Abstract
The purpose of this study was to apply concept mapping to the design of an interdisciplinary approach for teaching middle school science. The study was centered around the question: What does it mean for pre-service teacher candidates to plan an integrated instructional unit using content from different science disciplines taught in middle school grades? The study required pre-service teachers to (through their own understanding of science, math, and literacy content) be able to identify with an authentic real-world scenario and apply core elements to the design of an interdisciplinary approach to lesson planning, classroom instruction, and student assessment. Designing the unit involved the use of concept maps to visualize and communicate essential pedagogical elements and their relationships to each other. Analysis of pre-service teacher candidate concept maps provided a fluid basis for peer-learning, facilitated co-planning, and created a context for next level content understanding.
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Himangshu-Pennybacker, S. (2016). Transforming Science Pedagogy: Using Concept Mapping to Design an Interdisciplinary Approach to Teaching Middle School Science. In: Cañas, A., Reiska, P., Novak, J. (eds) Innovating with Concept Mapping. CMC 2016. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 635. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45501-3_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45501-3_21
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