Science Teachers’ Professional Growth and the Communication in Science Inquiry Project

The Communication in Science Inquiry Project (CISIP) a National Science Foundation-funded, standards-based model of a scientific classroom discourse community (SCDC) was designed to meet the need for highly-qualified teachers and science education reform. The model included: (a) inquiry; (b) oral discourse; (c) written discourse; (d) academic language development, and (e) learning principles. Research and evaluation feedback were mechanisms by which CISIP become self-regulating, promoting instructional change and incorporating more aspects of inquiry-based learning with academic language development strategies. The program underwent a philosophical shift from teachers-as-consumers to teachers-as-producers based on classroom observations using a professional development-aligned classroom observation instrument that showed teachers were not implementing the CISIP model. Research indicated that CISIP was effective in changing how teachers taught science by providing sustained, long-term professional development. Teachers who participated for greater than one year showed the most change in their teaching practices, becoming more aligned with science education standards documents. Current and future directions in science teacher professional development (PD) include: (a) studying how teacher PD affects student learning; (b) building validity arguments for research instruments to be used for generalizing findings from multiple PD contexts, and (c) the need for improving PD providers’ understanding of how to conduct effective PD and engage in research that contributes to our understanding of 21st century science education reform

Science Teachers’ Professional Growth and the Communication in Science Inquiry Project

The Communication in Science Inquiry Project (CISIP) a National Science Foundation-funded, standards-based model of a scientific classroom discourse community (SCDC) was designed to meet the need for highly-qualified teachers and science education reform. The model included: (a) inquiry; (b) oral discourse; (c) written discourse; (d) academic language development, and (e) learning principles. Research and evaluation feedback were mechanisms by which CISIP become self-regulating, promoting instructional change and incorporating more aspects of inquiry-based learning with academic language development strategies. The program underwent a philosophical shift from teachers-as-consumers to teachers-as-producers based on classroom observations using a professional development-aligned classroom observation instrument that showed teachers were not implementing the CISIP model. Research indicated that CISIP was effective in changing how teachers taught science by providing sustained, long-term professional development. Teachers who participated for greater than one year showed the most change in their teaching practices, becoming more aligned with science education standards documents. Current and future directions in science teacher professional development (PD) include: (a) studying how teacher PD affects student learning; (b) building validity arguments for research instruments to be used for generalizing findings from multiple PD contexts, and (c) the need for improving PD providers’ understanding of how to conduct effective PD and engage in research that contributes to our understanding of 21st century science education reform

Elementary Teachers’ Comprehension of Flooding through Inquiry-based Professional Development and Use of Self-regulation Strategies

This study focuses on elementary teachers’ comprehension of flooding before and after inquiry-based professional development (PD). There was an improvement in teachers’ understanding toward a normative view from pre- to post-test (n = 17, mean gain = 4.3, SD = 3.27). Several misunderstandings and a general lack of knowledge about flooding emerged from the geoscience content two-tier pre-test, some of which persisted throughout the PD seminar while other responses provided evidence of teachers’ improved understanding. The concepts that teachers struggled with were also apparent upon examining teachers’ reflections upon their learning and teaching practices throughout the seminar. Teachers were challenged as they attempted to add new academic language, such as storm surge and discharge, to their prior understandings. Flooding concepts that teachers showed the least improvement on included analyzing a topographic region, reading a map image, and hydrograph interpretation. Teachers’ greatest areas of improved understanding occurred in understanding the probability and role of ground conditions in flooding events. Teachers demonstrated considerable growth in their understanding of some flooding concepts through scaffolded inquiry lessons modeled throughout the PD. Those teachers who had greater prior knowledge and demonstrated more use of self-regulated learning showed the most change toward a normative view of flooding. The explicit modeling and participation in inquiry-based science activities and written responses to self-regulatory learning prompts throughout the seminar supported teachers’ learning

Evidence for the Latent Factor Structure of the MSLQ

The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) has a long history of use in educational psychology, yet few studies have examined the latent factor structure of the entire scale using data from a single administration of the instrument. Although using the subscales individually was encouraged by the creators of the instrument, the practice has produced piecemeal evidence for the latent factor structure. In the current study, we administered all 15 subscales of the MSLQ to a large population of postsecondary students enrolled in introductory geoscience courses and used confirmatory factor analysis to examine the latent factor structures described in previous MSLQ literature. Faced with unsatisfactory evidence for the hypothesized structures, we describe our respecification process and provide some commentary on a more parsimonious latent factor structure that may be of use in similar research projects

Elementary Teachers’ Comprehension of Flooding through Inquiry-based Professional Development and Use of Self-regulation Strategies

This study focuses on elementary teachers’ comprehension of flooding before and after inquiry-based professional development (PD). There was an improvement in teachers’ understanding toward a normative view from pre- to post-test (n = 17, mean gain = 4.3, SD = 3.27). Several misunderstandings and a general lack of knowledge about flooding emerged from the geoscience content two-tier pre-test, some of which persisted throughout the PD seminar while other responses provided evidence of teachers’ improved understanding. The concepts that teachers struggled with were also apparent upon examining teachers’ reflections upon their learning and teaching practices throughout the seminar. Teachers were challenged as they attempted to add new academic language, such as storm surge and discharge, to their prior understandings. Flooding concepts that teachers showed the least improvement on included analyzing a topographic region, reading a map image, and hydrograph interpretation. Teachers’ greatest areas of improved understanding occurred in understanding the probability and role of ground conditions in flooding events. Teachers demonstrated considerable growth in their understanding of some flooding concepts through scaffolded inquiry lessons modeled throughout the PD. Those teachers who had greater prior knowledge and demonstrated more use of self-regulated learning showed the most change toward a normative view of flooding. The explicit modeling and participation in inquiry-based science activities and written responses to self-regulatory learning prompts throughout the seminar supported teachers’ learning

Considering intergroup emotions to improve diversity and inclusion in the geosciences

The future viability of the geosciences is challenged, since as a community we continue to lack demographic diversity representative of the wider population. Fundamentally, dominant cultural, historical, and socioeconomic factors contribute to the lack of diversity and those factors typically change slowly over generations. Proposals for more immediate changes have had some effect but have not led to large-scale changes in the demographics of the geosciences. In this commentary, we discuss the concept of intergroup emotions and recommend its use as a strategy for improving diversity and inclusion within the geosciences. Intergroup emotions are emotions that arise as a result of an individual’s identification with one or more social groups, which makes them particularly pertinent in the context of diversity and inclusion. While we call on the geoscience community to conduct discipline-based research in collaboration with educational and social psychologists, we argue that there is sufficient evidence to also begin implementing interventions in classrooms, laboratories, and in the field. We believe strategies based on intergroup emotions will make significant improvements in diversity and inclusion within the geosciences.18 month embargo; published online: 08 March 2021This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Theoretical Perspectives on Increasing Recruitment and Retention of Underrepresented Students in the Geosciences

<p>For decades, programs targeting the recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities (URM) have had local success in broadening participation in the geosciences. Meanwhile, national graduation rates of URM geoscience majors fall below the national graduation rates of URM STEM majors, generally. In this literature review, we summarize methods used to investigate the efficacy of geoscience recruitment and retention programs, and we propose avenues of future investigation into why programs are successful. First, we categorize a decade of recent publications in the <i>Journal of Geoscience Education</i> (JGE) according to Astin's Input–Environment–Output (IEO) model. This model offers a classification scheme to evaluate how inputs (e.g., student characteristics) and environment (e.g., program attributes) may influence desired outputs (e.g., results of programs). Next, we discuss a set of social, cognitive, and psychological theories that support deeper investigation into the reasons why recruitment and retention programs are successful with particular groups. There is an observable trend in the geoscience literature after 2009 toward interventions that include all components of the IEO model and random assignment (i.e., “natural experiments”). We argue that self-efficacy, identity, microaggressions, stereotype threat, and social cognitive career theory offer perspectives that can guide future programmatic interventions and support the geoscience community in broadening participation in the geosciences.</p