Advertisement

Cultural Studies of Science Education

, Volume 11, Issue 2, pp 213–233 | Cite as

Professional development in person: identity and the construction of teaching within a high school science department

  • Victoria Deneroff
Article
First Online:

Abstract

This is a narrative inquiry into the role of professional development in the construction of teaching practice by an exemplary urban high school science teacher. I collected data during 3 years of ethnographic participant observation in Marie Gonzalez’s classroom. Marie told stories about her experiences in ten years of professional development focused on inquiry science teaching. I use a social practice theory lens to analyze my own stories as well as Marie’s. I make the case that science teaching is best understood as mediated by socially-constructed identities rather than as the end-product of knowledge and beliefs. The cognitive paradigm for understanding teachers’ professional learning fails to consistently produce transformations of teaching practice. In order to design professional development with science teachers that is generative of new knowledge, and is self-sustaining, we must understand how to build knowledge of how to problematize identities and consciously use social practice theory.

Keywords

Professional development High school science teaching Inquiry science teaching ethnography 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Notes

Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by a grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations

References

  1. Beijaard, D., Meijer, P. C., & Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers’ professional identity. Teaching and teacher education, 20(2), 107–128. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2003.07.001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Borko, H. (2004). Professional development and teacher learning: Mapping the terrain. Educational Researcher, 33(8), 3–15. doi: 10.3102/0013189X033008003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1977). Reproduction in education, society and culture. London: Sage.Google Scholar
  4. Bybee, R. W. (1997). Achieving scientific literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
  5. Cohen, E., & Lohan, R. (Eds.) (1997). Working for equity in heterogeneous classrooms: Sociological theory in practice. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
  6. Colyar, J. (2009). Becoming writers, becoming writing. Qualitative Inquiry, 15, 421–436. doi: 10.1177/1077800408318280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. Crawford, B. (2007). Learning to teach science as inquiry in the rough and tumble of practice. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 44, 613–642. doi: 10.1002/tea.20157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Deneroff, V. (2004). Professional development, practice, and teacher discourse communities: how an urban high school science teacher negotiated inquiry practice. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation.) University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
  9. Deneroff, V. (2012). A social practice theory/Vygotskian theoretical framework for understanding high school science teachers’ talk in professional development. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the National Association of Research in Science Teaching, April 27, 2012. Indianapolis, IN.Google Scholar
  10. Deneroff, V. M., Sandoval, W. A., & Franke, M. L. (2002). Learning the language of inquiry: How in-service high school science teachers understood themselves as listeners. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. New Orleans, April 2002.Google Scholar
  11. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. Accessed at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/852/852-h/852-h.htm, September 12, 2008.
  12. Duschl, R. A. (1990). Restructuring science education: The importance of theories and their development. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
  13. Enyedy, N., Goldberg, J., & Muir, K. (2005). Complex dilemmas of identity and practice. Science Education, 90(1), 68–93. doi: 10.1002/sce.20096.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Fennema, E., & Franke, M. L. (1992). Teachers’ knowledge and its impact. In D. A. Grouws (Ed.), Handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning: A project of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (pp. 147–164). New York: Macmillan Library Reference.Google Scholar
  15. Fishman, B. J., Marx, R. W., Best, S., & Tal, R. T. (2003). Linking teacher and student learning to improve professional development in systemic reform. Teaching and Teacher Education, 19(6), 643–658. doi: 10.1016/S0742-051X(03)00059-3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. Franke, M. L., Fennema, E., Carpenter, T., Ansell, E., & Behrend, J. (1998). Understanding teachers’ self-sustaining generative change in the context of professional development. Teaching and teacher education, 14(1), 67–80. doi: 10.1016/S0742-051X(97)00061-9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  17. Gee, J. (1996). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses, 2d. New York: Routledge Falmer.Google Scholar
  18. Gilbert, A., & Yerrick, R. (2001). Same school, different worlds: A sociocultural study of identity, resistance and negotiation in a rural, lower track science classroom. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38, 574–598. doi: 10.1002/tea.1019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The story of success. New York: Little, Brown & Company.Google Scholar
  20. Goodall, H. L. (2006). Writing the new ethnography (ethnographic alternatives). [Kindle version]. Washington DC: Altamira Press.Google Scholar
  21. Harding, S. (1998). Is science multicultural? Postcolonialisms, feminisms, and epistemologies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
  22. Hashweh, M. Z. (2005). Teacher pedagogical constructions: A reconfiguration of pedagogical content knowledge. Teachers and Teaching, 11, 273–292. doi: 10.1080/13450600500105502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. Hawley, W. D., & Valli, L. (1999). The essentials of effective professional development: A new consensus. In G. Sykes & L. Darling-Hammond (Eds.), Teaching as the learning profession: Handbook of policy and practice (pp. 127–150). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
  24. Hill, H. (2011). The nature and effects of middle school mathematics teacher learning experiences. Teachers College Record, 113, 205–234. Accessed September 8, 2012 from http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 16005.
  25. Holland, D., Lachicotte, W., Skinner, D., & Cain, C. (2001). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
  26. Horsley, D. L., & Loucks-Horsley, S. (1998). CBAM brings order to the tornado of change. Journal of Staff Development, 19(4), 17–20.Google Scholar
  27. Kuhn, T. S. (1996). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226458106.001.0001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  28. Lave, J. (1996). Teaching, as learning, in practice. Mind, Culture and Activity, 3(3), 149–164. doi: 10.1207/s15327884mca0303_2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  29. LeCompte, M. D., & Schensul, J. J. (1999). Ethnographer’s toolkit (Vol. 1). Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.Google Scholar
  30. Loucks-Horsley, S., Stiles, K. E., Mundry, S., Love, N., & Hewson, P. W. (2009). Designing professional development for teachers of science and mathematics. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.Google Scholar
  31. Luehmann, A. L. (2009). Accessing resources for identity development by urban students and teachers: Foregrounding context. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 4, 61–66. doi: 10.1007/s11422-008-9139-4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  32. Martin, K. (1998). Becoming a gendered body: Practices of preschools. American Sociological Review, 63(4), 494–511. doi: 10.2307/2657264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  33. NLIST. (2004). Assessing instructional materials for inquiry: A workshop. Web page Accessed March 19, 2007. http://www.nlistinquiryscience.com/inquiry/.
  34. Reckwitz, A. (2002). Toward a theory of social practice: A development in culturalist theorizing. European Journal of Social Theory, 5(2), 245–265. doi: 10.1177/13684310222225432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  35. Richardson, L. (2008). Writing: A method of inquiry. In L. Richardson & E. A. S. Pierre (Eds.), A method of inquiry (pp. 923–948). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.Google Scholar
  36. Richardson, V., Anders, P., Tidwell, D., & Lloyd, C. (1991). The relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices in reading comprehension. American Educational Research Journal, 28(3), 559–586. doi: 10.3102/00028312028003559.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  37. Rogoff, B. (1994). Developing understanding of the idea of communities of learners. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 1(4), 209–229.Google Scholar
  38. Sfard, A., & Prusak, A. (2005). Telling identities: In search of an analytical tool for investigating learning as a culturally shaped activity. Educational Researcher, 34(4), 14–22. doi: 10.3102/0013189X034004014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  39. Stetsenko, A. (2008). From relational ontology to transformative activist stance on development and learning: Expanding Vygotsky’s (CHAT) project. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 3(2), 471–491. doi: 10.1007/s11422-008-9111-3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  40. Tal, T., Krajcik, J., & Blumenfeld, P. (2006). Urban schools’ teachers enacting inquiry-based science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 43, 722–745. doi: 10.1002/tea.20102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  41. Tobin, K., & Gallagher, A. (1987). What happens in high school science classrooms? Journal of Curriculum Studies, 19, 549–560.Google Scholar
  42. Van Driel, J. H., Verloop, N., & De Vos, W. (1998). Developing science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge. Journal of research in Science Teaching, 35(6), 673–695. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1098-2736(199808)35:6<673:AID-TEA5>3.0.CO;2-J.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  43. Warren, B., & Rosebery, A. (2011). Navigating interculturality: African-American male students and the science classroom. Journal of African American Males in Education, 2(1). Accessed June 8, 2012 at http://journalofafricanamericanmales.com/wp- content/uploads/downloads/2011/03/Navigating-Interculturality.pdf.
  44. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  45. West-Ed. (2007). Leadership institute in reading apprenticeship. http://www.wested.org/cs/we/view/serv10. Web page Accessed June 10, 2007.
  46. Windschitl, M. (2004). Folk theories of “inquiry”: How preservice teachers reproduce the discourse and practices of an atheoretical scientific method. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 41(5), 481–512. doi: 10.1002/tea.20010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  47. Windschitl, M., Thompson, J., & Braaten, M. (2011). Ambitious pedagogy by novice teachers: Who benefits from tool-supported collaborative inquiry into practice, and why? Teachers College Record, 113(7), http://wwwtcrecord.org ID Number: 16061, Accessed 1/5/2011 10:09:03 PM.

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Advanced Teacher Education, John H. Lounsbury College of EducationGeorgia College & State UniversityMilledgevilleUSA

Personalised recommendations

Cite article

Buy options