More Like this

1. Making Inspired by Nature: Engaging Preservice Elementary Teachers and Children in Maker-centered learning and Biomimicry

   Williams, D. C. (June 2019, ASEE annual conference & exposition proceedings)

   Makerspaces, innovation labs, and creativity spaces are gaining traction in K-12 schools and community centers. This exploratory project, Making Inspired by Nature, brings together the art of making, the disciplined practices of design thinking, and the creative practices of biomimicry to engage preservice teachers and children in building innovative solutions to real-world problems. To achieve this, this project is (a) building and evaluating digital resources and hands-on activities for engaging elementary children in innovation through the application of biomimicry and design thinking in a maker context and (b) evaluating models for deepening pre-service teachers’ pedagogical knowledge for supporting student learning in maker-centered classrooms. This NSF IUSE funded project, just ending year 1 of a 2-year project, was in response to an NSF Dear Colleague Letter calling for EAGER proposals to conduct exploratory work with respect to STEM learning and design thinking. 

   more » « less
2. Preservice Teachers’ Lesson Planning for Justice-Oriented Elementary Science

   Davis, E A; Bautista, J (January 2024, Association for Science Teacher Education conference, January 2024)

   Building on the literature, we designed a practical framework to support attention to equity and justice in science teacher education coursework. This framework presents four approaches for including justice moves in elementary science lessons, from increasing opportunity and access in science, to increasing identity and representation in science, to expanding what counts as science, to seeing science as a part of justice movements. We analyzed the lesson plans of 16 preservice elementary teachers who were using the practical justice framework. In addition to extensive attention to varying participation structures to support children’s science discourse, preservice teachers also took up more challenging moves such as attending to how children are positioned as scientists, inviting children’s science ideas and hearing the science in their ideas, encouraging decision-making in science practices, and connecting science to issues of justice. They varied in both the number of unique justice moves they took up and the specificity with which they planned for incorporating the moves. We discuss implications for practice and theory-building in relation to supporting preservice teachers in learning to teach science toward equity and justice. 

   more » « less
3. Co-Constructing and Sharing STEAM Knowledge through a Culturally Relevant Literacy-Based Early Childhood School-University Partnership

   Caudle, Lori; Harper, Frances K.; Quinn, Margaret; Greene, Darelene (January 2021, Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of the Journal Scuola Democratica)

   null (Ed.)

   Through school-university partnerships that situate learning within culturally relevant educational experiences, faculty, preservice teachers, and school-based educators are able to co-construct and share scientific knowledge. This knowledge consists of pedagogical content knowledge and funds of knowledge that include both knowledge and skills developed in cultural context that have evolved historically. In early childhood education, culturally relevant Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) learning experiences are particularly important for young children's cognitive and social emotional development. This paper describes how intentional co-planning and collaboration to celebrate the US Read across America Day provided over 100 preschool children in eight classrooms with access to STEAM lessons virtually led by university preservice teachers in partnership with educators in the school. These activities engaged children in exploring art, computer science, physical science, engineering, and mathematics within the context of a culturally relevant version of the fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Lessons implemented as part of school-university partnerships support Black and Latinx children's development of a sense of belonging in STEAM. Further, these experiences enhance teacher candidates' abilities to engage in culturally responsive STEAM teaching while receiving ongoing guidance and education from university faculty and school-based educators. Teacher education programs within higher education institutions should embrace school- university partnerships as contexts for the development of shared scientific knowledge and discourse since the benefits are twofold. First, children and teachers gain access to, and engage with, innovative STEAM experiences. Second, preservice teachers learn culturally relevant research-based instructional strategies through university coursework situated in authentic learning experiences; thus, their learning as teacher candidates is enhanced through planning, implementation, evaluation, and critical reflection. 

   more » « less
4. Best of Both Worlds: Developing an Innovative, Integrated, Intelligent, and Interactive System of Technologies Supporting In-Person and Digital Experiences for Early Mathematics

   https://doi.org/10.1080/07380569.2024.2410903  

   Clements, Douglas H; Guss, Shannon S; Sarama, Julie; Alvarez-Vargas, Daniela (January 2025, Computers in the Schools)

   NA (Ed.)

   Mathematics is a core component of cognition. Unfortunately, most young children and teachers cannot access research-based early childhood mathematics resources. Building on a quarter-century of research, we are developing and evaluating an innovative, integrated, intelligent, and interactive system of technologies based on empirically validated learning trajectories that provide the best personal and digital tools for assessing and supporting children's mathematics learning. This article reviews the research that guided us, then describes the design principles of the new project, justifying their selection using theory and research, and shares how the design principles helped address challenges in development. The goal is to provide teachers, caregivers, and children with high-quality resources to support early mathematics learning in the context of meaningful, motivating, challenging, and achievable experiences. 

   more » « less
5. Preservice Teachers’ Attention to Children’s Expansive Sensemaking in Elementary Science

   Bautista, J; Davis, E A (March 2024, NARST annual meeting)

   Preservice elementary science teachers’ beliefs and practices influence the kinds of adaptations they make to curricula and the extent to which they are able to enact science lessons in justice-oriented ways. Through this qualitative study, we explored the beliefs and practices of five focal preservice teachers through an analysis of their lesson plans, recorded enactments, and interviews about their science teaching throughout their student teaching experience. We also introduce a framework for expansive sensemaking that integrates beliefs and practices related to four key themes: (1) believing in children’s brilliance, (2) building a collaborative classroom culture, (3) expanding what counts as science, and (4) positioning children as epistemic agents. While teachers varied in their beliefs about and approaches to each of these themes, they demonstrated strengths that illustrate what may be possible for early career teachers, like working to integrate many ways of knowing and being into science lessons, connecting to embodied knowledge, or supporting children to be scientific decision-makers. We discuss implications for teacher preparation programs and for theory development related to justice-oriented teaching in general and expansive sensemaking in particular. 

   more » « less