Solving Problems of Practice for Urban Science Teachers

• In Event: Preparing Urban Teachers in a Postindustrial City

Abstract

1. Objectives or purposes: This study addresses the following three questions. How do urban educators perceive themselves as competent in their content area? How do urban educators perceive themselves as confident in pedagogy of their content area? How do urban educators perceive themselves as culturally relevant in their content area?

2. Theoretical framework: A constructivist orientation (Richardson, 1997) with approximations of teaching tasks (Ball & Cohen, 1999) was used to determine how student teachers draw on values, attitudes, and beliefs to construct their future selves as competent science teachers (Anderson, 2002). The task of lesson planning is useful tool for identifying science teachers values, however methods course assignments often mismatch in-service demands (Strangis, Pringle, & Knopf, 2006). Lesson plans focused on solving teaching problems in urban science classrooms (Tobin, Roth, & Zimmerman, 2001) with a focus on engaging students in science content, organizing for instruction, and understanding students (Mikeska, Anderson, & Schwarz, 2009).

3. Methods: A practitioner research study (Borko, Liston, & Whitcomb, 2007) with a case study design (Merriam, 2009).

4. Data sources: The case is a one semester secondary science education methods course chosen for practitioner research because I am interested in the results of my own pedagogy. The sample participants are students enrolled in the methods course including four male students (winter 2010 semester), and 5 male, 7 female students (winter 2011 semester). Data collected included documents in the form of 2 lesson plans and 1 theory of teaching paper per student. Focus group interviews were conducted during class periods and asked students what they learned about problems of practice and how that was evident in their lesson plans. Finally, instructor field notes for each class period. A process of constant comparative analysis was used to look for themes related to the problems of practice.

5. Results: Preliminary results presented here for question 1 from the winter 2010 semester. In terms of engaging students in science content see four student teachers at various points along the continuum of traditional and inquiry-oriented science teachers. One student maintained a value for transmission of science content. Two students, values changed from engaging students in science with games to applying science in real world contexts. One student valued a change in engaging students in content from individual to cooperative student groups.

6. Scholarly significance of the study or work: For urban teachers a dynamic and critical understanding of academic content is essential (Ladson-Billings, 1994). In addition, urban teachers must learn to use context as a tool for teaching content embedded in a particular local context (Tan, Barton, & Lim, 2010). Results to date from this study indicate the efforts of my own instruction show students still value a static canonical view of science content. This poses significant challenge for identifying teacher education strategies that develop competent science teachers who value students’ construction of dynamic science understanding in the context of the urban built environment.

Author

• David J. Grueber, Wayne State University