Peter W. Hewson - US grants

The research has three purposes. The first is to describe the way in which experienced high school biology, chemistry, and physics teachers think about their discipline, their students, and their teaching. The second is to identify relationships between the teachers' thinking, their planning and teaching practices, and the conceptual learning of students in their classrooms. The third is to develop techniques of video data collection in high school science classrooms and computer- based video and audio data analysis to support the above purposes. In a pilot study, video data collection and computer-based analysis procedures will be developed and refined by observing three teachers, one in each discipline. In the full study eighteen teachers will be studied, six in each discipline. Each teacher will be observed teaching three target units each of about 2 weeks duration. Each teacher will also be interviewed at intervals throughout the project; at the start and end of the study about the way they think about teaching science to high school students, at the end of each unit to clarify classroom events, and in the final year of the project to provide feedback about the analysis of data. Finally, each class of students will be given a pre-test and post-test for each unit. This research will provide information about different ways in which eperienced teachers think about the nature of their discipline, the ways in which their students learn science, and the effect this has on instruction. Further, it will describe various patterns of practice; ways in which teachers' thoughts relate to their classroom practices and to the conceptual learning of their students. Finally, it will detail similarities and differences in these patterns of practice for biology, chemistry, and physics teachers. These detailed descriptions will provide a level of understanding of science teaching which will significantly enhance the quality of preservice and inservice science teacher education and, ultimely, science teaching in the nation's high schools.

The project will integrate two new components into a preservice elementary and secondary teacher education program. The purpose of the integrated program is the development in preservice teachers of conceptions of teaching science consistent with recent research in science education. One new component is a conceptual change model for science teacher education; the other is and action research component to assist students to become teachers who are reflective about their practice particularly with respect to the use of conceptual change teaching strategies. The project will concentrate on students' teaching of biology. Twenty students in two cohorts (five elementary and five secondary in each cohort) will be interviewed and their teaching observed and, in some instances, video recorded throughout the program. This consists of a semester of methods and a school-based practicum followed by a semester of student teaching, with an action research seminar through both semesters. Science methods classes and action research seminars will be observed and the professors interviewed. Case studies of each student will document factors that influence their progress toward adoption of appropriate conceptions of science teaching. Eight students selected from the two cohorts ( for elementary and four secondary) will be followed into their first year of teaching to document what happens to their conceptions of the teaching of biology when confronted with the reality of schools. A further twenty students will, divided as before, will serve as a comparison group. They will be interviewed and have the same methods, practicum, and student teaching experiences, but not the action research seminar. Successful implementation of the components of the project will meet NSF's goals of strengthening science education for students in elementary and secondary schools by preparing science teachers who are autonomous, capable and reflective professionals. The cost sharing for this project is 20+% of the NSF costs.

This award will conduct an educational research project in conjunction with some universities and faculty in both the United States and South Africa. The focus of the project will be standards-based education reform. The project will support exchange of faculty and graduate students, as well as some research costs.

This planning proposal is for the development of a full proposal to develop a new outline learning community, Scienceline II, for middle school teachers of science and for conducting studies based on data collected in Scienceline II field trials.