Correlation of Preservice Teachers’ Multicultural Beliefs and Selection and Use of Visuals in STEM Lessons

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Preservice Teachers Explore Multicultural Beliefs and Bilingualism (Table 32)

Abstract

This study examines the correlation between pre-service teachers’ multicultural beliefs and the selection and use of visuals in their STEM lesson plans. The participants were forty-seven elementary pre-service teachers at a private, non-profit university. They learned to use visual sources and relevant visual literacy strategies to support multilingual students in STEM methods courses. A mixed method was adopted to collect data from pre- and post-surveys, focus group interviews, and lesson plans. Results showed a significant change in the participants’ multicultural beliefs. However, their selection of visuals in the lesson plans did not strongly correlate with their multicultural beliefs. Further research is needed to understand how to support pre-service teachers to integrate multicultural content with visuals into STEM lessons.

Authors

• Xue Han, National Louis University

• Eun Kyung Ko, National Louis University

• Vishodana Thamotharan, National Louis University

• Xiaoning Chen, National Louis University