Constructing Meaning in a Science Methods Course for Prospective Elementary Teachers E-Book

Barbara S. Spector

• Herausgeber: Sense Publishers
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

How do prospective elementary science teachers think? This case study 

• reveals thinking patterns common to preservice elementary teachers;

• identifies their behavioral characteristics while learning to teach science which are not commonly noted in current literature;

• provides change strategies to accelerate preservice elementary teachers embracing the holistic, constructivist, inquiry/practice-based paradigm consistent with the standards set by the curriculum.

The chapters in this book immerse the reader in a sequence of episodes in this science methods course, and reveal the adventure of turning theory into practice while analyzing student-student/student-instructor interactions and their outcomes in an inquiry-driven, flipped classroom. 

Strategies presented empower preservice elementary teachers to

• implement national and state standards;

• change science learning/teaching from “business as usual” to applying science and engineering practices in the classroom;

• make cognitive and behavioral changes required to shift paradigms and eliminate science anxiety;

• pass through stages of grief inherent in the loss of dominant mechanistic paradigm.

This book will interest a wide readership including science educators;

scientists and engineers; administrators, supervisors, and elementary teachers in a clinical education setting; preservice elementary teachers; and anyone seeking to improve STEM education in elementary schools.