This dissertation reports on an ethnographic study to examine and detail emerging practices in a community of practice comprised of an elementary teacher and a scientist (microbiologist). The study was conducted in order to design a model for professional development. It also aimed to contribute to the limited research involving elementary educators and their work with scientists. Furthermore, extra attention was given to understanding how both the elementary teacher and the scientist benefitted from their participation in the community of practice created from working together in teaching and learning science as a form of professional development. This was in accordance with a community of practice framework, which details that a healthy community is one without a perception of hierarchy among members (Wenger, 1998). The elementary teacher and scientist as participants collaborated in the creation of a science unit for an afterschool program. A wide variety of data was collected, including: interviews, transcribed meetings, and online journals from both participants. The data was coded for reoccurring themes surrounding practices and shifts in perception about science teaching and learning that emerged from this community of practice as professional development. The findings have implications for practices that could be used as a foundational structure in future collaborations involving elementary teachers and scientists for elementary science professional development.

Physics is one of the least diverse sciences; in the U.S. in 2010, only 21% of bachelors degrees in physics were awarded to women, 2.5% to African Americans, and 4% to Hispanic Americans (AIP, 2012). Though physics education reform efforts supporting interactive engagement have doubled students’ learning gains (Hake, 1998), gender and race gaps persist (Brewe et al., 2010; Kost, Pollock, & Finkelstein, 2009). When students’ subjectivities align with presentations of physics, they are more likely to develop positive physics identities (Hughes, 2001). However, both traditional and reformed physics classrooms may present physics singularly as abstract, elite, and rational (Carlone, 2004). Drawing from feminist science, I argue that binaries including abstract / concrete, elite / accessible, and rational / emotional are hierarchal and gendered, raced and classed. The words on the left define conventional physics and are associated with middle class white masculinity, while the words on the right are associated with femininity or other, and are often missing or delegitimized in physics education, as are females and minorities. To conceptualize a feminist physics education, I deconstructed these binaries by including the words on the right as part of doing physics. I do not imply that women and men think differently, but that broadening notions of physics may allow a wider range of students to connect with the discipline. I used this conceptual framework to modify a popular reformed physics curriculum called Modeling Instruction (Hestenes, 1987). I taught this curriculum at an urban public college in an introductory physics course for non-science majors. Twenty-three students of diverse gender, race, ethnic, immigrant and class backgrounds enrolled. I conducted an ethnography of the classroom to learn how students negotiate their subjectivities to affiliate with or alienate from their perceptions of physics, and to understand how classroom experiences exacerbate or ameliorate differences in achievement, participation and feelings towards physics. Findings show how students (dis)connect with physics in both stereotypical and atypical ways; for example, one student drew from a classed identity to reject physics (e.g. “working was always in my DNA, but school is never really for me”) and another student related his classed and gendered work as a mechanic to learn physics. Traditional aspects of the physics curriculum privileged discourse, performances, and epistemology associated with middle class white masculinity. The statement “I might nit pick it because I did it my way” is characteristic of competitive, assertive, self-interested discourse during problem presentations, taken up by male and female students. However, students engaged in other ways of doing physics that were personal, emotional, caring, inclusive and collaborative. A male student wrote, “Everyone is engaging and I feel that this class is like a family.” Some students developed positive physics identities as they redefined physics: “When I experience physics on my own in anytime in a day or week, I feel like a physics person.” Implications include interrogating beliefs about physics and students, and examining one’s own practices such that the “smog of bias” (Kost-Smith, Pollock, & Finkelstein, 2010) may be demystified.

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abstract / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The emphasis in mathematics and science education on children actively constructing their own knowledge, collaborating with each other and in contexts that are technologically rich is resulting in new classroom dynamics. Often portrayed as a series of polite exchanges, this study aims to advance our understanding of the collaborative learning process. It does this by looking at a less frequently reported event, children's disagreements while learning science. Following a proposal for conceptually advancing the field the research questions addressed include: (a) Looking at the importance and nature of children's disagreements during a design and construction task using LEGO/Logo and (b) Using the proposed analytic framework to see what it tells us about the collaborative process during children's disagreements. The findings suggest that looking at a disagreement from a social and cognitive move perspective provides an effective framework for looking at the collaborative process. It revealed that disagreements can be a legitimate form of collaboration and elementary school children's disagreements, while on task, can be both extensive and constructive.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

The purpose of this study was to investigate and report on aspects of the leadership role of the secondary science teacher as interpreted by the science teachers, principals, and supervisors. The opinionnaire developed and used in this study was designed to elicit information regarding the leadership role of the secondary school science teacher as this role relates to the science program.The study population included 971 Indiana and responded to the statements of the opinionnaire. The opinionnaire was designed to elicit information about current practices and future concepts about the role of the science teacher, and the relation of this role to effective science leadership. An opinionnaire was mailed to each individual in the study population with necessary directions and information for the respondent, and a return envelope for his convenience.The study populations' responses to the various opinionnaire statements were transferred to optical Ohio science teachers, principals, and supervisors who scanner forms for computer processing. The data were treated by a cross correlation technique which was presented in terms of the number and percentage of respondents' reactions, and by a chi-square value to determine the significance of each statement.Five null hypotheses were tested in order to examine the relationships between the observed results and the expected results on the hypothesis of equal probability of the responses of science teachers, principals, and supervisors. The major findings were reported for each of the following areas of concern.The current role of science teachers as leaders in science.The current role of science teachers in an effective science program.The future role of science teachers as leaders in an ideal science department.The extent of unity present in the total science programs of representative school systems.Competencies needed for the development of science teachers.From this investigation a generalization can be made that the principals and supervisors are more positive about the contributions of science teachers as leaders in science education than are science teachers themselves.The majority of the three groups of the study population believe that the main reason the science teachers participate in activities conducted or organized by the science department is for personal satisfaction of helping others and not for leadership opportunities. They feel that having knowledge and understanding of materials and apparatus appropriate for teaching science is one of the most important current roles of the science teacher in an effective science program. The science teachers believe that the greatest obstacle that should be overcome to enable the science department to become more successful is the excessive teacher load; while inadequate budget for the science department is held as the greatest obstacle to be overcome by both the principals and the supervisors.The opinions of the study population concerning the leadership, goals, and organization of the science department were conflicting. The unified theme for the science teacher is that leadership, goals, and organization are the responsibility of each individual teacher. The principals generally agree that leadership, goals, and organization are the responsibility of the science teachers of each building; while the supervisors generally agree that leadership, goals, and organization are the responsibility of a central planning committee of science teachers from grades K through 12.

2 v. : ill. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Education, 1969

Science education is an intellectual and practical disciple and should indeed remain so. But the question is, should we allow philosopical arguments about science education's social foundations, for example the possibility of knowledge, capture us too much? It is my contention that simplicity in meta-theoretical issues is a good strategy. If a simple platform for science teaching and research could be formulated and accepted, more time and energy could be devoted to the main objectives of the discipline to do with explanations of the development and impact of science in society. Because of their connotations and general vagueness, both positivism and ultra-relativism in social constructivism tend to necessitate years of cumbersome philosophical studies. Realism does not have these implications. "Realism" was employed to signify ontological assumptions; in particular the epistemological position that we have provides at least partial access to social reality, emabling valid but fallible knowledge about it. "Causal" in causal realism is employed to suggest a general orientation in science education research - to explain by identifying generative mechanisms. The concepts of mechanism, causality, and explanation must be recaptured from the positivistic tradition. In particular, they must be tied to ontology, not simply epistemology.In the second section I examined the ongoing debate between "cognitive" and "situated learning" teaching approaches, in terms of methodilogical individualism, holism, and micro- and macro-sociology. By way of the natural sciences, I suggested a way out of these dilemmas is simply to start with accepting that what is happening in science.

A survey carried out during 1998 in rural schools of the South East Region (Butterworth) in the Eastern Cape Province revealed that science teachers do not seem to know their problems in teaching science. Teachers related their problems to lack of apparatus and laboratories. However, it appeared that lack of conceptual understanding of science and of practical skills prevented teachers from preparing practical approaches in the classrooms. Lack of conceptual understanding could have also been the cause of the teacher's inability to innovate and manipulate apparatus. The call for laboratories also seemed to be caused by lack of knowledge of what is done in a laboratory. Practical approaches to science seemed to be further undermined by the irrelevance of apparatus and science in a rural setting, where few community members and teachers might have never used apparatus or done practical exercises anywhere. It is recommended that an integrated approach towards improving science education is required. That is, by means of workshops, all role-players in science education such as teacher training institutions such as Rhodes University, NGOs, the Department of Education and pre-service as well as in-service teachers, should discuss the problems in science education. There is a need to supply basic apparatus and to make sure that in-service and pre-service courses emphasise skills in the use of apparatus, innovating apparatus and practical experiences, along with improving the teacher's conceptual understanding of science. A science college of education is highly recommended to enable a special focus on the plight of science education in the Eastern Cape Province. It also felt that rural areas require special attention in terms of designing outcomes and learning experiences that bear relevance to that environment. The assumption that science education as perceived in industrialised areas can be beneficial everywhere is dangerous and gives science a bad name in rural areas. The survey also showed that triangulation of research instruments is necessary to increase validity and reliability of any research programme. The most useful method appeared to be video recording the interviews.