Science Education Research
Project: Improving Science Teaching and Learning by Noticing and Responding to Students’ Sense-Making in Science
In partnership with Michigan State University (MSU)
Fall 2014-Spring 2016 in Holt, Michigan
During this project, I recorded myself teaching 5th and 6th grade science lessons. I then analyzed my recordings and chose clips which I felt demonstrated how I notice and respond to the ways that students make sense of science. I then was interviewed five different times by an MSU doctoral student, Christa Haverly, regarding my video clips. Haverly and her colleagues then used the information I provided them along with information from other newer elementary and middle school science teachers to help teacher preparation programs continue to improve and to understand more about how beginning teachers develop their teaching practices.
My participation in this science research has made me more aware as a teacher regarding how I guide students in making sense of science concepts. It has also peeked my interest in science education and is what has guided me in my decisions for which classes I have taken during my Master of Arts in Education program at MSU. Moreover, this research prompted my participation in future science education research because I would like to help future and present science educators become better. I have actually teamed up with Haverly in coauthoring a short article regarding this research and together we are trying to not only get our article published in the journal, Science Scope, but we are also trying to get accepted as presenters at next year’s National Science Teachers Association Conference (NSTA).
Additional Information: Below is a copy of the most recent draft that Haverly and I have written regarding our research on how teachers should elicit and respond to students’ scientific sense-making.
Project: Carbon TIME Curriculum
(Transformations in Matter and Energy)
In partnership with the Michigan Education Association (MEA) and Michigan State University (MSU)
Spring 2016-Spring 2018 in East Lansing, Kalamazoo, and Holt, Michigan
With this project, I will participate in professional development aimed at preparing me to teach the Carbon TIME curriculum, which is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) that Michigan recently adopted. I will then implement three units from the curriculum about ecosystems, in particular the transfer of energy between plants, animals, and decomposers, in my 6th grade classroom over the next two years. During this time, I will administer pre and post tests to determine the effects the NGSS aligned curriculum has on my students’ learning of the science concepts.
I am hoping that my participation in this project will better prepare me to adapt my current curriculum and equip me with instructional strategies that will allow me to teach my students to better meet the NGSS performance expectations. Additionally, I hope this research will give me instructional and curricular ideas that I can bring back to my school and colleagues to hopefully invoke change.
Additional Information: Carbon TIME Website
This is a picture of one of the ecosystems each of my students make throughout our current ecosystem curriculum to see how organisms interact and affect one another.
