Toward More Expansive Science Learning for Preservice Teachers

• In Event: Opening the Black Box of Science Experiences for Preservice Teachers

Abstract

Objective
PSTs often experience classroom science as a seemingly apolitical, individualistic, and competitive endeavor. Secondary science PSTs take numerous science courses that are isolating, narrowly focused, and racialized/gendered (McGee, 2020). They are told to shut parts of themselves out—faculty caution them that art does not belong in science class or resist conversations about the ways science has caused harm to minoritized communities. With these narrow, marginalizing experiences, how can PSTs be expected to go on to teach science in expansive, humanizing ways? This paper explores how to develop more expansive spaces for PSTs to engage in and reflect on science.

Perspectives
We draw on work exploring heterogeneity in science (Agarwal & Sengupta-Irving, 2019; Warren, et al., 2020) and conceptualizing humanizing pedagogies (Bartolomé, 1994; Freire, 1970). These perspectives motivate our commitments to (1) build on students’ diverse, cultural resources and ways of knowing, (2) foster dialogic, collective learning while attending to powered intersections of language, culture, race, and science, and (3) critically examine oppressive narratives and structures.

Context/Methods
We draw from design-based research (Cobb, et al., 2003) to develop and refine conjectures for fostering expansiveness in a required PST science education course in a private university in the South. In spring 2021, six students were of Asian descent, one was Black, and five were White. We videorecorded meetings and collected artifacts, including students’ journals and reflections. We developed content logs of whole-class and small-group conversations, identifying episodes for analysis that addressed our conjectures.

Findings
Our central conjecture is that engaging in expansive science learning will attune PSTs to different ways of knowing and relating in science. We enacted this conjecture by selecting tasks and resources that invite multiple resources and perspectives. For instance, the launching question, “Are all the colors in the rainbow?” (Atkins Elliott, Jaxon, & Salter, 2016) allowed students to draw on physics and chemistry, but also their experiences with art, lighting, visual perception, computer science. We supplied filters, paint, flashlights, and diffraction gratings, which supported students to think with materials (Gravel & Svihla, 2020). Second, the course facilitation attended to sociohistorical power dynamics. In one episode, the instructor challenged classroom dynamics that narrowly privileged the contributions of the White male physics majors, positioning physics knowledge as insufficient for wholly understanding the phenomena. Lastly, we developed activities that asked students to reflect on dominant narratives of science and school and how to disrupt these. In their final projects, students challenged portrayals of science as objective and lacking emotion, questioned the individualistic and competitive culture of science in schools, and considered how science needs to be woven with other forms of reasoning to reduce the harm it can cause to communities.

Significance
This study contributes to efforts toward conceptualizing humanizing teacher education (Carter Andrews, et al., 2019; Mensah, 2019). To realize more expansive visions of science classrooms, we need to help PSTs experience science in ways that value their full humanity and challenge them to question dominant narratives of science that restrict who they—and their students—can become.

Authors

• Jessica Watkins, Vanderbilt University
  Presenting Author

• Natalie A. De Lucca, Vanderbilt University
  Presenting Author

• Serena Pao, Vanderbilt University
  Presenting Author