Potatoes and Preservice Teachers: Laboratories and Classrooms as Sites of Learning

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

Abstract

Objectives and background
Given the goals of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2013), expectations for student learning are shifting towards participation in science practices. To help, teachers must design learning opportunities for students that allow them to engage in science practices (NRC, 2012). Such design work is difficult, especially for preservice teachers who are learning about science and about pedagogies (Stroupe & Gotwals, 2018). Therefore, we argue that PSTs must have experiences “doing science” and considering pedagogical decisions about science with students. Here, we investigate the case of one PST who served as an undergraduate researcher in a plant physiology laboratory, as well as a teaching assistant for an introductory plant physiology class, to better understand how such experiences might help him see science and teaching differently.

Perspectives
We used situative theory to address the complexity of examining how and why the PST’s participation in a laboratory and classroom might shape his vision of science and teaching. Situative theory is a hybrid analytical lens framing individuals’ learning through their participation in activities that occur through interactions with contextual actors, tools, and discourses (Greeno, 2006).

Methods
This case study (Merriam, 2009) followed one PST during their internship in a Plant Biology department at a large, Midwestern university. The participant – A White man – took part in two distinct opportunities. First, the PST served as research assistant in a professor’s potato laboratory. Second, the participant served as a teaching assistant in an introductory biology course. We collected multiple forms of data, including 2 hour-long semi-structured interviews (one at the beginning and one at the end of the year), 3 observations of the participant conducting work in the laboratory and 3 classroom observations, weekly journal reflections and lesson plans, and weekly conversations with the participant (which were video recorded). Using this data, we created emergent coding categories to analyze how the participant’s vision of science and science teaching shifted.

Results
We present two assertions. First, the PST’s participation in professional scientist’s laboratory and classroom led to their deepening understanding of science practices beyond the work encountered in undergraduate courses. Second, the PST did not place equal value on science practices. This unequal treatment led to the PST hoping to emphasize certain science practices in schools, such as data analysis, while placing less value on other practices, such as preparatory work (freeze-drying potato leaves). Given the disparities between the work the PST initially anticipated conducting, and their engagement in authentic science practices and teaching pedagogies, the PST requested multiple sensemaking conversations to consider how school science and professional science might differ, as well as their role in facilitating science learning opportunities for students.

Significance
If teachers are expected to help students participate in practices rather than memorize facts, then science teachers, including PSTs, must have authentic learning experiences. However, these results suggest that, without direct guidance from professional scientists and science educators, PSTs may not fully understand or appreciate how to make connections between sites of science (such as laboratories) and their future classrooms.

Authors

• Matthew Adams, Michigan State University
  Presenting Author

• David Stroupe, University of Utah
  Presenting Author