Designing Science Content Courses for Preservice Elementary Teachers Toward Just and Equitable STEM Education

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

Abstract

Objectives
The natural sciences are increasingly recognizing the need to address social theories in the study of natural systems (Schell, et al, 2020; Graddy-Lovelace, 2017). Redlining, comorbidity factors, dense housing, and inequitable access to health care--all stemming from institutionalized racism--have been implicated in the disproportionate suffering of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people (Johnson-Agbakwu, 2020). Racial inequity is therefore a variable in the injustices done by science, and we can no longer ignore the key role of sociopolitical contexts in the teaching, learning, and doing of science, and the preparation of pre and inservice science teachers.
This paper will describe a NSF-funded project to design a 2-quarter “science for elementary teachers” course, designed to take the place of science content courses typically required for entry into teacher certification programs. An interdisciplinary team of educational researchers, STEM faculty, and community experts are eco-designing modules that integrate NGSS, racial equity, and contemporary scientific tools in the context of examining the history of racist research practices within science itself. We argue that shifts in preservice elementary teachers’ understandings of science begin with the instruction they receive in their undergraduate STEM courses. Therefore, this paper will focus on STEM faculty learning through the co-design and implementation of this course asking: (1) What shifts occur in STEM faculty learning around the connection between their disciplines and racial equity during the design/re-design process? (2) What subsequent shifts in instructional practice occur?

Framing
We measure shifts in antiracist teaching practices and knowledge using four “discourses” for equity that include (1) access to high quality science education (2)increased representation and identification with science (3) broadening what counts as science, and (4) connecting science and engineering to social justice movements (NASEM, 2021, Philip & Azevedo, 2017). We are also using frameworks from the Learning in Places project (authors, 2021) to understand issues of power, historicity, culture, ethical deliberation, and nature-culture relations in science.

Methods
This study takes place in one public university in the Pacific Northwest. We use case study to understand faculty learning. For each faculty case study, we have collected multiple sources of evidence (Yin, 2018) to triangulate claims about changes in ideas as related to science teaching, racial justice, connecting to family/community practices, and course design. Data sources for this paper include faculty interviews, post-design exit surveys, design artifacts, and observations of teaching.

Findings
Emerging findings indicate that faculty have shifted from processing their understandings about the four equity discourses towards operationalizing justice-oriented science and engineering design and teaching. In their design work, they have shifted from de-contextualized, “inquiry-based” lessons to thinking about systemic factors that cause inequity, such as systemic racism, sexism, and ableism in science education.

Significance
The 2018 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education (NSSME+) found that elementary teachers do not feel well-prepared to incorporate students' cultural backgrounds into science (Plumley, 2019). Engaging teachers in justice-centered undergraduate STEM learning has the potential to radically shift elementary teachers’ views of science towards justice-centered ends that they can incorporate into their classrooms.

Authors

• Carrie T. Tzou, University of Washington - Bothell
  Presenting Author

• Veronica Cassone McGowan, University of Washington - Bothell
  Presenting Author

• Bryan White, University of Washington - Bothell
  Presenting Author

• Megan Bang, Northwestern University
  Presenting Author

• Symone Gyles, University of California - Irvine
  Presenting Author