This qualitative study examines the beliefs and belief changes of eleven elementary preservice teachers about teaching science for social justice. Using constructivist grounded theory, it forwards a new theory of belief change about teaching science for social justice. The theory posits that three teaching and learning conditions may facilitate belief change: preservice teachers need to recognize (1) the relationship between science and society; (2) the relationship between individuals and society; and (3) the importance of taking action on socioscientific issues. This research responds to calls by critical scholars of teacher education who contend that beliefs in relation to equity, diversity, and multiculturalism need to be explored. They have found that many preservice teachers hold beliefs that are antithetical to social justice tenets. Since beliefs are generally considered to be precursors to actions, identifying and promoting change in beliefs are important to teaching science for social justice. Such a move may lead to the advancement of curricular and pedagogical efforts to promote the academic participation and success in elementary science of Aboriginal and racialized minority students. The study was undertaken in a year-long science methods course taught by the researcher. It was centered on the preservice teachers – their beliefs, their belief changes, and the course pedagogies that they identified as crucial to their changes. However, the course was based on the researcher-instructor’s review of the scholarly literature on science education, teacher education, and social justice. It utilized a critical – cultural theoretical framework, and was aligned to the three dimensions of critical nature of science, critical knowledge and pedagogy, and sociopolitical action. Findings indicate that, at the beginning of the year, preservice teachers held two types of beliefs (liberal and critical) and, by the end of the course, they experienced three kinds of shifts in beliefs (minimal, substantial, and refined). The shifts in beliefs were attributed by preservice teachers to specific pedagogies. Yet their initial beliefs also served as filters to the pedagogies, consequently impacting their degrees of belief change. Therefore, this study reveals elements of unpredictability when engaging in teaching science for social justice.

Anillin is a highly conserved multi-domain cytoskeletal protein that provides a spatial and temporal scaffold for contractile ring proteins to ensure successful cytokinesis. We have looked at the temporal order of anillin and septin recruitment to the cleavage furrow using time-lapse microscopy and found that anillin localizes to the furrow in early anaphase while septins appear there later in an anillin-dependent manner. We also characterized the effect of anillin depletion in different cell lines and observed that septins and myosin delocalize in the absence of anillin in Tet-ON HeLa, AD293 and ARPE-19 cells but not in wild type HeLa cells. Asymmetric furrow formation was also investigated using the epithelial cell model: MDCK cells. Depletion of anillin and SEPT9 in MDCK cells was achieved using lentivirus shRNA constructs and this revealed that anillin or SEPT9 depletion did not affect asymmetric cytokinesis, although localization of SEPT 9 was affected by anillin depletion.

Anillin is a highly conserved multi-domain cytoskeletal protein that provides a spatial and temporal scaffold for contractile ring proteins to ensure successful cytokinesis. We have looked at the temporal order of anillin and septin recruitment to the cleavage furrow using time-lapse microscopy and found that anillin localizes to the furrow in early anaphase while septins appear there later in an anillin-dependent manner. We also characterized the effect of anillin depletion in different cell lines and observed that septins and myosin delocalize in the absence of anillin in Tet-ON HeLa, AD293 and ARPE-19 cells but not in wild type HeLa cells. Asymmetric furrow formation was also investigated using the epithelial cell model: MDCK cells. Depletion of anillin and SEPT9 in MDCK cells was achieved using lentivirus shRNA constructs and this revealed that anillin or SEPT9 depletion did not affect asymmetric cytokinesis, although localization of SEPT 9 was affected by anillin depletion.

Master of Science / Curriculum and Instruction / Lawrence C. Scharmann / In the current high-stakes assessment environment of NCLB and AYP, the type of assessment students are subject to is crucial. Good assessments make teaching to the test an effective, rather than deplorable, strategy that aligns learning objectives, classroom teaching, and student achievement. While science, this author’s content area, isn’t currently AYP mandated, it will be soon, and in the meantime, students are still required to take state and local assessments. This project seeks to effect change on a local level – specifically, with how the local CRT is written so that it can both reflect sound research-based assessment practice as well as an understanding of science as concept- and process-based rather than content- and fact-based.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Curriculum and Instruction / Margaret G. Shroyer / John R. Staver / This study explored the inclusion of creative drama into science teaching as an instructional strategy for enhancing elementary school students' understanding of scientific concepts. A treatment group of sixth grade students was taught a Full Option Science System (FOSS) science unit on Mixtures and Solutions with the addition of creative drama while a control group was taught using only the FOSS teaching protocol. Quantitative and qualitative data analyses demonstrated that students who studied science through creative drama exhibited a greater understanding of scientific content of the lessons and preferred learning science through creative drama. Treatment group students stated that they enjoyed participating in the activities with their friends and that the creative drama helped them to better understand abstract scientific concepts. Teachers involved with the creative drama activities were positively impressed and believed creative drama is a good tool for teaching science. Observations revealed that creative drama created a positive classroom environment, improved social interactions and self-esteem, that all students enjoyed creative drama, and that teachers' teaching style affected students' use of creative drama. The researcher concluded that the inclusion of creative drama with the FOSS unit enhanced students' scientific knowledge and understanding beyond that of the FOSS unit alone, that both teachers and students reacted positively to creative drama in science and that creative drama requires more time.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Lawrence C. Scharmann / John R. Staver / The goal of this study was to explore how Christian biology-related majors at a Christian university perceive the apparent conflicts between their understanding of evolution and their religious beliefs, and how their faith, as a structural-developmental system for ordering and making meaning of the world, plays a role in the mediating process. This naturalistic study utilized a case study design of 15 participants specified as undergraduate biology-related majors or recent biology-related graduates from a midwestern Christian university who had completed an upper-level course on evolution. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews that investigated participants' faith and their views on creationism and evolution. Fowler's theory of faith development and Parks' model of college students' faith was extensively used. Additional data were collected through an Evolution Attitudes Survey and a position paper on evolution as an assignment in the evolution course. Data analysis revealed patterns that were organized into themes and sub-themes that were the major outcomes of the study. Most participants were raised to believe in creationism, but came to accept evolution through an extended process of evaluating the scientific evidence in support of evolution, negotiating the literalness of Genesis, recognizing evolution as a non-salvation issue, and observing professors as role models of Christians who accept evolution. Participants remained committed to their personal religious beliefs despite apprehension that accompanied the reconciliation process in accepting evolution. Most participants operated from the perspective that science and religion are separate and interacting domains. Faith played an important role in how participants reconciled their understanding of evolution and their personal religious beliefs. Participants who operated in conventional faith dismissed contentious issues or collapsed dichotomies in an effort to avoid ambiguity and perceived tensions. Participants who operated in young adult and adult faith tended to confront their perceived tensions and worked towards reconciling their understanding of evolution and their personal religious beliefs. The rich description of this naturalistic study lends heuristic insight to researchers and educators seeking an understanding of the complex processes by which Christian biology-related majors approach learning about evolution and seek reconciliation between their understanding of evolution and their personal religious beliefs.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Physics / Nobel S. Rebello / Conventional wisdom has long advised that students’ learning is best supported by interaction with physical manipulative. Thus, in the physics laboratory, students typically spend their time conducting experiments with physical equipment. However, computer simulations offer a tempting alternative to traditional physical experiments. In a virtual experiment, using a computer simulation, students can gather data quickly, and measurement errors and frictional effects can be explicitly controlled. This research investigates the relative support for students’ learning offered by physical and virtual experimentation in the context of simple machines. Specifically, I have investigated students’ learning as supported by experimentation with physical and virtual manipulative from three different angles-- what do students learn, how do students learn, and what do students think about their learning. The results indicate that the virtual manipulative better supported students’ understanding of work and potential energy than the physical manipulative did. Specifically, in responding to data analysis questions, students who used the virtual manipulative before the physical manipulative were more likely to describe work as constant across different lengths of frictionless inclined planes (or pulley systems) and were more likely to adequately compare work and potential energy, whereas students who used the physical manipulative first were more likely to talk about work and potential energy separately. On the other hand, no strong support was found to indicate that the physical manipulative better supported students’ understanding of a specific concept. In addition, students’ responses to the survey questions indicate that students tend to value data from a computer simulation more than from a physical experiment. The interview analysis indicates that the virtual environment better supported the students to create new ideas than the physical environment did. These results suggest that the traditional wisdom that students learn best from physical experiments is not necessarily true. Thus, researchers should continue to investigate how to best interweave students’ experiences with physical and virtual manipulatives. In addition, it may be useful for curriculum designers and instructors to spend more of their efforts designing learning experiences that make use of virtual manipulatives.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Physics / N. Sanjay Rebello / Research has demonstrated that attentional cues overlaid on diagrams and animations can help students attend to the relevant areas and facilitate problem solving. In this study we investigate the influence of visual cues and outcome feedback on students’ problem solving, performance, reasoning, and visual attention as they solve conceptual physics problems containing a diagram. The participants (N=90) were enrolled in an algebra-based physics course and were individually interviewed. During each interview students solved four problem sets while their eye movements were recorded. The problem diagrams contained regions that were relevant to solving the problem correctly and separate regions related to common incorrect responses. Each problem set contained an initial problem, six isomorphic training problems, and a transfer problem. Those in the cued condition saw visual cues overlaid on the training problems. Those in the feedback conditions were told if their responses (answer and explanation) were correct or incorrect. Students’ verbal responses were used to determine their accuracy. The study produced two major findings. First, short duration visual cues coupled with correctness feedback can improve problem solving performance on a variety of insight physics problems, including transfer problems not sharing the surface features of the training problems, but instead sharing the underlying solution path. Thus, visual cues can facilitate re-representing a problem and overcoming impasse, enabling a correct solution. Importantly, these cueing effects on problem solving did not involve the solvers’ attention necessarily embodying the solution to the problem. Instead, the cueing effects were caused by solvers attending to and integrating relevant information in the problems into a solution path. Second, these short duration visual cues when administered repeatedly over multiple training problems resulted in participants becoming more efficient at extracting the relevant information on the transfer problem, showing that such cues can improve the automaticity with which solvers extract relevant information from a problem. Both of these results converge on the conclusion that lower-order visual processes driven by attentional cues can influence higher-order cognitive processes associated with problem solving.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Margaret G. Shroyer / In this study, the professional development for a physics program called Visual Quantum Mechanics (VQM) was observed and analyzed. Four of the participants in a summer institute as Kansas State University (KSU) volunteered to be observed by the researcher as they implemented the program into their classrooms during the next academic year. Observations were used to determine the effectiveness of the instructional strategies that they used. The students’ perception of the laboratory sessions was evaluated and student understanding of the physics concepts also was determined. Qualitative and quantitative data analyses indicated that the professional development as presented and supported by the KSU team provided teachers with the information necessary to use the VQM program successfully with their students. However, only 30% of the teachers implemented the program during the following school year. Instructional strategies advocated by the VQM program included use of the hands-on equipment and computer simulations as well as discussion techniques. Observations revealed that students were more attentive during laboratory activities and less attentive during the discussions. Nevertheless, discussion proved to be a valuable component of this process. The researcher concluded that high quality professional development encouraged teaches to implement VQM in their classrooms. Although teachers did not always follow the instructional strategies advocated by the program, the inquiry-based hands-on activities and computer simulations kept students attentive. As a result, there was significant learning directly attributable to VQM for the students who participated in the study. Students who finished a complete learning cycle within the activities showed more significant learning than students who did not complete a learning cycle. Professional development can be designed to encourage teachers to implement new skills. For Visual Quantum Mechanics, emphasizing the importance of the whole class discussions, presenting the connections between the concepts and the science standards, and focusing on strategies for implementation will provide additional confidence to teachers as they implement the program in their classrooms.

Master of Science / Department of Geology / Iris M. Totten / There have been numerous studies done during the past hundred years on ability grouping. The majority of research has focused on the elementary and secondary levels, with very little done at the post-secondary level of education. Research shows at the K-12 levels high achieving students have a greater level of learning when placed in groups together. Mid- level students also show higher achievement in homogeneous groupings. Both high and mid-level students benefit from heterogeneous grouping, but with smaller gains. Lower ability students placed in homogenous groups have shown significant gains, but still perform better when grouped heterogeneously compared with classes that are not grouped by ability. All students show increases in learning when placed in small groups of any kind. Mid-level and low achieving students have higher levels of learning when they are taught by someone determined to close the gap, who takes the students' abilities into consideration, and focuses on increasing those abilities. Unfortunately, this often does not happen, and when students are grouped by ability, the higher achieving students do well, and the rest fall further behind. This graduate research looks at the impact of skill grouping at the university level. Rather than separating students into different classes by ability, students were placed in purposeful groups within the class. Overall both homogeneous and heterogeneous groupings performed better than the control self-selected sections. One homogeneous quartile showed significant improvement in performance compared to the heterogeneously grouped students, but another homogeneous quartile showed a significant decline in scores. Gains in one subset of student should not come as a detriment to another subset of students, so homogeneous grouping is not recommended. Of the three grouping methods, only heterogeneous grouping showed significant increases in scores without harm to other students, and for this reason, this study recommends using a heterogeneous method of grouping students in future GEOL 103 classes.