relationships between prospective elementary teachers' classroom practice and their conceptions...

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q 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0036-8326/99/030323-24

Relationships betweenProspective Elementary Teachers’Classroom Practice and TheirConceptions of Biology and ofTeaching Science

HELEN MEYER, B. ROBERT TABACHNICK, PETER W. HEWSON,JOHN LEMBERGER, HYUN-JU PARK1

Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison,WI, USA

Received 20 December 1994; revised 28 October 1997; accepted 10 September 1998

ABSTRACT: This article describes the journeys—in the form of case studies—that threeindividuals took as they prepared to become elementary teachers of science. These pro-spective teachers were in a science teacher education program whose goal was to graduateteachers who held conceptual change beliefs of teaching science and were disposed to putthem into practice. It describes these prospective teachers’ conceptions of teaching scienceand selected portions of their knowledge base in life science, and explores how theseconceptions, along with their teaching actions, developed during the course of the program.There are several conclusions. First, all three individuals started the program with viewsof learning in which the learners’ role was to be receptive to the knowledge presentedfrom other sources. There were considerable differences between the three individualswith respect to their initial perspectives on the nature of knowledge and of science. Second,there were changes in these prospective teachers’ content knowledge, largely with respectto the quality, rather than the quantity, of what they knew. Third, all three prospectiveelementary teachers made progress in the direction of the goals of the program, althoughin different ways that were dependent on their own conceptions of knowledge, science,and learning. Fourth, all three individuals came to accept that students’ views were im-portant, but interpreted the significance of these views in different ways. Finally, therewas evidence of unevenness in the relative development of their thoughts about teachingscience and their actions in teaching science. This meant that there were some aspects of

Correspondence to: H. MeyerContract grant sponsor: National Science Foundation, contract grant number: TPE-9053771; contract

grant sponsor: Wisconsin Center for Education Research, School of Education, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Any opinions, findings, or conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflectthe views of the supporting agencies.

This article is based on a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational ResearchAssociation, New Orleans, LA, April, 1994.

1 This work was assisted by Kathy Blomker, Regina Toolin, and Joan Barrett-Roberts. They were instrumentalin the interviewing and observation portions of this project.

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Top of testBase of textteaching for conceptual change that they adopted more readily than others. Focusing on

students’ ideas was seen as important for tracking their progress and increasing theirmotivation, but not as a basis for understanding their meaning-making. q 1999 John Wiley& Sons, Inc. Sci Ed 83:323–346, 1999.

INTRODUCTION

This is the fourth in a set of six articles about how two significant ideas—constructivismand reflective practice—were applied in a science teacher education program at the ele-mentary and secondary levels. Details of the study and its theoretical foundations, context,and methods of data collection and analysis are discussed in the first article in the set(Hewson et al., 1999a) and are not included here. Of particular relevance to this article,the implications of constructivism for the teaching of science were expressed in terms ofa set of guidelines required in teaching for conceptual change, together with examples ofteaching actions one might expect to see if prospective teachers in the study were imple-menting conceptual change science teaching.

This article focuses on prospective teachers in the elementary teacher preparation pro-gram at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.2 It adds to a growing body of researchinto the practice of prospective elementary teachers with respect to conceptions of science(Appleton, 1995; Atwood & Atwood, 1996; Ginns & Watters, 1995; Hauslein, Good, &Cummins, 1992; McDevitt et al., 1995), conceptions of the nature of science (Abell &Smith, 1994; Pomeroy, 1993; Shapiro, 1996), and conceptions of teaching science (Ebe-nezer & Hay, 1995; Gustafson & Rowell, 1995; Martens & Crosier, 1994). A notableaddition to this literature is Stofflett’s work (Stofflett, 1994; Stofflett & Stoddart, 1994) inwhich she studied the relationship between prospective teachers’ conceptions of teachingscience and their teaching.

The article uses case studies to describe the journey that three individuals took as theyprepared to become elementary teachers. Our purpose in these case studies is to describethese prospective teachers’ conceptions of teaching science and selected portions of theirknowledge base in life science, and to explore how these conceptions along with theirteaching actions developed during the course of the program. The term conception ofteaching science is used here as an umbrella term that includes conceptions of science(nature of science, scientific knowledge, etc.), of learning, and of science instruction; andrelationships between these conceptions. Our hope was that the prospective teachers wouldat least begin to construct a conception of teaching science as conceptual change duringthe teacher preparation program and to show evidence of such a conception in their teach-ing. This hope was based on an intervention strategy that included a science methodscourse that emphasized teaching for conceptual change linked to a school-based practicum,and an 18-week student teaching experience linked to a biweekly action research seminardesigned to let prospective teachers reflect on questions important to conceptual changeteaching. These components are described, respectively, in the second and third articles inthis issue (Marion et al., 1999; Tabachnick & Zeichner, 1999).

Thus, in this article we address the research question:

● How do prospective elementary teachers develop with respect to their practice ofteaching life science over the course of the teacher education program?

2 The next article in this set (Lemberger et al., 1999) focuses on prospective secondary teachers.

PROSPECTIVE ELEMENTARY TEACHERS 325


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TABLE 1Cohorts and Data Gathering Methodsa

Spring 1992 Fall 1993 Spring 1993

COHORTS EC 1: 10 PTs includingIsabel

EC 1; EC 2: 10 PTsincluding Karen,Rachel

EC 2

DATA GATHERING METHODSCTS interview, start

and end ofsemester

EC 1 [K.B.] (start) EC 1 [K.B.] (end)EC 2 [J.B.R.] (start)

EC 2 [J.B.R.](end)

CBT interview, startand end ofsemester

EC 1 [K.B.] (start) EC 1 [K.B.] (end)EC 2 [J.B.R.] (start)

EC 2 [J.B.R.](end)

PTES interview EC 1 [K.B.] EC 2 [J.B.R.]Practicum teaching

observation, duringsemester

EC 1 [K.B.] EC 2 [J.B.R., B.T.,K.Z.]

Student teaching,during semester

EC 1 [K.B., B.T.,K.Z.]

EC 2 [J.B.R.,B.T., K.Z.]

aResearch subjects and data gatherers indicated by initials in brackets. EC 1, 2, elemen-tary cohort 1, 2, respectively; PT, prospective teacher.

Research Methods

To address this question, we use a subset of the data gathered for the whole project.The data gathering events and methods were fully described in the first of this set of articles(Hewson et al., 1999a). Those used in this article are summarized in Table 1.

To determine their views about knowledge, learning, science, and teaching science, weinterviewed the prospective teachers early on in their methods semester using the Con-ceptions of Teaching Science (CTS) interview and the Conceptions of Biological Themes(CBT) interview. We prefaced the first CTS interview with a short interview about ourProspective Teachers’ Experiences with Science (PTES interview). Samples of these in-struments can be found in Hewson et al. (1999a). We also observed the prospective teach-ers’ classrooms during their practicum and student teaching experiences. Each observationwas described in field notes. Debriefing interviews were conducted after each observation.The prospective teachers were asked how they felt about their lessons, what they did duringtheir lessons, and reasons for their actions. Each prospective teacher was interviewed againusing the CTS and CBT interviews as they graduated from the teacher education program.

We have chosen to present the results in the form of individual case studies for severalreasons. This choice preserves the unique characteristics of each prospective teacher. Itallows us to present the many varied aspects of a teacher’s practice—thoughts, disposi-tions, beliefs, actions—as a coherent narrative that includes the complex relationshipsbetween these aspects. In other words, these case studies allow us to understand the com-plexity of prospective teachers’ practices and to identify various internal and externalinfluences on the way in which they did (and did not) develop during the teacher educationprogram.

These prospective teachers voluntarily took part in the study reported here and werechosen from the larger group of project participants because of their employment status

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Top of testBase of textand willingness to continue in the project during their first 2 years of employment as

teachers. All three of the prospective teachers discussed in this study were participants inthe action research seminar described in Tabachnick and Zeichner (1999).

Organization of the Article

This article presents the case studies of three prospective elementary teachers—Isabel,Karen, and Rachel—at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who were enrolled in theteacher education program during the fall and spring semesters of 1992 and 1993. Isabelwas in a cohort that began the two-semester teacher preparation program in the spring of1992. Karen and Rachel were part of a cohort that started in the fall of 1992.

The case studies of the three prospective elementary teachers are chronological narra-tives of their changing conceptions of teaching science (and the related conceptions ofscience instruction, knowledge, science, and learning). The narratives serve to highlightthe development of each individual’s practice in the context of her experiences. Each casebegins with an introductory background of the individual’s science experiences. The casestudies are then divided into early and late conceptions of science instruction, knowledge,science, and learning. Of these, knowledge emerged as the most influential conceptiondriving classroom practice. These results help to set the context for the prospective teach-ers’ actions observed in their classroom teaching. These included at least one lesson fromboth the practicum and the student teaching experiences. The results from the concludingCTS and CBT interviews follow. Each case concludes with a discussion of the practice ofeach prospective teacher as it developed over the course of the year. This discussion refersto the themes of science instruction, knowledge, science, and learning.

The project focused on the life sciences as the content domain, because, at the elementarylevel, life sciences constitute a larger part of the curriculum than other sciences, and pro-spective elementary teachers are more likely to have taken college courses in biology thanin other sciences. Because of the wide range of content topics considered in the CBT task,in the methods course, and in classes taught by prospective teachers, we have includedspecific content in the form of illustrations in interviews and observations, but not in theform of analyses of their knowledge of given topics. Also, we have chosen to look acrossthe range of topics to identify prospective teachers’ more general conceptions of knowledgeand science.

CASE STUDIES3

Isabel

Isabel entered the elementary education program as a traditional undergraduate student.4

She began college immediately after completing high school, choosing teacher educationduring her second year. Isabel is an articulate woman who communicates with a great dealof warmth and humor. The videotapes of her teaching and action research demonstratehow her humor and energy engage and draw other people into her conversation. Isabelalso speaks with commitment and concern about schools and schooling.

3 We are grateful to Isabel, Karen, and Rachel for their participation in this project. They allowed us to probetheir ideas and visit their classroom.

4 For the purposes of this article, a traditional student is any student who entered college directly from highschool, after only a short break. A nontraditional student would be someone entering or reentering college afterpursuing a career for several years or more.



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Top of textBase of textEarly Science Experiences. Isabel had a difficult time recalling her past science expe-

riences. She said that, during elementary school, “it was always a subject that was . . .tucked in if there was time.” Her sixth grade class stood out for involving experiments onweather, heat, and some biology. In seventh and eighth grade, science consisted primarilyof lectures, “. . . it was them talking at us . . . and once in a while we would go out-side.” Isabel took six science courses in high school, physical science, biology, advancedbiology, comparative anatomy, physics, and chemistry. The biology classes had the mostimpact on Isabel. They were taught by a teacher who, Isabel said, “. . . pretty much gotme into science [and] . . . became an important part of my life.”

Isabel described the structure of the general biology class as very straightforward lecturewith tests that were focused on vocabulary matching and short-answer descriptions. Theadvanced biology class was fast paced and required a great deal of independent work. Theentire first semester was spent on an independent research project of the student’s choice.The second semester was spent working on the dissection of various organ systems in thecat. For example, each student dissected the muscular system and was expected to be ableto identify all the muscles.

Isabel’s college science courses were general zoology, physical geography, and nutri-tion. Isabel explained that she felt comfortable with her science background and wasexcited about the prospect of teaching elementary school science. It was from this back-ground that Isabel constructed her ideas of science, teaching, and biological content thatshe spoke about in her first interviews when she entered the science methods class.

Early Conceptions of Science, Learning, Science Instruction, and Knowledge.Science. Isabel’s initial description of science can be paraphrased as information beingthere to be discovered through observation. She believed nature, that for her was synon-ymous with science, to be purposeful and planned. Thus, one of Isabel’s goals for teachingscience was to help students make observations and discover the natural patterns of theworld. This idea is illustrated as Isabel spoke about specific aspects of the human circu-latory system. She suggested that each type of blood cell works in a purposeful fashion toaccomplish an assigned task and that the individual cells in the blood work together tocomplete the plan for the circulatory system. She referred to biological functions as oc-curring to meet the overall plan of nature better.

A second point found in both Isabel’s opening interviews is her view that science iscomposed of a body of factual information to be learned. This belief reflects her experi-ences of learning science, which relied on memorization and vocabulary. For Isabel, asshe spoke about the role of a teacher in her first interview, this means having students:

. . . following directions, making comparisons, posing questions and looking for answersin textbooks or in trade literature . . . [and then] there’s a certain amount of information[students] maybe would receive best from me. The ability to do those things would bescience teaching to me.

Learning. For Isabel, the job of learning was remembering information or concepts.Science instruction. For Isabel, a primary role of the science teacher was the need to

find ways to make the information interesting to the students so that they would have aneasier time remembering it. Isabel’s beliefs about teaching and learning combined to forma picture of a classroom where the students make observations around teacher-arrangedactivities that lead them towards a result that the teacher values.

Knowledge. The two interviews also provided an understanding of Isabel’s knowledge

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Top of testBase of textand metaphysical beliefs. During the interviews she spoke about knowledge as being fac-

tual and true. Also, during the biology interview she described herself as a creationist whodid not find evolution to be plausible. When she was asked to explain the theory of evo-lution as she might teach it she could not provide a sensible explanation. It is unclear ifher religious beliefs have interfered with her learning of evolutionary theory, or if herweak conceptual knowledge of evolution meant she could not make the theory intelligible.Isabel was clear that she did not accept evolution; however, as the following statementexemplifies, “Well that would be the concept of evolution, if you believe in somethinglike that. I happen to not think that way. . . .”

Early teaching experiences. It is these background experiences, ideas, and beliefs thatIsabel took with her into her first teaching experience. Her practicum teaching took placein a third grade classroom in a middle class neighborhood elementary school in Madison.The school population, as described by the cooperating teacher, was largely children ofprofessional parents who were involved and concerned about their children’s education.

Isabel was observed teaching a science lesson on the properties of light that was part ofa larger unit prepared by the classroom teacher. The activity involved the students inmaking observations at stations that Isabel had constructed. Each of the three stations wasset up to demonstrate, through the use of mirrors, a property of light. As the studentsworked on the problems, Isabel traveled from group to group and asked questions thatchecked the accuracy of the students’ observations and focused the students along a paththat would lead them to a correct conclusion. During the summary portion of the lesson,her questions were closed and subject-centered, designed to lead toward her expectedanswer, and stopped when the answer she wanted was suggested. After the lesson, Isabelstated that she felt the lesson would have gone better if the class had discussed the prop-erties of light prior to the activity. The overall structure of the lesson activity fits the patternof her early comments about science, as knowledge about the natural world and scienceteaching as the transfer of that knowledge from teacher to student. No attempt to elicit oruse students’ prior knowledge was observed.

Late Conceptions of Science, Learning, Science Instruction, and Knowledge. At theconclusion of Isabel’s student teaching, she was interviewed again using the CTS and CBTinterviews to assess the influence of the combination of experiences on her thoughts aboutthese topics. She still spoke about science as information that is there to be discovered andthat science instruction is helping the students to discover this known body of information.Learning is the uncovering of the information that the teacher has set for the studentsthrough activities and experiments.

Late Teaching Experiences. The next semester Isabel was a full-time student teacherin a school that provided a sharp contrast to her practicum experience. This elementaryschool was located in an inner-city neighborhood in a large midwestern city. The studentpopulation was almost entirely African-American and Hispanic from working lower so-cioeconomic families. Concurrently with student teaching, Isabel took part in the actionresearch seminar. During an early seminar, she spoke about the violence the students facedin the neighborhood, including shootings at the school. Other participants in the seminarexpressed concerns about Isabel’s safety, but she felt she was safe with her students. Shespoke fondly and favorably of her students in both the seminars and in her journal writing.Isabel’s attentiveness to her students as individuals and people was apparent through heractions as a teacher, in her journal writing, and in her research questions.

Isabel’s student teaching was split between a kindergarten class and a third and fourth



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Top of textBase of textgrade mixed class. Isabel began her student teaching in the kindergarten and was respon-

sible for a science unit of her choice. Here, she focused her action research on three studentsand how they communicated their ideas. The question of communication arose from anearly observation that she made of her own teaching performance. She explained theproblem in her journal:

I am putting pressure on the students to perform, rather than finding means . . . to pullthe things out. I’ve been going for the quick fix questions in which answers are apparentand obvious. Though these questions have their place, they limit expression.

After Isabel identified this problem in her own teaching, she tried to switch to allow thestudents to express their ideas fully and help them to develop communication skills inscience.

Isabel’s teaching of a farm unit demonstrated a mix of strategies. She began by elicitingstudents’ knowledge by having the students share what they knew about farms and thenstructured activities to increase their knowledge. The activities usually involved the stu-dents in observing a farm product (e.g., eggs, cheese, grains) and how the students mightfind it at home. Isabel stressed having the students describe their observations, and triedto get them to give reasons for what they said and to listen to each other. This created anintellectually safe climate in the classroom where meanings could be negotiated in a ra-tional manner. An example of this occurred during a final activity when the class waslooking at dirt. One student said, “the piece[s are] very little bitty,” and another “it’s big,”then, following some discussion, the class concluded that it could be seen as both.

Isabel continued to rely on observations as a way of knowing the truth. However, shealso demonstrated the importance of using the children’s own experiences and prior knowl-edge, and recognized that individuals can see the same event differently.

The second portion of Isabel’s student teaching was in a mixed third and fourth grade.In this class, she was responsible for all the science and developed two units, one ondigestion and one on nutrition. Isabel’s action research focused on the ability of differentevaluation methods to represent the students’ learning accurately. In one observation, Is-abel had the class conduct an activity to discover which foods had fat in them. The studentsworked in groups testing different foods to see if they made grease stains on paper bagsto show if fat were present. At the end of this activity, Isabel had the class discuss theresults from their groups. During this discussion, the groups reported different findings forsome of the foods. One group, for example, found that the carrots made a stain. She didnot suggest that any student’s observations were wrong. Rather, Isabel tallied all thegroups’ responses to the tested foods. The class then compared all the work, and came upwith conclusions for each type of food and of error through variability in measuring.5

Isabel guided her students to find appropriate language to represent their varied results. Ifall groups agreed, the observation was “almost certain”; if six out of seven groups agreed,it was “very likely,” and so on. The students’ conclusions showed a beginning understand-ing of the uncertainty of the experimental process.

In all instances, Isabel’s teaching was vivid and engaged her students. It kept themactively involved and on task. Each student participated in the lessons by performing theactivities and answering questions. Isabel crafted the class activities to draw in studentswho did not normally participate and to fill in information, without being overly redundant,

5 Repeated measures that reveal variation in measurements was modeled in the methods course, “TeachingScience in the Elementary School.”

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Top of testBase of textfor students who missed the previous lessons. The lessons were remarkably successful in

all these ways and they provided the students with the information to learn. The use ofteacher-directed activities and the students being involved in making observations is re-flective of Isabel’s earlier views of science. However, she also made changes in her teach-ing emphasis and these indicate that her views about the nature of science might have beenchanging. She was able to accept that if many observations are made there may be differ-ences among them, and that conclusions can be drawn from information pools and dis-cussion.

In her action research journal, Isabel discussed the results of her digestion unit and wasdisappointed by what she found. The students remembered little of the information thatwas presented in the unit and, even when Isabel provided an outline of the activities thatthe class conducted, they had trouble remembering the underlying concepts. She com-mented after this that, “this whole idea of misconceptions scares me now,” and she con-cluded her journal with this paragraph:

This whole idea of misconceptions then ties in perfectly with communication. The studentsare not empty slates and as such, your starting point for approaching any subject, scienceor whatever, has to be where that misconception is or if things are clear, taking it one stepbeyond.

These comments and her research question further reflect some of the struggles that Isabelwas having fitting her earlier views of knowledge, science, science instruction, and learninginto what goes on in classrooms and in interactions with real students. Her journal reflectschanges in her ideas about teaching and learning. She tried strategies that were modeledin the methods class; for instance, concept maps and discussions of experimental error,and questions to get at students’ conceptions. Isabel seemed to believe that what studentsthink is important, but she was not sure how to use this information in her teaching.

Biology Knowledge and Comfort Level. Isabel’s content knowledge can be exemplifiedby how she discussed the circulatory system: she was actively engaged in the retrieval ofthe specific names and locations of the different parts of the circulatory system. She wasable to reconstruct a clear picture of the circulatory path through the heart chambers, lungs,and body and could relate a purpose for structural changes in arteries, capillaries, andveins. Isabel recalled a great deal of information about the circulatory system, thus dem-onstrating the effectiveness of memory as a learning tool for her. She had difficulty, how-ever, answering questions that require a deeper understanding; for example, whether bloodreally changes to blue in the venous systems (as depicted in textbook diagrams) or whatthe overall function of the circulatory system was.

It is also interesting that, although Isabel was able to recall a great deal of informationquite accurately, her confidence in her knowledge was variable. She required promptingby the interviewer to draw a diagram and, during the construction of the diagram, shefrequently questioned the interviewer about its accuracy. She constructed the diagram asa sequenced pathway and made no references to the functions of the portions. Once Isabelhad completed the diagram, however, she spoke with more confidence and was able touse the diagram to answer more detailed questions. Isabel used three strategies for dealingwith questions that were beyond the scope of her recall. The first, and most frequent, wasto appeal for more resources; for example, “well, if I had a book.” The second was to shutoff questioning with comments, such as, “it just happens” or “that’s just the way Godmade us.” And the third strategy was to answer a related, but different question. What she



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Top of textBase of textdid not do was accept the problems as requiring her to construct an answer from her own

ideas and observations.Isabel’s second biology interview was similar to the first on a content level. She included

a few more terms and used some more precisely. There was, however, a notable differencein her confidence about her knowledge. She made no references to looking the informationup and spent less time trying to recall specific facts. The second interview was also missingcomments about “that’s just the way things are.” No more did she answer a differentquestion. Isabel seemed to have a much clearer idea of what she knew and what she didnot know and was comfortable with that. Isabel’s clarity and organization of ideas andpresentation also improved. She immediately drew diagrams and used them to help theinterviewer understand what she knew. It may be that the quantity of Isabel’s contentknowledge was unchanged, but the quality and accessibility of the knowledge was greater.

A final change in Isabel’s biology interview was in her discussion of evolution. AlthoughIsabel had no greater capacity to explain the theory, she now suggested that it might be aplausible explanation for change in the natural world. Isabel still believed in a creationistview, but she was now willing to accept that other views might be reasonable.

Discussion. Isabel entered the program with beliefs about science and knowledge thatfit consistently with how she spoke about learning and what she saw her role as a teacherto be. She began by believing that knowledge is factual and true, science is the discoveryof these facts about the natural world, and teaching is helping students to discover andremember these facts. In her methods class, however, she and her peers engaged in activ-ities that brought out their conceptions, many of which differed from the observations oftheir classmates, about science events. They made observations, many of which differedfrom each other, about the same events. They came up with conclusions that differed, butcould be plausibly defended, about the same events. In this class, therefore, Isabel wasintroduced to the idea that there can be multiple interpretations of an event and that studentslearn different things from the same experience. This idea was in conflict with her enteringbeliefs about science and knowledge and how people learn. Her teaching after the methodsclass showed some of her struggles with these conflicting ideas; in effect, her strugglesexemplified some of the processes of conceptual change in which long-held beliefs arechallenged by plausible alternatives.

This shift toward accepting that more than one explanation might be possible alsoshowed up in Isabel’s teaching. She began her teaching experiences assuming that theobservations she made and the experiences she had with an activity would be the same asthose of her students. However, she found that there are multiple observations, experiences,and explanations for a single event and that she needed to recognize these in her teaching.

Isabel’s student teaching in her kindergarten class had many characteristics of construc-tivist teaching. She had students observe and compare their ideas and then they discussedthe merits of the ideas. However, in the older grades, where she felt the content to be moredefinite and compelling, she had a more difficult time encouraging the students to constructtheir own ideas. Isabel believed that there were facts that these students should know, buther reflections in her journal (specifically the realization that, even after she had providedher students with activities that were interesting and engaging, they did not remember thefacts) led Isabel to question her previous idea of what it means to learn. This caused Isabelto think again about the concepts of student misconceptions and knowledge constructionthat were discussed in the methods class. Isabel’s journal writing and action researchshowed changes in her thinking that did not come out in her CTS and CBT interviews.Subtle changes in her teaching practices, however, began to appear. Isabel’s teaching

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students’ ideas and observations and then helps the students to accept differences as normalvariations in measurement and observations, this leading to ideas that can be reconciled.Her identity as a science teacher as she practiced it shows that she was moving beyondher spoken beliefs of knowledge and science as “true facts.” We anticipate that, withcontinued reflection on her own practice, Isabel will continue to make changes in herbeliefs.

Karen

Karen was a nontraditional student who entered the elementary teaching program afterbeing out of school and working in business for several years. She had experienced ele-mentary school as both a student and a parent of school-age children. This provided herwith a fuller understanding of the process of schooling. Karen spoke confidently duringthe interviews. She had a relaxed demeanor and was able to explain her ideas well.

Early Science Experiences. When Karen was asked what she remembered about herelementary school science experience her response was, “science seemed very dry to me.”She did remember having science most years in elementary school, but explained that itwas reading from textbooks and answering the questions at the end of the chapter. Aspecific activity that she remembered and enjoyed was making a leaf collection where,“. . . we were able to go outside. We pressed leaves in books, studied the leaf parts, whatleaves belong to what tree . . .” Karen said that middle school science was similar to theelementary grades and she could recall no specifics.

Karen stated, “ninth grade I think is really when I started to get interested in science.”She credited this to the teacher and the class structure that was nearly all “hands on.” Inhigh school Karen took biology I and II and chemistry. She said that she had an “excellentbiology teacher,” and that she “remember[s] all the good experiences we had in biology.”The class was a mix of lecture, lab, and discussion. The interaction and dialog of thebiology classes resonated for Karen. Although she did not enjoy chemistry she felt that,overall, her high school science experience was positive.

In college, Karen took a semester of biology and geography that she described as easy,boring, and too book- and lecture-dependent. In thinking about teaching science, she saidthat she felt comfortable with her level of knowledge and looked forward to developing“hands-on” activities rather than teaching from a textbook.

Early Conceptions of Science, Learning, Science Instruction, and Knowledge.Science. Karen characterized science as being an activity of humans (how humans under-stand the natural world) and composed of factual knowledge and procedural skills. Shedid not speak of science as being a theoretical construction, but rather as being driven bythe product. As an example, she discussed making blueberry muffins as science becauseit is, “the experiment of trying to find out, or trying to succeed at making an end product.”Furthermore, Karen only once used the term “theory” in both interviews; this occurringwith questions related to evolution. Karen did not accept evolution for all things. In relationto teaching evolution, she commented: “[T]hat’s a sticky subject. Evolution. Do we comefrom apes or do we come from God? or both? I would explain the two theories. I wouldexplain the theory of evolution and explain it as a theory.”

Learning. Learning happens by a process of remembering, and teachers can help stu-dents learn by providing interesting activities and fun ways to remember the information.The ultimate goal of teaching for students is to know how to find out information for



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Top of textBase of textthemselves: this includes asking good questions and developing skills to find the answers

to the questions.Science instruction. Karen had a clear picture of what learning and teaching consist of

prior to her experiences in the classroom. As suggested earlier by the importance for herof the authority of the source, teaching is presenting accurate information for the studentswho learn by listening and taking in the information.

Knowledge. Karen also referred to science as being the knowledge of experts. She saidthat she would rely on outside experts to come in to her class when topics needed moreexpertise than she had. As an example, during the biology interview, Karen discussed theapparent color difference between arterial and venous blood. To explain the role of oxygenin this process she stated, “I’d get a nurse in and talk [at a] very basic level to [students]on the reaction. As far as the oxygen hitting it.” Karen continued to talk about how atrusted authority may override observational evidence as she attributes her knowledge ofblood as “red once it’s hit oxygen and blue when it lacks oxygen,” to being told by “mybiology teacher and I trusted him.” (Karen talked about having given blood and knowingthat it is taken from veins earlier in the interview.) The importance of authority also showsup in her CTS interview when she suggested students will learn more from a TV program,because “they probably see an authoritative figure because this person is on TV so theymust know what they are talking about.”

Early Teaching Experiences. Karen’s first teaching experience took place in a secondgrade classroom in a middle-class neighborhood elementary school in Madison, where weobserved her teaching the topic of “change over time.” She began by reviewing the pre-vious lesson, asking questions that the students could answer with single words. She ac-knowledged the correct answer by repeating the term, but did not ask for definitions orexplanations of what the terms might mean to the students. She introduced the new activityas “looking at changes from now until the end of second grade by putting together a sealedtime capsule.” The students were interested in the activity and one asked, “What will gointo it?” Karen proceeded to tell the students what they would put in the capsule and thenexplained how they would get the materials. The class worked in groups that were to makepredictions about the type of changes they expected. While the students were working,Karen moved from group to group to help them measure the correct lengths and completethe activity.

After the lesson, Karen discussed what she saw as the strong and weak points of thelesson. Karen saw two areas as strong, the first being the class discussion, because it letthe students’ voices be heard, and the second was in stressing the key words in the reviewand worksheet. The weakest point that Karen saw was that the directions were too con-fusing, that it would have helped for the students to have the worksheets first and then toexplain.

Karen’s impression of the class discussion did not reflect our observations. We saw noopportunities for the students to share their ideas. The questions that were answered byKaren were to clarify directions. The content of the lesson was based on a long-term ideaof Karen’s that was not made clear to the students. The actual work that the students didinvolved measuring skills. Even though they made predictions, there was no attempt madeto make the predictions a meaningful part of the learning for the students. Her stress onthe key terms was consistent with how she spoke about science, and the lack of attentionto the students’ input reflected her views of learning and her place as the expert.

Late Conceptions of Science, Learning, Science Instruction, and Knowledge. Theending interviews show that some of Karen’s ideas about teaching, learning, and science

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teaching and research experiences were unsettling.Science. Karen’s interview statements now included frequent references to science as

being composed of theories as well as facts, and she included in science the processes offorming hypotheses, observing, and developing conclusions.

Learning. Evidence that Karen had changed some aspects of her conception of learningcould be seen in her views on the factors influencing how children learn. She believedthat students have prior knowledge and that this is important for a teacher to know in orderto understand what the students mean when they use concepts. She explained that the typesof experiences that students have contribute to the formation of their ideas about what aconcept means.

Science instruction. There was not much change in Karen’s views about science instruc-tion. She clearly separated the tasks of instruction and learning into two distinct categories,each of which was also different from science. Karen’s ideas can be explained by thefollowing two quotes:

Sometimes . . . you get to a certain point where you are trying to put 3 gallons of in-formation into a 2-gallon bucket and it’s not going to work. So teaching can go on withoutlearning.

and:

Science is subject matter and teaching is how you get the subject matter and concepts infront of the students. How you pose your questions, how you present your information.And science is the actual information.

Knowledge. Karen no longer saw knowledge as something experts and other authorities,such as the teacher, possessed and the students acquired.

Late Teaching Experiences. Karen conducted her student teaching at a middle schoolin the same area as her practicum. She was responsible for all subjects except social studiesin a sixth grade class, an age group she felt more comfortable teaching. Her cooperatingteacher described the science curriculum as having many opportunities for the teachers todevelop their own activities and being about 75% hands-on.

Karen was observed for two different science lessons, one from a preset curriculum andone that she developed with her cooperating teacher. While she was doing her studentteaching she also took part in the action research seminar. For her action research, Karenwas interested in observing how she could create an environment in which the studentswere able to share their knowledge with each other and with her.

Karen’s first observed lesson was from a previously established curriculum. She beganby reviewing the concept of illusions and then started a new lesson on the differencesbetween learned and trained responses. Karen’s review involved closed-ended, subject-centered questioning and clues so that the desired answers were evident. Karen then formedsmall groups within which the students could observe several optical illusions. The groupsreported their observations back to the class. Karen did not comment about whether theobservations were correct or not, nor did she engage the class in a discussion about whythey were different. She began the new activity by bringing up an experience with whichall the students were familiar, looking in a mirror and trying to comb your hair. Sheexplained why this was difficult because the image is reversed. She then proceeded to



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Karen then modeled a trial run for the students, assigned partners, and had them beginworking. While the students worked, she moved among them, helped individuals, andasked questions to find out what the students thought accounted for what they were finding.

In the postobservation interview, Karen expressed concerns about not being able to focuson the students’ ideas and ways to bring their ideas into the discussion. She spoke of tryingto find ways for the students to explore their own questions and share their work. Althoughher large group discourse was teacher directed and set up to move the students toward aparticular answer, she was more attentive to the students’ own thinking when they werein groups. Her questions to individuals probed their ideas. She tried some new techniques(e.g., not giving the answers and probing the students’ ideas when they were in groups),but she also found it necessary to show the students exactly what to do.

In her action research journal, Karen explained how, for the next activity, she had thestudents share their prior experiences and knowledge on the topic before beginning. Shenoted these differences in this class period. “The students enjoyed sharing their priorknowledge [and] their making predictions. They appeared to get more involved in theactivities because they had something to prove or disprove.” Karen seemed delighted bythe change.

Karen’s reflections on her research questions made her more aware of her students’conceptions and encouraged her to try using them in the classroom. But she focused onhow they are useful in motivating the students rather than on how they impact on whatthe students learn. Her actions and lesson arrangement still showed that she was not lookingat the students as knowledge constructors, but rather as knowledge acquirers.

Karen’s second teaching took place almost 2 months later and was part of a unit thatshe helped design with her cooperating teacher. Between these observations, she wrote inher journal about how she tried giving the class a written pretest but was disappointed bythe results. Karen wrote that the students, “did not react well to not knowing the answers,”and that her reason for giving the pretest was: “I want my students to see the pretest as achallenge [for] what they can learn and get them to ask questions so they understand it.”She believed this would help students toward her new goal that she stated in her journalas, “students should know some information well instead of vaguely knowing a lot ofinformation.”

There are some notable changes in the snapshot that we get of Karen’s teaching in thesecond observation. She had designed the opening activity to get at the students’ priorknowledge. They had to answer multiple-choice questions about recycling by physicallymoving to an area in the room that corresponds to the answer they chose. As the activityprogressed, various questions arose from the students and there was conversation betweenstudents and the teacher in order to clarify ideas and definitions. However, only one ex-perimental question was raised by a student and Karen did not respond to it. Later, thecooperating teacher brought it up and incorporated it into the lesson. From this activitythe students were to brainstorm and generate questions they wanted to work on for aresearch project. In the second portion of the class, Karen had the students work in groupsto develop “an Earth constitution.” The groups made posters with their amendments onthem. While the students worked in groups, Karen moved among them to help the studentsfocus their ideas and to be sure she understood what they wanted to say. The groups then“reported back” to the class, during which time Karen asked questions that brought theclass into each group’s discussion. This gave them time to further explore their ideas. Asa final activity she had each student write a fact that they had learned that day for their“fact tree.”

In the follow-up interview Karen felt the lesson went well. It had allowed the students

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sibility for their learning. She was concerned about keeping up with the students andexplained that she had invited an “expert” from a local recycling center.

Karen’s appraisal of the lesson was more closely aligned with the observations than wasthe case after her earlier lesson. She provided several opportunities for the students to sharetheir ideas and raise their own questions. She facilitated the class in discussions and helpedstimulate student-to-student discussion. Karen’s classroom practices reflected her researchquestions and showed a good deal of movement toward creating a classroom in which thestudents can safely share their ideas. Her lesson structure showed changes that reflectedher changing ideas of teaching and learning. Parts of the lesson allowed the students toconstruct ideas that were meaningful to them. Her need, however, to bring in an outsideexpert, and her “fact tree,” questioned the extent of a change in her view of science, andseemed to be in conflict with the belief that students should have a better understandingof less information.

Biology Knowledge and Comfort Level. Karen’s biology content was superficial. Shehad a difficult time discriminating what information would be important to teach studentsat an elementary level. When she was asked about what she would expect students to knowabout both the circulatory system and the food chains, she gave extensive lists of infor-mation that students should know. The great majority of this information was either de-scriptive or factual with little or no development of basic mechanisms. This was reflectiveof how Karen’s own content knowledge was structured. She confidently provided factualinformation, but until pressed by the interviewer she did not give explanations or relatethe ideas to each other. It was when describing these relationships that Karen suggestedthat an outside expert would be most useful. She did not seem disturbed by her inabilityto explain the concepts in more detail.

At the end of her experience, Karen’s biological content knowledge had not significantlyincreased. However, when she was asked what she would teach students, she was betterable to pick out a few concepts that would be important for students to know. She alsosuggested that general issues of health and nutrition might be more important than specificfacts. Karen also showed a change in her relationship to her science knowledge. She waswilling to say that what she learned may not always be true. She qualified her commentswith, “that’s how I’ve been taught. I don’t know if that’s true or not now. . . .” Specifi-cally looking at Karen’s picture of the circulatory system, it was much more bare, but whatwas there was accurate. She commented that the diagram that was used in the textbook6

did not show enough detail to make the function of the circulatory system clear and shefelt that understanding the function was important.

The other biological concepts can also be characterized as more accurate, but less dense.When Karen talked about food chains she spent less time trying to explain all the detailsand more time developing an overall picture. She explained that, when she taught this, shewanted the students “to understand the cycle, and how life is so delicate and that it’s therefor a reason.” (She was referring back to a comment about how rodents might be annoyingfor people but needed for owls.) Karen’s views on evolution had changed only sightly.She was unable to explain the theory accurately; however, she conceded that plants andanimals may have evolved, but man did not.

6 The discussion of the human circulatory system was stimulated by use of a textbook illustration. Thisrepresented the flow of blood away from the heart using red lines, whereas blood flow toward the heart wasrepresented using blue lines. No lines connected the red network to the blue network.



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Top of textBase of textDiscussion. Reflection on some of the changes that Karen made over the two semesters

of the study shows that she had begun to question some of the beliefs that she originallyheld, with there being a good deal of flux in many of her ideas. Specifically, Karen seemedto have a more ambiguous idea of what science was and who was involved in it. Sheallowed that her students needed to make ideas meaningful for themselves and that it wasnot the surface facts that would help them to do this. Yet she had her class create a “facttree” and still relied on outside authorities to come in and give answers. The same type ofmixed views were prevalent in her ideas about learning. She wanted the students to un-derstand the information for themselves, but she still talked as if students would learnwhatever information was provided for them. She could not reconcile her idea that knowl-edge is there to be known with students constructing knowledge for themselves, and so amixture of both attempts appeared.

Her most constant idea was of teaching. In the opening and closing interviews she talkedabout teaching as the presentation of information. She kept it removed from the learners’actions and focused on the job of presenting information. As reflected in her teaching andjournal, her attempts at bringing out the students’ prior conceptions were geared moretoward motivating the students than toward understanding their conceptions.

Karen’s views of science, knowledge, and learning fit well together when she beganmethods. She saw both science and knowledge as being factual and the property of au-thorities. She felt learning was accomplished when students remembered the facts andbecame more of an authority. Karen’s methods experience seemed to have made her awareof the idea that students may have knowledge of a topic before it is taught. Many of heractions during her student teaching were addressed toward finding out what this priorknowledge might be. For Karen, these experiences with the students’ prior knowledge ledher to question her own knowledge and its source. At the end of her teaching experience,Karen was no longer confident that science and knowledge are the sole property of au-thorities. She was not ready to say that students construct their own knowledge, but shedid see an active role for students in learning knowledge as they try to make it relevant.Karen’s teaching showed attempts to have the students create meaningful understandingsbut also showed her earlier reliance on science as being composed of facts. It is this conflictand her own questioning of her knowledge as correct that we believe show Karen asbeginning to construct a new role for her students as learners.

Rachel

Rachel was a nontraditional student who returned to university to enter the elementaryeducation program after working as a social worker for several years. During this time,Rachel worked in a Head Start program and enjoyed her experiences working with thechildren. Rachel spoke enthusiastically about her outdoor experiences as a child and lateras an adult while she and her husband worked at different outdoor education centers.Rachel’s experiences in the classroom and in these informal science programs, and thefact that her husband was a doctoral student in biology, all left Rachel feeling confidentabout teaching elementary science. Although Rachel spoke with enthusiasm about science,her school experiences with the subject were mixed.

Early Science Experiences. Rachel did not recall having science in elementary school,the closest thing being a tie-dying activity in third or fourth grade. She said that in seventhgrade “formal science” classes began. However, Rachel’s most prevalent memories ofseventh grade science were of the classroom itself, not the science. The emphasis of the

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In eighth grade, Rachel had a different teacher who had the class do some experimentsand lab activities, but also conducted many teacher-led demonstrations. The majority ofthe class Rachel remembered as being textbook work.

In high school Rachel entered a tracked system and found herself in the acceleratedtrack. Rachel explained the influence that this had on her:

At the time I can remember feeling, like I said, it was sort of a weird feeling because Ialways felt a little bit out of my element, feeling like, well I must be smart. I must besmart in science particularly because I am in this and all my friends are in another track.

In high school Rachel took 4 years of science, because that was what seemed to be ex-pected. She took and enjoyed both general biology and “college biology.” She did notenjoy her chemistry and found physics difficult and did not like it. In general biologyRachel recalled enjoying the fetal pig dissection and spending a great deal of time on it.In advanced biology, the class worked in groups in the lab most of the time, each groupconducting different experiments from the unit. Although Rachel said that she enjoyed theclass she did not find it very rigorous and did not feel like she learned a great deal.

Rachel had a variety of science experiences outside of school. These included campingwith family and friends and growing up out of the city. As she said, “I spent a lot of timein the woods.” Rachel remembered making a variety of collections with a friend—leaves,rocks, and frogs, some of which they formally organized and identified. In between collegesemesters and after finishing college Rachel worked at two different environmental centersand taught nature study informally to student groups.

In college Rachel took the minimum number of science courses in order to graduate.Initially, as an undergraduate, she took only astronomy that she found very disappointingin both style and content. When Rachel returned to school for her master’s degree in socialwork she did not take science, so it was not until she entered the teaching program thatshe had another science course, ecology. She said, “This was a great class. I loved it.”Aside from her own interest in the topic Rachel said that the instructor’s interest wascontagious. Rachel believed that he made a real effort to relate the topic to the student’sexperiences. If he could not he had slides of the topics being discussed.

Early Conceptions of Science, Learning, Science Instruction, and Knowledge.Science. In Rachel’s CTS interview she made it clear that science is a type of explanationthat humans create to understand the world. She also noted that teaching science shouldinvolve students in actively asking questions to gain an explanation of what is happening.Rachel also stressed the importance of the students’ learning and practicing the skills thatwill make them better able to answer questions. She said that, “. . . learning to use thattool [a scale] is part of doing science, part of science happening.”

Learning. Rachel’s view of learning was that it requires the students to be activelyinvolved in thinking. She also believed that a teacher explaining something does not meanthat the students are learning it. Although Rachel did not specifically use constructivistlanguage, her elaborations and references implied a belief that the students construct theirown ideas and that science is a constructed explanation.

Science instruction. In the CTS interview, Rachel spoke of a reciprocal view of learningand teaching. She qualified lecturing as a sharing of information between students and theteacher. She suggested that, for teachers to be effective, they would need to know how torelate new information to the experiences of the students.



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Top of textBase of textKnowledge. Rachel pointed out that knowledge is similar to science in that it is some-

thing we figure out.

Early Teaching Experiences. Rachel did her practicum teaching in a second grade class-room in Madison. The school population was extremely diverse, composed largely of thechildren of foreign university students and university faculty families. She was teaching alesson on grains that was part of a larger unit from an established curriculum on the foodgroups.

Rachel began the class by doing a group demonstration involving seeing in the dark.She then asked the class to explain the results based on the previous lesson about the valueof fruits and vegetables in our diets. Questioning was closed and subject-centered. Thestudents made a variety of statements about seeing in the dark, such as why it is importantand that other animals can see better than people. Rachel acknowledged these, but con-cluded the discussion when one student responded that we can see in the dark because weeat vegetables.

Rachel moved to a new topic by asking the students what some grains are. The studentsgave many suggestions, such as corn, rice, and wheat. Rachel continued the lesson byshowing pictures of a variety of wheat products and asking the students to name them.The remainder of the lesson focused on the growing, production, and refinement of wheat.Rachel involved the students by asking them questions, and letting the students ask ques-tions. She did not, however, return the discussion to any of the grains the students initiallysuggested. From here, Rachel proceeded with the lesson as scripted, having the studentsdo a workbook activity and watch a video on the production of bread. The lesson concludedwith Rachel questioning the students about the content of the video.

In the postobservation interview, Rachel was asked about the use of wheat as the onlyexample of grain, even though the students had suggested other types. Rachel explainedthat she had been given the lesson to teach and had taught what the curriculum prescribed.Although she treated the curriculum as if it were inflexible, she was able to engage thestudents in a good deal of discussion and was receptive to the students’ questions, and theclimate allowed the students to freely share their thoughts. Their ideas were not, however,incorporated into the lesson.

Late Conceptions of Science, Learning, and Science Instruction. Rachel’s teachingexperiences had an impact on how she talked about learning and teaching, and to someextent on her ideas of science.

Science. In the closing CTS interview, Rachel made the following statements. The firstwas about a child watching an educational television program:

I guess my feeling about science is that the students need to be free to discover what theydiscover . . . rather than told specifically what this TV program tells them.

Later, Rachel discussed the importance of thinking about relationships as central to science:

I think that is an important part of [science] because . . . it becomes meaningless if youjust do experiments or make the observations . . . without [the students] understandingwhat that means.

She explained that drawing relationships from activities to concepts was difficult for herto do during her student teaching.

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Top of testBase of textLearning. An important goal of learning for Rachel was for students to learn how to

build relationships between old and new information.Science instruction. Rachel’s views on learning and teaching were more clearly stated

after her student teaching than previously. She spoke of the importance of the teacherfinding out the students’ prior conceptions and challenging the students either to learn newinformation or question their current conceptions. A goal of teaching science for Rachelwas to understand her students and their experiences. Rachel rejected lecturing as providinga learning experience for students, because, she said, very few children really learn thatway.

Rachel spoke about science teaching as providing opportunities for students to discovernew information and then helping them to understand the information. She summed upwhat she liked about science teaching as “. . . where the kids are doing it and the teacherand the kids are teaching each other.”

Late Teaching Experiences. Rachel’s student teaching placement was in an open fourthgrade classroom in Madison. This classroom structure allowed the students to chooseprojects of their own and go to classroom work centers at various times in the week aswell as having more traditional lessons. The students in this class were more socioecon-omically diverse than at her practicum school and, for several students, English was nottheir first language. In this teaching situation, Rachel focused her action research on howto get individual students to take responsibility for their own learning. She also becameinterested in the language differences of students and how this affected both how theyunderstood instruction and how they communicated their ideas.

Rachel was responsible for teaching two science units, one on weather and one on plants.She did not enjoy the weather unit because she felt many of the concepts were too abstractfor the students, but she did enjoy the plant unit and felt confident teaching it. She providedthe students with many activities and they set up several experiments, some of the students’design and some of her own.

The following observation took place during an activity that Rachel had prepared forthe students during the plant unit. Rachel began by reading a book about flowers, fruits,and seeds to the class. The book dealt with very basic conceptual information about therole of flowers and seeds, but also contained many colorful pictures of the plants that werebeing covered. During the reading a question came up as to whether a tomato is a fruit orvegetable. A student suggested that it is a fruit and the book called it a vegetable. Rachelended the discussion by saying “they call it a vegetable, but it is really a fruit.” Finally,Rachel emphasized the most important purpose of flowers: to produce fruits that containseeds.

The next portion of the class focused on the fruits. Rachel had prepared fruit pieces forthe students to look at. She had also included a pine cone and the students responded byquestioning if pine cones are fruit. Rachel did not give an answer, but said “I’m not sure.”She then went on to explain why she would consider a pine cone a fruit; fruits carry theseeds and pine cones have seeds inside. (They broke one open to look.) She then askedthe students to explain if they thought a pine cone was a fruit.

Rachel then broke the class up into three groups, gave directions for an activity on seeds,and handed out a worksheet. Each child was given a lima bean, a tray and a magnifyingglass. The activity asked the children to look inside the seed, describe, by writing anddrawing, what they saw, and then answer the question, “Why does the baby plant needfood?” The students were working at tables in a group but doing individual work. Theyprogressed at their own pace with little conversation. Some students had difficulty in



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Top of textBase of textfollowing the English directions. This activity was repeated for a pea seed and then the

class cleaned up. While the students were working, Rachel moved from table to tableworking with individual students. At the end of the lesson there was no discussion or timefor the students to compare what they had found.

In this single class period, Rachel had provided the students with a mix of opportunities.The book in the beginning helped to focus the students’ ideas and the discussion thatfollowed allowed them to share experiences and knowledge. Rachel’s use of the pine cone,and then showing the students how she justified her ideas, provided a good model ofconstructing an idea, although it was not made explicit to the students that that was whatshe was doing. Rachel then left the students with a question to help them construct theirown ideas, but there was no time for discussion and her students’ reactions suggested thatthe purpose of the activity was not clear to them. Rachel discussed the problem of a lackof time for discussion at the end of activities during the postobservation interview. Thiswas a problem that she also wrote about in her action research journal.

Throughout Rachel’s action research journal she searched for ways to help the studentsdevelop independent learning skills by providing some structure without reducing theirfreedom. Rachel worked with the students to establish goals and help them evaluate theirlearning. This eventually raised a new question for Rachel, one that she did not answer:What is progress in learning and how can teachers evaluate it?

Biology Knowledge and Comfort Level. In the first interviews, Rachel’s lack of specificcontent knowledge was clear. When she began the CBT interview she could not recall theterms veins and arteries. As the interview progressed, however, she built a basic pictureof the circulatory system. She based her ideas on a variety of personal experiences andknowledge and then used reasoning to tie them together. The interview was filled withcomments like, “but then that really doesn’t make sense,” and “that’s what I am trying tofigure out.” Although Rachel had a weak content base, she was able to create a picture ofwhat needs to happen in the circulatory system by working from the functions that sheknew it performs to particular types of structures that would allow those functions to takeplace. Rachel did not follow a linear pathway through the circulatory system but shapeda full picture as she progressed, correcting errors or conflicting information as she reachedthem. The following passages are several pages apart, but demonstrate how she beganwith a functional idea and then expanded and corrected it:

I: Are there any spaces in the heart?

R: Not like actual spaces. Not like little holes or whatever but when it expands it will beless dense, the muscle tone or whatever it would be, I don’t know. So there is like justtiny spaces.

I: Inside the muscle is what you are saying.

R: Right. Right. The tissues or the cells or whatever become less dense so there is roomfor something to come in. Then it contracts . . . and pushes out that, the blood, whichis not part of the actual [heart].

Then, later:

R: Oh, but there are. Like heart chambers. . . . So there must be like some kind of spacesin the muscle that I didn’t think about.

I: Do you know how many?

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Top of testBase of textR: There are either two—I think there are two. But I am not sure. . . .

Rachel continued to maintain a variety of errors in the structures and terms of the circu-latory system, but she supported her ideas and changes by relying on what the role of thesystem is rather than relying on factual recall. Rachel also demonstrated an ability to dealwith science theories. She provided a basic understanding of how natural selection func-tions and what types of circumstances it can and cannot explain.

Rachel was aware of her own lack of content knowledge and at times seemed nervousabout her responses. She took cues from the interviewer to check her responses and thencorrected them or proceeded. The following quote is typical of how she used this strategy:“Yeah. I would say so. I probably shouldn’t based on the look on your face.” AlthoughRachel was unsure in making specific factual statements, she was not unsure of her abilityto reason through her responses and rarely made references to looking up the answer in abook.

Her teaching experience did not have a significant impact on science content for Rachel.She made minor adjustments to many of the specific facts that she originally reported,such as humans having four-chambered hearts and the path of blood through the chambers.However, the overall picture was stable or, if anything, less complete. She was less willingto go through the process of developing the circulatory system. When the questions askedfor specific details she made comments like, “I’m not sure how important that would beat this level . . .” Rachel was able to explain the content at a level that she felt would beeffective for most elementary students, but made no effort to extend past that. It seemedthat, for her, teaching had made her more comfortable with her weak knowledge base.

Discussion. Rachel demonstrated through her teaching, action research, and interviewsthat learning is a process that everyone in the classroom is involved with; the teacher learnsfrom the students, and the students learn from the teacher and from each other. She seemedto feel that this was not only a courtesy, but a necessity. She believed that the role of theindividual in the process of learning was important and that all students came in withknowledge about topics and that this knowledge was important to consider when oneteaches. Her teaching showed some attempts at getting at students’ knowledge, and herdemeanor in the classroom invited the students to contribute to the class learning. Shemodeled for her students how she constructs her ideas. These strategies all had someconceptual change components in them.

Rachel conceived of science, knowledge, and learning in substantially different waysfrom Karen and Isabel. Her ideas, however, were consistent with each other. Rachel spokeof science as being an attempt to understand the world and that it is an intellectual processof humans. Knowledge is similar to science in that it is something that we figure out. So,for Rachel learning was figuring out knowledge. Even prior to the methods class, Rachelwas aware that what students know is important to consider if they are to learn something.Rachel’s initial views were not in conflict with the goals of the methods class, so that inher teaching she focused on a different type of problem. The role that Rachel was tryingto develop as a teacher was one that helped the students to become more aware of theirown learning. She wrote in her journal about wanting the students to take responsibilityfor their learning and for them to know what they knew. Rachel was open to and strugglingwith developing a conceptual change teaching role for herself and a knowledge-construct-ing role for her students. However, many of her teaching strategies contradicted her spokenbeliefs. It was also evident that her lack of biology content knowledge was a hindrance toher teaching for conceptual change.



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Top of textBase of textCONCLUSION

Our purpose in this article has been to address the research question:

● How do prospective elementary teachers develop with respect to their practice ofteaching life science over the course of the teacher education program?

We have done so by presenting three chronological case studies that pay particular attentionto prospective teachers’ prior experiences of science, their developing conceptions ofteaching science (focusing on component conceptions of science, learning, instruction, andknowledge), and the main characteristics of their classroom teaching. The case studieshave also allowed us to investigate the interactions between these various aspects of theirteaching. What we can learn from these individuals is how the struggle of their changingconceptions of science and knowledge affect what happens in their classrooms as theyteach science. In presenting the findings we focus on these aspects of practice.

It is, however, important to note that all three individuals approached the task of be-coming a teacher with responsibility and dedication. All graduated from the program,indicating that they had successfully developed competence in all aspects of teachingrequired for certification. We note this because, in the following discussion, we do notexplicitly examine all aspects of their success and we also discuss areas in which they didnot reach our expectations. In doing so, our purpose is not to criticize or judge, but tounderstand the progress they did make and the reasons they did not achieve all we hadhoped. This in turn allows us to raise important questions about teacher preparation. Theseissues are considered in the final article in the set (Hewson et al., 1999b).

We should also note that it has not been possible to explore all the ways in whichscience content has played out in the practices of these prospective teachers. Because ofthe many grades in which they taught (potentially K–8), there was a very wide range ofpossible topics, approaches, and levels of difficulty. Also, these prospective teachers hadonly a slight influence on the choice of what they were able to teach. As a consequence,little opportunity for any form of comparison relating to specific content topics presenteditself.

Findings

All three prospective elementary teachers made progress in the direction of the goals ofthe program. Yet, as detailed in the case studies and summarized in what follows, theprogress they made was in rather different ways that were dependent on their own con-ceptions of, among others, knowledge, science, and learning. It is clear from the descrip-tions of Isabel, Karen, and Rachel that prospective teachers enter a teacher educationprogram with very different resources, experiences, and beliefs about science, teaching,and learning. In the following, we focus first on where they started and then on how theydeveloped.

All three individuals started the program with views of learning in which the learners’role was to be receptive to the knowledge presented from other sources. Listening to eachof the individuals talking about their past experiences in school and university courses,reading from textbooks, listening to lectures, and completing worksheets and lab manuals,it is not difficult to see why they placed the learner in a passive role. Rachel, however,showed some ambivalence about learning because she also spoke of students as knowledgeconstructors.

There were considerable differences between the three individuals with respect to their

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Top of testBase of textinitial perspectives on the nature of knowledge and of science. To illustrate: Karen saw

knowledge as being factual and possessed by experts, and thus an important role for herwas to connect her students with experts. Isabel saw the world as the creation of a pur-poseful entity; for her, knowledge was more than factual information because it had pur-pose, and science was the discovery of this created truth. Rachel also recognized the valueof seeing knowledge as purposeful, but in addition she articulated a more active role forlearners (and scientists) as being constructors rather than discoverers of knowledge. Thisshe graphically demonstrated in her CBT interview as she built a model of the heart notfrom memory but by reflecting on its purpose and function. This range of views of thenature of science is in agreement with other reports in the literature (Abell & Smith, 1994;Gustafson & Rowell, 1995). It does not, however, encompass the nature of scientificinvestigation (Shapiro, 1996).

One aspect of development common to all three individuals was their acceptance thattheir students held a range of ideas on topics they were being taught, that these ideas wereimportant, and that it was at least useful (and probably necessary) to elicit these ideas inthe context of normal teaching. Appleton and Asoko (1996) have also noted an elementaryteacher’s ready acceptance of the significance of students’ ideas in teaching. But theirpurposes for doing so differed. Isabel recognized that her students were not all learningwhat she hoped they would, and thus elicitation was a means for her to monitor herstudents’ learning. Karen was using elicitation as a means of paying attention to her stu-dents and motivating them to participate in the class. Rachel was using it with the intentionof helping her students become more independent and take more responsibility for theirown learning.

There were some changes in these prospective teachers’ content knowledge. Althoughthere was no evidence that they knew more at the end of the year, the quality of what theyknew had changed. There was movement (though not much) toward greater coherence:Isabel’s was more precise, Karen’s was more accurate. There were indications that theywere attempting to fit it into the context of their teaching: Karen being more confident inidentifying important concepts, and Rachel being clearer about its relevance for her stu-dents. Along with these were changes in the confidence they had in their own knowledge.This was most marked for Isabel who was more prepared to trust her own judgment. Rachelwas clearer about the appropriateness of her knowledge for her students. In contrast, Karenwas more diffident as a result of her grappling with the possibility that her knowledgemight not always be accurate.

Others have documented problems in elementary teachers’ content knowledge (e.g.,Ginns & Watters, 1995). The lack of change in the amount of content knowledge contrastswith that reported by Stofflett and Stoddart (1994); this, however, is probably because, intheir study, prospective teachers were taught and assessed on a particular content topic,unlike the present study. The changes in confidence in the way prospective teachers talkedabout their knowledge were unexpected a priori. Recently other investigators have iden-tified confidence as a factor in understanding teaching (Appleton & Asoko, 1996; Lough-ran, 1994). There is a common belief that people understand a topic better by teaching it.The intriguing possibility of interpreting this belief in terms of an increase in confidence,if not in knowledge, is worth further study.

The initial views of these prospective teachers influenced the direction and nature oftheir development during the year. For Isabel, experiencing the range of her peers’ viewsin her methods class was a major challenge to her classroom practice, because it broughtto the fore the dilemma between the diversity of views expressed around her and her beliefin a single, harmoniously created reality. When she also saw this in relation to her students’



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Top of textBase of textdifficulties in learning what she thought she had presented so well, it is not surprising that

trying to reconcile these views and experiences became a consuming task for her. Karen,too, found that the methods class raised doubts about her views of knowledge as beingheld “out there” by authorities. Rachel, however, faced a different problem. She had ac-cepted from the outset that her students held views that were important. The problem washow to encourage them to recognize that for themselves. In this respect, it seemed she washampered by not knowing alternative teaching approaches and not having a solid knowl-edge base in biology.

There was evidence of unevenness in the development of their practice. In some cases,there were changes in thoughts that were not reflected in changes in actions. In others,new actions did not appear to be supported by their current thinking. Isabel, for example,spoke about knowledge, science, and teaching in much the same way at the start and theend of the year. Yet, her classroom actions provided evidence that her practice was chang-ing. This mismatch between Isabel’s thoughts and actions is a mirror of her strugglesduring the year to reconcile her fundamental beliefs with the reality of her teaching (cf.Abell & Roth, 1994). As shown in the description of her first observation, Karen’s per-ceptions of a class she had taught were different from those of the observer, but later inthe year there was much less discrepancy as her awareness of her teaching increased.

Finally, Isabel, Karen, and Rachel were all in the process of constructing roles andidentities for themselves as teachers. The types of prior knowledge that prospective teach-ers bring with them will affect the roles, practices, and understanding of possibilities forscience teaching that they are able to construct. There are similarities between the workof the prospective teacher and their students: each must build new conceptions related towhat they are learning. For some students and prospective teachers these new conceptionswill be in conflict with those they already hold. For some individuals this means that theywill have to undergo conceptual change if they are to reconcile the conflicts that they face.It was our hope that among the experiences of the methods class, the practicum and studentteaching, and the action research journal and seminars, the prospective teachers would notonly have been made aware of their conflicts but would also have been provided with thesupport and skills needed to undergo conceptual change.

At the same time as each was working toward constructing their identities as teachers,the methods class and action research were trying to help them see their students as knowl-edge constructors. Opportunities to think and talk about teaching, to share struggles andteaching problems and solutions, led these prospective teachers to face the pressures oftrying to change routinized teaching that was unresponsive to student learning. The dis-cussion and peer examples encouraged their movement toward conceptual change ideas.The language that these prospective teachers used began to speak to ideas about teachingthat were consistent with conceptual change approaches. However, for all three teachers,the language was not matched by action. Each prospective teacher tried out strategies thatexplored student thinking and opened up forms of questioning and structuring studentactivities. Yet these were rarely used to elicit children’s constructions of meaning. Instead,they became motivational tools that led to information-oriented activities.

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