Teacher Attitudes/Beliefs

Schoolyard SITES: School-Community Partnership to Learn About Teaching Locally-Relevant Citizen Science

/*-->*/ /*-->*/

Author/Presenter

Lara Gengarelly

Sameer Honwad

Megan Glenn

Erik Froburg

Malin Clyde

Haley Andreozzi

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

Our research study examines the community-based partnership PD model and its impact on school teachers’ self-efficacy and their success in engaging students in the NGSS science practices through citizen science projects.

“That is Still STEM”: Appropriating the Engineering Design Process to Challenge Dominant Narratives of Engineering and STEM

/*-->*/ /*-->*/

Author/Presenter

Jessica Watkins

Year
2023
Short Description

Teachers can play critical roles in challenging or reinscribing dominant narratives about what counts as STEM, who is seen within STEM disciplines, and how these disciplines should be taught. However, teachers have often experienced STEM in limited ways in their own education and are thereby provided with few resources for re-imagining these disciplines.

Examining Interactions Between Dominant Discourses and Engineering Educational Concepts in Teachers' Pedagogical Reasoning

/*-->*/ /*-->*/

Author/Presenter

Natalie De Lucca

Jessica Watkins

Rebecca D. Swanson

Merredith Portsmore

Year
2023
Short Description

Drawing on Gee's notion of discourses, we examine how teachers incorporate language legitimizing socially and culturally constructed values and beliefs. In particular, we focus on the discourse of ability hierarchy—reflecting dominant values of sorting and ranking students based on perceived academic abilities—and the discourse of individual blame—reflecting dominant framings of educational problems as solely the responsibility of individual students or families.

Centering Educators’ Voices in the Development of Professional Learning for Data-Rich, Place-Based Science Instruction

This self-reflective case study describes our project team’s efforts to promote equity in science professional learning (PL) by centering the voices of educators in the PL design process and within the course itself. We believe that educators’ experiences, priorities, and expertise are essential to developing professional learning that meets the needs of teachers and their students. We have a particular interest in amplifying the voices of those in historically underrepresented communities.

Author/Presenter

Nicole Wong

Rasha Elsayed

Katy Nilsen

Leticia R. Perez

Kirsten R. Daehler

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2024
Short Description

This self-reflective case study describes our project team’s efforts to promote equity in science professional learning (PL) by centering the voices of educators in the PL design process and within the course itself. In this case study, we share and critique the practices and tools that we have employed to center educator voices, rather than those of the PL designers and researchers.

Engagement in the InSTEP Professional Learning Platform: Developing Expertise to Teach Data and Statistics

In this study, 82 middle and high school teachers engaged with the InSTEP online professional
learning platform to develop their expertise in teaching data science and statistics. We
investigated teachers’ engagement within the platform, aspects of the platform that were most
and least effective in building teachers’ expertise, and the extent to which teachers’ self-efficacy
changed. Using mixed methods, we collected, analyzed and integrated multiple data sources.

Author/Presenter

Gemma F. Mojica

Emily Thrasher

Adrian Kuhlman

Bruce Graham

Hollylynne S. Lee

Michelle Pace

Year
2023
Short Description

In this study, 82 middle and high school teachers engaged with the InSTEP online professional
learning platform to develop their expertise in teaching data science and statistics. We
investigated teachers’ engagement within the platform, aspects of the platform that were most
and least effective in building teachers’ expertise, and the extent to which teachers’ self-efficacy
changed.

Responsive Professional Development: A Facilitation Approach for Teachers' Development in a Physics Teaching Community of Practice

Providing high-quality professional development for teachers with diverse backgrounds and classroom experience is a challenging task. In this work, we investigate the Illinois Physics and Secondary Schools (IPaSS) partnership program, which provides instructional resources and a network of support for high school physics teachers through a partnership with the University of Illinois. IPaSS aims to address disparities in physics instruction by equipping teachers with university physics curricula and equipment adapted to fit the context of their high school classrooms.

Author/Presenter

Hamideh Talafian

Morten Lundsgaard

Maggie Mahmood

Devyn Shafer

Tim Stelzer

Eric Kuo

Year
2023
Short Description

Providing high-quality professional development for teachers with diverse backgrounds and classroom experience is a challenging task. In this work, we investigate the Illinois Physics and Secondary Schools (IPaSS) partnership program, which provides instructional resources and a network of support for high school physics teachers through a partnership with the University of Illinois.

Navigating Socio-emotional Risk Through Comfort-Building in a Physics Teaching Community of Practice: A Case Study

In teacher professional development (PD), grouping teachers with varying levels of experience can be a productive and empowering way to stimulate the exchange and co-generation of content and pedagogical knowledge. However, less experienced teachers can face socio-emotional risks when engaging in collaborative science content reasoning tasks with more experienced colleagues (Finkelstein, Jaber, & Dini, 2018), and these risks may impact the collaborative experience of both parties and the learning environment in teacher PD.

Author/Presenter

Maggie Mahmood

Hamideh Talafian

Devyn Shafer

Morten Lundsgaard

Eric Kuo

Tim Stelzer

Year
2023
Short Description

This descriptive case study examines the process of productively navigating socio-emotional risks and interpersonal tensions encountered by a veteran and pre-service physics teacher during one episode of discussing physics content.

An Exploratory Study of the Relation Between Teachers’ Implicit Theories and Teacher Noticing

Despite interest in how students’ implicit theories—their growth and fixed mindsets about their own learning—affect students as learners, relatively little research on mindset has looked at teachers as learners. This study explores elementary teachers’ implicit theories about the malleability of mathematics intelligence and teaching ability. It also examines how implicit theories of learning relate to teacher noticing, a construct that has been linked to teachers’ classroom practice and their students’ learning outcomes.

Author/Presenter

Meg S. Bates

Joseph R. Cimpian

Shereen Oca Beilstein

Cheryl Moran

Kate Curry

Victoria Jay

Genevieve M. Henricks

Michelle Perry

Year
2024
Short Description

Despite interest in how students’ implicit theories—their growth and fixed mindsets about their own learning—affect students as learners, relatively little research on mindset has looked at teachers as learners. This study explores elementary teachers’ implicit theories about the malleability of mathematics intelligence and teaching ability. It also examines how implicit theories of learning relate to teacher noticing, a construct that has been linked to teachers’ classroom practice and their students’ learning outcomes.

Documenting Two Emerging Sociomathematical Norms for Examining Functions in Mathematics Teachers’ Online Asynchronous Discussions

This study investigated novice mathematics teachers participating in an online teacher education course focused on covariational reasoning and understanding the behavior of functions. The analysis centered on documenting the emergence of participants’ sociomathematical norms for engaging in online asynchronous discussions. In this paper, we characterized participants’ initial mathematical discourse and documented two emergent sociomathematical norms, namely explaining why and emergent shape discourse.

Author/Presenter

Anthony Matranga

Jason Silverman

Year
2022
Short Description

This study investigated novice mathematics teachers participating in an online teacher education course focused on covariational reasoning and understanding the behavior of functions. The analysis centered on documenting the emergence of participants’ sociomathematical norms for engaging in online asynchronous discussions.

Documenting Two Emerging Sociomathematical Norms for Examining Functions in Mathematics Teachers’ Online Asynchronous Discussions

This study investigated novice mathematics teachers participating in an online teacher education course focused on covariational reasoning and understanding the behavior of functions. The analysis centered on documenting the emergence of participants’ sociomathematical norms for engaging in online asynchronous discussions. In this paper, we characterized participants’ initial mathematical discourse and documented two emergent sociomathematical norms, namely explaining why and emergent shape discourse.

Author/Presenter

Anthony Matranga

Jason Silverman

Year
2022
Short Description

This study investigated novice mathematics teachers participating in an online teacher education course focused on covariational reasoning and understanding the behavior of functions. The analysis centered on documenting the emergence of participants’ sociomathematical norms for engaging in online asynchronous discussions.