Turning the Mirror Inward: A Self-Examination of Science Teacher Educator Language Ideologies (Poster 7)

• In Event: Justice-Centered Pedagogy: Context-Specific Adjustments and Cross-Cutting Constants

Abstract

Objectives and Theoretical Framework.
In our work as teacher educators, we have focused on eliciting students’ ideas (Windschitl et al., 2012) as a core practice through which preservice teachers (PSTs) can learn to dismantle existing injustices in science education (Kang, & Zinger, 2019), specifically for multilingual learners (MLs) who have historically been minoritized in and by the discipline (Authors, 2021). Considering this core practice, we have adopted translanguaging as a theoretical framework to help PSTs understand and learn to support the diverse ways MLs mobilize their full language repertoire to sensemake (Odden & Russ, 2019). This includes eliciting the linguistic (e.g., written and spoken named languages like French and Arabic) and multimodal (e.g., gesturing, drawing) resources MLs use to make meaning and communicate science ideas (Otheguy et al., 2015; García & Li, 2014). As we engage in this work, we recognize our important role in shaping PSTs’ pedagogy, an influence that can disrupt, or reproduce, inequities permeating schools (Underwood & Mensah, 2018). As such, we believe it is critical that we reflect upon our ideologies and pedagogies to ensure PSTs receive consistent messages about science teaching and learning; messages conveyed through what we teach in methods courses and how we teach it (Buttler, 2020). As teacher educators driven to prepare PSTs who are equipped to teach science with MLs in equitable ways (Authors, 2023), we were compelled to examine the extent to which our language ideologies reflect the translanguaging theory we espouse in our methods course (Authors, In Press).
Data and Methods.
Using a self-study research approach (Lassonde & Galman, 2019), we examined our language ideologies (Lemmi et al.., 2019), as they manifested through preparing for an elementary science methods course. Specifically, we applied our theoretical framework to qualitatively analyze (Miles et al., 2020) revisions to the course structure - including assignments, activities, and resources focused on the core practice of eliciting students’ ideas - based on classroom artifacts and teaching memos from prior years. We focused this analysis on the revisions we made to what we teach and rationales for those changes, and then explored how the revisions influenced the learning experiences we designed for PSTs (i.e., how we teach).
Results and Significance.
Given space constraints, here we share one theme - Collaborative and critical reflection helped us notice and work against dominant, narrow, science language ideologies that emerged when we elicited PSTs’ ideas in the course. Working together to learn about translanguaging and its transformative potential in science for MLs (Authors, 2023) enabled us to catch when we inadvertently privileged dominant language resources (i.e., those of White, Western, English-speaking individuals; Lemmi et al., 2019). For instance, modeling our expansive views of how teachers can elicit MLs’ ideas through translanguaging, we encouraged PSTs to use their full language repertoires during class when investigating phenomena. However, assignments were primarily English-written tasks. The contradictions between our ideology and pedagogy (Buttler, 2020), suggest the importance of fighting language injustices (Authors, 2021b) through ongoing collaborative and critical professional learning for science teacher educators (Underwood & Mensah, 2018).

Authors

• María González-Howard, University of Texas at Austin

• Leticia Garza, University of Texas at Austin

• Carla Robinson, University of Texas at Austin

• Karina Méndez Pérez, University of Texas at Austin

• Sage Andersen, University of Texas at Austin