Louca, Loucas T.

We described and compared 94 pre-service elementary teachers' epistemologies during three different activities: one semi-structured interview, an asynchronous on-line discussion about a physics problem and their reflection on the discussion of the second activity. Using discourse-based analysis, we analyzed the data in terms of the teachers' underlying epistemologies and findings revealed significant differences across the three activities. This suggests that (a) teachers' epistemologies might be better understood as finer grained cognitive resources whose activation is sensitive to the context, unlike most research which views them as coherent and stable cognitive structures, and that (b) the research community is far from settling the debate as to what particular approaches should be used to assess or study personal epistemologies. Depending on the context and the manner of investigation, students and teachers may "show" different epistemological understanding.

In this paper we investigate the ways that a graphical and a textual Computer-based Programming Environment (CPE) support student inquiry in science during scientific modeling. We analyzed the conversations of 78 sixth-graders (39 students per CPE group) that took place during the construction of models, as well as, student-constructed models specifically looking for ways that CPEs support student scientific inquiry. Our findings showed that CPEs enable students to develop models of physical phenomena and operationally define physical entities and physical properties, which provides students with a commonly shared language for communicating and understanding each others' ideas in science. We also found that programs in CPEs produce a computer microworld that is a structured environment learners can use to explore and manipulate a rule-generated universe, subject to particular assumptions and constraints that serve as representations of aspects of the natural world. Microworlds can also provide learners with opportunities to manipulate realities in ways that learners cannot do with physical objects. Implications from this study suggest productive features for computer-based tools that can be embedded in web-based learning platforms for supporting students' inquiry and science learning.

Despite calls for student-centered, inquiry-based instruction in science, science teacher preparation remains mostly teacher-centered, with the underlying assumption that novice teachers need to form a teaching identity before attending to their students' inquiry. In this paper, we use the idea of framing to analyze a 42-minute science lesson of a senior kindergarten student-teacher. Findings suggest that the student-teacher struggled for balance between teaching science as implementing a lesson plan, and as attending to her students' inquiry. We use this evidence to suggest that novice teachers can attend to students' inquiry as early as in their student-teaching experience, which suggests additional pressure on the need for preparation in teaching science. Thus, the role of science methods courses should be to help students understand the different interpretations of teaching within the different frames and provide them with strategies for entering more productive frames during teaching.

Inquiry-based teaching requires that teachers pay attention to their students' ideas and reasoning, and adapt their instruction accordingly. We analyzed 16 80-minute science lessons from 42 pre-service elementary teachers working in groups, in order to investigate "teacher noticing and responding" (TNR) abilities relating to student inquiry. Findings suggest that the pre-service teachers were able to identify and respond to a variety of aspects of their students' inquiry, although we identified disagreements between what they responded to and what we considered important aspects of student inquiry. These findings highlight an ongoing disagreement with prior research, which suggests that teachers' TNR abilities develop with time and teaching experience. Consequently we propose a general need for a better understanding of teacher cognition and development.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whole classroom discourse during modeling-based learning in science, seeking to describe the discourse's characteristics, its relation to the micro-context in which it took place and to the student-constructed models, and to ascertain when it becomes productive. Additionally, we aimed to describe how whole classroom modeling discourse in science may be better supported by the teacher as well as the role of the modeling tool. In doing so, we analyzed student conversations and student-constructed models from two groups of 11- to 12-year-old students. All students used a computer programming environment, namely Stagecast Creator, as a modeling tool. Findings revealed three distinct discourse types (modeling frames): (a) (initial) phenomenological description, (b) operationalization of the physical system's story, and (c) construction of algorithms. Finally, we discuss what we consider productive modeling discourse, as well as the contributions of the software and the teacher in this respect.

The purpose of this study was to develop a framework for analyzing and evaluating student-constructed models of physical phenomena and monitoring the progress of these models. Moreover, we aimed to examine whether this framework could capture differences between models created using different computer-based modeling tools; namely, computer-based programming environments which, in prior research, were found to differ in various aspects of the models constructed through them. We analyzed 220 computer-based models of physical phenomena developed by two groups of elementary-school students. Using open coding we developed a framework that includes five elements of scientific models that code for representations of: (i) the physical objects; (ii) the physical entities; (iii) the object behaviors; (iv) the interactions among physical objects, physical entities, and object behavior(s); and (v) the accuracy of the phenomenon depiction. The implementation of this framework confirmed that it can differentiate student-generated models according to their sophistication and structural components, independent of the computer-based programming environments used to create the models.

This paper explores the experiences of 14 early years educators who participated in a continuing professional development (CPD) programme coordinated by two of the paper’s authors. The programme was part of a three-year research project, which aimed at introducing early childhood educators to an inquiry-based approach to mathematics and science education and involved participants as teacher-researchers and curriculum-makers in cycles of action research. From this CPD experience, teachers appeared to reconceptualize traditional teacher and researcher ‘roles’ in more fluid and equitable ways, leading us to explore characteristics of the programme conducive to this shift. The main data source comprised teacher interviews, supplemented by video-recordings of group meetings, classroom enactment of activities and the facilitators’ field notes. Findings suggest that the shift was encouraged by the gradual formation of a community of practice; a reconceptualization of the ‘practical’; and the epistemology-oriented approach adopted in mathematics and science education. The discussion highlights the implications of these findings for early years educators’ professional development, and the problems of the ‘theory–practice’ divide in such development. Furthermore, the discussion stresses the importance of the socio-cultural context in which such projects take place, particularly as these often draw heavily upon international literature.

Following research attention to children's use and understanding of causation, in this paper we contend that young children as early as kindergarten are able to engage in an effort to develop understanding about the causal mechanism underlying or explaining physical and mathematical phenomena. We draw on a two examples from early childhood education settings to suggest that children are able to use (novice) abilities of mechanistic reasoning both in early science and mathematics education. We discuss implications for the role of the teacher and activity design.

Although research has come to recognize the importance of studying classroom-based student-teacher discourse in science, the emphasis remains largely on teachers' abilities to ask questions and provide students with feedback, or on students' abilities to ask questions or engage in argumentative discourse. Consequently, little research has focused on the discourse elements relating to teacher-student discourse interactions. In this article, we argue for a shift of research attention toward describing what the teacher is responding to (Identification of student inquiry), the process of deciding how to respond (Interpretation-Evaluation of student inquiry), and how the teacher is responding (Response to student inquiry). We propose a new methodological approach for studying teacher discourse, which involves a framework we developed while analyzing 1,385 minutes of fifth grade, whole-class science conversations covering a 2-year period and facilitated by an experienced science teacher. Then, as a case in point, we applied our framework to the teacher discourse data of the study, aiming to show that the framework can be a useful tool for examining how a teacher supports students' inquiry.

Twenty kindergarten in-service teachers participated in a 25hr professional development program (PDP) supporting the development of abilities for identifying and responding to students' in-class inquiry. Each teacher taught a science lesson at the beginning and at the end of the PDP. These were videotaped and analyzed in terms of the student inquiry the teachers responded to. Findings suggest that average student talk duration increased and students' leads were increasingly used to guide lesson flow. Teachers increased responses to students' reasoning and logic, offered more clarifications to students' ideas and reasoning, and decreased evaluations of students' ideas. However, teacher responses to knowledge claims increased and those to everyday experiences decreased.