Becoming an Urban Science Teacher: Teacher Learning as the Collective Performance of Conceptions

Abstract

This case study explores a teacher’s learning within the contexts of her science methods course and field placement in two elementary dual language classrooms. Elena was a neuroscience major in her second semester of a pre-service teacher education program that also includes a science methods seminar attended by in-service and pre-service teachers. In the seminar, Elena partnered with two dual language teachers from a local, public, elementary school, Ms. Aron, a second-grade teacher, and Mrs. Hernandez, a fifth-grade teacher. She spent one period a week over 10 weeks observing and teaching in each classroom, and one period a week planning with her partner teachers, for a total of 30 h of fieldwork. The dual language model called for all science instruction to be conducted in Spanish. The analysis focuses on two pedagogical interventions employed in the seminar and explores linkages to Elena’s classroom practices. Three questions frame this study: (a) In what way do changes in Elena’s practices expand her schema regarding children’s ideas about science? (b) What ideas do children bring about a unit topic and how does Elena use those ideas to shape instructional goals? (c) What are some of the linkages between Elena’s developing schema and practices, her identity, and her enactment of a science lesson? In exploring these questions, I show the ways Elena’s conceptions result from individual | collective activity, and thus draw on psychological and sociological frames to describe Elena’s journey of becoming an urban science teacher.