Science Teacher Candidates Developing Professional Pedagogical Vision Around Ambitious Science Teaching Practices
Open Access
- Author:
- Tanis Ozcelik, Arzu
- Graduate Program:
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- August 22, 2016
- Committee Members:
- Scott P Mcdonald, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Scott P Mcdonald, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Gregory John Kelly, Committee Member
Julia Diane Plummer, Committee Member
Stephanie L Knight, Outside Member - Keywords:
- Preservice science teacher education
teacher classroom discourse
discourse analysis
ambitious science teaching
professional pedagogical vision - Abstract:
- This study examines how science teacher candidates negotiate ambitious science teaching practices and how they develop professional pedagogical vision during a science teaching methods course. Specifically, the following research questions are investigated: 1) How do teacher candidates negotiate and make meaning of ambitious science teaching practices when they engage in discussions in the first five weeks of methods course? 2) How does the professional pedagogical vision of science teacher candidates develop around teaching practices related to student ideas in a semester-long secondary science teaching methods course? Ambitious science teaching practices are used as part of the curriculum of the science teaching methods course. Using case study design and grounded theory for analysis, the research study investigated six TCs and their instructor during a science teaching methods course. Through using Studiocode video analysis, creating event maps, and applying interactional discourse analysis, I answered the two research questions. Analysis of how TCs negotiate meaning of ambitious science teaching practices yielded three themes: TCs negotiated agency: who is responsible for generating the scientific explanations, what counted as an explanation along with focusing on certain aspects of scientific explanations, and what counted as a phenomenon in the lesson and its relation to the content storyline of the lesson. Analysis of how TCs develop professional pedagogical vision provided four claims: TCs initially identified a small set of important practices and over time identified additional practices, as well as becoming more sophisticated about all of the practices; thus they developed a professional pedagogical vision increasingly aligned with ambitious science teaching. TCs develop professional pedagogical vision through in-the-moment and over-time negotiations of the teaching practices. Findings also showed that material representations of decompositions of teaching practice were important in supporting the negotiation of professional pedagogical vision. TCs negotiate professional pedagogical vision more intensely in the context of local examples of practice than in distal exemplars of practice. Study implications for the preservice teacher education context are discussed.