CHAPTER 37

Learning to Teach Science

Tom Russell
Andrea K. Martin

Queen's University, Canada

We write as teacher educators who are passionate about improving teacher education. As teaching becomes increasingly complex, those learning to teach science deserve all the help we can provide. We argue here that such help involves much more than the transfer of insights derived from research on science teaching and science teacher education. Teacher education is also becoming more complex, and therein lies part of our challenge. In this chapter we draw on our experiences as teacher educators to inform our accounts and interpretations of research related to learning to teach science.

One of the most striking observations we can offer concerns the extent to which science education research appears not to be extended and extrapolated to programs of science teacher education. Research appears to confirm what our own experiences as teacher educators tell us: A fundamental challenge resides in the prior teaching and learning beliefs and experiences of those learning to teach, just as a fundamental challenge of teaching science resides in students’ prior beliefs about phenomena. The research associated with constructivism and conceptual change reminds us that beliefs and experiences are deeply intertwined. Just as children in elementary, middle, and secondary schools tend to be unaware of their initial beliefs about phenomena and unaware of how personal experiences shape and constrain those beliefs, so those who are learning to teach science tend to be unaware of their initial beliefs about what and how they will learn in a program of science teacher education. In our experience, many prospective teachers assume that they know very little about teaching, that they will learn teaching ideas in university classes, and that they will apply what they learn in classes during their school practicum experiences. Is this really very different from children's assumptions in a science class? Do they not assume that they know little about science, that they will be taught science concepts, and that they will apply what they learn when given opportunities by their teachers? “Science separates knowledge from experience” (Franklin, 1994). Similarly, school and university alike often treat students in ways that imply that experience has little to do with knowledge. Those learning to teach tend to be unaware that they may have learned more about how to teach science than about science and scientific concepts while they were studying science in school and university classes.

Northfield (1998) tackles this theme in a discussion of how science teacher education is practiced. He begins by quoting an unnamed individual's provocative comment about teacher education: “Teacher preparation is necessary and worthwhile, but it is generally conducted in the wrong place, at the wrong time, for too little time” (p. 695). Northfield's concern is one that we share: How does school experience influence an individual's learning to teach? And he immediately offers a challenging answer: “If experience is seen as a place to apply the ideas and theories of the course, then the campus program could be seen to be out of step with the demands and concerns of the new teacher (the wrong time, the wrong place and too little time)” (p. 696).

Northfield makes the following assertions that help us frame our task in this chapter:

As a starting point, consider the proposition that teacher educators could overestimate what they can teach new teachers, while also underestimating their ability to provide appropriate conditions for them to learn about teaching. Such a proposition serves to shift the teacher education task (at both preservice and inservice levels) from one of delivering what has to be known by teachers to one of providing better conditions for learning about teaching. (p. 698)

Whether in the science classroom or in the science teacher education program, how individuals learn from experience remains a poorly understood phenomenon.

Chapters in research handbooks often attempt to provide comprehensive surveys of published research. While we are attentive to such research, our major goal in this chapter is to stimulate new perspectives for thinking about the values and actions that occur in preservice programs for those who are learning to teach science. We summarize our overall argument in the following points:

1.   Calls for change to how science is taught in schools and universities can be traced to the 1960s and even earlier in the twentieth century. Dewey's (1938) contrast between traditional and progressive education shows just how little the fundamentals of school culture have changed (Sarason, 1996).

2.   Teaching for conceptual development and change has been a dominant theme in the science education research literature for several decades, and only a small fraction of that research considers how individuals learn to teach science in preservice programs.

3.   Teaching practices are far more stable (Sarason, 1996) than those who call for change (see Handelsman et al., 2004) seem to realize. Logic alone cannot change teaching practices that were initially learned indirectly and unintentionally from one's own teachers.

4.   Conceptual change research indicates that achieving more complete conceptual understanding (and the significant epistemological change that must accompany that understanding; see Elby, 2001) requires dramatic changes in how we teach (Knight, 2004, pp. 42–45).

5.   Learning from experience is an undervalued and neglected aspect of science teaching and learning that is similarly undervalued in programs where individuals learn to teach science. This undervaluation is rooted in the value that the university associates with rigorous argument and positivist epistemology. While learning from experience is being recognized as an element of teachers’ professional development (Russell & Bullock, 1999) as attention is given to teacher research and action research, these tend to be undervalued as inferior forms of research.

6.   Learning to teach science must model conceptual change approaches both for teaching fundamental concepts of science and for teaching fundamental concepts of teaching and learning.

One of this chapter's major contributions involves highlighting the need for explicit attention to epistemological issues associated with teaching science and learning to teach science. As long as the university's dominant epistemology is fundamentally positivist, we conclude that breakthroughs in how science is taught and learned are unlikely to be achieved.

To acknowledge, at least modestly, the need for attention to narrative as well as propositional knowledge, we include a number of “narrative boxes” that document some of Tom Russell's personal learning from experience over a quarter-century of teaching individuals how to teach science. Each narrative box ends with an italicized question related to learning from one's own teaching and learning experiences.

THE COMPLEX CHALLENGE OF CONCEPTUAL CHANGE

Venturing into the literature of conceptual change is daunting but absolutely essential to learning to teach science. Pfundt and Duit (1994) refer to approximately 3500 studies related to students’ alternative conceptions in science. Research on this topic has moved from simply identifying conceptual changes and bringing students’ beliefs more in line with scientists’ to mapping how conceptions are developed (White, 2001). The nomenclature itself is varied, and the labels used include misconceptions, alternative conceptions, preconceptions, naïve conceptions, intuitive science, or alternative frameworks (Guzzetti, Snyder, Glass, & Gamas, 1993). Whatever the label, conceptual change is central to learning and teaching science (see Chapter 2, this volume) and to learning to teach science.

As Duschl and Hamilton (1998) point out, conceptual change involves the restructuring of both declarative and procedural knowledge. Prospective science teachers need to reframe their own understanding of science learning to recognize the inherent challenges associated with subjecting prevailing concepts to scrutiny and validation. Unless new teachers understand why conceptual change is so complex, they are unlikely to be able to effect changes in patterns of classroom interaction.

Teaching Conceptual Change

The extensive work of Novak (1987, 1989, 1993) provides a framework both for understanding why conceptual change is so critical if students are to learn how to learn in science and for understanding why instruction often fails. Novak builds on Ausubel's (1968) hypothesis that the single most important factor influencing learning is prior knowledge and Kelly's (1955) personal construct theory that emphasizes the view that knowledge is constructed and is highly personal, idiosyncratic, and socially negotiated. Novak and Gowin (1984) advance a set of three knowledge claims about the preconceptions that students carry into their science classes, with subsequent effects on their learning (Wandersee, Mintzes, & Novak, 1994).

1.   Learners are not “empty vessels” but bring with them a finite but diverse set of ideas about natural objects and events, which are often inconsistent with scientific explanations.

2.   Students’ alternative conceptions are tenacious and resistant to extinction by conventional teaching strategies. Wandersee (1986) suggests that the similarities between students’ ideas and ideas that science has discarded can provide a worthwhile heuristic opportunity as students struggle with their own conceptual shortcomings.

3.   Alternative conceptions are the product of a diverse set of personal experiences that include direct observation of natural objects and events, peer culture, everyday language, the mass media, as well as teachers’ explanations and instructional materials.

Novak and his group also advance three claims regarding successful science learners: (a) the process of constructing meanings relies on the development of elaborate, strongly hierarchical, well-differentiated, and highly integrated frameworks of related concepts; (b) conceptual change requires knowledge to be restructured by making and breaking interconnections between concepts and replacing or substituting one concept with another; and (c) successful science learners regularly use strategies that enable them to be metacognitive and to plan, monitor, control, and regulate their own learning (Mintzes, Wandersee, & Novak, 1997).

Posner, Strike, Hewson, and Gertzog's (1982) theory of conceptual change makes a valuable contribution to understanding its complexity and the conditions necessary for change to occur. Duit and Treagust (1998) describe it as the most influential theory on conceptual change in science education, with wide-ranging applications in other fields as well. Posner et al. propose that conceptual change will not occur unless learners experience some level of dissatisfaction with their current beliefs or understandings. For a new idea to be accepted, it must meet three conditions: intelligibility (understandable), plausibility (reasonable), and fruitfulness (useful). Learners need to understand what an idea means, what its potential or actual utility is, and why scientists are concerned with coherence and internal consistency. If an idea is plausible, then learners need to be able to reconcile the idea with their own beliefs and to be able to make sense of it. Hodson (1998) points out that “making sense” in scientific terms may be very different from a commonsense point of view. If an idea is fruitful, then learners will gain something of value as a result.

Dissatisfaction with current beliefs or understandings is built on cognitive conflict where students’ conceptions and scientific conceptions are at odds. Central in the Posner et al. (1982) framework are the issues of status and conceptual ecology. Status is determined by the conditions of intelligibility, plausibility, and fruitfulness, and “the status that an idea has for the person holding it is an indication of the degree to which he or she knows and accepts it” (Hewson, Beeth, & Thorley, 1998, pp. 199–200). Yet ideas cannot be considered in isolation, for each learner has a conceptual ecology that deals with all the knowledge that a person holds, recognizes that it consists of different kinds, focuses attention on the interactions within this knowledge base, and identifies the role that these interactions play in defining niches that support some ideas (raise their status) and discourage others (reduce their status). Learning something, then, means that the learner has raised its status within the context of his or her conceptual ecology (Hewson et al., p. 200).

Thus teachers need to incorporate multiple opportunities for classroom discourse that explores students’ conceptual ecologies explicitly. Kagan (1992) summarizes the recommendations of Posner et al. for how teachers can promote students’ conceptual change. Teachers must (a) help students make their implicit beliefs explicit, (b) confront students with the inadequacies of their beliefs, and (c) provide extended opportunities for integrating and differentiating old and new knowledge, eliminating brittle preconceptions that impede learning and elaborating anchors that facilitate learning. By extension, similar efforts are required of teacher educators working in science teacher education programs.

Any discussion of conceptual change must include Piagetian ideas, specifically assimilation, accommodation, disequilibrium, and equilibration (Duit & Treagust, 1998). Clearly, Piagetian notions have been incorporated into the conceptual change literature and into constructivist approaches to learning and teaching. Cognitive conflict, built on disequilibrium and equilibration, plays a predominant role in the work of Posner et al. (1982), and the themes of active learning and constructivism feature prominently in the work of Novak and colleagues, as already discussed.

Central to Vygotskyian theory is the influence of sociocultural factors on cognitive development. Duschl and Hamilton (1998) credit Vygotsky's work with stimulating research that addresses the social context of cognition and learning. This includes work in the areas of reciprocal teaching, collaborative learning, guided participation, and authentic approaches to teaching, learning, and assessment. Constructs such as situated cognition, apprenticeships, cognitive apprenticeships, and the social construction of meaning can be linked to Vygotskyian theory. Each of these involves the contextual nature of learning and the interrelation of individual, interpersonal, and cultural-historical factors in development (Tudge & Scrimsher, 2003). Putnam and Borko (2000) have summarized the major arguments and implications of situated cognition for teacher learning. Science teacher educators will do well to consider carefully the themes associated with the situative perspective: “that cognition is (a) situated in particular physical and social contexts; (b) social in nature; and (c) distributed across the individual, other persons, and tools” (Putnam & Borko, p. 4).

Teaching for Conceptual Change

Misconceptions are persistent and highly resistant to change (Duit & Treagust, 1998; Guzzetti et al., 1993; Mintzes et al., 1997). During the 1970s and 1980s, the predominant assumption was that students’ misconceptions had to be extinguished before they could be replaced by the correct scientific view; however, there appears to be no study that confirms that a particular student's conception could be totally extinguished and then replaced (Duit & Treagust). Most studies reveal that the preexisting idea stays “alive” in particular contexts (Duit & Treagust), a phenomenon that diSessa (1993) describes as refinement, rather than replacement, of concepts.

The essence of teaching for conceptual change is restructuring of knowledge (Mintzes et al., 1997). This is far easier said than done, given the range and variability of students’ responses to cognitive restructuring. Hodson (1998) provides a helpful overview of students’ resistant responses. Some students may look for evidence to confirm rather than disconfirm their existing ideas. Often, their original notion prevails. Hodson points to variations in personality traits that may make some students more receptive to new ideas, whereas others may be reluctant to pursue alternatives because what they know (or think they know) is consistent with their own cognitive schema. If they hold on to what they know, they avoid the anxiety of the unknown or uncertain.

The work of the Children's Learning in Science (CLIS) group at the University of Leeds (e.g., Driver, 1989; Scott, Asoko, & Driver, 1992; Scott & Driver, 1998) is seminal in the area of constructivist approaches to conceptual change. CLIS suggests that certain commonalities extend across scientific disciplines and support reconceptualizations. These can be characterized as instructional activities that involve a teaching approach designed to address a particular learning demand (Scott et al.; Scott & Driver). These are sequenced as follows: (a) orientation or “messing about,” which uses students’ prior knowledge and existing conceptions as a starting point; (b) an elicitation phase where conceptions that are global and ill-defined are differentiated (e.g., heat and temperature, weight and mass); (c) restructuring, where experiential bridges are built to a new conception; and (d) constructing new conceptions through practice or application. If students’ preconceptions are incommensurate with scientific conceptions, then Scott and Driver recommend that the teacher acknowledge and discuss students’ ideas, indicate that scientists hold an alternative view, and present that model. They caution that the sequence should not be construed as a recipe, given that teaching for conceptual change requires learning activities in a variety of forms (e.g., reading, discussion, practical activity, teacher presentation). In contrast to the typical question-and-answer interchanges focused on “right” answers, discussion needs to be based on supporting and evaluating differing views in the light of evidence. Small-group discussions, poster presentations, and student learning diaries can provide students with valuable opportunities for sharing their understandings.

There is a growing body of work on strategies to support students’ learning of science in ways that challenge their conceptual frameworks. Novak and Gowin's (1984) work on concept mapping is helpful in assessing students’ conceptual problems in science learning and in promoting metacognition. Originally developed as a science education research tool, concept maps are now widely used as a learning tool, as well as for curriculum design and instructional planning, implementation, and evaluation. As an example, Mason's (1992) two-year study looked at the operationalization of concept maps in preservice science teacher education. She concluded that the science majors in her study had acquired verbal information (declarative knowledge) in their undergraduate science courses but lacked a conceptual understanding of science. “These students did not exhibit an inability to enter the phase of learning required for understanding and application, but simply had been programmed to memorize terms and learn algorithms” (Mason, pp. 59–60).

[Without fostering conceptual restructuring that would sensitize the prospective teachers to] their lack of comprehension of the body of scientific knowledge and its origin, they would present a misinterpretation of the nature of science and perpetuate, in their own students, the inability to transfer conceptual understanding to novel situations. As a result, these teachers would tend to continue the cycle of science classroom environments which develop negative student attitudes toward science. (p. 60)

Mason found that her participants were able to develop maps that were less linear and term-oriented. They learned to produce maps that demonstrated the interrelatedness of scientific concepts and, in so doing, restructured information that had been presented to them discretely in previous undergraduate courses. One of the students wrote that concept mapping “gave the knowledge a fluid character, not simply a number of facts to outline and remember” (p. 57).

In addition to concept mapping, strategies such as concept webs, concept circle diagrams, Vee diagrams, and semantic networks can serve as conceptual tools that “fill different niches in meta-cognition” (Mintzes et al., 1997, p. 436). Because of their graphic organization and representation of concepts, there is an opportunity for students to “see” science, to better understand the interconnections between and among concepts, and to more actively engage in the construction and reconstruction of knowledge. Other approaches use student drawings and diagrams as a springboard to encourage and support the development of scientific discourse within the classroom community (e.g., Driver, 1989; Hayes, Symington, & Martin, 1994; Nussbaum & Novick, 1982). Tobin (1997) describes this as re-presentations, where students can use their visual representation as a basis for framing questions for their peers and their teacher. By incorporating a public accounting where students explain the science behind their drawings (Nussbaum & Novick), they can be initiated into the process of learning how to set forth a knowledge claim, justify it, and respond to challenges.

Creating conditions for cognitive conflict where teachers challenge students to look for limitations in their views or deliberately provide examples of discrepant or surprising events, often through hands-on demonstrations or activities, can spur reconceptualization (Hodson, 1998). However, we question the extent to which pre-service teacher education anchors science courses within a conceptual change framework, explores conceptual change theory, probes the concepts that teacher candidates hold about science and learning science, provokes cognitive conflict, and exposes candidates to instructional approaches and strategies to support conceptual change. Unless prospective teachers are directly challenged to confront their own alternative conceptions and work through the process of conceptual change, it is highly unlikely that they will be able to support their own students in doing so.

Teaching for Conceptual Change in Preservice Science Teacher Education

Elby (2001) signals the potential significance of epistemological issues when teaching for conceptual change in physics, and we would extend Elby's insights to the significance of epistemological issues associated with concepts of teaching and learning. The following excerpt from Elby's report signals that attention to epistemological development must be explicit: “Many of the best research-based reformed physics curricula, ones that help students obtain a measurably deeper conceptual understanding, generally fail to spur significant epistemological development. Apparently, students can participate in activities that help them learn more effectively without reflecting upon and changing their beliefs about how to learn effectively” (p. S54). Elby concludes that “even the best reform curricula, however, have not been very successful at helping students develop more sophisticated epistemological beliefs” (p. S64).

We immediately extend Elby's conclusion to the context of learning to teach science by declaring that significant attention must be given to the epistemological beliefs of prospective science teachers, both in terms of the science concepts they will teach and in terms of the educational concepts they bring to a preservice program. Here we draw on an argument by McGoey and Ross (1999), both secondary science teachers, in which they provide a vivid account of student resistance to conceptual change and the complex teaching skills needed to negotiate it:

We suspect that almost every teacher who has used a CC [conceptual change] model in the classroom has borne the brunt of student anger, frustration, and criticism. Students do not like having their ideas elicited in a nonjudgmental manner, only to have those ideas revealed as inadequate (whether it be mere seconds or days later). Some students eventually just stop giving their ideas… . Dealing with this without disaffecting students emotionally and intellectually requires delicate, precise, and theoretically sound skills of the teacher. (p. 118)

The challenges continue when students respond in ways that confirm that they do hold significant epistemological beliefs:

The really messy stuff appears when the teacher gets a range of different (though adequate) models from the students. Now the fat is really in the fire. If the teacher refuses to give a single answer, positivist-minded students demand the right answer. Give a single answer and you may promote positivism. Give them a few rules (beware logical empiricism!) and the students interpret it as carte blanche for relativism or conventionalism. Another response of students is to challenge the teacher's practice outright. These attacks assert that since everybody knows that science is simply a universal body of facts and methods, just give us the recipe and tell us the answer so we can study for the test. (pp. 118–119)

These two teachers then extend their discussion to teacher education and to the stress that candidates experience when they sense cognitive conflict associated with relying extensively on content knowledge. Again, we see that epistemological assumptions about teaching and learning are implicit:

Teacher interns are often deeply troubled to have their content knowledge questioned. They are already nervous enough about whether they can get in front of 30 adolescents for 80 minutes… . Content knowledge is often their major life-saving device. When student teachers engage in action research activities that undermine overreliance upon content knowledge, they experience considerable distress. The experience is extremely unsettling. (p. 119)

In this extended discussion of conceptual change in the context of learning to teach science, we have provided an overview of major arguments with respect to conceptual change in science teaching as a prelude to extending the topic of conceptual change to learning to teach science. In both contexts we believe that Elby's (2001) attention to epistemological beliefs is essential for making productive changes to how science is taught. We turn next to another issue with significant epistemological overtones: learning from experience and the associated authority of experience.

LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE AND THE AUTHORITY OF EXPERIENCE

The Authority of Experience

In our culture, we speak easily of “learning from experience” in everyday life, and yet we also hear many stories in which people seem not to have learned from experience. Just as propositional knowledge claims are easily forgotten and links are not always made from one context to another, so it is with learning from experience, which seems to be a marginal feature of many classrooms in the formal learning contexts of schools and universities. Science teachers are often credited with an advantage of being able to use everyday materials, yet laboratory experiences are rarely described by students as major contributing activities in their learning of concepts. Because learning from experience is not a significant feature of many classrooms, when those learning to teach science begin a professional preparation program, the role of learning from experience may never have been considered. Quite universally, student teachers report that the practicum is the most significant element of their preparation for teaching, yet this does not mean that new science teachers understand how they learn from experience or that they are proficient in learning from experience. Munby and Russell (1994) addressed this issue when they introduced the phrase “the authority of experience”:

Listening to one's own experience is not the same as listening to the experience of others, and the [physics method] students seem to indicate that they still place much more authority with those who have experience and with those who speak with confidence about how teaching should be done. They seem reluctant to listen to or to trust their own experiences as an authoritative source of knowledge about teaching. We wonder how and to what extent they will begin to hear the voice of their own experiences as they begin their teaching careers.

The basic tension in teacher education derives for us from preservice students wanting to move from being under authority to being in authority, without appreciating the potential that the authority of experience can give to their learning to teach. The challenge for teacher education is to help new teachers recognize and identify the place and function of the authority of experience. (pp. 93–94)

Action Research and a New Scholarship

In recent years there has been a small but significant shift in teachers’ continuing professional development toward learning from experience. After 1990, we began to read much more about “teacher research” and “action research,” two closely related fields in which individual teachers attempt to learn from their firsthand classroom experiences (see Chapter 39, this volume). Often such inquiry begins with questions such as: How can I help my students improve the quality of their learning? Research by teachers in their own classrooms represents a major shift from the cultural norms of our schools and universities, and it is in the university that such research would most readily be challenged for being subjective, for not being generalizable, and for lacking in rigor. Schön (1995) saw this problem in the context of a “new scholarship” and framed the challenge in terms of introducing an alternative to the university's standard epistemology:

The problem of changing the universities so as to incorporate the new scholarship must include, then, how to introduce action research as a legitimate and appropriately rigorous way of knowing and generating knowledge… . If we are prepared to take [this task] on, then we have to deal with what it means to introduce an epistemology of reflective practice into institutions of higher education dominated by technical rationality. (pp. 31–32)

Within the very large community of teacher educators, there is a subset of individuals who have addressed this epistemological issue by focusing on the study of their own teaching practices within preservice teacher education programs. By working collectively in conferences, books, and journal articles, the self-study of teacher education practices has achieved significant levels of recognition for an “epistemology of reflective practice.” A two-volume international handbook (Loughran, Hamilton, LaBoskey, & Russell, 2004) illustrates in many ways their individual and collective efforts to learn from experience.

The issue of experience in relation to education was explored extensively by Dewey (1938), and Schön's (1995) work emerged directly from that of Dewey. One of Dewey's many points is that familiar educational patterns persist as tradition, not on their rationale. Bringing the authority of experience into programs for learning to teach science will involve all the familiar challenges of learning from experience: “There is no discipline in the world so severe as the discipline of experience subjected to the tests of intelligent development and direction… . The road of the new education is not an easier one to follow than the old road but a more strenuous and difficult one… . The greatest danger that attends its future is, I believe, the idea that it is an easy way to follow” (Dewey, p. 90).

We find it interesting that the issue of learning from experience and the associated epistemological issues tend not to be raised in the conceptual change literature, and here we call attention to the issue of learning from experience because it represents an important, perhaps essential, perspective for helping individuals learn to teach science.

A strong case for recognizing the authority of experience in the science classroom appears in the findings and recommendations reported in a book intended for those who teach first-year undergraduate courses in physics. Knight (2004) summarizes 25 years of physics education research on students’ concepts and problem-solving strategies with three conclusions that have direct implications not only for teaching science but also for learning to teach science:

1.   Students enter our classroom not as ‘blank slates,’ tabula rasa, but filled with many prior concepts.

2.   Students’ prior concepts are remarkably resistant to change.

3.   Students’ knowledge is not organized in any coherent framework. (p. 25)

These statements remind us that, in contrast to what is learned from textbooks, that which is learned from experience can be powerful without being coherently organized. Knight closes his analysis with five “lessons” for teachers:

1.   “Keep students actively engaged and provide rapid feedback” (p. 42).

2.   “Focus on phenomena rather than abstractions” (p. 42).

3.   “Deal explicitly with students’ alternative conceptions” (p. 43).

4.   “Teach and use explicit problem-solving skills and strategies” (p. 44).

5.   “Write homework and exam problems that go beyond symbol manipulation to engage students in the qualitative and conceptual analysis of physical phenomena” (p. 44).

The first four lessons can be translated directly from teaching science to learning to teach science. The fifth lesson could easily be reshaped to “engage students in the qualitative and conceptual analysis of educational phenomena.” In “traditional” preservice teacher education programs, one might view these as research findings to include in the “knowledge base” to be transmitted to preservice science teachers. Our analysis of the research literature confirms that it is entirely counterproductive to simply transmit such lessons to teachers as content. Rather, preservice science teacher education programs must explore the implications of these lessons through all the learning experiences created in teacher education classrooms (see Segall, 2002).

Reflection by a Teacher Educator

To illustrate learning from experience in the context of preservice science teacher education, we recount briefly Russell's personal learning from experience as a teacher educator trying to understand how experience helps those learning to teach. In both 1991 and 1992, he arranged to teach one class of physics in a local high school; in return the school's regular physics teacher helped teach the physics method course at Queen's. Building on the 1991 experience, he arranged for one of his physics method classes in 1992 to be held each week in the room where he taught physics, with an invitation to preservice teachers to observe his class if they wished. Despite being in the physics classroom himself and holding some of his classes in the school rather than at the university, the impact on the preservice teachers seemed minimal. A series of interviews with some of the preservice teachers led Russell to develop a list of potential barriers to learning from experience that the preservice teachers seemed to bring to their efforts to learn to teach. Just as Knight (2004) reports, the future physics teachers did not arrive as blank slates; they had strong views that did not change easily. Five years later, when the preservice program at Queen's changed dramatically to begin with 14 weeks of teaching experience, the barriers implicit in the 1993 candidates were replaced by more constructive “frames” generated by their learning from experience (see Table 37.1).

Reflection by those Learning to Teach

Two recent papers report on significant efforts to understand and improve learning to teach science at the elementary level, with special reference to learning from teaching experience. These papers emphasize the importance of reflection in relation to learning from experience, and we value their attention to structuring and supporting reflection by those learning to teach. Early in Bryan and Abell's (1999) case study of a student teacher named “Barbara,” the authors declare their perspective on the role of experience in learning to teach: “The heart of knowing how to teach cannot be learned from coursework alone. The construction of professional knowledge requires experience… . Experience influences the frames that teachers employ in identifying problems of practice, in approaching those problems and implementing solutions, and in making sense of the outcomes of their actions” (pp. 121–122).

The case of Barbara begins with an account of what Barbara believed about science teaching and learning and moves on to describe her vision for teaching elementary science as well as the tensions within her thinking about her professional responsibilities. Of particular interest is Barbara's initial premise that a teacher should continue to teach a scientific concept until all children show that they understand it. Once the process of reflection became apparent, “Barbara began to shift her perspective and reframe the tension between her vision and practice. Her professional experience provided feedback that forced her to confront the idea that in teaching science, teachers need to consider more than students getting it” (Bryan & Abell, p. 131). This case study could help new science teachers anticipate the challenges and prospects of student teaching, although the real help would probably be realized during rather than before the student teacher assignment. The implications for further study of learning from experience are clear:

TABLE 37.1
Barriers to Learning to Teach and Frames for Learning to Teach

Barriers to learning to teach: Prior views of preservice science teachers who gained teaching experience gradually during an eight-month program.	Frames for learning to teach: Views of preservice science teachers who began a nine-month program with 14 weeks of teaching experience.
Teaching can be told.	Teaching cannot be told.
Learning to teach is passive.	Learning to teach is active.
Discussion and opinion are irrelevant.	Discussion, opinion and sharing of experiences are crucial.
Personal reactions to teaching are irrelevant.	Personal reactions to teaching are the starting point.
Goals for future students do not apply personally.	Goals for future students definitely must apply personally.
Theory is largely irrelevant.	Theory is relevant.
Experience cannot be analyzed or understood.	Experience can be analyzed and understood.

Note: From Russell (2000, pp. 231–232, 238–239).

Barbara's case implicitly underscores the fallacy of certain assumptions underlying traditional teacher education programs: (a) that propositional knowledge from course readings and lectures can be translated directly into practice, and (b) that prospective teachers develop professional knowledge before experience rather than in conjunction with experience… . Teacher educators are challenged to coach prospective teachers to purposefully and systematically inquire into their own practices, encouraging them to make such inquiry a habit. (Bryan & Abell, p. 136)

Just as a conceptual change approach to teaching science begins with students’ experiences, so Bryan and Abell conclude that “the genesis of the process of developing professional knowledge should be seen as inherent in experience” (p. 136). “A preeminent goal of science teacher education should be to help prospective teachers challenge and refine their ideas about teaching and learning science and learn how to learn from experience” (Bryan & Abell, p. 137).

The paper by Zembal-Saul, Krajcik, and Blumenfeld (2002) focuses on representation of science content to children during teaching experiences. Three case studies describe the context in which individuals taught, their representations of science content, and the support provided for learners. The authors build on the earlier conclusion of Bryan and Abell (1999) that “experience plays a significant role in developing professional knowledge” (p. 121). To this they add their own conclusion that “what we do know … is that experience alone is not enough. It needs to be coupled with thoughtful reflection on action” (Zembal-Saul et al., p. 460). Their overall conclusions make important points that remind science teacher educators yet again of the importance of the cooperating teacher in supporting (implicitly, if not explicitly) the student teacher's professional learning: “There is evidence that cooperating teachers who facilitate students’ meaningful learning in general and support student teachers in their efforts to continue to emphasize science content representation can positively influence the territory student teachers attempt to master” (p. 460). Reminding us that our collective understanding of how experience contributes to learning to teach still requires attention and development, the authors conclude: “There is an urgent need to understand better the role of experience in learning to teach, in particular the aspects of teaching experiences that support or hinder new teachers’ continuing development in the often fragile domain of science content knowledge and its representations” (p. 461).

This material on learning from experience and on reflection, both in science classrooms and in science teacher education settings, completes our introduction of perspectives on conceptual change and the authority of experience. We turn next to an earlier review of research on learning to teach science.

DOMINANT THEMES IN EARLIER RESEARCH ON LEARNING TO TEACH SCIENCE

Anderson and Mitchener's (1996) extensive review of research on science teacher education provides a strong foundation for the issues of learning to teach science that are explored and developed in this chapter. They describe a “traditional model” of preservice science teacher education that seems very much with us a decade after their review. The model has three familiar elements—educational foundations, methods courses, and field experiences and student teaching. Anderson and Mitch-ener conclude their review with statements that bear repeating:

Looking back, this three-pronged traditional model of preservice teacher education has survived relatively intact since its birth in the normal school… . The challenge facing science teacher educators today is this: how will you address in a coherent, comprehensive manner such emerging issues as new views of content knowledge, constructivist approaches to teaching and learning, and a reflective disposition to educating teachers. In addition, thoughtful science teacher educators need to attend to the theoretical orientation of their programs and how important professional issues are addressed within these orientations. (p. 19)

These reviewers went on to identify six dominant themes in research on the preservice curriculum in the twentieth century: an “established preservice model,” “inadequate subject matter preparation,” “haphazard education preparation,” the “importance of inquiry,” “reliance on the laboratory,” and “valued educational technologies” (Anderson & Mitchener, pp. 21–22). We find little to indicate that these dominant themes have changed. Anderson and Mitchener describe criticisms directed at the traditional model and then offer important conclusions:

Considering the longevity and volume of such efforts, one would expect a review of preservice science teacher education programs to portray a rich landscape, complete with diverse views, cohesive images, and defined detail. Research on these programs, however, is neither accessible nor diverse.

Indeed, there is a dearth of literature describing preservice science teacher education programs… . Actual portrayals of comprehensive programs—including conceptual and structural components—are rare… .

Differences that do exist among programs are most often found at the course level. Innovative efforts in reforming science teacher preparation usually are directed at changing one or two isolated components within a program, as opposed to the program as a whole. (p. 23)

Our review of literature on the development of teachers’ knowledge (Munby, Russell, & Martin, 2001) and our examination of research available since Anderson and Mitchener's review lead us to the conclusion that the six dominant themes they identified continue to appear in research related to learning to teach science, despite repeated calls for change and reform in science education and in preservice teacher education.

SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS THAT WORK TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

We have already noted Anderson and Mitchener's (1996) observation that detailed accounts of preservice teacher education programs are uncommon. Here we consider two such accounts, one from Monash University in Australia and one from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the United States. Each is an account of efforts to achieve coherence around a focused set of understandings related to how and why students learn science.

Monash University

In theory, coherence and a set of guiding principles within a preservice science teacher education program should be valuable and productive. Gunstone, Slattery, Baird, and Northfield (1993) present seven propositions underlying the program at Monash University in Australia that we summarize as follows: A program must consider the needs of teacher candidates and recognize that needs change as development occurs. Collaboration with other candidates is essential, and candidates construct new views based on previous experiences and perceptions. Teacher educators need to model the principles they are teaching as they strive to enact a program seen as worthwhile yet inevitably and necessarily incomplete because it precedes full teaching responsibilities. Finally, teacher educators need to demonstrate to candidates the reflective practice that they expect of those learning to teach.

The authors speak bluntly about the challenges of creating and enacting an effective program of preservice science teacher education:

After at least 16 years’ experience as learners, students come to programs with well-developed but often simplistic views of teaching and learning… . These views are very persistent and often at odds with the views we hope to cultivate. Failure to respond to this issue can result in student teachers either reconstructing what they encounter in the program so as to leave their initial views unchanged, or simply rejecting what does not fit the initial views… . Hence the views need to be identified, discussed, and evaluated by student teachers by means of carefully managed teaching/learning experiences. (pp. 51–52)

Gunstone et al. see two types of managed experiences for student teachers: “revealing and challenging perceptions of one's own learning” and exploring “perceptions of teaching and pupil learning” (p. 52). They are quick to emphasize the complex nature of these activities: “Most graduates in teacher education programs require considerable assistance and support to even begin to take control of their own learning in this constructivist way… . The assistance and support must be in the context of what is seen to be learning of value by the learner; that is, it must be woven through the usual course as an ongoing influence on the pedagogy adopted by those teaching the course” (p. 52).

The authors go on to discuss the issue of preservice science teachers’ understanding of their science subjects, reminding us that teachers trained in one science may benefit from opportunities to study topics in other sciences. Attention also turns to the complex issue of how well study of a science subject prepares one for the demands of teaching that subject to others.

It is relatively common for [student teachers] to hold naïve, alternative and erroneous conceptions in areas they have studied intensively… . This issue must be handled with considerable sensitivity, as much of the self-esteem which student teachers possess on commencing teacher preparation is derived from their successful academic study. The identification of alternative conceptions should occur in the context of personal experience of constructivist views of learning and teaching. (p. 53)

In the second half of their paper, Gunstone and his colleagues consider the propositions they have set forth in light of the experiences of one seminar group in the 1987 academic year. This study is essential reading for any group of teacher educators intending to study the impact of their own program on prospective teachers. The study also provides valuable insights into what is possible in a coherent program that seeks to foster a conceptual change approach to the teaching of science.

The authors acknowledge and illustrate the importance of views brought by prospective teachers, just as science teachers committed to conceptual change must work with the views their students bring to their classrooms. Finally, keeping the familiar parallels between conceptual change and reflective practice, the Monash group stresses the importance of modeling the principles they teach and of ensuring that new teachers are aware of the principles and limitations of their program.

University of Wisconsin–Madison

A set of papers from University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW-Madison) (Science Education, 83(3), 1999) contrasts with the paper from Monash University in interesting ways. The UW-Madison researchers worked with elementary or secondary science methods courses and an action research seminar, whereas the Monash researchers were able to work with the entire preservice program. Significantly, teacher educators subjecting their own practices to scrutiny is far more apparent in the Monash study than in the UW-Madison study, even though the UW-Madison researchers allude to the importance of such scrutiny. The UW-Madison experience also merits close examination for its rich array of hypotheses.

The researchers offer an excellent summary of the task facing all science teacher educators who would challenge their students to move beyond the truism that “we teach as we were taught”:

These prospective teachers’ understanding of the nature of knowledge was a critical factor in their teaching… . There were almost no indications that, upon graduation from the program, these prospective teachers thought it was necessary to give class time for their students to consider the relative status of alternative conceptions. We suggest that this is not surprising from a positivist perspective in which the truth of scientific information is not at issue. (Hewson, Tabachnick, Zeichner, & Lemberger, 1999, p. 378)

The array of evidence gathered in the UW-Madison study points to a fundamental problem that lies outside the domain of teacher education: the way that science is taught and assessed in universities:

It appears that prospective teachers were inadequately prepared by their content courses to do anything more than the mostly transmissionist teaching we observed… . We suggest that this is the result of the teaching and assessment strategies of college science courses that do little to emphasize the integration of course content. Lectures seldom encourage students to think about and relate concepts to each other, and multiple choice testing procedures ask for information in a piecemeal fashion. (Hewson et al., pp. 379–380)

This paper set concludes with a range of valuable but familiar comments about the need for school placements that support student teachers working for conceptual change as well as the need for communication and collaboration between university and school personnel.

As Anderson and Mitchener (1996) observed, the science education and teacher education communities devote far more time and effort to studies in science classrooms than to studies in science teacher education classrooms (where all who are learning to teach science must spend time before moving into their own classrooms). As the reports of the Monash and Wisconsin programs indicate, theoretical and empirical insights about learning science in classrooms can be extended to learning to teach science in teacher education classrooms. Important progress in programs where individuals learn to teach science seems unlikely to occur until coherent frameworks are extended to programs as a whole rather than to individual program elements (Russell, McPherson, & Martin, 2001), with sound research studies that make conceptual and structural gains available to those learning to teach and to those who teach them.

The Project for Enhancing Effective Learning

The Project for Enhancing Effective Learning (PEEL) (see http://peelweb.org) is a unique example of a teacher-directed, teacher-sustained collaborative action research. PEEL is a comprehensive school-based program for improving the quality of teaching in schools. With supportive links to nearby universities, PEEL began in 1985 in one school in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. The key issues were deceptively simple:

The major aim of PEEL is to improve the quality of school learning and teaching. Training for this improvement is centered on having students become more willing and able to accept responsibility and control for their own learning. Training has three aspects: increasing students’ knowledge of what learning is and how it works; enhancing students’ awareness of learning progress and outcome; improving students’ control of learning through more purposeful decision making. (Baird & Mitchell, 1986, p. iii)

Thus PEEL is a comprehensive program of inservice professional development for teachers as well as a project for enhancing effective student learning.

A central element of PEEL involves reframing the activities of teachers and the activities of students within the classroom context. The power of PEEL resides in its extensive array of specific, practical procedures for the various steps that are inevitably involved in helping students develop a metacognitive stance toward their own learning. To present specific PEEL approaches to a beginning teacher with no teaching experience is to accomplish nothing at all. To use PEEL approaches to help beginning teachers interpret early teaching experiences in relation to their own goals and beliefs is to facilitate conceptual change. To practice PEEL approaches in teacher education classrooms as well as in school classrooms is to begin to realize the need for epistemological reframing in both contexts.

To extend our earlier references to the importance of epistemological considerations both in teaching science and in learning to teach science, we turn now to perspectives on knowledge acquisition and on knowledge construction in learning to teach.

ACQUIRING AND CONSTRUCTING KNOWLEDGE

We find it helpful to link the work of the PEEL project to Chinn and Brewer's (1998) framework for “understanding and evaluating theories of knowledge acquisition” (p. 97). There is a strong parallel between this framework and the practical knowledge developed within PEEL: each account is driven by constructive logical analysis of the domain of interest. Of eight questions posed by Chinn and Brewer, we here focus particularly on question 5: “What is the fate of the old knowledge and the new information after knowledge change occurs?” (p. 97). Chinn and Brewer make it clear that conceptual change can be of at least five types:

1.   B replaces A, with A being forgotten or ignored.

2.   A is reinterpreted within the framework of B.

3.   B is reinterpreted within the framework of A.

4.   A is incorporated into B.

5.   A and B are compartmentalized. (p. 106)

Teaching may be conducted most easily by assuming that the first fate—simple replacement—will occur, but if it did, we would hardly need research on conceptual change. Compartmentalization is something most teachers wish to avoid, for it seems counterproductive to restrict the application of more complex and complete explanations for phenomena. The territory suggested by the other three “fates” indicates the breadth and complexity of the work of teachers and reminds us of the challenges of planning for teaching. The procedures constructed and organized by PEEL over nearly two decades of teacher collaboration provide potential support for teachers concerned about what happens to “old knowledge.” Making this process explicit is a powerful initial step in the reframing that we argue is critical to conceptual change. As a venture in collaborative action research, PEEL is specifically committed to fostering students’ change from nonawareness to awareness and then using that awareness to support conceptual change itself.

Knowledge Construction in Learning to Teach

Oosterheert and Vermunt (2003) present an intriguing addition to the literature of reflection in learning to teach. Schön (1983) gave considerable impetus to the “teacher as reflective practitioner” movement with his distinction between problem-solving and problem-setting. Reframing problems to develop and enact new approaches became an attractive image for teachers thinking professionally about their work. The argument has intrinsic appeal in the context of teacher education and learning to teach, and it readily extends to the conceptual change approaches so often advocated in the science education community.

Oosterheert and Vermunt (2003) distinguish between “external” and “internal” sources of regulation in constructing knowledge. External sources (which would include experience with phenomena of science and practicum teaching experiences) provide information from outside the learner (whether child or adult). Internal sources of regulation refer to the capacities of the brain “to process information and to reconstruct existing knowledge” (Oosterheert & Vermunt, p. 159). To the familiar idea of “active” internal sources of regulation, the authors add the category of “dynamic” internal sources of regulation and argue that these are essential in learning to teach. In doing so, they build on Iran-Nejad's (1990) challenge of the assumption that learning involves incremental internalization in response to external sources. Whereas active processing is “slow,” “deliberate,” and “sequential,” dynamic processing is “rapid,” “non-deliberate,” and “simultaneous” (Oosterheert & Vermunt, p. 160).

Teacher educators who have employed reflective practice perspectives may quickly recognize these contrasts as similar to Schön's (1983) contrast between solving problems and reframing problems. We are particularly interested in the implications of seeing internal sources of regulation as both “active” and “dynamic.” Whereas “active” self-regulation appears to capture the familiar tasks of schooling, including note-taking, homework, reviewing, quizzes, and tests, “dynamic” self-regulation appears to lead to the conceptual changes that science teachers often take as goals and genuine indicators of their success in teaching. Similarly, whereas “active” self-regulation appears to capture the familiar tasks of learning to teach, including class participation, preparing and presenting practicum lessons, and completing assigned work, “dynamic” self-regulation appears to lead to the shifts of understanding and perspective that teacher educators often take as genuine indicators of their success in helping individuals learn to teach. Oosterheert and Vermunt (2003) suggest that “dynamic self-regulation is a prerequisite in constructive learning. Active self-regulation may be helpful, but is never sufficient nor always necessary” (pp. 160–161).

This complex paper draws to a close with an important conclusion: “Active self-regulation can be very helpful, but never sufficient in conceptual change. In learning to teach as well as in academic learning, dynamic sources should be more involved” (Oosterheert & Vermunt, 2003, p. 167). Oosterheert and Vermunt's overall contribution involves recognizing that learning involves more than activities in which students proceed “deliberately and intentionally” (p. 170). In their view, learning also involves “non-deliberate processing strategies” (p. 170), which we take to be essential to conceptual change. These ideas merit consideration in the teacher education classroom as well as in the science classroom.

One of the key features of “dynamic” self-regulation, as introduced by Oosterheert and Vermunt (2003), is that it is characterized by “rapid, spontaneous, non-deliberate, simultaneous” processing of “sensorial” information leading with “ease” to “reconceptualization” and “understanding” (p. 160). These are not qualities that we typically associate with learning. At first we found it puzzling that the authors speak of student teachers relying on dynamic sources when teaching, when “most of their decisions and actions require no deliberate thought” (Oosterheert & Vermunt, p. 165). Later they use a term that we have also found very helpful with respect to learning to teach. They suggest that student teachers may rely on a “default teaching repertoire” that they associate with dynamic regulation. We take this to refer to the “default” (do-it-without-thinking) style that every individual is capable of after more than 15 years of schooling, a style learned spontaneously, nondeliberately, simultaneously, sensorially, and unintentionally by observation of one's own teachers, typically without understanding. Here again, the parallel to learning science is strong, for children acquire “default” understandings of the phenomena of science from their everyday experiences, and these can readily accumulate without deliberate processing.

This concludes our account of important arguments about acquiring and constructing knowledge in the context of learning to teach. Programs for learning to teach continue to operate on patterns guided more by tradition than by arguments such as these. Thus we turn next to the issue of whether teacher education programs can move beyond the rhetoric of reform.

MOVING BEYOND THE RHETORIC OF REFORM

White (2001) contends that the last two decades have produced a revolution in research on science teaching. “The change in the amount of research is sufficient alone to warrant the term revolution, but even more significant is its nature” (White, p. 457). Against a background of revolution, the foreground offers clarion calls for reform and the improvement of science education (e.g., American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1989, 1993, 2001; Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, 1997; Curriculum Corporation, 1994a, 1994b; National Research Council, 1996). Prominent among the recommendations are changes in science classrooms whereby instruction is situated in a context that supports students’ explorations of questions that develop deeper understandings of science content and processes and encourages learners to share developing ideas and information (Crawford, Krajcik, & Marx, 1999).

More broadly, reform efforts urge closer attention to students’ conceptions of the nature of science and scientific inquiry (see Chapter 29, this volume). Lederman (1998) makes the case that, unless teachers have a functional understanding of these concepts, there is little hope of achieving the vision of science teaching and learning that is detailed in the reform literature. It is but a small step to argue that these understandings must be embedded appropriately in teacher education programs if prospective teachers are to move beyond the rhetoric of reform, become scientifically and pedagogically capable themselves, and then enable their students to do likewise.

Learning What Science Is: Beyond Facts to Concepts and Discipline

Duit and Treagust (1998) relate learning science to the conceptions held by students and teachers of science content, conceptions of the nature of science, the aims of science instruction, the purpose of teaching events, and the nature of the learning process. The complexity of the construct “learning science,” with its multiple components, points to many of the issues that confound science teacher education. These include the tenacity of students’ conceptions about science and scientific inquiry as well as the tenacity of their experiences learning science—the procedural aspects in addition to the propositional, the pedagogy they were exposed to in their science classes, and the (subconscious) interpretation they attached to it.

Challenges to Science Teachers and Science Teacher Educators

The complexity of learning to teach science for comprehension and understanding is obvious, and the agenda for successful science teachers is full: teaching about the nature and limitations of scientific knowledge, helping students to understand and apply scientific laws and theories, and enabling them to participate in scientific discourse and inquiry processes. For teacher educators, the agenda is doubly full because, in addition to the above, teacher education also requires a better understanding of the demands placed on teachers as they introduce their students to the nature of science, as they engage them in classroom discourse, and as they enable them to pursue scientific inquiry (Anderson, 2000). How we teach must be a major focal point for all who are concerned with teaching and learning science and with how individuals learn to teach science.

The Significance of Discourse

Often teacher candidates entering classrooms are ill-prepared for the fallout from students’ years of exposure to an alienating discourse: “We hardly do anything except copy notes that the teacher has written (not our own words) and do experiments that the teacher does for us. All we do is sit there and watch demonstrations and listen to the teacher talk. Everyone just sits there and looks like they're listening. I hate science” (Baird, Gunstone, Penna, Fensham, & White, 1990, p. xx).

How, if at all, do teacher educators address the discourse of science and its myriad representations and effects? How do they ready prospective teachers for less than enthusiastic responses from students, and how do they deconstruct those responses? When science is presented as a series of knowledge claims verified by others, it becomes no more than a compendium of facts to be warehoused, and learning entails stockpiling “prefabricated knowledge that then is stored in memory” (Duit & Treagust, 1998, p. 6).

Baird and Mitchell (1986) link the familiar transmission model of learning to students’ conceptions of what, for them, counts as schoolwork and what does not. Essentially, whatever is not presented in this mode is not considered real work, and discussions where alternative perspectives are advanced or meanings negotiated are perceived as time wasting and counterproductive. This perspective is not exclusive to students and may (unwittingly) be shared by teachers and teacher educators. Thus the discourse of the classroom, be it elementary, secondary, or post-secondary, reveals much about how students learn science and what their conceptions of scientific knowledge and inquiry are. Discourse is pivotal to understanding the resistance teacher educators encounter when alternative frameworks and conceptualizations are introduced. Thus we see changes in classroom discourse at all levels as central to moving beyond the rhetoric of reform.

CONCLUSION

Our examination of literature about learning to teach science suggests that, in general, science teacher educators continue to be reluctant to practice in their own teaching what their research suggests that new and experienced teachers should do. Just as teachers are learning that action research is a way to explore in practice the challenges of teaching for conceptual change, so teacher educators must explore those challenges as they work with those learning to teach science. It continues to be easy to pin the hopes for improved teaching of science on those who are just entering the teaching profession; this approach seems fundamentally flawed. Experienced teachers and teacher educators who ask of new teachers what they have not attempted themselves are ignoring the reality that we learn to teach more by what is modeled than by what is told.

Anderson's (2000) introduction to a series of papers on the challenges facing science teacher education identified a central issue for the development of the profession: “We need to develop teacher education programs that promote the qualities of practice that we value” (p. 294). The Narrative Boxes included in this chapter posed questions about the practice of science teacher education. Here we revisit those boxes to suggest a course for future research on learning to teach science.

1.   Experience is important for learning science and for learning to teach science. How can science education researchers help teachers and teacher educators understand the many challenges involved in giving credence to students’ first-hand experiences within classroom learning activities?

2.   The gap between practices and values in education goes back much further than Dewey and Schön, who were major twentieth-century figures calling attention to this gap. How can science education researchers help teachers and teacher educators navigate the tensions between theory and practice, finding the courage to think in new ways about learning and then weave the resulting insights into practice?

3.   The call for more and more critical reflection by those learning to teach has been evident for more than 20 years, since Schön (1983) stressed the role of reflection-in-action in professional learning. There is little public evidence that reflection is actually being taught, and there is little public evidence that teacher educators are themselves engaging in reflection-in-action. Can researchers find ways to address this lack of evidence and expose the complexities of making reflection-in-action a meaningful element of professional development?

4.   Can researchers help teachers find productive ways to rethink the familiar background of teaching in our schools and universities? We hope that those learning to teach science will go on to improve how science is taught, yet how science is taught does not seem to change. Can researchers help teacher educators prepare new teachers who realize the profound challenges that accompany efforts to improve the practices of science teaching?

5.   Science teacher education naturally seeks to inspire new teachers to develop best practices supported by research evidence. Yet research evidence also shows the importance of addressing explicitly students’ prior views. Can science education researchers move beyond the studies of conceptual change in science classrooms to document the parallel complexity of conceptual change in prior views of teaching and learning that are evident in new teachers’ earliest teaching moves, or default styles?

6.   Schools and universities are often expected to be “all things to all learners,” and this generates a significant risk that the result will be many fragmented pieces rather than a clear and interconnected picture. Can researchers help us develop coherent perspectives in our teaching and document the effects of messages that interact and support each other?

Methodologically, research on learning to teach science that explores the issues we have raised in this chapter will use predominantly qualitative methods. After all, we are concerned here about the quality of the learning experiences of those learning to teach. Action research and self-study are two prominent methodologies that are well illustrated in the research literature (Loughran et al., 2004). The field of science teacher education research has much to learn from the methods that have moved teacher research forward since 1990.

Many people are not optimistic about the prospect of actually moving beyond the rhetoric of reform. In this chapter we have endeavored to show that moving forward requires an epistemological revolution, a reframing of not just how we think about teaching science, but also how we think about learning to teach science. Progress demands that perspectives that move us forward in teaching science be extended to the context of learning to teach science. Science education research has produced compelling insights that must be developed coherently as those learning to teach science move through their initial teaching experiences.

We concur with Schön's (1995) call for a new epistemology that must be developed both in universities and in schools. Thus we must consider conceptual change not just as change in how students—and prospective teachers—think about phenomena but also as change in how students—and prospective teachers—think about education. Conceptual changes happen not just to students but also to prospective teachers, experienced teachers, and teacher educators—to teachers in schools and in universities. The entire argument always needs to complete the circle of reasoning about theory and practice. In the process, we must find ways to recognize and develop the authority of experience within our teaching and learning practices.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Peter Aubusson and Gaalen Erickson, who reviewed this chapter.

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