Appropriating scientific practices and discourses with future elementary teachers

Abstract

We describe a physics course designed to engage preservice elementary teachers in the practices and discourses of science through activities they would later use with children. Formerly successful science students encountered considerable barriers in giving up prior conceptions of science as an enterprise practiced alone, with quick and certain answers that were obvious to everyone, and external authority as the preferred grounds for knowing. Other students, who deemed themselves unsuccessful in previous science learning, came to the course with a value for personal understanding—something they had not accomplished in earlier science courses. We describe how both sets of students made progress in inventing and testing models, working with empirical data, critically evaluating and using authoritative sources, and talking and thinking within a community of validators. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 36: 755–776, 1999