What Counts as Success in After-School Science? The Interplay Between Scientific Rigor, Pedagogical Relationships, and Autonomy

• In Event: 29.030 - Equity-Focused Implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards: Exploring Models of Hope and Possibility

Abstract

Objectives / Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how members of two lab teams in an afterschool science inquiry club for urban teen women each taught by a pre-service science teacher understood “success” with respect to equitable science teaching/learning in and through their semester-long collaborative investigation. The findings from this research highlight what it meant for Team Crumb Snatchers and Tough Cookies to navigate the various scientific and social demands of constructing rigorous explanations for their answer to “What is the science of the ideal chocolate chip cookie?” Investigations into how participants understood success (and failure) and how these ideas changed over time offer important insights into the complex work of equitable science teaching through engagement with scientific practices and how this teaching might be scaffolded for teacher learners for both in- and out-of-school.

Perspectives / theoretical framework
This work is grounded in the operationalization of equity advocated by Cobb and Hodge (2011) as having three distinct characteristics: learners develop reasoning strategies will serve them well in the real world, learners are positioned to succeed at the institution of schooling, and learners develop positive and empowering identities with the discipline.

Methods
This study is part of a large ethnographic study looking at learning and identity work in after-school contexts. Data sources include weekly blogging, field notes, written and oral daily debriefs and detailed "unit papers" that included a theoretical framework catered to STARS, content storylines, mapping of goals, objectives and standards for the unit. Data were coded for metrics of success, sites of struggles, and normative and personal identities-in-the-making.

Results
The diverse ways these groups moved through different scientific practices, foregrounding some while backgrounding others, to accomplish their scientific aims reveal important insights about teaching and learning scientific inquiry. The trajectories lived by the groups through the practices revealed more predictable moves (e.g. conducting trials -> authoring explanations) and less predictable moves (e.g. iterations of literature review and data collection). Their work spotlighted “moments” that were rich with problematizing potential as anchors for future learning. Though PSTs were not explicitly supported in anticipating these moments, some were able to identify and capitalize on them as they happened. Analysis of these teams’ experiences underscored a perceived accountability to the discourse of science that was shared by leaders with their youth. Perhaps, most importantly, the findings of this study highlight the essential role that pedagogical relationships play in collaboratively accomplishing scientific rigor.

Scholarly significance
Learning to teach scientific inquiry as an integration and synthesis of scientific practices (NRC, 2012) requires resources such as time and mentorship that are rarely available to pre-service teachers during their preparation program (Grossman et al., 2009). The organic nature of nurturing learners’ competence with inquiry-based work requires comprehensive preparation, ongoing responsiveness to youth engagement, and relatively uncommon assessment strategies to support metacognition and feedback (Windschitl & Thompson, 2006). This study helps us understand ways an afterschool science club might afford teacher learners both the time and mentorship to experience success in equitable science teaching.

Author

• April L. Luehmann, University of Rochester