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“From the Beginning, I Felt Empowered”: Incorporating an Ecological Approach to Learning in Elementary Science Teacher Education

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Abstract

While a renewed national dialog promotes the importance of science education for future technological and economic viability, students must find science personally relevant to themselves and their communities if the goals set forth in recent reform movements are to be achieved. In this paper, we investigate how incorporating an ecological perspective to learning in teacher education, including opportunities to participate with science in connection to their everyday lives, influenced the ways in which elementary teacher candidates (TCs) envisioned learning and doing science and its potential role in their future classroom. We draw from data collected across three sections of a field-based elementary methods course focused on learning to teach science and social studies through inquiry. We argue that participating in an authentic interdisciplinary inquiry project impacted the ways in which TCs conceived of science, their identities as science learners and teachers and their commitments to bringing inquiry-based science instruction to their future classrooms. This paper addresses issues regarding access to quality science learning experiences in elementary classrooms through empowering TCs to build identities as science learners and teachers in order to impact conditions in their future classrooms.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Colorado State University, 105I Education Building, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA

    Daniel Birmingham

  2. Loyola University Chicago, Lewis Towers 1042, WTC, 820 N. Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, 60611, USA

    Lara Smetana

  3. Sacred Heart Schools, 6250 N. Sheridan Rd., Chicago, IL, 60660, USA

    Elizabeth Coleman

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  1. Daniel Birmingham
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  2. Lara Smetana
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  3. Elizabeth Coleman
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Correspondence to Daniel Birmingham.

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Birmingham, D., Smetana, L. & Coleman, E. “From the Beginning, I Felt Empowered”: Incorporating an Ecological Approach to Learning in Elementary Science Teacher Education. Res Sci Educ 49, 1493–1521 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-017-9664-9

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