David Stroupe

The Three-Story Challenge: Implications of the "Next Generation Science Standards" for Teacher Preparation.

The foundational document of the current science standards movement—the Framework for K-12 Science Education—is grounded in research about how students from diverse backgrounds learn science and the conditions under which they can participate in knowledge-building activities of the discipline. We argue that teacher educators should use powerful principles for instruction, derived from the research referenced in the Framework, to inform the design of courses and other preparatory experiences for novices. This implementation strategy contrasts with an alignment approach, in which novices would be asked to familiarize themselves with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), integrate student performance expectations into lesson plans, and teach activities similar to those described in the NGSS. We describe the more principled approach as a “three-story challenge” in which students, teachers, and teacher educators have responsibilities to learn and to take up new roles in the educational system that are fundamentally different from the status quo.

Teacher Education and Teaching in the Present Political Landscape: Promoting Educational Equity Through Critical Inquiry and Research

The U.S. educational enterprise lacks no shortage of debate around divisive issues. Two recent events remind us of this. In October of 2016, the U.S. Department of Education released its revised regulations for teacher preparation programs, which have a heavy emphasis on using P-12 student success as a measure of quality for teacher education programs. (1) While some individuals and organizations have praised the federal government for pushing increased accountability on teacher preparation programs, many others have expressed strong opposition to the suggested ways to do so. For example, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) joined approximately 35 groups (including P-12, higher education, state governments, among others) in expressing formal concerns about the new regulations via a formal written statement. (2) In addition, the national climate has been negatively affected by the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and illuminates a heightened sense of vulnerability and alienation for members of certain social groups; these sentiments are realized for many individuals in our nations teacher education programs and P-12 schools. The campaign season brought rhetoric that perpetuated racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, religious discrimination, homophobia, and ableism, and the aftermath permeates every formal institution in the nation. Continual discourse and behavior promoting bigotry has been evidenced in various forms most prominently in schools post-election. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), K-12 schools across the United States have been fertile ground for hate crimes and acts of violence against people of historically and traditionally marginalized groups (e.g., people identifying as immigrants, Muslims, African Americans, or lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender [LGBT]). In the first five weeks following the election, approximately 1,100 incidents were documented by the SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2016). The introduction of the new federal regulations for teacher preparation programs and the national divide caused by the presidential election are two major recent events that highlight the potentially costly ramifications of a new sociopolitical climate for teacher education and public education, and challenge each of us to consider what will be required to effectively prepare and support teachers and achieve educational equity for all children in the coming years. Regardless of ones political affiliation, this is a national sociopolitical climate in which we all must exist; however, our existence does not have to be defined by this climate. In our field of teacher education, the emerging educational landscape could have dramatic impacts on professional learning, research, and advocacy as we prepare current and future educators to help P-12 students learn and participate in an increasingly divisive society and help these students develop the ability to make informed decisions about issues that affect their lives and the lives of others in their local community and perhaps globally. The current and emerging sociopolitical climate compels us as teacher educators and teacher education researchers to more closely link our roles and identities as researchers and activists; our activism can be grounded in research, and our research occurs in sociopolitical contexts. Thus, it is incumbent upon us to consider how we prepare teachers in ways that reflect what we already know from research about high-quality preparation and which also prepares them to be advocates and activists for their preparation and subsequent work in P-12 schools. This sociopolitical climate presents an equity imperative that is focused on active resistance against policy directives at all levels (e.g., federal, state, local) that result in exacerbated gaps in access to opportunities to pursue a teaching career, teach with adequate support in a variety of schools, and learn in affirming and supportive environments. …

Supporting Ambitious Instruction by Beginning Teachers with Specialized Tools and Practices

One challenge facing science teacher preparation is the lack of consensus about what constitutes instructional excellence. We propose that a growing movement to characterize rigorous and equitable teaching as “ambitious instruction” in other subject matter areas, such as mathematics and literacy education, can serve as a guide for the science education community to develop a vision of effective pedagogy.

It's 1000 Degrees in Here When I Teach: Providing Preservice Teachers with an Extended Opportunity to Approximate Ambitious Instruction.

Teacher educators have a challenging task of designing opportunities for preservice teachers (PSTs) to learn ambitious science teaching (AST). However, with limited time in methods courses and the complexities of AST, opportunities for PSTs to “try out” ambitious instruction are difficult to construct and analyze. To address this problem, we describe our enactment of a type of extended pedagogical rehearsal that we call “macroteaching” in a secondary science methods course. Framed as a design experiment, we codeveloped macroteaching with the PSTs during methods class, examining how we all learned about AST given the extended learning opportunity. The results of this study, including that PSTs are not afraid of the uncertainty about what students might say and do, suggest that extended rehearsals of AST provide PSTs and the course instructors with opportunities to advance their teaching and vision of the profession in a methods class.

Connecting Research to Practice for Better Beginnings

This book adds to the current discussion about newly hired science teachers. Collectively, the authors provide insights that are related to both research and practice. The research suggestions emerge from studies of new teachers, while the practical side of this book presents approaches to supporting new teachers that are grounded in research. Within these two dimensions, there is an emerging theory about supporting new teachers in order to ensure their ongoing professional development.