Author(s):
All teachers need a strong understanding of the content that they teach, and when they are less knowledgeable their instruction can be rigid, focused on low-level ideas, and less responsive to students. Teacher education programs must also consider how to support preservice teachers’ (PSTs’) understanding of student ideas, as knowing how students think about science is important to enact high-quality science instruction. Learning progressions (LPs) are one tool that explicates how students’ ideas may increase in sophistication with instruction. We hypothesized that supporting PSTs to learn about and reflect on the student ideas in LPs alongside instruction in two college-level integrated science courses may support them in learning science and improve their understanding of student ideas. In this NSF IUSE Track 1 project we have so far developed and implemented four (of six) learning progression-based modules (LPMs) that drew on two existing LPs. The LPMs include activities to engage PSTs in 1) learning about common student ideas, 2) considering the relative sophistication of those common student ideas, and 3) reflecting on their own science ideas. In this Lightning Talk we will overview our LPM structure and present preliminary findings from our research, which suggest the LPMs supported PSTs in improving their understanding of science content as well as of common student ideas, but raise important questions about PSTs’ perceptions of their own science learning.
Coauthors
Amanda Harwood, harwoodad@alma.edu
