards.

When the atmosphere warms it rains and ice melts: seventh grade students’ conceptions of a climate system

Although many environmental and science educators have explored students’ conceptual understandings, misconceptions, and knowledge of the greenhouse effect, global warming, and climate change, few have investigated the ways students conceptualize climate as a system or how components of the system influence climate. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to begin the process of understanding how US students conceptualize a climate system. A total of 42 seventh grade students (ages 12–13) from the Midwest completed an open-response task. From the inductive analysis of student written responses, 22 codes emerged that reflected students’ conceptions of the climate system. From these codes, three path diagrams were constructed that illustrate these students’ conceptions about how a climate system influences climate and how greenhouse gases and global warming impact the climate system. A generalized model of students’ conception of a climate system was generated. Students in this study conceptualized a climate system in a unidirectional, linear, cause and effect relationship that emphasized the atmospheric component of the climate system.

Teachers as Learners Examine Land-Use Change in the Local Environment Using Remote Sensing Imagery

Abstract In environmental science education, learners are exposed to earth phenomena that occur across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. However, it is challenging for learners to grasp the significance of spatial and temporal change because they have limited perspectives of the Earth. Within the scientific community, remotely sensed imagery is used for observing the Earth as a system. These same tools can be applied at all levels in environmental science education to help learners understand and visualize earth change. In this article, the experiences of teachers as learners are described as they conducted a temporal analysis of a local wetland using aerial photography in an inquiry-based activity.