Strengthening Pre-Service Elementary Science Education with Community Storytelling

• In Event: Community-Informed STEM Learning

Abstract

I discuss efforts to integrate community-based knowledge into a science education course for pre-service elementary school teachers. Over the course of one semester, students explored storytelling as an entry point into more expansive ways of conceiving science (Gopal et al., 2022). Activities included: discussing popular podcasts about scientific topics, learning about different methodologies for engaging communities in inquiry, interviewing community members on a scientific topic, and producing a short video to illuminate community perspectives on locally relevant science-related issues. These activities acted as scaffolds to support students in ultimately developing a science lesson for their future students.

Through a research-practice partnership (Coburn & Penuel, 2016), the author worked with the professor of the course to better understand the extent to which his novel course design was helping the students to connect science learning to their everyday lives while enriching their pedagogical practice. The dataset consists of: audiovisual recordings from interviews with the professor at three points throughout the semester; field notes from classroom observations and a student focus group; and student artifacts. These artifacts include: 1) drawings the students made when prompted to consider how they might integrate community-based knowledge into their future science education (Weber and Mitchell, 1996); and 2) the videos students produced as their final projects.

After an initial content analysis of the artifacts and a thematic analysis of the interviews, observations, and focus group, tentative findings suggest that students encountered a new approach to teaching science which many had not previously considered. For some, this was an encouraging prompt to embed themselves into the communities of their future schools. Others reported being less certain about the extent to which this community-based knowledge approach would be practically relevant to their classrooms. A central challenge observed and reported by the instructor involved stimulating active, consistent student participation and theorizing around more expansive notions of science.

While initial findings point to the benefits of localized storytelling in science teaching, additional research is needed to clarify the ways in which pre-service teachers might be supported in integrating community-based knowledge into their pedagogy. A potential direction could be to follow students from their pre-service coursework into their classrooms to directly observe the extent to which they are later able or willing to incorporate community STEM knowledge into their science teaching. This research design could be part of a two-semester class, pairing initial classroom instruction with a practicum that aids students in trying out these community-centered techniques to explore how their pedagogical practice might be strengthened.

Author

• Ari Hock, University at Buffalo - SUNY