Thank you for viewing our video. Yes, all of our Master of Arts in Teaching students, including our Noyce scholars, take a course that is devoted entirely to socio-scientific issues. This course prepares current and future teachers to combine nature of science, inquiry, and a look at the local and global community in meaningful and intentional ways that they can prepare middle and high school students to view scientific inquiry as a way to address problems in the community that can be solved using STEM concepts. During our students' internship in their semester-long field placement, they work with a university mentor/supervisor as well as the Noyce program to implement their strategies for including a more socio-scientific approach to their science lessons.

Hello Marcelo, 

My name is Fred as part of my work with the our Noyce program I have developed a middle and secondary science practicum course that incorporates elements of collaborative action research, and a journal club to serve as an arena for these new teachers to engage in collaborative autobiographical self-reflection. These endeavors have been dubbed The Noyce Community of Practice (CoP). Essentially the CoP serves as an arena where these future educators can examine their preexisting beliefs and foundational ideologies, as well as consider those of their practicum and future students. It utilizes a "workshop" environment where the students collaborate to dissect, critique, and gain understanding of: how our beliefs dictate the outcomes of our meaning making processes; the importance of recognizing, valuing, and utilizing students "ways of being" in the classroom; how promoting self-affirmation, self-efficacy, and self-affirmation in the science classroom can augment science teaching and learning; and how the science classroom is often positioned as a space between two homogenous spaces (i.e., teachers life experiences, and the life experiences of an increasingly diverse student population), which can also cause classrooms to exist as locales prone to cultural discord. Aside form curricular aims, the is also intended to aid in the development of supportive professional networks for these new teachers where they can share ideas, concerns, and innovations relevant to teaching science in high-need middle and secondary science classrooms. 

Thank you for viewing our video. Great question and this is something that we have problemetized and taken a variety of approaches to support our Noyce Master of Arts in Teaching preservice teacher interns. Inquiry in nature of science takes time, space, and creativity. We have been lucky in that many of our collaborating teachers support this method for teaching STEM. However, to your point, there are those classroom situations where falling back on the more traditional modes of disseminating science lessons is a looming pressure on our interns. Our university mentor/supervisors work within the triad (intern, collaborating teacher, university supervisor) to help support lessons that focus on inquiry and through reflection, the members identify areas where inquiry-based lessons would be a better option when considering the outcomes, but this too takes time, which is an obstacle. One approach is through co-teaching which is something that must be organized and discussed in advance.

Hello Stephanie, 

This is a very motivational video. I am wondering how you are supporting your collaborating teachers. As your university supervisors already are working with CT-TC dyads, you may be interested in some of the materials we have been developing for this work. Our video is giving a very brief intro....