Karthigeyan Subramaniam

Analyzing prospective teachers’ images of scientists using positive, negative and stereotypical images of scientists

Background and purpose : This study details the use of a conceptual framework to analyze prospective teachers’ images of scientists to reveal their context-specific conceptions of scientists. The conceptual framework consists of context-specific conceptions related to positive, stereotypical and negative images of scientists as detailed in the literature on the images, role and work of scientists. Sample, design and method : One hundred and ninety-six drawings of scientists, generated by prospective teachers, were analyzed using the Draw-A-Scientist-Test Checklist (DAST-C), a binary linear regression and the conceptual framework. Results : The results of the binary linear regression analysis revealed a statistically significant difference for two DAST-C elements: ethnicity differences with regard to drawing a scientist who was Caucasian and gender differences for indications of danger. Analysis using the conceptual framework helped to categorize the same drawings into positive, stereotypical, negative and composite images of a scientist. Conclusions : The conceptual framework revealed that drawings were focused on the physical appearance of the scientist, and to a lesser extent on the equipment, location and science-related practices that provided the context of a scientist’s role and work. Implications for teacher educators include the need to understand that there is a need to provide tools, like the conceptual framework used in this study, to help prospective teachers to confront and engage with their multidimensional perspectives of scientists in light of the current trends on perceiving and valuing scientists. In addition, teacher educators need to use the conceptual framework, which yields qualitative perspectives about drawings, together with the DAST-C, which yields quantitative measure for drawings, to help prospective teachers to gain a holistic outlook on their drawings of scientists.

Understanding Changes in Teacher Roles Through Collaborative Action Research

The purpose of this article is to present the design and findings of a collaborative action research study that involved five secondary science teachers as action researchers and me, as facilitator, collectively articulating the teachers’ changing teaching roles when the teachers taught with computer technology. Data included interviews, observations, and focus group discussions. Data analysis entailed thematic analysis of data to identify initial and changes in teachers’ roles. Collaborative action research context helped the teachers to perceive their changing teaching roles through collective negotiation. Implications for facilitators of action research include the need to articulate their theoretical orientation prior to the onset of facilitating action research projects and to acknowledge and accept action researchers as fellow active knowledge producers.

How WebQuests Can Enhance Science Learning Principles in the Classroom

Abstract This article examines the merits of WebQuests in facilitating students’ in-depth understanding of science concepts using the four principles of learning gathered from the National Research Council reports How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (1999) and the How Students Learn: Science in the Classroom (2005) as an analytic framework. Modifications needed to make a well-constructed WebQuests for science teaching aligned to the four principles include (1) integrating student science interests and cultural and social backgrounds to curricular goals and then using this as means to design WebQuests, (2) providing students opportunities to examine science-related Internet websites to discriminate credible and false information and then giving them the opportunity to include and use the websites for the task step in WebQuests, and (3) providing cognitive tools and guidance within the process step so that students are engaged in argumentation and negotiation akin to a community of scientists.

An analysis of prospective teachers’ knowledge for constructing concept maps

Background: Literature contends that a teacher’s knowledge of concept map-based tasks influence how their students perceive the task and execute the creation of acceptable concept maps. Teachers who are skilled concept mappers are able to (1) understand and apply the operational terms to construct a hierarchical/non-hierarchical concept map; (2) identify the legitimacy of the constructed concept map by verifying its graphical structure and its educational utility; and (3) determine the inherent ‘good’ and ‘poor’ qualities of the resulting graphical structure to reiterate the ‘good’ qualities and to coach and provide feedback to alleviate ‘poor’ qualities. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of prospective teachers’ knowledge underpinning the technique used to construct concept maps and thus, explicate their facility to construct concept maps. Sample, Design and Methods: Data consisted of 200 concept maps constructed by prospective teachers in an elementary science methods course. Results: Analysis revealed that the prospective teachers had predominantly constructed either hierarchical and/or non-hierarchical concept maps. It is likely that their maps reflect the teaching that they themselves would have experienced in their science classrooms during their own education. Additionally, most of these concepts maps only contained the root concept and subordinate concepts and lacked directional linking lines, linking phrases, labelled lines and propositions. Conclusions: We argue that teacher educators need to assess their prospective teachers’ understanding of concept mapping in relation to the legitimacy (the nature and quality) of the end-products (graphical structures) of such practices. Prospective teachers also need to understand the educational utility of concept mapping in terms of how these end-products impact and/or effectuate learning.

Student teachers’ conceptions of teaching biology

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate prospective biology teachers’ conceptions of teaching biology and identify how these conceptions revealed their strategies for helping their future students’ learning of biology. The study utilized drawings, narratives and interviews to investigate the nature of the prospective biology teachers’ conceptions in a secondary science teacher education programme, in a university located in the south-west of the USA. Data analysis revealed that three conceptions of teaching biology were common among the participants: (1) teaching biology is an interactive process; (2) teaching biology is a lecture-based process; and (3) learning biology is a visual process. A common theme that underpinned the three conceptions was the simple perspective of using lectures, apparatus and models within interactive processes and lectures as reference points to help students to attach onto biology concepts rather than relating the reference points to prior knowledge and to cognitive activities that foster optimal learning.

Elementary pre-service teachers’ conceptual understanding of dissolving: a Vygotskian concept development perspective

Background and purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate and identify the nature and the interrelatedness of pre-service teachers’ misconceptions and scientific concepts for explaining dissolving before, during, and after a 5E learning cycle lesson on dissolving, the intervention. Sample, design, and methods: Guided by Vygotsky’s theory of concept development, the study focused specifically on the spontaneous, and spontaneous pseudo-concepts held by the 61 elementary pre-service teachers during a 15-week science methods course. Data included concept maps, interview transcripts, written artifacts, drawings, and narratives, and were thematically analyzed to classify concepts and interrelatedness. Results: Results of the study showed that spontaneous pseudo-concepts (1) dominated pre-service teachers’ understandings about dissolving throughout the study, and (2) were simply associated with scientific concepts during and after the intervention. Conclusion: Collectively, the results indicated that the pre-service teachers’ did not acquire a unified system of knowledge about dissolving that could be characterized as abstract, generalizable, and hierarchical. Implications include the need for (1) familiarity with pre-service teachers’ prior knowledge about science content; (2) a variety of formative assessments to assess their misconceptions; (3) emphasizing the importance of dialectical method for concept development during instruction; and (4) skillful content instructors.

Student Teachers’ Images of Science Instruction in Informal Settings: A Focus on Field Trip Pedagogy

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to explore student teachers’ images of science instruction in informal settings and how these images explicate their field trip pedagogy. Field trips refers to planned, structured, and adaptable ways of learning science outside the science classroom that are connected to the school science curriculum. Field trip pedagogy collectively refers to pre–, during–, and post–field trip pedagogies and teachers’ decision-based actions central to making connections between in-school science and out-of-school science. An analysis of drawing and narrative data indicated that (a) field trips were predominantly situated within the schoolyard and (b) science instruction during field trips as social constellations of students and the teacher learning science content that was disconnected from school science. Implications include the need for teacher educators (a) to use a framework to examine their student teachers’ prior knowledge of field trip pedagogies; (b) to help their student teachers reflect more carefully on the pedagogy within informal settings, regardless of the location of the lesson; and (c) to help their student teachers construct the knowledge that science instruction within informal settings is connected to in-school science.

An exploratory study of student teachers’ conceptions of teaching life science outdoors

Abstract The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to investigate elementary student teachers’ conceptions of teaching life science outdoors. The study involved 99 student teachers who were enrolled in an elementary science methods course at a large public university in the United States of America. The study utilised drawings, and narratives to investigate the nature of these teachers’ conceptions. Data analysis revealed that three conceptions of teaching life science were common among the participants: (1) teaching life science is predominantly conceptualised as being situated in the schoolyard, (2) teaching life science outdoors is teacher-directed, and (3) teaching life science outdoors is disconnected from in-class science instruction. Implications include the need for (1) teacher education programmes to provide reflective supports that explicate student teachers’ conceptualisation of teaching life science and thus exposing prior frameworks; and (2) teacher educators to examine student teachers’ prior frameworks for teaching life science outdoors and provide knowledgeable theory and practice platforms that will serve as frameworks for student teachers to adopt, connect and routinize outdoor life science teaching with in-school teaching of life science.

How Science Teacher Educators of Color Conceptualize and Operationalize Their Pedagogy in Science Methods Courses

This study explored how four science teacher educators of color conceptualized and operationalized their pedagogy in elementary science methods courses. Conceptualization and operationalization in this study refers to the methodological tactics we constructed in response to the challenges, tensions, and problems impacting our substantial selves and situational selves within the context of our teaching spaces. The study used the self-study methodology, and data included metaphors and focus group interview transcripts. Inductive and thematic analysis of data revealed that we conceptualized our pedagogy within a role, and as a pedagogy needing safety nets to remove barriers that impinged on our professional roles. Even though the self-study of our practice revealed that we had aspirations to help transform our pedagogy of science teacher education for the success of our teacher candidates, these transformations were situated within tensions of role, identities, and methodological tactics for survival.