So I'm interested in trying to understand how the teachers' identities change over time. Specifically if and how the teachers take on more of an identity as a scientist.
From this morning's discussion and creation of norms, I saw clear positioning as teachers. For example, teachers brought in norms from the classroom around technology use. Also some of their goals were directly related to creating useful classroom knowledge and skills (e.g. learning teaching strategies).
However, there were some goals that crossed boundaries. For example, desiring to know the "correct" scientific terminology could be stemming from a desire to be able to teach their students these terms or it could be a desire to be able to engage with the scientific community themselves (no one likes getting beat up by a gang of scientists).
Anyway, it's all very formative right now, but I would love anyone's feedback and or ideas on this topic.
Ben, let's talk. This was what I focused on during our earlier summer courses, and I have some working thoughts.
ReplyDeleteWe've been having a lot of discussions around here lately about whether it's even desirable for teachers to take on an identity as a scientist. This sounds like such a great thing that it's hard to argue with. However, we've started questioning it, mainly because we don't see it happening in our PD courses, in spite of seeing some other things shifting in pretty amazing ways.
ReplyDeleteIs it really necessary or even desirable for teachers to see themselves as scientists? After all, they're not scientists, they're teachers, and these two jobs require vastly different skill sets. On the other hand, if they are teaching science, then surely it is important for them to have the experience of practicing the thing they are teaching. We would not want a teacher to teach reading or writing without that teacher having a lot of experience practicing reading or writing. But is it necessary for a teacher to actually *identify* as a reader, a writer, or a scientist?
As we discussed today at lunch there are (at least) three separate things that are often lumped together under "science identity" or positive views on "nature of science":
1. viewing oneself as a scientist
2. feeling empowered to engage in the process of science and figure things out
3. understanding the process of science (e.g. knowing that scientific knowledge is provisional and scientists creatively make stuff up)
We think our PD courses are pretty helpful with #2, and a related corollary, viewing their students as people who can engage in the process of science and figure things out. But maybe not so much with #1. We've also observed (and I think there's some research on this), that teachers and students can be pretty good at #3 without necessarily having #1 or #2. In other words, people can understand what scientists do without feeling empowered to do that themselves.
For more on this topic, see Amy's July I-RISE presentation:
http://scherrenergyproject.blogspot.com/2012/07/robertson-i-rise-congress-presentation.html
this post from Mac:
http://scherrenergyproject.blogspot.com/2011/07/science-talk-teacher-empowerment-in.html
and the section called "Conceptualizing New Forms" in my forms paper:
http://www.spu.edu/depts/physics/documents/CreatingAndCategorizing011.pdf
Thank you guys for your comments!
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