Integrating Critical Whiteness and Ambitious Science Teaching to Support Preservice Teacher Learning (Poster 8)

• In Event: Supporting Teacher Learning of Justice-Centered Ambitious Practice

Abstract

Ambitious forms of instruction have been critiqued for being too rigid with regard to practice in ways that can gloss deeper issues of equity (Philip et al., 2018). Supporting teacher learning around equity in practice can be particularly challenging in contexts that are exclusively or almost exclusively white. Our work as science teacher educators attempts to address this critique by explicitly integrating scholarship on critical whiteness (Daniels & Varghese, 2020; Jupp, Berry, & Lensmire, 2016) with critical and cultural forms of ambitious science teaching.

We take a sociocultural perspective on learning (e.g. Lave & Wenger, 1988), and specifically view teacher learning in terms of professional vision (Goodwin, 1994). From this we view learning environments as dynamic and co-constructed cultural contexts that are derived from the combination of cultural practices of the participants. We see teaching as a rigorous and responsive process of disciplined (Sawyer, 2004) and principled (Philip, 2019) improvisation.

Our designed-based study, organized via conjecture mapping (Sandoval, 2014), is grounded in multiple iterations of a sequence of science teaching methods courses as they were redesigned over a three year period. There are two courses in the sequence, the first has teaching practice clinics as part of the core assignments and the second is embedded in a public middle school, combining field experience with methods to both ground and enrich the pedagogical conversations.

Through the multiple iterations we developed some key task structure embodiments that support integrative equity-focused practices:

Self-Ethnography - This assignment focuses on personal narrative and unpacking those narratives in terms of different identities and their relationship to both whiteness and science education. There are multiple iterations of the document, each focused on a different area (race, gender/sexuality, ability) produced over two semesters.

Social Emotional Justice Project - This is largely ill-defined but was supported with benchmark conversations through the semester. The project required that they represent how they, as a teacher, hope to transform the lives of their students, themselves, and/or society. It was evaluated using questions based on don Miguel Ruiz’s four agreements: Was it impeccable? Did they take anything personally? Did they make assumptions? Did they do their best?

Co-construction of Anti-Racist Ambitious Science Teaching Practices - Multiple assignments in the course focus on teaching practice and unit planning, including rehearsals. All these assignments were focused on using the principles of C2AST (Thompson, et al., 2021) to reconsider teaching practice drawing on both the preservice teachers’ identity work from the above assignments and the cultural and experiential capital of the middle school students in the context of their field placement. Preservice teachers planned and debriefed in the context of small and whole group structured discussions with mentor teachers and university faculty.

Understanding how to support preservice teachers in learning ambitious and equitable ways of teaching in an integrated context is critical to the success of their future equity focused teaching. Having social justice or equity as an independent course does not support them understanding the intertwined nature of rigor and responsiveness. This work suggests some potential task structures that can support that integration.

Authors

• Scott McDonald, Pennsylvania State University
  Presenting Author

• Jonathan McCausland, Iona University
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer Jackson, Pennsylvania State University
  Presenting Author