An Investigation of How a Physics Professional Development Course Influenced the Teaching Practices of Five Elementary School Teachers

This paper reports the results of an investigation of how a professional development content course based on the Physics and Everyday Thinking (PET) curriculum affected the teaching practices of five case study elementary school teachers. The findings of this study highlight different ways that teac...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of science teacher education 2014-02, Vol.25 (1), p.119-139
Main Author: Harlow, Danielle B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Education
Elementary School Science
Elementary School Teachers
ELEMENTARY SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION
Faculty Development
Pedagogy
Physics
Physics education
Professional development
Program Effectiveness
Science Curriculum
Science Education
Science Instruction
Science Teachers
Student Participation
Teacher Attitudes
Teaching and Teacher Education
Teaching Methods
Transfer of Training
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Summary:This paper reports the results of an investigation of how a professional development content course based on the Physics and Everyday Thinking (PET) curriculum affected the teaching practices of five case study elementary school teachers. The findings of this study highlight different ways that teachers use what they learn in content courses to teach science to elementary children. While some teachers transferred pedagogical practices along with the content, others transformed the content to be useful in already existing pedagogical frameworks, and still others show little or no evidence of transfer. The range of transfer is explained by considering how each teacher interacted with the learning context (the PET curriculum) and their initial ideas about teaching science.
ISSN:1046-560X
1573-1847
DOI:10.1007/s10972-013-9346-z