Assessing Preservice Teachers' Conceptions and Explanations of Natural Selection Tenets Through a Clinical Simulation

• In Event: 72.044 - Teaching Simulations That Assess (the Use of) Teaching Knowledge and Skill

Abstract

Objective
This symposium paper describes the use of a clinical simulation to assess preservice teachers’ (PSTs) conceptions and explanations of a secondary science topic. It begins by illustrating a clinical simulation focused on two common Natural Selection misconceptions, and then outlines how PSTs (n=13) engaged with a standardized student who presented these two misconceptions through a short homework document. Simulation and post-simulation debriefing video data show PSTs’ different approaches to the same problem of practice, as they each worked with the standardized student to address questions about ‘survival of the fittest’ and how organisms adapt to their environments. Implications center on the use of this simulation and others to assess PSTs’ abilities to enact knowledge of content and pedagogy in real-time to address student misconceptions.

Theoretical Framework
Clinical simulations within teacher education are anchored by cognitive development and situated cognition frameworks (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Piaget, 1959). As summarized by Reiman and Peace (2002), these frameworks offer (a) the assumption that learners construct knowledge through experience in specific situations, (b) the recognition of uncertainty as a catalyst for growth, and (c) an emphasis on disposition and skill development, as learners’ experiences, interpretations, and professional reasoning synthesize over time (von Glaserfeld, 1989).

Methods & Evidence
This paper briefly describes the author’s partnership with Central Medical University (CMU) and how he retrained four CMU standardized patients to serve instead as standardized students. Two documents guided this simulation – a Teacher Interaction Protocol (TIP) and a Standardized Individual Protocol (SIP). The TIP provides each PST with an appropriate amount of background and contextual information, but not so much information that it foretells, scripts, or overly-directs the PST on what to do or say in the simulation. In contrast, the SIP is extensive, carefully preparing the standardized student on exactly what to say and do in the simulation. The teacher and standardized student meet in one of CMU’s simulation rooms, equipped with multi-angle cameras and microphones, yielding video data used later with PSTs in the debriefing process.

Results & Scholarly Significance
Data were coded by each PST’s recognition (or not) of the misconceptions, the type(s) of explanations offered in response to the student, the scientific repertoire used in addressing the misconceptions, and the general pedagogical repertoire employed across the simulation. PSTs’ responses differed in instructional approach, types of examples/illustrations offered, and degree of accuracy in explanation. Some PSTs correctly recognized misconceptions but employed conflicting explanations, while others didn’t recognize the misconception but employed more streamlined explanations of the broader Natural Selection concept.
As an assessment of PSTs’ understanding of Natural Selection, this particular simulation outlines several different approaches that a relatively small sample of PSTs employed within the same instructional situation. As a broader assessment of PSTs’ abilities to synthesize and enact knowledge of content and pedagogy, clinical simulations hold significance by allowing educators to introduce very specific situations that cannot be accounted and controlled for, and are difficult to accurately assess, in traditional field placements.



Author

• Benjamin H. Dotger, Syracuse University