Janice Anderson

Understanding Early Elementary Children's Conceptual Knowledge of Plant Structure and Function through Drawings

We present the results of an early elementary study (K–1) that used childrens drawings to examine childrens understanding of plant structure and function.

The Process of Trust Building between University Researchers and Urban School Personnel.

A wide range of research has examined trust building within corporations, businesses, and schools, and between and within organizations, but little research has been conducted that examines trust formation between university researchers and classroom-based teachers. Using a qualitative methodological approach, the authors examined the development of trusting relationships between their educational research team and a series of urban science teachers after 3 years of partnerships. It was found that teachers were initially cautiously optimistic about working with the research team, not wanting to invest much effort in the partnership until the research team had proven they were open, honest, and, most importantly, dedicated to helping their students. It was also found that the process of trust building began with an initial tentative and hesitant frontstage persona and eventually progressed to the point where they felt comfortable dropping their frontstage mask to engage in backstage conversations. The authors discovered that the trust-building process was transformative, in that, as trust was developed, it fostered the blurring of their social identities with the teachers as the teachers became teacher/researchers and the research team likewise became researcher/teachers.

Disruptive design in pre-service teacher education: uptake, participation, and resistance

This paper begins the exploration of disruption as an analytical construct that allows for the investigation of how individual learning and changes in local practice mutually influence the other within a purposefully designed learning context. We seek to describe the types of learning experiences that emerged using disruptive pedagogies and tools within a series of methods courses in an undergraduate elementary teacher education program. The intent of the designed context was to disrupt the traditional practices of teacher education courses by creating a participatory environment where students participated in the creation of course content through their engagement with social media and each other. We define disruption as an innovation that requires students to challenge or change their epistemologies and participation in their learning. This paper addresses a designed disruption that was created in the context of an elementary methods course. The results demonstrated diverse consequences for participants, their activity, and our understanding of their learning. These findings provide a starting point for examining the implications of disruptive practices within pre-service teacher education programs.

Fostering Self-regulated Science Inquiry in Physical Sciences

Science education in the twenty-first century must not only teach students what science is, but also how to understand and engage in scientific reasoning and argumentation. In this chapter, we review two inquiry lessons in the physical sciences, one based in chemistry and the other based in physics. These lessons demonstrate how to engage students in active, collaborative learning, which is likely to lead to deep conceptual understanding. Such lessons require students to engage in self-regulated science inquiry. They also serve as mediums for teachers to teach, support, and model self-regulated learning. These lessons illustrate empirically-supported tenets of self-regulated learning including planning, monitoring, and controlling what happens before, during, and after learning; providing just-in-time teacher support and modeling; and structuring lessons to promote positive reflection, self-efficacy, and growth mindsets. Further, the lessons in this chapter illustrate how to move students from co-regulation to socially shared regulation of learning, which in turn provides students with the tools they need to engage in scientific argumentation, inquiry, and discourse.