Supporting Science Candidates to Facilitate Their Students' Scientific Discourse: Integrating Teacher Talk Into Science Content Methodology

• In Event: 14.043 - Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: 14.043-5 - Classroom Talk and Preparing Teachers for Work With Diverse Student Populations

Abstract

K-12 STEM Teacher Education is facing intense scrutiny about the preparation of K-12 children for college and the workforce. Assessments aligned to the Common Core and the Next Generation Science Standards expect students’ to demonstrate engineering and scientific practices. To meet these new expectations, students must be able to appropriately use the academic language of the discipline. In science, this means students know how to ask scientifically oriented questions, use scientific tools to gather, analyze and interpret data, and communicate their findings. This presentation shares how one science teacher education program prepares their candidates to develop secondary students’ scientific discourse through examination of a core practice (McDonald et al., 2013).
Theoretical Framework
Focus on critical thinking and discourse originates from a sociocultural/social constructivist framework (Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1991). The role of debate and argumentation around theories, methodologies, evidence and findings is central to science learning (Duschl & Osborne, 2002: Osborne, Erduran, & Simon, 2004). In the urban science-classroom, students’ experiences with scientific language has served as a gatekeeper to their learning (Brown, 2004; 2005; 2006, Varelas, Becker, Luster, & Wenzel, 2002). Pre-service teachers must engage their students in practicing scientific discourse using a variety of structured activities to develop the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic components of the science language and thus better participate in and understand science (Duschl & Osborne, 2002; Scott, Mortimer, & Aguiar, 2006).
Methods/Results
Qualitative methods examined the Discourse Analysis Assignment that all science candidates completed during their first term of student teaching. All candidates submitted a 5E Lesson Plan, a description of the classroom context, including students’ language needs, a 4-6 minute video-clip and a transcript used for analysis and reflection. Analysis of candidate work (n=50) revealed both candidate-preparation to develop students’ scientific discourse and areas for improvement. “As I listened to myself talk, I think I talk too much. In the transcription, students’ remarks and statements are short while I often talk for several sentences. I think this is because many of my questions are close-ended and lower-level thinking questions. In the future, I will plan higher-level questions ahead of time.” Only 3 out of 50 candidates presented videos and transcripts that demonstrated high-level science discourse, measured by the EdTPA rubric. Candidates understood the importance of facilitating discourse for student learning, but needed additional scaffolding to consistently implement effective classroom talk that will impact student learning. The presentation will share additional science discourse analysis assignments embedded into the program, with results of candidates’ increasing students’ participation and how these assignments are connected to the EdTPA.
Implications for Science Teacher Education
To ensure that all candidates are prepared to facilitate scientific discourse in their own classrooms, teacher education programs should identify core practices (Ball et al., 2009) that help support discourse in the science classroom. To know is not enough; we must also strive to effect practice so candidates “do” in their classrooms.

Author

• Frederick Freking, University of Southern California