Drawing and Reflecting on Experiences to Craft Science Teaching in and With Urban Communities

• In Event: Collaborative Science Teaching and Learning Toward Social Transformation and Justice

Abstract

Non-for-profit organizations (NFPOs) provide opportunities for pre-service science teachers (PSTs) learning science pedagogy to rethink teaching practices that marginalize issues of equity and justice. This study focuses on five PSTs, who were once students in the urban, public school district where they were being prepared to become high school science teachers and were participating in NFPOs’ workshops. It explores the intersection of these PSTs’ identities as former students, new teachers, and residents of the city, in relationship to ideological shifts regarding conceptions of communities and of science teaching.

The study is grounded in ideology in pieces (Philip, 2011), and the structure-agency dialectic (Authors et al., 2019). Ideology in pieces frames PSTs’ sensemaking as interwoven with past experiences and more formalized thinking about social structures, while the structure-agency dialectic frames PSTs’ agency in relation to the many structures encountered and conceptualized (Sewell, 1992; Author et al., 2015). Moreover, community-based workshops have been shown to be places that cultivate sociopolitical understandings of structures of oppression (Authors et al., 2018a; 2018b; Hallman & Rodriguez, 2015; 2015; Zeichner et al., 2016).

An embedded case-study design (Yin, 2009) was used with primary data sources being three reflective conversations and five workshop reflections for each PST. Data were coded using hybrid coding methods (Saldana, 2013). The five workshops varied by topic, ranging from the health of a river ecosystem to the triumphs and tribulations of an environmental justice organization. Conversations were semi-structured and prompted PSTs about teaching practices, sociopolitical understandings, and their science and science teacher identities.

PSTs drew on their own learning experiences as they positioned themselves as science teachers. Challenges they had faced were lenses to understand the workshops. Esperanza identified structures impeding students’ learning (“seeing those injustices, [students]…distracted by…jobs, bills”), and used this as a lens to see workshop experiences encouraging PSTs to ponder–(“communities…lack green space [to] grow their own [food]…youth ha[ve] very little experience and knowledge about where our food comes from.”). As she was reflecting on workshops, she suggested teachers position themselves as learning from and with community (“so many resources…for us as teachers...take a part of and collaborate with them”). Esperanza connected availability of resources with being responsive as a teacher– “No matter what community…you can connect with and build something for the students.” Eventually Esperanza argued that teachers connect with ongoing social change by (re)learning of community and shifting ideologies: “I had grown up there…I knew…the power plant, but…I have been so disconnected from my community…garden.” That workshop helped Esperanza connect more deeply with her community, and consider the dissonance between structures of formal school spaces and partnerships that provide contexts for responsiveness–“school, it takes the fun out. In summer, where there is not as much content, and testing, instead building love of science.” This study adds to the scholarship of how out-of-school experiences facilitate learning to teach science for equity, capturing PSTs’ ways of drawing on multiple identities as students, teacher candidates, and community residents to construct conceptions of teaching science for equity in practice.

Authors

• David Segura, Beloit College

• Maria Varelas, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Daniel Morales-Doyle, University of Illinois at Chicago