Browsing by Author "Glenda Carter, Committee Chair"

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Examining the Impact of Directly Addressing a Major Misconception about Photosynthesis Prior to Instruction
(2003-04-08) Adcock, Bess Currin; Glenda Carter, Committee Chair
Science education literature includes many studies of common misconceptions held by science students. But there are fewer studies that address ways of helping students to overcome those misconceptions. This study explored whether making students aware of a major misconception about photosynthesis prior to instruction would provide the dissatisfaction with their current conceptions necessary for helping students to achieve accommodation of new, scientifically more acceptable concepts. This study was framed around the conceptual change model. An experimental group of high school biology students viewed a PowerPoint presentation with slides that revealed the major misconception. The control group of high school biology students viewed a similar PowerPoint presentation with the misconception slides omitted. Students responded to an open-ended question and several multiple choice and short answer questions in pretests and posttests. All students participated in the same unit of study, which included strategies geared toward eliminating misconceptions about photosynthesis. Findings indicated that both groups made gains on the open-ended question, with the experimental group making greater gains than the control group. Posttest results indicated that the majority of all students no longer held the misconception, with varying degrees of sophistication in terms of accommodation of a new conception. Implications for classroom teachers related to instruction geared toward conceptual change are addressed.
Perceived Needs of Lateral Entry Teachers: A Case Study of Three Initially Licensed Science Teachers
(2003-03-20) Smith, Ralph C; Bill Switzer, Committee Member; Glenda Carter, Committee Chair; John Park, Committee Co-Chair; Leigh Ann Haefner, Committee Member
The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceived needs of initially licensed Lateral Entry science teachers to acquire an understanding of how university courses and mentoring programs can better meet their needs. Three teachers with zero to two years' experience were selected for this study. Their progress through the continuing licensure process, their responses to the challenges of teaching, and the support they received from their schools were determined from monthly interviews conducted throughout one school year. This research is a grounded theory study with a prescribed bounded time frame, utilizing a deductive methodology to derive the interpretation of the teacher comments. The teachers indicated issues with the required coursework including affordability, convenience, practicality, and repetition of course content. The teachers also indicated the type of support needed from mentors, peers, and administrators to further their professional growth. Universities must take the lead in providing solutions to the problems associated with coursework and provide training for mentors and administrators that will enable them to support Lateral Entry teacheers.
Reform in Biology Education: Teachers' Implementation of a New Biology Curriculum
(2003-07-09) Hasse, Eleanor Enthoven; Glenda Carter, Committee Chair; Anna Wilson, Committee Member; Ted Emigh, Committee Member; Jack Wheatley, Committee Member
Biology: A Community Context (BACC) (Leonard & Penick, 1998) is a National Science Foundation funded high school biology curriculum designed to meet the goals of the reform movement in science education as envisioned in the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996) and the Benchmarks for Science Literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 1993). This study of a pilot implementation of the BACC curriculum illustrates some of the issues that emerged for teachers as they used an inquiry curriculum in the context of a district emphasis on meeting standards. In the first paper, "Teaching biology content using an inquiry curriculum," I discuss the issues involved with teaching biology content using this inquiry curriculum. Teachers had difficulty bridging the gaps they perceived between the content in the curriculum and the content in their district standards, they had difficulty using the inquiry activities in the curriculum to teach content, and they did not accept some aspects of the instructional strategy. Professional development for teachers implementing inquiry curricula in the context of accountability for content oriented standards needs to address these issues directly and in an on-going fashion. In the second paper, "Is science education reform reaching the classroom?", I use a framework developed by the National Research Council (2002) to investigate the ways in which these teachers and their classroom practices were affected by national standards. This framework has three channels of influence: ways in which national standards might affect classroom practice and thus student learning. These channels are curriculum, teacher development, and assessment and accountability practices. In this pilot implementation of a reform curriculum, Biology: A Community Context (BACC) (Leonard & Penick, 1998), all three channels had been influenced by "Standards" based reform, but the channels were not completely internally aligned nor were they completely coordinated with one another. This led to implementation issues including increased breadth of objectives, increased time pressure and inadequate resources. These issues were barriers to teachers' full acceptance of BACC. Addressing alignment in more depth prior to implementation of new curricula could lead to better classroom practice.
Science Educators' Concerns Regarding Ethnic/Racial Diversity Issues in Science Education.
(2004-04-04) Simpson, Jamila Rashida; Glenda Carter, Committee Chair; Allen Riordan, Committee Member; John Park, Committee Member
The purpose of this study was to determine the concerns science educators have about ethnic/racial diversity issues in science education. Three groups of educators, preservice teachers (n=12), inservice teachers (n=15), and informal educators (n=14) participated in the study. Participants' concerns were determined by using the Multicultural Teaching Concerns Survey (MTCS) by Marshall (1996b) and by examining transcripts of group discussions. The MTCS results revealed that the science educators as a whole were most concerned about what strategies and techniques they should use with diverse students. The next area of greatest concern was 'Familial/Group Knowledge'. Finally, the areas of 'Cross-Cultural Competence' and 'School Bureaucracy' garnered similar levels of concern from science educators. Transcript data analysis revealed that the preservice science educators held two main concerns: a) Language as a barrier when communicating with ESL students, b) treating diverse students preferentially. Concerns were also more focused on 'self' as Fuller (1969) suggested occurs with preservice teachers. The inservice science educators were found to hold five major concerns: a) diverse students' home life, b) students dealing with diversity, c) language as a barrier when interacting with ESL students, d) finding material on diverse scientists to present to students, and e) students' perceptions of the teacher. Most concerns raised by the inservice teachers were centered on the well-being of the student. Finally, informal science educators held three main concerns regarding: a) the lack of diverse people in the informal science setting, b) language as a barrier when interacting with ESL audiences, and c) diverse students? home life. Most concerns were centered on the need to encourage diverse groups to participate in museum programs.