Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
  • Publication
    Investigating pre-service elementary teachers' epistemologies when talking about science, enacting science and reflecting on their enactment
    (1/12/2010) ;
    Tzialli, Dora
    ;
    Zacharia, C. Z.
    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.
  • Publication
    Investigating how graphical and textual computer-based programming environments support student inquiry in science during modeling
    (1/12/2011)
    Zacharia, Zacharias C.
    ;
    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.
  • Publication
    Implementing a lesson plan vs. attending to student inquiry: The struggle of a student-teacher during teaching science
    (1/12/2010) ;
    Santis, M.
    ;
    Tzialli, Dora
    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.
  • Publication
    What to look for and what to do: Novice teachers' abilities for noticing and responding to their students' in-class inquiry
    (1/12/2012) ;
    Skoulia, T.
    ;
    Tzialli, Dora
    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.
  • Publication
    Asking for too much too early? Promoting mechanistic reasoning in early childhood science and mathematics education
    (1/12/2012) ;
    Papademetri-Kachrimani, Chrystalla
    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.
  • Publication
    Inquiry in the kindergarten science: Helping kindergarten teachers to implement inquiry-based teaching
    (1/12/2012) ;
    Tzialli, Dora
    ;
    Constantinou, P. C.
    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.