Abstract
This forum explores contradictions that arose within the partnership between Teach for America (TFA) and a university teacher education program. TFA is an alternate route teacher preparation program that places individuals into K-12 classrooms in low-income school districts after participating in an intense summer training program and provides them with ongoing support. This forum is a conversation about the challenges we faced as new science teachers in the TFA program and in the Peace Corps program. We both entered the teaching field with science degrees and very little formal education in science education. In these programs we worked in a community very different from the one we had experienced as students. These experiences allow us to address many of the issues that were discussed in the original paper, namely teaching in an unfamiliar community amid challenges that many teachers face in the first few years of teaching. We consider how these challenges may be amplified for teachers who come to teaching through an alternate route and may not have as much pedagogical training as a more traditional teacher education program provides. The forum expands on the ideas presented in the original paper to consider the importance of perspectives on socially just science education. There is often a disconnect between what is taught in teacher education programs and what teachers actually experience in urban classrooms and this can be amplified when the training received through alternate route provides a different framework as well. This forum urges universities and alternate route programs to continue to find ways to authentically partner using practical strategies that bring together the philosophies and goals of all stakeholders in order to better prepare teachers to partner with their students to achieve their science learning goals.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abell, S., Boone, W., Arbaugh, F., Lannin, J., Beilfuss, M., Volkmann, M., et al. (2006). Recruiting future science and mathematics teachers into alternative certification programs: Strategies tried and lessons learned. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 17, 165–183. doi:10.1007/s10972-005-9001-4.
About Us—School District of Philadelphia. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.philasd.org/about/#schools.
Barton, A. C., & Tobin, K. (2001). Preface: Urban science education. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38, 843–846. doi:10.1002/tea.1034.
Baum, S., & Payea, K. (2005). The benefits of higher education for individuals and society. New York: College Board.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenwood.
Carroll, T. (2012). Policy brief the high cost of teacher turnover. National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.
Catelli, L. A., Padovano, K., & Costello, J. (2000). Action research in the context of a school-university partnership: Its value, problems, issues, and benefits. Educational Action Research, 8, 225–242.
Clarke, D., & Hollingsworth, H. (2002). Elaborating a model of teacher professional growth. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 947–967. doi:10.1016/S0742-051X(02)00053-7.
Darling-Hammond, L., & Youngs, P. (2002). Defining “highly qualified teachers” What does “scientifically-based research” actually tell us? Educational Researcher, 31(9), 13–25. doi:10.3102/0013189x031009013.
Elliot, J. (1991). Action research for educational change. Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Fullan, F., & Langworthy, M. (2014). A rich seam: How new pedagogies find deep learning. London: Pearson.
Glazer, E. M., & Hannafin, M. J. (2006). The collaborative apprenticeship model: Situated professional development within school settings. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22, 179–193. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2005.09.004.
Glennon, C., Hinton, C., Callahan, T., & Fischer, K. W. (2013). School-based research. Mind Brain and Education, 7, 30–34. doi:10.1111/mbe.12004.
Ingersoll, R., & May, H. (2010). The magnitude, destinations, and determinants of mathematics and science teacher turnover. Philadelphia, PA: Consortium for Policy Research in Education, University of Pennsylvania GSE Press.
Ingersoll, R., Merrill, L., & Stuckey, D. (2014). Seven trends: the transformation of the teaching force, updated April 2014. CPRE Report (#RR-80). Philadelphia, PA: Consortium for Policy Research in Education, University of Pennsylvania CSE Press.
Kemmis, S., & Smith, T. J. (Eds.). (2008). Enabling practice: Challenges for education. Rotterdam: Sense Publishing.
Labaree, D. F. (1997). How to succeed in school without really learning: The credentials race in American education. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
LaGuardia, A. (1999). A survey of school/college partnerships for minority and disadvantaged students. High School Journal, 82(2), 97.
Loman, L. (2005). Successful practices in urban middle school science teaching. Doctoral dissertation, Science and Mathematics Education Centre Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia.
Martin, S. (2005). The cultural and social dimensions of successful teaching and learning in an urban classroom. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, WA.
McNew-Birren, J., Hildebrand, T., & Belknap, G. (2017). Strange bedfellows in science teacher preparation: Conflicting perspectives on social justice presented in a Teach for America-university partnership. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 12, 1–29. doi:10.1007/s11422-016-9791-z.
Merrill, K. (2006). Creative arts high school demographic and academic characteristics. Retrieved from http://www.creativeartshs.org/pdf/Creative%20Arts%20High%20School.pdf.
Olin, A., & Ingerman, A. (2016). Features of an emerging practice and professional development in a science teacher team collaboration with a researcher team. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 27, 607–624. doi:10.1007/s10972-016-9477-0.
Olitsky, S., Loman, L., Gardner, J., & Billups, M. (2010). Coherence, contradiction and the development of school science identities. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 47(10), 1209–1228. doi:10.1002/tea.20389.
Penuel, W. R., Allen, A.-R., Farrell, C., & Coburn, C. E. (2015). Conceptualizing research-practice partnerships as joint work at boundaries. Journal for Education of Students at Risk (JESPAR), 20(1–2), 182–197. doi:10.1080/10824669.2014.988334.
Ruggirello, R. (2014). The role of administrator and teacher leadership in secondary science education reform. Doctoral dissertation, Science and Mathematics Education Centre Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia.
Sagor, R. (2000). Guiding school improvement with action research. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
State of New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.njradon.org/radonin.htm.
Tobin, K. (2006). Learning to teach through coteaching and cogenerative dialogue. Teaching Education, 17(2), 133–142.
Tobin, K., Elmesky, R., & Seiler, G. (2005) Improving urban science education: New roles for teachers, students and researchers. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.
Tobin, K., Roth, W.-M., & Zimmermann, A. (2001). Learning to teach science in urban schools. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38, 941–964. doi:10.1002/tea.1040.
U.S. Department of Education. (2016). The state of racial diversity in the educator workforce, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, Policy and Program Studies Service: Washington, D.C. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/highered/racial-diversity/state-racial-diversityworkforce.pdf.
Wiliam, D. (2007a). Keeping learning on track: Classroom assessment and the regulation of learning. In F. K. Lester Jr. (Ed.), Second handbook of mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 1053–1098). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
Wiliam, D. (2007b). Content then process: teacher learning communities in the service of formative assessment. In D. B. Reeves (Ed.), Ahead of the curve: The power of assessment to transform teaching and learning (pp. 183–204). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Lead Editor: S. Martin.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ruggirello, R., Flohr, L. Supporting new science teachers in pursuing socially just science education. Cult Stud of Sci Educ 13, 463–484 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-017-9810-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-017-9810-8