Judith S. Lederman

Nature of Scientific Knowledge and Scientific Inquiry: Building Instructional Capacity Through Professional Development

Currently, four reviews focus on the research on students’ and teachers’ conceptions of nature of scientific knowledge, as well as approaches to improving teachers’ and students’ conceptions. The research related to students’ and teachers’ knowledge about scientific inquiry (as distinct from the ability to undertake inquiry) is quite rare. Students’ and teachers’ conceptions of nature of scientific knowledge have been important goals of science education for over 100 years. Attention to understandings about inquiry and about nature of scientific knowledge is much more recent and is primarily attributed to the National Science Education Standards and Benchmarks for Science Literacy in the USA. Rather than reiterate the research that does exist, the purpose of this chapter is to focus on the role of professional development in facilitating the desired change in students’ and teachers’ conceptions (i.e. how to help teachers to translate what they know into effective classroom practices). The existing literature reviews do not document the nature and impacts of sustained professional development in bringing about the change. This chapter focuses on several large-scale professional development approaches (i.e. teacher enhancement grant, systemic change initiative, programmatic emphases) that our group has used in Chicago. Of particular importance is the relative impacts of these different approaches and the lessons learned about the nature of the professional development that we provide. Naturally, the existing research on students’ and teachers’ conceptions, and how they are changed is briefly reviewed to provide context, but not to the point of just reiterating what has already been presented elsewhere. But, the primary focus of the chapter is on the necessary professional development provided to teachers so they can translate their knowledge into forms that are readily understood by the students.

The Status of Preservice Science Teacher Education: A Global Perspective

Historically, science teacher education (regardless of grade level) has been the primary focus of our organization. And, our organization’s journal, the Journal of Science Teacher Education, necessarily maintains this narrow, but critical, focus in the pages of each published issue. It would be nice to conclude that there is a single best way to educate our future science teachers. However, we all know this will appropriately and fortunately never be the case. The profession of teaching is simply too complex and it is continually impacted by numerous contextual and political issues. If one views the history of how we have collectively viewed effective teaching (and its close association with empirical research on teaching), it is easy to see why there is so much variety in how one educates future teachers. The history of the knowledge base for effective teaching can be conveniently divided into six general phases of empirical research extending back to the 1920s. The first phase assumed effectiveness to be a consequence of personality traits or characteristics of the teacher, the second phase focused on teaching methods, the third related teacher behaviors to student learning, the fourth focused on the mastering of a repertoire of competencies, and the fifth focused on teachers’ abilities to use competencies appropriately (i.e., professional decision-making). The sixth phase, which arguably characterizes the current wisdom, has focused on the importance of the interaction of a set of knowledge domains that result in clearly delineated subject-specific instructional knowledge and skills.

Teaching and Learning of Nature of Science and Scientific Inquiry: Building Capacity Through Systematic Research-Based Professional Development

This study provides an example of a systematic professional development project designed to build capacity for the teaching of nature of science and scientific inquiry, while not sacrificing the learning of more traditional science subject matter. Specifically, this project examined the impact of a 5-year professional development project called Inquiry, Context, and Nature of Science (ICAN) on K-12 science teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge, and their students’ knowledge, related to nature of science (NOS) and scientific inquiry (SI). For 5 years a total of 236 science teachers in K-12 participated in the project and over 23,000 students were affected by the project. During each year of Project ICAN teachers engaged in science internships, NOS and SI activities, model lessons, curriculum development, microteaching presentations, and assessment practices related to NOS/SI. The pre- and post-test results from the Views of Nature of Science, Form D (VNOS-D), and the Views of Scientific Inquiry (VOSI) instruments indicated that teachers and their students significantly improved their understandings of NOS/SI. In addition, analysis of teachers’ microteaching lessons showed that there was a developmental continuum of teaching NOS/SI from implicit to didactic to explicit teaching as teachers progressed through the program.

Is it STEM or “S & M” that We Truly Love?

During the past few years, STEM has become the mantra of the science education community and policy makers. It can be argued that STEM has replaced science/ scientific literacy as the gold standard in our field. There has been an emergence of STEM curriculum and the creation of K-12 STEM focused schools. It is also becoming more difficult to find a university that does not have, or is planning to have, a STEM Center. The most common meaning of STEM calls for an integration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. However, we are sure many of you have colleagues that think STEM is just calling for a stronger emphasis on each of the STEM disciplines. Nonetheless, it is clear that the Next Generation Science Standards (Achieve, 2013) is more aligned with the integrated vision. The idea of integration is often used synonymously with interdisciplinary approaches, and the two will be used the same here. The idea of integration is not new to those of us in science education. The most common approaches to integration in our field were more related to the integration of science and mathematics or science, technology and society. There have been many well known discussions of the topic (Beane, 1995; Czerniak, Weber, Sandmann, & Ahern 1999; NSTA, 1982, Roth, 1994; Shanker, 1995, among others). Additionally, the oldest journal dedicated to science and mathematics education, School Science and Mathematics (first published in 1900), is dedicated to integrated and interdisciplinary curricula approaches and there was a special issue of the journal (during the editorship of Norman G. Lederman and Margaret L. Niess) dedicated to the topic (1998). Although there is a long history of attempts to integrate science and mathematics, as well as other foci of integration, the empirical literature is equivocal at best, and arguably quite negative about the success of integration. The reasons for the lack of success are complex, but it seems to us that they can be traced back to the nature of teacher education, education in general, and the natures of the disciplines. As

Is Nature of Science Going, Going, Going, Gone?

At the 2012 ASTE International Meeting in Clearwater, Fl, Norman Lederman delivered a plenary address titled, ‘‘Nature of Science (NOS) Left Behind.’’ The title was a parody of ‘‘No Child Left Behind’’ and the address bemoaned his concern that the yet to be released Next Generation Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) would omit or drastically decrease attention to NOS. After all, the construct was given little attention in Taking Science to School (NRC, 2007) and the subsequent A Framework for K-12 Science Education (NRC, 2012). However, there was still time to revive interest in NOS as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) would not be released for another year. What better audience to hear concerns about the disappearance of NOS than the premier organization representing science teacher educators? Was the concern expressed by Lederman just rhetoric before lunch, or was it a foreshadowing of what was to come? Nature of science (NOS) has been considered an important educational outcome that contributes to scientific literacy for quite some time, and it was strongly emphasized in our last set of standards, the National Science Education Standards [NSES] (NRC, 1996). It was considered as subject matter knowledge alongside photosynthesis, Newton’s Laws, pH, and plate tectonics. Nevertheless, after the release of the standards until the present, one is hard pressed to see NOS being taught effectively in our science classrooms at any grade level. Nothing was/is really any different today it was since science educators seriously began studying NOS in the late 1950s. Perhaps a short discussion of the past can help us understand the present and the future. Historically, although NOS has been a perennially prized science education outcome, the construct has had a checkered past, cluttered with issues ranging from construct conceptualization to teaching to assessment. NOS has commonly been conflated with inquiry and this confusion still exists (see Peters-Burton, 2014; Salter

The Death of Expertise

Recently, Nichols (2014) bemoaned the idea that in today’s US democracy any assertion of expertise results in strong, and often angry, reactions emphasizing that such claims are ‘‘appeals to authority, sure signs of elitism, and an obvious effort to use credentials to stifle the dialogue required by a ‘‘real’’ democracy’’ (p. 1). He further elaborates that, although the public possesses rights equal with the government, it does not mean that all citizens have equal talents, abilities, or knowledge, and it doesn’t mean that everyone’s opinion about anything is as good as anyone else’s. In the end it is concluded that we may be contributing to the ‘‘death’’ of expertise. Although Nichols’ characterization may be a bit extreme, it certainly resonates with what we consistently experience as teacher educators. Several years ago our association, then known as AETS, developed professional knowledge standards for science teacher educators (Lederman et al., 1997). These standards still exist today and can be found on the organization’s website. The motivating force beyond the development of these standards was the notion that, as a professional organization focusing on science teacher education, we should have some expert knowledge about who should and who should not be educating preservice and inservice science teachers. Overall, there were six standards delineated and they focused on the following areas of knowledge, experience, and abilities: (1) subject matter knowledge, (2) science pedagogy, (3) curriculum development, instructional design, and assessment, (4) learning and cognition, (5) research/scholarly activity, (6) professional development. These standards were designed, not as a checklist of abilities, knowledge, and experiences, but rather to delineate the difference in perspective that exists among an experienced scientist, science teacher, and

Comfort and Content: Considerations for Informal Science Professional Development

This study looked at a life science course that was offered at and taught by education staff of a large informal science institution (ISI) located in the Midwest. The curriculum, materials, and agendas for the course were developed by education staff and complemented a permanent life science exhibition. The researcher developed a content test based on the course instructional objectives and lessons provided by education staff. In addition, all participating elementary and middle school teachers (n = 62) were asked to complete an evaluation at the end of each days session. This included several questions that required participants to reflect upon the content presented throughout the course of the day, focusing on their satisfaction and effectiveness of instruction. Overall, teacher responses on the daily and final evaluations for both courses were extremely positive. However, after participating in the ISI course, teachers’ gains in science content knowledge were not as strong as they had perceived. The findings described here can assist developers of informal science professional development for elementary and middle school teachers that desire to incorporate inquiry, pedagogy, and science content into their teacher learning experiences.

Next Generation Science Teacher Educators

In 1994 and 1995, when Norman Lederman was President and Past-President of ASTE (then called AETS) he wrote two AETS Newsletter presidential messages (Ledrman 1994, 1995) that discussed issues surrounding curriculum and instructional integration. At this time the Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS 1993) had already been published and one of the Drafts of the National Science Education Standards (NRC 1996) was available. Several months ago the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (Achieve 2013) appeared on the scene. Depending on who you speak to, the NGSS build upon previous science education reform efforts or they represent a totally new perspective. We prefer the former interpretation. Lederman’s expressed concern in the AETS Newsletter related to the professed integrated structure of the K-12 curriculum and instructional approach. We believe that with all the differences between the NGSS and previous reform documents (e.g., the centrality of engineering practices) one important commonality is the focus on integration. It could be argued that prior reforms only focused on the integration of disciplinary subject matters and the NGSS is more comprehensive in its focus on the integration of science and engineering practices, core concepts, and cross-cutting concepts. Our organization is the premier professional organization of science teacher education worldwide. Reform documents and initiatives typically put a magnifying glass on desired student outcomes, and with less frequency on instructional practice. It is not uncommon to hear the authors of such documents say that the reform in question ‘‘is not a curriculum’’ or that it is ‘‘pedagogically agnostic.’’ Nevertheless, we think our membership would all agree that each reform effort has strong implications for science teacher educators. The last two words are correct; we are talking about the education of those who become teacher educators, who then in turn educate classroom teachers. In 1997 AETS published a position statement on Professional Knowledge Standards for Science Teacher Educators (Lederman et al. 1997). The document

What Is A Theoretical Framework? A Practical Answer

Other than the poor or non-existent validity and/or reliability of data collection measures, the lack of a theoretical framework is the most frequently cited reason for our editorial decision not t...

The Functions of a Teacher

Try as we did, we could not construct a better title for this editorial than Bertrand Russell’s essay, with the same title, from his famous or infamous book Unpopular Essays (Russell, 1950). Perhaps this editorial will not be considered ‘‘unpopular.’’ We are fairly confident that most of you are glad to be done with the 2016 U.S. presidential election season. Regardless of your reaction to the outcome of the race, one potentially positive outcome is the recognition of the enormous diversity of the U.S. citizenry ethnically, politically, and emotionally. We say ‘‘potentially positive’’ because our citizenry is as diverse in its reactions to this diversity as the diversity itself. Although impossible to determine with any accuracy the diversity of emotions and thinking among our citizens it is, to some degree, derived from the U.S. educational system or wherever our voting public attended school. The focus of our ASTE is on science teachers and how they are/were educated as preservice and inservice teachers. Science teachers, as well as all teachers, help to shape the knowledge, abilities, emotions, and thinking of their students. Further, as science teacher educators we help shape the knowledge, abilities, and dispositions of science teachers. The history of the U.S. school curriculum and its relationship to societal factors provides some context to our discussion. This history has been well-documented and is usually summarized in curriculum courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Prior to 1900 a small minority of the population attended high school (approx. 3.8%), but almost 100% of high school graduates attended college. The Committee of Ten (Mackenzie, 1894) was charged with developing a ‘‘standardized’’ curriculum for U.S. schools and the previously mentioned state of affairs was