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1. How an intensive summer course shapes practices in the classroom: Preservice teachers differentiating science content for multilingual students

   Vazquez_Dominguez, Max (February 2024, Conference of the Americas)

   Baldwin, Amy; Danns, Donna; Howe, Chad (Ed.)

   In this presentation, we will analyze and explain how three university faculty designed an intensive 12-day science methods course for preservice teachers to learn about science. The course, which is part of the Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies in Science for English Language Learners project funded by the National Science Foundation, is focused on differentiating science and engineering content for emerging bilingual students (English/Spanish). After the course, teacher educators then implement this content with 4th - 8th grade students in the STEM Summer Scholars Institute, a 15-day academic enrichment program for emerging bilingual students. Not only will we explain how this differentiation toolkit is helping preservice teachers to build more inclusive and supporting environments in science in their current practice, but we also explore how other content, such asco-teaching models and science and engineering methodologies, shaped their teaching skills. The differentiation toolkit consists of the use of technology, hands-on materials, and multimodalities, and we examine how the preservice teacher-students interactions are structured following a culturally and linguistically relevant methodology for the classroom. Project faculty and teacher educators will discuss our experiences in implementing these methodologies (science and culturally and linguistically relevant practices) including areas of growth. 

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2. Beyond performance, competence, and recognition: forging a science researcher identity in the context of research training

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-024-00479-2  

   Pfeifer, Mariel A.; Zajic, C. J.; Isaacs, Jared M.; Erickson, Olivia A.; Dolan, Erin L. (March 2024, International Journal of STEM Education)

   Abstract BackgroundStudying science identity has been useful for understanding students’ continuation in science-related education and career paths. Yet knowledge and theory related to science identity among students on the path to becoming a professional science researcher, such as students engaged in research at the undergraduate, postbaccalaureate, and graduate level, is still developing. It is not yet clear from existing science identity theory how particular science contexts, such as research training experiences, influence students’ science identities. Here we leverage existing science identity and professional identity theories to investigate how research training shapes science identity. We conducted a qualitative investigation of 30 early career researchers—undergraduates, postbaccalaureates, and doctoral students in a variety of natural science fields—to characterize how they recognized themselves as science researchers. ResultsEarly career researchers (ECRs) recognized themselves as either science students or science researchers, which they distinguished from being a career researcher. ECRs made judgments, which we refer to as “science identity assessments”, in the context of interconnected work-learning and identity-learning cycles. Work-learning cycles referred to ECRs’ conceptions of the work they did in their research training experience. ECRs weighed the extent to which they perceived the work they did in their research training to show authenticity, offer room for autonomy, and afford opportunities for epistemic involvement. Identity-learning cycles encompassed ECRs’ conceptions of science researchers. ECRs considered the roles they fill in their research training experiences and if these roles aligned with their perceptions of the tasks and traits of perceived researchers. ECRs’ identity-learning cycles were further shaped by recognition from others. ECRs spoke of how recognition from others embedded within their research training experiences and from others removed from their research training experiences influenced how they see themselves as science researchers. ConclusionsWe synthesized our findings to form a revised conceptual model of science researcher identity, which offers enhanced theoretical precision to study science identity in the future. We hypothesize relationships among constructs related to science identity and professional identity development that can be tested in further research. Our results also offer practical implications to foster the science researcher identity of ECRs. 

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3. Elementary daily schedules: Comprehensiveness, frequency, and consistency of science

   Davis, E.; Haverly, C. (April 2023, NARST 96th Annual International Conference)

   Science in the elementary grades is often deprioritized in comparison to ELA and mathematics. We wondered, how comprehensively, frequently, and consistently is science in elementary schools’ schedules? In this study, we reviewed daily schedules for 14 schools in 9 districts across the U.S. to qualitatively examine how science is represented on the daily instructional schedule. These schools were selected as “best case scenarios” recommended by district or state science leaders as places where science is taken seriously. We complement these schedule data with data from 21 interviews with teachers, science specialists, and school leaders to better understand how science actually appears in children’s daily instructional experiences. Our findings suggest that, in these schools, science is taught comprehensively (though not as comprehensively as ELA or mathematics), has the potential for being taught frequently (even in the lower elementary grades), and is taught somewhat consistently (albeit usually in some kind of rotation with social studies). The paper closes with implications for how school schedules could be crafted to make science comprehensive, frequent, and consistent, as well as some pitfalls that could be avoided as schedules are developed. 

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4. Toward Wearable App Design for Children's In-the-World Science Inquiry

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3024969.3025008  

   Chu, Sharon Lynn; Garcia, Brittany M. (January 2017, International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction)

   Little is understood on how to design wearables for education, especially for children. We explore how smartwatches may allow children to see the world through the lens of science. In our study, 20 children are tasked to record stories related to specific scientific concepts in their daily life and drawing from their embodied experiences using a commodity smartwatch. Our findings describe the types of ‘science stories’ that the children capture through the smartwatch, and how the stories relate to science. From our findings, we elicit seven areas of future research needed to catalyze the design of wearable apps to support informal science learning for children. 

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5. Language Views for Scientific Sensemaking Matter: A Synthesis of Research on Multilingual Students’ Experiences with Science Practices Through a Translanguaging Lens

   https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X231206172  

   González-Howard, María; Andersen, Sage; Méndez Pérez, Karina; Suárez, Enrique (December 2023, Educational Researcher)

   This synthesis examines recent science education research on multilingual students’ experiences with language-rich science practices. Adopting a translanguaging lens, we explore how researchers’ language conceptualizations impact the science practices they study and the ways multilingual students are positioned. This analysis helps us understand the extent to which recent research is disrupting, or sustaining, minoritizing narratives about multilingual students and how they sensemake in science. Based on our findings, we suggest researchers: (1) reflect upon and expand their views of language, which will enable the field to develop more nuanced understandings of how language use across linguistic and multimodal resources permeates all science practices, and (2) consider how to expand multilingual students’ language repertoires for sensemaking while also valuing students’ existing language resources and practices. 

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