The Intertwined Roles of Teacher Content Knowledge and Knowledge of Scientific Practices in Support of a Science Learning Community

Abstract

In this chapter we envision the science classroom as an authentic scientific community. In this vision, student ideas can influence the trajectory of scientific investigation. Teachers serve as experts and guides, but they also can learn alongside their students. To do this, they need to listen to the students and be able to build on students’ original ideas to help them learn. What knowledge does a teacher draw on in such a classroom? In this chapter we empirically investigate some ways in which a teacher can utilize both knowledge of the subject matter and knowledge of science practices to respond productively to student thinking. We present data from a large study of knowledge for teaching energy. The subjects of this study were high school physics teachers. We found that in some instructional situations, teachers with insufficient content knowledge cannot productively respond to student reasoning. We also found cases where teachers can compensate for lack of content knowledge if they are skilled in science practices. To explain our findings, we hypothesize the existence of two types of content knowledge: foundational content knowledge and elaborative content knowledge. Furthermore, we suggest that foundational content knowledge along with knowledge of scientific practices can allow teachers to compensate for insufficient elaborative content knowledge. We discuss the implications of our hypothesis for future research and for the preparation and professional development of physics teachers.

Appendices

Appendices

1.1 Appendix A: Tasks of Teaching

Task of teaching	Description	Specific tasks
I. Anticipating student thinking around science ideas	While planning and implementing instruction, teachers are able to anticipate particular patterns in student thinking. They understand and recognize challenges students are likely to confront in developing an understanding of key science concepts and mathematical models. Teachers are also familiar with student interests and background knowledge and enact instruction accordingly	Teachers  Ia. Anticipate specific student challenges related to constructing scientific concepts, conceptual and quantitative reasoning, experimentation, and the application of science processes  Ib. Anticipate likely partial conceptions and alternate conceptions, including partial quantitative understanding about particular science content and processes  Ic. Recognize student interest and motivation around particular science content and practices  Id. Understand how students’ background knowledge both in physics and mathematics can interact with new science content
II. Designing, selecting, and sequencing learning experiences and activities	Classroom learning experiences and activities are designed around learning goals and involve key science ideas, key experiments, and mathematical models relevant to the development of ideas and practices. Learning experiences reflect an awareness of student learning trajectories and support both individual and collective knowledge generation on the part of students	Teachers  IIa. Design or select sequence learning experiences that focus on sense-making around important science concepts and practices, including productive representations, mathematical models, and experiments in science that are connected to students’ initial and developing ideas  IIb. Include key practices of science including experimentation, reasoning based on collected evidence, experimental testing of hypotheses, mathematical modeling, representational consistency, and argumentation  IIc. Address projected learning trajectories that include both long-term and short-term goals and are based on evidence of actual student learning trajectories  IId. Address learners’ actual learning trajectories by building on productive elements and addressing problematic ones  IIe. Provide students with evidence to support their understanding of short- and long-term learning goals  IIf. Integrate, synthesize, and use multiple strategies and involve students in making decisions  IIg. Prompt students to collectively generate and validate knowledge with others  IIh. Help students draw on multiple types of knowledge, including declarative, procedural, schematic, and strategic  IIi. Elicit student understanding and help them express their thinking via multiple modes of representation  IIj. Help students consider multiple alternative approaches or solutions, including those that could be considered to be incorrect
III. Monitoring, interpreting, and acting on student thinking	Teachers understand and recognize challenges and difficulties students experience in developing an understanding of key science concepts; understanding and applying mathematical models and manipulating equations; designing and conducting experiments, etc. This is evident in classroom work, talk, actions, and interactions throughout the course of instruction so that specific learning needs or patterns are revealed Teachers also recognize productive developing ideas and problem solutions and know how to leverage these to advance learning Teachers engage in an ongoing and multifaceted process of assessment, using a variety of tools and methods. Teachers draw on their understanding of learners and learning trajectories to accurately interpret and productively respond to their students’ developing understanding	Teachers  IIIa. Employ multiple strategies and tools to make student thinking visible  IIIb. Interpret productive and problematic aspects of student thinking and mathematical reasoning  IIIc. Identify specific cognitive and experiential needs or patterns of needs and build upon them through instruction  IIId. Use interpretations of student thinking to support instructional choices both in lesson design and during the course of classroom instruction  IIIe. Provide students with descriptive feedback  IIIf. Engage students in metacognition and epistemic cognition  IIIg. Devise assessment activities that match their goals of instruction
IV. Scaffolding meaningful engagement in a science learning community	Productive classroom learning environments are community-centered. Teachers engage all students as full and active classroom participants. Knowledge is constructed both individually and collectively, with an emphasis on coming to know through the practices of science. The values of the classroom community include evidence-based reasoning, the pursuit of multiple or alternative approaches or solutions, and the respectful challenging of ideas	Teachers  IVa. Engage all students to express their thinking about key science ideas and encourage students to take responsibility for building their understanding, including knowing how they know  IVb. Develop a climate of respect for scientific inquiry and encourage students’ productive deep questions and rich student discourse  IVc. Establish and maintain a “culture of physics learning” that scaffolds productive and supportive interactions between and among learners  IVd. Encourage broad participation to ensure that no individual students or groups are marginalized in the classroom  IVe. Promote negotiation of shared understanding of forms, concepts, mathematical models, experiments, etc., within the class  IVf. Model and scaffold goal behaviors, values, and practices aligned with those of scientific communities  IVg. Make explicit distinctions between science practices and those of everyday informal reasoning as well as between scientific expression and everyday language and terms  IVh. Help students make connections between their collective thinking and that of scientists and science communities  IVi. Scaffold learner flexibility and the development of independence  IVj. Create opportunities for students to use science ideas and practices to engage real-world problems in their own contexts
V. Explaining and using examples, models, representations, and arguments to support students’ scientific understanding	Teachers explain and use representations, examples, and models to help students develop their own scientific understanding. Teachers also support and scaffold students’ ability to use models, examples, and representations to develop explanations and arguments. Mathematical models are included as a key aspect of physics understanding and are assumed whenever the term model is used	Teachers  Va. Explain concepts clearly, using accurate and appropriate technical language, consistent multiple representations, and mathematical representations when necessary  Vb. Use representations, examples, and models that are consistent with each other and with the theoretical approach to the concept that they want students to learn  Vc. Help students understand the purpose of a particular representation, example, or model and how to integrate new representations, examples, or models with those they already know  Vd. Encourage students to invent and develop examples, models, and representations that support relevant learning goals  Ve. Encourage students to explain features of representations and models (their own and others’) and to identify/evaluate both strengths and limitations  Vf. Encourage students to create, critique, and shift between representations and models with the goal of seeking consistency between and among different representations and models  Vg. Model scientific approaches to explanation, argument, and mathematical derivation and explain how they know what they know. They choose models and analogs that accurately depict and do not distort the true meaning of the physical law and use language that does not confound technical and everyday terms (e.g., heat and energy).  Vh. Provide examples that allow students to analyze situations from different frameworks such as energy, forces, momentum, and fields
VI. Using experiments to construct, test, and apply concepts	Teachers provide timely and meaningful opportunities throughout instruction for students to design and analyze experiments to help students develop, test, and apply particular concepts. Experiments are an integral part of student construction of physics concepts and are used as part of scientific inquiry in contrast with simple verification	Teachers  VIa. Provide opportunities for students to analyze quantitative and qualitative experimental data to identify patterns and construct concepts  VIb. Provide opportunities for students to design and analyze experiments using particular frameworks such as energy, forces, momentum, field, etc.  VIc. Provide opportunities for students to test experimentally or apply particular ideas in multiple contexts  IVd. Provide opportunities for students to pose their own questions and investigate them experimentally  VIe. Use questioning, discussion, and other methods to draw student attention during experiments to key aspects needed for subsequent learning, including the limitations of the models used to explain a particular experiment  VIf. Help students draw connections between classroom experiments, their own ideas, and key science ideas  VIg. Encourage students to draw on experiments as evidence to support explanations and claims and to test explanations and claims by designing experiments to rule them out

1.2 Appendix B: Energy-Specific Student Targets

(Energy-Related Content and Practice Ideas)

• A. Connections of energy and everyday experiences

  The student:

  • 1. Uses energy ideas to interpret or explain everyday phenomena

  • 2. Recognizes the important role of internal energy in interpreting or explaining everyday phenomena

• B. Choice of system

  The student:

  • 1. Recognizes that the energy accounting in a phenomenon depends on the choice of system

  • 2. Explains the relative advantage of a given system choice (i.e., relative ease of analysis)

  • 3. Recognizes that the choice of system determines whether springs or earth do work (i.e., if the spring or earth are in the system, they do not do any work on the system, but the system can possess elastic or gravitational potential energy)

  • 4. Identifies and differentiates between forms of energy and other physics concepts

• C. Identification of and differentiation between forms of energy and other physics concepts

  The student:

  • 1. Recognizes that energy cannot be observed directly and knows how different forms of energy correspond to different measurable physical quantities

  • 2. Recognizes and maintains a consistency of scale (microscopic or macroscopic) during energy analysis

  • 3. Differentiates between energy and related ideas (e.g., force, power, stimulus, trigger, activation, speed, distance, temperature)

  • 4. Distinguishes between forms of energy and energy transfers

• D. Transfer of energy (environment → system; system → environment)

  The student:

  • 1. Recognizes that the energy of a system is always conserved but might not be constant

  • 2. Recognizes that work is the way in which energy is transferred mechanically and may result in a change in temperature in some cases

  • 3. Avoids double counting when analyzing processes involving work and energy

  • 4. Recognizes when to use compensatory models for tracking energy into and out of a system and when quantitative models are of limited use

• E. Use of mathematics

  The student:

  • 1. Understands that when considering potential energy, it is important to think about the change. The zero level of potential energy is arbitrary, but the change is not. The energy of attraction is negative if the zero level is set at infinity.

  • 2. Can account for vector and scalar quantities in energy analysis.

  • 3. Understands that work is a scalar quantity, and the positive or negative sign of work does not indicate direction but addition or subtraction.

  • 4. Connects forms of energy and the factors on which they depend through appropriate linear and nonlinear mathematical relationships.

  • 5. Applies conservation as a mathematical constraint on the outcomes of possible processes.

  • 6. Recognizes that the mathematical analysis of energy-related processes depends on the choice of initial and final state and the choice of system.

• F. Use of representations

  The student:

  • 1. Selects/creates and uses appropriate verbal, mathematical, and graphical/pictorial representations (specific for energy, such as bar charts, energy diagrams, etc.) to describe, analyze, and/or communicate a physical situation or process

  • 2. Interprets different representations used to describe, analyze, and/or communicate a physical situation or process

  • 3. Understands the relationships between different representations of the same phenomenon and seeks consistency among different representations

  • 4. Understands standard technical representations and language used to communicate energy-related ideas

• G. Use of science practices

  The student:

  • 1. Uses a range of representations to communicate ideas and illustrate or defend explanations

  • 2. Connects energy ideas to other learning and real-life processes and projects through experimental investigations, energy problem solutions, and engineering designs

  • 3. Designs experiments to test competing hypotheses

  • 4. Makes choices in data collection and analysis that allow for inferring the amounts and transfers of energy even when they cannot be measured directly

  • 5. Connects experiments and data to the mathematical representations of energy

  • 6. Evaluates and negotiates choices/options by considering the merits, limitations, and relative advantages of different engineering designs in terms of, for example, different choices of energy models for the same physical process

  • 7. Provides evidence-based arguments concerning energy processes and engineering designs

  • 8. Demonstrates consistency and coherence in model-based and evidence-based reasoning in making predictions and interpreting results