Professional Development Across Communities of Practice: Using Lessons From K–12 Classrooms to Facilitate Preservice Teachers' Learning to Teach Climate Change

• In Event: Enacting Systemic Climate Change Education: Maryland and Delaware Climate Change Education, Assessment and Research (MADE CLEAR) Research and Practice for a Changing Planet

Abstract

This study focuses on developing sustainable climate literacy professional development (PD) for preservice science teachers. Although there are a number of hypothetical and empirical research studies on what and how K-12 students should learn about climate science (e.g., Shepardson et al., 2012), there remains a dearth of studies on teachers’ understanding of climate science. Drawing from the socio-cultural theories of learning, this study is designed around the central question, How do the K-12 classroom practices of teaching climate change facilitate a sustainable PD for preservice teachers?

Our study uses Engestroms’ third generation of activity theory. This theory stems from the studies of Vygotsky, using mediating artifacts (e.g. language and educative materials) to scaffold subjects move towards their goals. This theory was renamed CHAT (Cultural-Historical Activity Theory) and the following dimensions were used to explain the triadic relationship in a community of practice: subjects, mediating artifacts (tools), rules, division of labor, and community (Engestrom, 1987). Engestrom later suggested the third generation of CHAT, focusing on the boundaries and transitions at intersections with the objects of the two related activity systems (Engestrom, 2008). The current study uses this framework to determine boundaries (shared object, common and distinctive features) between K-12 and preservice teacher communities of practices (Figure 1). Describing the two communities of practices will allow us transfer what we have learned from K-12 practice to preservice teacher education.

The study uses a multiple-case method (Yin, 1984) where the same climate change activity is implemented in 14 different secondary school science classrooms. A daylong workshop was conducted for inservice teachers. The workshop included presentations, discussions, and experiments on the concepts of climate science and related scientific practices. The preservice teachers were recruited from methods courses at Towson and Delaware State Universities.

To describe communities of practice, participants completed a survey on climate science content/practices and their perspectives to include climate change in their curriculum. This data is analyzed using descriptive statistics and the CHAT analytical framework (Figure 1). A second set of data came from the K-12 classroom practices. 14 teachers submitted students’ written artifacts and their own reflections on the implementation of the activity.

The preliminary analysis of this data showed how we can utilize our lessons from K-12 classroom to develop PD for preservice teachers: (a) activities where preservice teachers evaluate students' naive ideas and explain how they can improve their ideas into scientifically accurate explanations (b) using argumentative discourse as a cohesive practice to teach climate change through scientific practices (c) highlighting the interdisciplinary aspects of climate change.

[Figure 1: Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) Analysis of Communities of Practice]

Studies show that preservice teachers have a hard time transitioning from a university setting to a teaching environment with regard to reform minded teaching (Bransford & Stein, 1993). This study aims to equip preservice teachers with authentic classroom experiences within the boundaries of their community of practice. This study also exemplifies using CHAT as an analytic framework to describe the sociocultural dimensions of communities of practice.

Authors

• Asli Sezen, Towson University

• Jane Wolfson, Towson University

• Dana Veron, University of Delaware

• Gulnihal Ozbay, Delaware State University

• Rebecca F. Fox-Lykens, Shepherd University