ABSTRACT While developing the ability of preservice science teachers (PSTs) to teach responsively is regarded as an important goal of science teacher preparation programs, there remains a limited understanding of how and under what conditions PSTs acquire this ability. This paper explores how secondary PSTs learn to enact the core practice of eliciting and working with student thinking through a video- and practice-based teaching intervention designed to enhance their responsive teaching practices. We examined changes in PSTs’ ability to enact this core practice by investigating changes in discourse characteristics and utilizing a multi-grain-sized responsive teaching practice framework to analyze PSTs’ enactment of the core practice during teaching rehearsals. We also investigated PSTs’ perceptions of the usefulness of the teaching intervention and its features in their learning. A mixed-methods analysis of rehearsal videos revealed that PSTs improved their ability to enact the core practice, evidenced by increased student contributions in the discourse and a greater use of responsive discourse practices and moves. However, challenges remained in enacting some responsive teaching practices. Of the 23 PSTs, all reported enhanced abilities to enact the core practice. Only one did not rate the intervention as very or extremely useful. PSTs perceived tool-supported, feedback-rich approximations of practices as useful, as reflected in their ratings of the three most useful features, which include: (1) a practice-based approach, (2) the provision of praxis tools, and (3) feedback from various sources on their core practice enactment. Implications for better supporting PSTs in learning this focal core practice are discussed.

ABSTRACT As bioethical issues increasingly intersect with scientific education, understanding teachers’ cognitive beliefs and awareness of these topics becomes essential for producing ethically responsible future scientists. This study aimed to reveal the level of cognitive beliefs and awareness of bioethical issues among biology teachers in Oman and to examine whether a relationship exists between these two constructs. The study used a quantitative descriptive method. Two instruments were prepared: an epistemological beliefs questionnaire and an awareness of controversial bioethical issues questionnaire. After verifying the validity and reliability of the instruments, the two questionnaires were given to a random sample of 121 teachers. The results revealed that the participating biology teachers have a high level of awareness of bioethical issues. However, contrary to expectations, there was no statistically significant correlation between epistemological beliefs and bioethical awareness (p = .359), suggesting that these two constructs may be influenced by different factors. This finding highlights the need to reconsider assumptions about the role of epistemological beliefs in shaping ethical awareness and emphasizes the importance of context, experience, and curriculum in bioethics education. The study recommends conducting training programs to help teachers deepen their understanding of key epistemological dimensions—such as “absolute authority,” “innate ability,” and “confirmed knowledge”—and explore how pedagogical practices involving bioethical content may strengthen such beliefs.

ABSTRACT This paper highlights research conducted within a collaborative science teacher network, which provides professional development (PD) to elementary teachers to support engaging children in practices of science through open-ended inquiry opportunities. This network is anchored in a teacher resource center, the SciTeach Center (hereafter the Center), located at our university. The PD offered through the Center emerges from teachers’ specific needs and contexts and is developed through a collective process, in which teachers work together to learn in a professional community. The overarching question that guides this paper is related to their positions as Teacher Leaders within the context of education curricular reform and change: What does the process of responsive PD (co-planning, co-development, and co-teaching) reveal about supporting teachers in enacting reform-based science teaching/instruction? We present two vignettes from case studies of participating teachers to analyze central events in our collaborations and to highlight patterns and contradictions that have emerged through ongoing collaborative analysis and PD. As we examine the structures that are in place to guide our collaboration, we consider how they mediate Teacher Leaders’ agency, with a particular lens on our relational work relative to learning as science teacher educators. We explore the ways in which a collaborative structure based on a continual process of reflection, dialogue, and action positions teacher leaders in relation to the science education curriculum and elaborate how this work provides insights into teachers’ views on children, on science, and on self, and how these views intertwine and shift over time.

ABSTRACT Our exploratory study attempts to contribute to how epistemic empathy serves as a responsive teaching strategy for students’ negative epistemic emotions while engaged in the scientific sense-making of natural phenomena. We aim to strike a balance between allowing students to experience negative epistemic emotions and providing emotional support through epistemic empathy before those negative emotions intensify and lead to disengagement. Using various data forms including classroom audio and video recordings, field notes, Facial Expression Summary Sheets (FESS), and teachers’ reflections, we investigated how two elementary school science teachers’ epistemic empathy facilitated students’ participation in group activities despite their experience of negative emotions. The classroom recordings were transcribed noting students’ tones of voice, facial expressions, and other body gestures, and were analyzed using latent inductive content analysis through the constant comparison method. Based on our analysis, students experienced the three negative epistemic emotions of anxiety, confusion, and irritation when engaged in scientific sense-making. To avoid disengagement, the teachers employed four epistemic empathy moves in two distinct stages. The first stage, noticing, is the crucial move as it sets the pace, can stand alone as a move, or can be followed by any one or more moves in the second stage: exploring the cause, providing unconditional acceptance, and providing encouraging words. Our study highlights the significance of addressing not only students’ cognitive processes but also their emotions. This calls for educators to effortfully understand the emotional dimensions of learning and equip themselves with the skills to empathically respond to students’ emotional states.

ABSTRACT In science education, there is broad agreement that equity is essential in teaching and learning; yet multiple conceptions of equity exist. Some conceptions focus on helping teacher candidates (TCs) engage with dominant perspectives of disciplinary practices, while others focus on transforming disciplinary practices to foster liberatory learning. However, few undergraduate TCs have been exposed to an image of science that centers equity in any form. When equity is not a central focus in science methods courses, TCs have few opportunities to surface and challenge deficit and assimilationist ideologies that constrain science learning. Thus, there is a need to support researchers and educators in navigating the complex goals and outcomes of equity-oriented science teaching. We contribute to this body of the literature by analyzing data collected from an elementary science methods course. Using qualitative coding to analyze multiple assignments from across three sections of the course, we illustrate how TCs envisioned and enacted equity. We focus on mapping a range of outcomes, from dominant to transformative perspectives of equity, in terms of two teaching practices: noticing and curriculum design. These findings can help science teacher educators work toward establishing frameworks for mapping and tracing TCs’ learning about equitable science teaching.

ABSTRACT This research describes the changes made to a physics course for preservice elementary teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic and their efforts to engage in constructing scientific explanations in virtual learning. The preservice teachers engaged in three types of virtual labs: simulations, video analysis, and observations. We evaluated the participants’ performance in constructing scientific explanations with a Level of Sophistication rubric scoring engagement from novice to expert levels. We collected data from three cohorts: 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2020–21 (mid-pandemic), in the form of course documents, interviews, and student lab submissions. We analyzed the data using a-priori and open coding methods as well as applying descriptive statistics and a series of ANOVA tests to the rubric results. We found that the participants (new to science practice) on average engaged at an intermediate level, but were more sophisticated when they used reasoning that included scientific models, theory, or mathematical thinking. Students can successfully engage in constructing explanations in virtual contexts when provided with opportunities to collect their own data through virtual experimentation. This is especially true when scaffolding is in place to prompt sensemaking. The reasoning in their explanations provides a glimpse at the mental models that drive their reasoning and sensemaking.

ABSTRACT The purpose of lesson study (LS), which aims to enhance student learning, is to develop teachers’ teaching competencies. Despite an expanding body of research on lesson study, few studies have delved into how the components of lesson study can be leveraged to promote student teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in science classrooms. This case study aimed to investigate how LS fosters PCK, particularly concerning the dynamic interplay between teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practices. The participants consisted of two student teachers, two cooperating teachers, and a university mentor. To analyze the data from content representations, lesson plans, interviews, and observations, inductive analysis was utilized. The findings revealed that reflecting on student learning is essential for adjusting instruction and anticipating challenges enables proactive preparation. Collaborative learning spaces, especially partnerships between cooperating teachers and student teachers, cultivate positive learning environments and innovative teaching strategies. Open-mindedness within the learning community is vital to developing PCK in student teachers. This study suggests that by incorporating these key elements into teacher education programs, we can better prepare science teachers to be adaptable, reflective, and collaborative practitioners who can effectively meet the diverse needs of their students.

ABSTRACT While limited NGSS-designed curricula are available, there is a lack of unit planning tools for preservice science teachers (PSTs). To address this gap, we developed a model-based inquiry (MBI) unit planning tool over a two-year period. Our design-based research (DBR) focused on the refinement of the planning tool. To do this, we investigated the uncertainty and ambiguity PSTs experienced with the MBI planning tool, using classroom video data, Google Document tracking, and end-of-semester interviews, and evaluated K-12 student opportunity to learn (OTL) using survey responses from a questionnaire from one IST’s classroom. In all, we identified 65 instances of uncertainty and ambiguity grouped into the following themes: Identification of the anchoring phenomenon (n = 13 instances), Scaffolding specific activities or lessons within the MBI unit (n = 33 instances), Using the planning tool across different school contexts, with diverse K-12 students, and across a range of topics (n = 12 instances). Related to OTL, K-12 students generally reported OTL that aligned to the practice turn in science education. However, because K-12 students reported lower OTL related to understanding and using science explanations and generating and using scientific evidence, we sought to improve the MBI planning tool in relation to these strands of science learning. In response to PSTs’ uncertainty and ambiguity and K-12 student OTL data, we enhanced the MBI unit planning tool with detailed descriptions, equity and social justice guidance, and consensus-building strategies. The research reveals the potential for supporting PSTs with unit planning tools that aligns to the practice turn in science education.

ABSTRACT Building on the literature, we designed a practical framework to support attention to equity and justice in science teacher education coursework. This framework presents four approaches for including justice moves in elementary science lessons, from increasing opportunity and access in science, to increasing identity and representation in science, to expanding what counts as science, to seeing science as a part of justice movements. We analyzed the lesson plans of 16 preservice elementary teachers who were using the practical justice framework in their very first lesson planning experience. In addition to extensive attention to varying participation structures to support children’s science discourse, preservice teachers also took up more challenging moves such as attending to how children are positioned as scientists, inviting children’s science ideas and hearing the science in their ideas, encouraging decision-making in science practices, and connecting science to issues of justice. They varied in both the number of unique justice moves they took up and the specificity with which they planned for incorporating the moves. We discuss implications for practice and theory-building in relation to supporting preservice teachers in learning to teach science toward equity and justice.

ABSTRACT Experiences in pre-service teacher education can have a lasting effect within the professional life histories of classroom teachers. Investigating the ways in which pre-service elementary teachers (PSETs) represent themselves as science teachers before, during, and after methods course experiences can inform best practices of elementary science teacher pre-service and inservice development as well as further highlight the concerns and objectives of PSETs. Therefore, as a pre-service science teacher educator, I seek to understand the ways in which PSETs represent themselves as future science teachers and the experiences within the methods courses that influence those representations. This study relies on quantitative pre- and post-survey data and qualitative course artifact data completed as part of regular undergraduate course assignments. PSETs representations of self within this study tend to shift from a traditional approach to science teaching toward constructivist, student-centered pedagogical practices and show reduced anxiety toward teaching science and increased science teaching self-efficacy.