In this paper, we examined data collected as part of a 5-year project designed to foster reform-based urban science teaching through teachers' communities of inquiry. Drawing upon a distributed leadership framework, we analyzed teacher 'talk' during professional learning community (PLC) meetings. This analysis yielded five elements: teacher learning and collaboration, community formation, confidence in knowledge of content and guided inquiry, concerns about the impact of accountability measures on teaching and learning, and sustainability of reform. Follow-up interviews with participants
Our study utilizes data from a national cohort of eighth-grade students to consider how different gender and racial/ethnic subgroups compare to White males in their likelihood to aspire toward a science or math occupation and examine the roles that self-concept, enjoyment, and achievement may play in shaping disparities at this early point in occupational trajectories. We find that the importance of enjoyment, self-concept, and achievement in explaining disparities in science career aspirations relative to White males varies according to the female subgroup considered, such that no singular
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Catherine Riegle-CrumbChelsea MooreAida Ramos-Wada
Environmental education researchers have called for a greater analysis of 'learning' in environmental education in relation to contemporary theories and explanatory frameworks of learning. Situated learning, as a prominent example, is a sociocultural theory that contends that learning is a social process that occurs as individuals participate in 'communities of practice'. This study aims to enhance our understanding of the usefulness and applicability of the communities of practice framework to the analysis of learning in environmental education, focusing on the learning in after-school
The article discusses the outcomes of the Mathematics Improvement That Ensures Excellence (MITEE), an after-school mathematics tutoring program in the U.S. which aims at improving the mathematics conceptual understanding and level of procedural skills of second and fifth graders and encouraging ninth graders to pursue teaching careers. It offers an overview of the inception of the program through the collaborative effort between an urban school district and a midwestern university, along with teacher education students and community volunteers, and describes the different participants and
This study was designed to examine the impact of participating in an after-school robotics competition on high school students' attitudes toward science. Specifically, this study used the Test of Science-Related Attitude to measure students' social implications of science, normality of scientists, attitude toward scientific inquiry, adoption of scientific attitudes, enjoyment of science lessons, leisure interest in science, and career interest in science. Results indicated that students who participated in a robotic competition had a more positive attitude toward science and science-related
In this paper we report on teachers' and students' participation in authentic science research in out of school time science clubs at elementary schools. In the program four to five teachers worked alongside practicing scientists as part of their research groups. Each teacher facilitated a club with 10-15 students who, by extension, were members of the scientists' research groups. Over the 3 years of the project nearly 30 teachers and over 500 children participated in the clubs. In this paper we present a case study of teachers and children who worked with an analytic chemist at a major
This study explores how activities developed by science experts in partnership with middle school teachers were employed and interpreted. The goals of this partnership were to (a) help the science teacher meet earth science content standards in new ways, (b) expose students to 'real world' experiences outside their school setting, and (c) positively impact teacher practice by providing a program to be used as a catalyst for future learning. Over 300 sixth graders mostly underrepresented science students attended activities at an aquarium serving an urban West Coast urban context. Science
Modern zoological gardens have invested substantial resources in technology to deliver environmental education concepts to visitors. Investment in these media reflects a currently unsubstantiated belief that visitors will both use and learn from these media alongside more traditional and less costly displays. This paper proposes a model that identifies key factors theorized to influence the likelihood of visitors engaging in technology-delivered media. Using data from two case studies of large National Science Foundation-funded projects in zoos, the authors argue key factors in predicting
Natural history has all but disappeared from formal education in the United States. This places the responsibility of introducing people to natural history within nonformal educational settings, with interpretive naturalists taking a leading role. This qualitative study of the life histories of 51 natural history-oriented professionals establishes additional roles for interpretive naturalists interacting with and programming for people with an emerging interest in natural history. Young adults with a strong interest in competency in natural history topics were characterized by having access to
Over many decades, science education researchers have developed, validated, and used a wide range of attitudinal instruments. Data from such instruments have been analyzed, results have been published, and public policies have been influenced. Unfortunately, most science education instruments are not developed using a guiding theoretical measurement framework. Moreover, ordinal-level attitudinal data are routinely analyzed as if these data are equal interval, thereby violating requirements of parametric tests. This paper outlines how researchers can use Rasch analysis to develop higher quality
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TEAM MEMBERS:
William BooneJ. Scott TownsendJohn Staver
The purpose of this study was to investigate how situational interest of high school students was triggered during a field trip to an aquarium. Although the role of museums in stimulating interest among students has been acknowledged for some time, empirical evidence about how the specific variable of a museum setting might trigger situational interest is almost nonexistent. The present study was conducted as a case study to provide an inductive, explorative investigation of how situational interest emerged during the field trip. A situative approach to the study of interest was applied in the
This paper is birthed from my lifelong experiences as student, teacher, administrator, and researcher in urban science classrooms. This includes my years as a minority student in biology, chemistry, and physics classrooms, 10 years as science teacher and high school science department chair, 5-years conducting research on youth experiences in urban science classrooms, and current work in preparing science teachers for teaching in urban schools. These experiences afford me both emic and etic lenses through which to view urban science classrooms and urban youth communities. This paper, both