Place or Practice? Negotiating Meanings of Formal/Informal Science Learning in the Classroom

• In Event: Crown Plaza Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: How Teachers' Informal Learning Experiences Relate to Practice and Identity

Abstract

Realizing the “dreams, possibility and necessity of public education” requires us to examine and enhance the experiences of both preservice and inservice teacher learning towards a climate of “equitable educational opportunity.” As such, this study examines the experience of teachers who have engaged in informal science learning experiences in order to learn how these experiences transferred into the classroom. With informal science institutions are playing an increasing role in science teacher education, it is important to understand how teachers experience, understand and adapt these experiences in their teaching practice in public schools. This paper focuses on understanding first how teachers defined “informal science education” and then describes how their definitions are enacted in the classroom.

Authors

• Jennifer Dawn Adams, University of Calgary

• Sharon Anne O'Connor-Petruso, Brooklyn College - CUNY