Poster #77 - Head Start Teachers’ Beliefs, Perception, and Practices in STEM Curriculum

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

With a nationwide initiative of integrating Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) curriculum, the United States government has prioritized three major areas to support STEM education since 2017: improve the quality of STEM curriculum, expand access to STEM courses for all, and address bias and expand opportunities for underrepresented students. Many early childhood teachers perceived themselves as the most influential person in promoting children’s STEM development, yet their instruction often does not reflect Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAPs) when implementing STEM curriculum (see Brenneman, Stevenson-Garcia, Jung, & Frede, 2011).

When teachers are equipped with knowledge and skills to encourage STEM-focused classrooms, they support STEM learning for their students (Pinnell et al., 2013). Studies indicate that teachers’ perceptions, training, and experiences will contribute to teaching effectiveness. In the context of early childhood education, a major concern is how teachers transfer their beliefs into classroom practice to support preschoolers’ STEM learning. To this end, we examined three aspects of teacher preparation: (1) perceptions and beliefs about teaching, (2) instructional supports, and (3) skills/strategies specific to teaching STEM. The current study took the first step to understand the correlations between preschool teachers’ beliefs and practices, especially in teaching STEM.

Here we provide Year 1 report for a three-year project that supports teachers’ professional development, summarizing quantitative and qualitative data from 10 Head Start teachers (eight received professional development STEM workshop, two did not; see Table 1 for demographic information). Data were obtained from multiple informants. The teachers completed self-report surveys on their DAPs using the Teacher Beliefs and Practices Survey (TBPS; Kim & Buchanan, 2009), and more specifically on their self-assessment as STEM instructors (27-item survey developed for this project). In addition, trained classroom observers used the Preschool Rating Instrument for Science and Mathematics (PRISM; Brenneman et al., 2011) to rate the classroom environment and teacher-child interaction. The PRISM considers aspects such as classroom materials and activities, and teachers’ strategies that support children’s higher-order thinking that is necessary for STEM learning (e.g., categorizing, analyzing, hypothesis-testing, integrating previous concepts, connecting to the real world). The observers also provided field notes to supplement the numeric ratings of the PRISM.

Results indicated that all 10 Head Start teachers rated themselves as high on both DAPs and STEM teaching (Ms = 3.51 to 3.79 out of 5, ps < .05). However, their observed practices were low: There is room for improvement across all areas of STEM-related materials and instruction (Ms = 1.00 to 2.31 out of 7, ps < .001; see Table 2). Additional support came from the qualitative data. The observers’ records indicated that STEM activities were often rushed through, resulting in missing the teachable moments. Teachers tended to stay on a tight schedule and failed to enhance and support children’s ideas and displayed little sensitivity to scaffold children’s higher-order thinking. The present report hence underscored the urgent need to support Head Start teachers’ effectiveness in STEM instruction, in order to bridge the gap between their beliefs, perception, and practices in STEM curriculum.

Authors

• Maria Serpas, California State University, Los Angeles
  Presenting Author

• Qing Bonnie Wang, California State University, Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yafen Lo, California State University, Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author

• Shinchieh Duh, San Jose State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Shu-Chen Jenny Yen, California State University, Fullerton
  Non-Presenting Author