Project
description | Elementary teachers face enormous challenges in teaching science. New teachers develop facility with the rhetoric of education, but often have limited understanding of how to implement innovative teaching strategies like guiding students' scientific inquiry. New teachers also have not yet developed a collection of curriculum materials to support those innovative teaching strategies. I intend to investigate these challenges further and to develop prototype approaches to educative curriculumócurriculum that educates the teachers as well as the students. I hope to increase new elementary teachers' confidence and ability in teaching science, so that elementary children have more productive experiences learning science. I plan to do this through developing a framework for educative curriculum that focuses on improving teachers' (a) understanding of teaching science for understanding as well as their (b) content knowledge in science and (c) knowledge of students' existing scientific ideas. Since many elementary teachers feel more confident teaching life science than physical science, I plan to develop curriculum to teach about physical science topics through the Trojan horse of the human senses. In the context of activities focused on the sense of touch, for instance, students can explore phenomena like thermal equilibrium, insulation and conduction, and heat flow. At the CILT conference, I hope to identify partners with whom to collaborate on the technology component of this work. Though elementary science activities should have a large hands-on component, technology should also play a role. Besides delivering curriculum and scaffolding reflection, technology can provide powerful tools, including simulations and models, that make students' and experts' thinking visible and promote conceptual understanding. Because this project is aimed at teacher learning, too, I also hope to identify an environment to support teacher reflection, provide opportunities for teachers to make their own thinking visible, and foster social supports to further teachers' learning. |